China's Nobel Prize paradox: The struggle of a scientific powerhouse

Baek Seo-in

The author is a professor at Hanyang University.

Once again, this year's Nobel Prizes in science went to researchers from the United States, Europe and Japan. American and German scientists won the medicine prize, an American researcher received the physics prize and Japanese and French scientists shared the chemistry prize.

What particularly interests me this year is China's reaction.

China has enjoyed remarkable scientific achievements over the past year. DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng was named among Nature's 10 people who shaped science in 2025, while Chinese institutions occupied nine of the top 10 positions in the Nature Index.

Two Chinese-born mathematicians, Hong Wang and Yu Deng, who entered Peking University together in 2007, also won Fields Medals.

China already has Nobel laureates, including physicists Yang Chen-Ning and Tsung-Dao Lee, who won in 1957, and Tu Youyou, who received the medicine prize in 2015.

Yet Yang and Lee built their careers in American academia, while Tu lacked a doctorate and was not a Chinese Academy of Sciences member when she won. Their achievements cannot easily be regarded as products of China's established research system.

How, then, does China approach the Nobel Prize as it seeks to become a scientific superpower?

China's response resembles Korea's. Despite expectations surrounding candidates such as Southern University of Science and Technology President Xue Qikun, no Chinese scientist won this year, reviving the country's longstanding Nobel complex.

The China Association for Science and Technology urged respect for the Nobel Prize without blind devotion. That sounds reasonable, but it contrasts sharply with China's celebration of its Fields Medal winners as a historic breakthrough.

An interesting distinction has emerged in Chinese commentary: Nobel Prizes recognize the past, while Fields Medals point toward the future.

Nobel Prizes often honor discoveries made decades earlier, reflecting accumulated scientific capabilities. Fields Medals recognize both accomplishments and future potential, emphasizing promising young mathematicians.

But another question follows. Both Chinese-born Fields Medal winners developed their award-winning research after studying abroad and joining foreign universities. Can their success demonstrate the strength of China's domestic scientific ecosystem?

Chinese scientific leaders recognized this problem long ago.

Qian Xuesen, considered the father of China's rocket and space programs, questioned in 2005 why Chinese universities struggled to produce outstanding scientists. Yang warned in 2010 against excessive impatience over Nobel Prizes.

Around 2012, Turing Award laureate Andrew Yao observed that China's longstanding emphasis on practical applications had weakened the scientific foundations of computer science.

China continues searching for answers.

Another problem is particularly revealing. Despite research funding freezes, tighter student and employment visa screening and a $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions under President Donald Trump's second administration, scientists considering leaving America have favored Europe and Canada.

China should therefore worry less about how many Nobel laureates it recruits, which prizes Chinese-born researchers win or whether fewer students study in America.

The more important question is whether foreign scientists genuinely regard China as an attractive place to conduct research and voluntarily choose to work there.

That is a meaningful measure of China's progress toward becoming a global scientific powerhouse.

China's attitude toward Nobel Prizes can appear contradictory. It recruits laureates while advocating technological self-reliance, celebrates Fields Medals while questioning the Nobel Prize's authority.

Yet these contradictions reflect serious institutional concerns rather than mere attempts to rationalize disappointment.

Chinese academics themselves have questioned whether young, unproven researchers can receive sufficient freedom, patience and tolerance for failure.

Another concern is whether successful approaches associated with Nobel laureates might be standardized and imposed indiscriminately across regions and academic disciplines.

Korea should examine these questions against its own experience. Our scientific community has pursued programs to attract foreign Nobel laureates and cultivate basic research talent, but results have often fallen short of expectations.

Meanwhile, intensifying technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing has concentrated attention on strategic technologies and industries, potentially pushing basic science further down the priority list.

As Korean scientists recognize, winning Nobel Prizes should never become an objective in itself. Instead, Korea must develop its own system for patiently supporting research that advances human knowledge and addresses difficult problems. Curious researchers should have the freedom to explore uncertain questions and the security to continue even after failure.

Many valuable academic disciplines also fall outside the Nobel Prize categories. We should acknowledge existing gaps without allowing them to dictate our ambitions. Korea must pursue its own research at its own pace.

In an era of profound uncertainty, even waiting several more decades for a Nobel Prize would be acceptable. What matters is making Korea a country where talented young researchers from around the world, driven by scientific curiosity and dreams of discovery, genuinely want to work.

A Nobel Prize may eventually follow. If it does not, that should be acceptable too. The award is merely a possible byproduct of a scientific environment worth building.