The United States and China have enjoyed a relatively close economic and scientific relationship since the 1990s, as China opened and expanded its economy. However, starting in the late 2010s, there has been increasing friction in the relationship, as the two sides view each other as geopolitical rivals. This study explores how the deterioration in the China-US political relationship has influenced their bilateral scientific research collaboration, and also the global international research collaboration network as a whole. The study explores if
China-US frictions have led to the redirection of collaboration towards third-countries, and how this has impacted the internationalization of scientific research overall. The study contributes to the theory of scientific collaboration networks as transnational self-organizing systems, and demonstrates the influence of political considerations and national interest in this process. The study utilizes scientific publications indexed by Scopus in the domain of computer science, which is the most politically sensitive area of China-US research collaboration. The findings suggest that the rapid growth in Chinese scientific output may have successfully mitigated US policies aimed at limiting Chinese technological progress. Both US allies and rivals have rapidly deepened their research collaborations with China since the first Trump administration, although US-China research collaboration has expanded relatively slowly (but it has not declined). While US collaboration with the rest of the world has grown in absolute terms, among the five largest computer science research producers, the US has grown slowest. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent those of the Center of Technology, Strategy and Sustainability (CTSS), the Asia School of Business (ASB) or its affiliates. All errors remain the authors’ own.