Thursday, March 28, 2024

China’s road to modernization has gone through my hometown for centuries

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In 1957, Yang and Li Zhengdao, a Chinese graduate of the University of Chicago, Won the Nobel Prize It is proposed that when some elementary particles decay, they proceed in a way of distinguishing left and right. They are the first batch of Chinese winners. Yang said at the Nobel dinner, The award was first presented in 1901, The same year as the Boxer Agreement. “When I stand here today to tell you this, I am deeply aware that in more than one sense, I am a product of Chinese and Western cultures, harmony and conflict,” he said.

Yang became a US citizen in 1964 and moved to Stony Brook University on Long Island in 1966 to serve as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, which was later named after him. As Sino-U.S. relations began to thaw, Yang visited his homeland in 1971-his first visit in 25 years. A lot has changed. His father’s health is not good. The Cultural Revolution raged, and Western science and Chinese tradition were regarded as heretics. Many of Yang’s former colleagues, including Huang and Deng, have been persecuted and forced into hard labor. On the other hand, Nobel Prize winners are received like foreign dignitaries. He met with the highest-level officials of the Chinese government and advocated the importance of basic research.

In the following years, Yang visited China regularly. At first, his travel attracted the attention of the FBI. Doubt about communication with Chinese scientistsBut by the late 1970s, hostility had diminished. Mao Zedong is dead. The Cultural Revolution is over. Beijing implements a policy of reform and opening up. Chinese students can study abroad. Yang helped Chinese scholars come to the United States and international experts to attend meetings in China to raise funds. He also helped establish new research centers. When Deng Jiaxian died in 1986, Yang wrote with emotion Ode Dedicated to his friends who have devoted his life to China’s nuclear defense. It ends with a song from 1906, one of his father’s favorites: “[T]Sons of China, they hold up the sky with one hand…the blood they sprinkled in the sand will never fade. ”

Yang (sitting, left) walking with Nobel Prize winners (clockwise from left) Val Fitch, James Cronin, Samuel CC Ting and Isidor Isaac Rabi

ENERGY.GOV, public domain, via Wikimedia

Yang retired from Stony Brook University in 1999 and returned to China a few years later to teach freshman physics at Tsinghua University. In 2015, he Give up his U.S. citizenship And become a citizen of the People’s Republic of China. In an article commemorating his father, Yang recalled his earlier experience. Immigration decisionHe wrote: “I know that until the last few days of his life, in a corner of his heart, my father never forgave me for abandoning my country.”


In 2007, one autumn day when he was 85 years old, Yang visited my university in my hometown. My roommate and I waited outside the venue a few hours in advance and won precious seats in the crowded auditorium. He won thunderous applause in the audience and introduced his Nobel Prize winning works in English. I am a little confused about his language choice. One of my roommates muttered to himself, wondering if Yang is too good at speaking in his native language. Nevertheless, we listened carefully and thanked for being in the same room with this great scientist.

I am a junior and physics student, and I am preparing to apply to graduate school in the United States. Since I was a child, I have been considered that the best people in China will leave China. Two years after hearing Yang personally, I was admitted to the University of Chicago. I received my PhD in 2015 and stayed in the United States for postdoctoral research.

A few months before I bid farewell to my motherland, the central government launched its flagship overseas recruitment program. thousand people plan, Encouraging scientists and technology entrepreneurs to move to China, promising to provide generous personal salaries and strong research funds. In the following ten years, a large number of similar projects have sprung up. Some, such as the Thousand Talents Plan, are supported by the central government. Others are funded by local municipalities.

Beijing’s active pursuit of foreign-trained talents is an indicator of the country’s new wealth and technological ambitions. Although most of these programs are not exclusive to Chinese descent, the promotional materials often evoke a sense of national belonging and call on overseas Chinese to return home. The title of the Thousand Talents Project webpage is bold red text: “The motherland needs you. The motherland welcomes you. The motherland places its hopes on you.”

However, these days, website Inaccessible. Since 2020, the Thousand Talents Plan Disappeared From the Chinese Internet. Although the project continues, its name has been censored on search engines and its use has been banned in official Chinese documents. Since the last few years of the Obama administration, overseas recruitment by the Chinese government has been subject to strict scrutiny by US law enforcement agencies. In 2018, the Ministry of Justice launched a China Initiative Aimed at combating economic espionage activities, the focus is on academic exchanges between the two countries.The U.S. government has also taken various measures Restrictions on Chinese students, Shortening their visas and denying access to facilities considered “sensitive” subjects.

My mother is worried that the border between the United States and China will be closed again as it did during the pandemic, and will be closed by invisible or even more deadly forces like a virus.

There are practical problems of illegal behavior in China’s talent plan.Earlier this year, a chemist associated with the Thousand Talents Project was convicted in Tennessee Steal trade secrets Used for lining of beverage cans without BPA.A hospital researcher in Ohio Plead guilty guilty Steal design Used for the isolation of exosomes in medical diagnosis. Some American scientists did not disclose additional income from China in federal funding proposals or tax returns. All these are cases of personal greed or negligence. However, the FBI believes they are “China threat“This requires a response from the “whole society”.

According to reports, the Biden administration is considering revising the China initiative, and many scientific associations and civil rights organizations criticized the initiative as “racially proficient.” But the official has not yet issued any announcements. The new case under Biden’s leadership has opened; restrictions on Chinese students are still in effect.

From China’s perspective, the sanctions, prosecutions, and export controls imposed by the United States seem to be a continuation of foreign “bullying.” What has changed in the past 120 years is China’s status. It is not a collapsed empire, but a rising superpower. Policymakers in both countries use similar technical nationalist language to describe science as a great tool of the country and scientists as strategic assets of geopolitics. Both governments are seeking to use technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence for military purposes.

“We do not seek conflict, but we welcome fierce competition,” National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan said at the Alaska summit. Yang Jiechi responded that the confrontation between the two countries in the past only harmed the United States, while China has survived.

Many Chinese people are pleased with the prospect of competing with the United States. In Mao Zedong’s popular saying: “The laggards are beaten!” This expression originated from a speech by Joseph Stalin, who emphasized the importance of industrialization to the Soviet Union. For the Chinese public who basically don’t know its origins, it evokes the recent past when a weak China was plundered by foreigners. When I was young, my mother often repeated this sentence at home, distilling a century of national humiliation into a personal motivation to pursue excellence. It was not until I was an adult that I began to question the underlying logic: Does competition between countries make sense? What is the standard of measurement and what is the purpose?


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