There has been a remarkable degree of cooperation between Washington and Beijing with respect to research on the radioactive chemical element thorium, a potentially important future source of safer nuclear energy. The U.S. appears to have given away the farm to China in terms of its previously world-leading thorium research as a part of a risky strategy to push the steep costs of further thorium development onto China in the belief that the U.S. can catch up when thorium’s commercial viability has been reached.