Mutual norm socialization through knowledge-security restrictions in Sino-German academic cooperation

Abstract

China’s 2021 Data Security Law and the 2023 revision of the Counter-Espionage Law frame most cross-border knowledge flows as matters of national security. Germany’s approach, evolving in parallel, embeds research security within a broader “de-risking” agenda that characterizes China as a systemic rival. Often operationalized through managerial guidelines, this approach is increasingly underpinned by binding EU export control and data regulations aimed at protecting data, technology, and personnel from unwanted foreign access. Against the backdrop of a wider global trend toward securitizing academic collaboration, this study asks how security-oriented regulations reshape the discourse of Chinese and German academic actors working in their respective settings, how research-security standards filter into the written rules and public statements of partner institutions, and what mutual or asymmetric forms of socialization emerge. Combining Copenhagen-School securitization theory with Johnston’s model of socialization as well as middle-power role theory, the study traces norm diffusion across the bilateral research space through a mixed-method design. It triangulates qualitative content analysis of policy and institutional documents (2019–2025) with process-tracing of regulatory changes across three critical temporal breakpoints (2021, 2023, 2024) that represent distinct phases of legalization and securitization. Evidence suggests that Chinese and German institutions selectively borrow each other’s security lexicon and procedural templates, which produces reciprocal yet uneven norm internalization. This raises transaction costs, narrows epistemic communities, and frames collaboration as strategic competition. By showing that knowledge-security rules act as vectors of mutual socialization rather than unilateral control, the article refines securitization theory for middle-power contexts.