> Chen-Ning Yang was technically not wrong with his 1998 prediction, since Tu Youyou got 1/3 of the 2015 Nobel in medicine, but it didn't really make sense for him to link this to continued development, since the delay between discovery and award means that most of the prizes from 1998–2018 were for work that was already done before he made his prediction.
Agreed. Though to nitpick, the part on “even more than one, if the country’s economic development continues at its current rate” is technically wrong, if we just count Chinese Nobel scientists developed in Mainland China (only Tu Youyou).
Chen-Ning Yang was bullish on Chinese science, but reality did not deliver.
Shing-Tung Yau is as bullish on Chinese mathematics in the future, but even he admitted that China is still decades behind in mathematical research, due to systematic issue which ‘“places too much emphasis on material rewards” and tends to encourage young researchers to work for titles instead of scientific advancements’. [1]
[1]: https://archive.is/MRDlP "China has problems to solve before its mathematics research can rise above WWII levels, scholar says"
> I don't think even the Cultural Revolution or anything else Mao did had much of an effect on Nobel prize-worthy research, simply because there wasn't much to disrupt to begin with.
Count points:
- Intellectuals, academics, and teachers were persecuted, attacked, and killed by the youth (the Red Guards), in all schools and institutions in China.
- Search for “scholars killed during the cultural revolution”, or “list of scholars abnormally died in China during the cultural revolution” (or for a short list in Chinese https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/中华人民共和国被迫害人士列表#科学技术人士). This includes the leader of Two Bombs, One Satellite (nuclear weapon, ICBM, artificial satellite) 赵九章. Besides, those returned from overseas were considered traitors or spies, and just within the Chinese Academy of Sciences (top science institution), there are 229 scholars died due to the Cultural Revolution [1]. This destroyed the environment needed to do great science. Imagine if Yang went back to China in the early 1950s.
> I guess we'll see Chinese scientists winning Nobels at a rate commensurate with other big countries in 20–40 years or so.
Such predictions—Chinese scientists will win more science Nobels—has been made long ago. In 1998, “The Chinese-American Nobel Laureate Chen Ning Yang has also predicted that mainland scientists will win a prize within twenty years – even more than one, if the country’s economic development continues at its current rate.“ [2]
But reality shows otherwise, not until scientists and academics are respected in China. During COVID, politics overruled science, resulting in the Zero-COVID policy, which were brought down by widespread protests, not by science (counter evidence to the ineffectiveness of the Zero-COVID policy).
Unless you are implying that you predict a regime change by that time...
> But, since the Nobel was established, China has been invaded...
> The US has been invaded zero times...
The number of external invasions is not a strong indicator of the number of Nobel Prizes, if you compare all countries, beyond just China or the US.
And as you mentioned, the Cultural Revolution greatly reduces the chance of Chinese Nobel, so internal events can take a large role. And Mao led to more deaths—not to mention destruction to science and culture—than external invasions in the last century combined.
> The civil wars also brought to power brutal dictatorships...
The dictatorship arguably hasn't ended, by taking another less brutal form. And to be precise, CCP brought the civil wars and its consequences, not the civil wars brought dictatorships.
CCP has been posturing selectively in the name of its National Security. As Macro Rubio put it this month: “They like to play these games. They put out these translations where it says one thing in English and then it’s translated in a different – they use a different term in Mandarin”. [1] CCP shows different faces to different audiences selectively.
Rubio was sanctioned twice by CCP in 2020 for speaking up for human rights [2], but was quietly given a different Chinese surname in 2025, possibly to avoid the question of whether he is still under CCP’s sanction as the current US Secretary of State [3]. When asked, CCP gave vague answers [4].
For a similar story, Mike Pence when visiting Hong Kong last month called for China to release the imprisoned publisher Jimmy Lai [5]. Pence was mentioned in the National Security case of Jimmy Lai, which is to say Jimma Lai allegedly violated the National Security Law of Hong Kong by collaborating with foreign adversaries, in particular Mike Pence. But Mike Pence had no problem entering and exiting Hong Kong, only Jimma Lai had, despite the NSL applying to “anyone on Earth, regardless of nationality or location” [6], and had targeted US citizen living in the US before [7].
CCP postures selectively, with a very fluid definition of an enemy of the state, which often does not follow what they say in letter.
> The Journal, my supervisor said, did not want its reporters seen calling for greater freedoms—because, unlike in Western nations, it is not an established principle in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong ranked pretty high in Press Freedom: 18th in 2002, around 60th before 2014 (when Xi took power and the Umbrella protest broke out), then it went downhill and suddenly dropped to lower than 130th after the 2019 protest and the recent national security law [1].
It is an uphill battle under the rule of an authoritarian government which disregards freedom.
Summarizing one of the main points of the article:
> If you watch an anime or a TV series "about" fighting, … getting better at techniques you already know is often more effective than having a portfolio of hundreds of "moves".
> Relatedly, Joy Ebertz says:
> One piece of advice I got at some point was to amplify my strengths. … How can you turn something you’re good at into your superpower?
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.” —— Bruce Lee
Native Cantonese speaker here, glad that you are interested in learning Cantonese.
I am working with other volunteers to improve Cantonese teaching, and wonder what difficulties you have encountered when learning Cantonese, and what materials or communities would be helpful for Cantonese learners.
Foreigners need to worry about the new Chinese anti-espionage law instead [1]: at least 17 Japanese nationals have been recently accused of spying in China [2], and a US citizen jailed for life [3]. The German car industry is worried [4].
The law broadens the scope beyond what it originally sought to prohibit – leaks of state secrets and intelligence – to include any “documents, data, materials, or items related to national security and interests.” [1]
Some context which may be relevant: many local governments in China are in heavy debt, and they need more income: police have been collecting more and more fines, causing some outrages [1]. There are reports that many civil servants are unpaid for months (in Tianjin [2] and other cities [3][4]), in addition to getting heavy wage cuts [3][5].
A penalty of over 1 million yuan (>145K USD) for using VPN is a new development: before this, only VPN service sellers were prosecuted.
[2]: https://eightify.app/summary/chess/tianjin-government-crisis... "The Tianjin government's financial crisis, with unpaid wages and high debt ratios, reflects a larger problem in China's declining land finance and unsaleable real estate market, raising concerns about the stability of other Chinese cities."
[5]: The government is trimming a combination of bonuses, cash subsidies and base pay for many employees, according to interviews with 10 local civil servants: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-12/pay-cuts-... "Bankers’ 40% Pay Cuts Show the China Dream Fading in Its Richest Cities"
Beware when using VPN to breach the GFW. Recently a Chinese netizen had to pay over 1 million yuan (>145K USD) for using VPN [1][2]. Before this incident, only VPN service sellers were prosecuted [3]. Beware when doing this casually.
A key point about the actual word, missing in the linked article, but present in HKFP [1]:
In a gaming competition with the China team, the Hong Kong player used a name which included the two Chinese characters for “Liberate,” according to the livestream of the competition.
The two Chinese characters for “Liberate” (光復), even though it is part of the pro-democracy slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” (光復香港，時代革命), only count for a quarter of the characters in the slogan, and could refer to other things as well, such as the “Liberation Road” (光復路), which is also in Guangdong and Shanghai [2].
You can judge whether it is sensitive enough, and if it should be punished to “uphold the fairness of the entire competition and abide by the principles of sportsmanship.” Or, if the punishment itself upholds “the fairness of the entire competition” and abides “by the principles of sportsmanship.”
> “Sustainability, equity and security are all at risk in the rush to break China’s dominance over their production.”
Chinese dominance of rare earth production is not sustainable, either, using lax regulations to externalize environmental and health hazards: leaking radioactive residue (like thorium) and other toxic waste, polluting water sources (including the Yellow River), neglecting worker safety, and abusing human rights.[1]
> “China’s ascendancy is the result of forward thinking by the country’s leadership”
One forward thinking of China is to move its operation through its state-owned enterprises to Africa, contaminating outside communities instead.[1]
> The recent Sha Tin to Central Link dropped a station in Central to save money, and the new stations were only built to handle 9 cars instead of the rest of the line’s 12 cars to save money.
One speculation is that, it is harder to move 12 cars uphill, than to move 9 cars uphill, after the train crossed the harbor.
> Chen-Ning Yang was technically not wrong with his 1998 prediction, since Tu Youyou got 1/3 of the 2015 Nobel in medicine, but it didn't really make sense for him to link this to continued development, since the delay between discovery and award means that most of the prizes from 1998–2018 were for work that was already done before he made his prediction.
Agreed. Though to nitpick, the part on “even more than one, if the country’s economic development continues at its current rate” is technically wrong, if we just count Chinese Nobel scientists developed in Mainland China (only Tu Youyou).
Chen-Ning Yang was bullish on Chinese science, but reality did not deliver.
Shing-Tung Yau is as bullish on Chinese mathematics in the future, but even he admitted that China is still decades behind in mathematical research, due to systematic issue which ‘“places too much emphasis on material rewards” and tends to encourage young researchers to work for titles instead of scientific advancements’. [1]
[1]: https://archive.is/MRDlP "China has problems to solve before its mathematics research can rise above WWII levels, scholar says"
This is a problem with the culture of science.