When will scientists in China win the Nobel Prize?

By Cong Cao
Column: Notes on China

Published: October 14, 2009

Font size:

New York, NY, United States, — Once again, none of the Nobel prizes in science announced in early October went to scientists in China. But the good news is that Charles K. Kao, a British and American dual citizen of Chinese origin and a resident of Hong Kong, known as the “father of optical fibers,” was a joint winner of the prize in physics.

Chen Ning Yang, the Chinese-American Nobel laureate in physics in 1957, remarked during a symposium at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2000 that Nobel prize-winning achievement will emerge from the Chinese mainland in 20 years time.

I would like to pour cold water on Chen’s crystal ball gazing. Not only has China not accomplished anything close to a Nobel Prize, but also the time horizon for bagging it could be longer, if the country’s education and science and technology system continues to operate at its current standard.

For example, China’s education system binds students to their mentors. A mentor is an authoritative figure as formidable as a father, and to challenge him is unacceptable. However, the loyalty discourages criticism of seniors, and has proved to be a major handicap. Besides, the Chinese on the Mainland have not established a tradition of research in science and scientists have not had enough time to generate a prize-winning momentum.

It is well known that Nobel laureates teach and nurture students who go on to become future laureates. The past generation of Chinese scientists, including some who studied with Nobel laureates abroad could have nurtured a new crop of scientists had they not been burdened by political traumas at home. Only in the past 30 years have Chinese scientists focused their attention on research. So, it will take time for their efforts to produce a critical mass of Nobel winners.

Presently, outstanding scientists in China are so few in number that they are likely to be deflected from research and appointed to administrative positions. Confucian doctrine teaches that “a good scholar will make an official,” and some of the best scientists, knowing that they can in this way secure scarce resources, are more than willing to leave their labs. The downside comes when they become submerged in administration.

Among those with Chinese ethnicity, who have won the Nobel Prize, all except Steven Chu and Roger Y. Tsien were in some way influenced by Chinese culture.

Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee attended the National Southwestern Associated University, an institution formed during the Second World War by an amalgamation of Beijing, Qinghua, and Nankai Universities in Kunming, Yunnan province, before going to the United States.

The other four – Samuel Chao Chung Ting, Yuan Tseh Lee, Daniel C. Tsui, and Charles K. Kun – went to either the United States or the United Kingdom after completing their undergraduate education in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

More importantly, all established themselves in the United States or the United Kingdom, where there was greater freedom in choosing projects, a rich academic atmosphere and advanced experimental facilities. At a time when the environment conducive to first-rate research was absent in China, these future laureates, and many other scientists, actively chose to study abroad.

On the other hand, China’s research environment discouraged Chinese scientists who having done well abroad, returned home. Chen Ning Yang admitted that he probably would have not won the Nobel Prize if he had returned to China in the early 1950s, because he would never have known the debate on the law of conservation of parity – a subject that won him the Nobel Prize.

The circumstances are best described in terms of an ancient Chinese adage of an “orange turning into trifoliate orange,” which means an adequate environment is crucial to a scientist’s performance.

In the last 30 years, China has been improving its research environment by setting up the National Natural Science Foundation of China, introducing peer review, supporting young and promising scientists, and calling for “tolerance of failure.” But the planning mentality is still strong, as reflected in the governments Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (2006−2020), which supports a selected number of scientific fields.

As scientists and planners in China do not perhaps foresee the Nobel Prize as a prestigious goal, mobilization and concentration of resources, which for example worked in building its strategic weapons program, will not help its pursuit in this direction.

In the next 20 years, the Chinese will continue to win the Nobel Prize, but the work is most likely to be achieved by those living outside China.

(Cong Cao is a senior research associate with the Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce at the State University of New York. He received his PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1997 and has worked at the University of Oregon and the National University of Singapore. Dr. Cao is interested in the social studies of science and technology with a focus on China. ©Copyright Cong Cao.)