Scholar's Award: Chinese/American Scientists: Transnational Science during the Cold War and Beyond

Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc., Pomona CA

Investigators

Abstract

Introduction This project seeks to understand the transnational history of "Chinese-American scientists" including both those who returned to China (where many of them became leaders in the Chinese scientific, nuclear, and space programs), and those who stayed in the US (where they became scientific leaders and played crucial roles in US-China scientific exchanges). The focal point is the period that begins in 1949 with the Chinese Communist takeover of mainland China, which drove the ruling Nationalists to Taiwan. The event left about five thousand Chinese students and scholars, mostly in the sciences and engineering, "stranded" in the United States. Eventually about one thousand of them returned to China by the end of the 1950s while the rest stayed in the US, with profound but so far relatively unexplored impact on science in both countries and on Sino-American scientific interactions during the Cold War and beyond. Intellectual Merit This study, which is based on archival research and oral history interviews, will serve to address key questions in the history of science such as: What were the extent and limits of the so-called "Americanization" of international science in the postwar period? How was the Americanizing influence in turn connected with the transnationalization of the American scientific community itself, as exemplified by the presence of tens of thousands of Chinese American scientists and engineers? Potential Broader Impacts With the rise of China as an economic and scientific power, and with the emergence of global problems such as climate change that require the scientific collaboration between the US and China, it is more critical than ever to understand fully the making of the scientific enterprise in modern China. Furthermore, as the US relies more and more on immigrant scientists, a systematic study of Chinese-American scientists will also help us better understand the American scientific enterprise and help inform the making of American national and international science policy.