Hello everyone, welcome to Quark Says, I am Quark. In the past week, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences successively announced this year's Nobel Prize winners.

Compared to last year, this year's list clearly sparked more discussion on the simplified Chinese internet, and the reason is simple: two Japanese scientists appeared on this year's list.

One is Tasuku Honjo, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and the other is Susumu Kitagawa, who just won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Japan has accumulated a total of 32 Nobel Prizes, with 24 of them awarded in this century alone, meaning after the year 2000.

It's worth noting that in 2001, the Japanese government proposed to win 30 Nobel Prizes within 50 years. At the time, Chinese state media dismissed this, describing it as "boasting" in their reports.

Now, only half the time has passed, and their goal is 80% complete. The "boasting" is about to come true, so how could it not make some extreme nationalists anxious and angry?

Consequently, various voices emerged in the simplified Chinese world: some accused the Japanese of relying on public relations, others, with sour grapes, said the Nobel Prize is a Western award, biased towards their own people, and that it's not worth winning.

There were also those who claimed victory by saying, even if we don't win the prize, it doesn't stop us from landing on the moon, developing sixth-generation fighters, and Dongfeng missiles!

When our missiles have subdued the US, Europe, and the entire world, they'll be begging to give us awards!

These types of arguments are rather anti-intellectual, so we won't waste time discussing them.

But at the same time, many people are seriously discussing why it's so difficult for China to win Nobel Prizes, and when China's Nobel Prize "explosion" will occur.

Next, I will also share my understanding and views on these two questions.

Before discussing these issues, we first need to rationally define what "a country winning a Nobel Prize" actually means, as the phrase itself is not entirely accurate.

Since the Nobel Prize is awarded to individuals, you can only say "a person with a certain nationality wins a Nobel Prize," meaning what their nationality was at the time of receiving the award.

However, merely possessing a nationality does not prove the strength of that country's education and scientific research capabilities.

The most typical example is Omar Yaghi, who just won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Susumu Kitagawa.

Theoretically, he still holds Palestinian citizenship and is considered a Palestinian.

But upon checking his resume, you'll find that the only reason he's considered Palestinian is that his parents were Palestinian refugees, while he himself was born in Jordan and immigrated to the United States with his parents at age 15.

His high school and university education, as well as his subsequent research work, were all completed in the United States; he may never have even visited Palestine in his life.

In this situation, if Palestine were to come forward and claim Yaghi brought glory to the nation and shared in its honor, it would seem a bit far-fetched.

So, when we discuss a country winning a Nobel Prize, it actually involves three elements: first, whether the laureate held that country's nationality at the time of the award; second, in which country their primary education took place; and third, in which country their award-winning research was conducted.

The second and third points are particularly important.

In fact, by this standard, Japan's 32 Nobel Prizes also need some discounting, because Ryoji Noyori (1987) and Ei-ichi Negishi (2010), though still Japanese nationals, completed their PhDs and primary research work in the United States.

As for Yoichiro Nambu and two others, they were already US citizens when they received their awards.

As for Kazuo Ishiguro, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, he had already moved to the UK at the age of five, and he wrote his novels in English.

However, excluding these individuals, there are still 26 Nobel laureates who were genuinely educated in Japan, conducted their research there, and remained Japanese nationals at the time of their awards.

Moreover, although Yoichiro Nambu and the other two were US citizens, considering their doctoral degrees and research work were completed in Japan, they can largely be counted as Japanese Nobel laureates.

If we apply the above standard, there are only three genuinely "Made in China" Nobel laureates: Tu Youyou, Mo Yan, and Liu Xiaobo.

Because the current citizenship status of the Dalai Lama is questionable.

This number ranks 31st among all countries globally, comparable to Belarus, Croatia, and Mexico.

Of course, this is on the premise that China recognizes Liu Xiaobo's Peace Prize; if not, only two remain, dropping directly to 38th place, on par with Iran, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Algeria.

If we further consider population size, China is undoubtedly one of the countries with the fewest Nobel Prizes per capita globally.

It's worth noting that even India, which some nationalists disdain, has won ten. This clearly contrasts sharply with the claims made by some within China about "China's national strength leading the US by 100 years" and "Chinese people having the highest average IQ in the world."

Regarding this phenomenon, apart from various conspiracy theories put forth by nationalists, there are several common explanations.

The first, and perhaps most widely supported, is the Nobel Prize Lag Theory.

This theory posits that Nobel-level achievements require significant financial investment, and China's past low count was due to poverty, a weak foundation, and insufficient research funding.

China's economy only truly began to take off in the last two decades, and considering that scientific Nobel Prizes typically have a lag of about twenty years, it can be predicted that China's Nobel Prize count will surge after 2030.

Proponents of this view also cite Japan as an example, as most of Japan's Nobel Prizes this century are the result of its economic boom in the 1990s.

It should be noted that this theory is not new; in fact, every few years, experts emerge to predict how many Nobel Prizes China will win in the coming years.

For instance, starting in 2007, Chen-Ning Yang publicly predicted on multiple occasions that someone in China would win a Nobel Prize within 10 to 20 years.

His prediction was relatively conservative, as he didn't specify how many. A few years later, Tu Youyou indeed won, so his prediction wasn't wrong.

However, subsequent predictions became quite exaggerated.

For example, in 2013, Huang Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the media that within ten years, meaning by 2023, Chinese people winning Nobel Prizes should become commonplace.

In 2015, Rao Yi, the president of Capital Medical University, also predicted that China would experience a Nobel Prize surge after 2035, and by around 2050, its total number of Nobel Prizes would completely surpass Japan.

The most exaggerated prediction came from Wang Xiaoyang, the director of Tsinghua University Institute of Education.

His view is that by 2050, China might produce 100 Nobel Prizes, completely outperforming Japan.

As for the claim that China's education system stifles innovation, leading to a lack of Nobel Prizes, he dismissed it as "smearing by public intellectuals."

These are still the views that can be found online; in fact, in my memory, similar opinions started appearing in the 1980s and 1990s.

When I was young, the media's narrative was that by 2000, even former students had made similar assertions.

By the time I went to college, the general prediction had been pushed back to around 2010, but because of the passage of time, that information is now untraceable.

It seems as long as you keep pushing back the "surge" date, the boast can continue indefinitely. After all, it's about things 20 years in the future; how many young people will remember and hold you accountable then?

Perhaps it won't even be traceable online.

Aside from this somewhat self-deceptive Nobel Prize lag theory, another institutional theory appears more pragmatic.

This theory posits that the fundamental reason for China's difficulty in winning Nobel Prizes lies in its education system and academic atmosphere, which largely suppress innovation.

More specifically, the Nobel Prize places greater emphasis on the originality of basic science and technology, and these research achievements have a considerable degree of serendipity. Only researchers driven by curiosity, who can endure solitude and are willing to "sit on the cold bench" (work on unpopular or long-term projects), have a chance of success.

In China, however, from the compulsory education stage, students' curiosity is stifled, standard answers are instilled, and pragmatism is glorified.

At the research stage, assessment standards are even more heavily utilitarian-oriented.

For example, as discussed before, the "fly up and leave" system means that to get promoted, one must publish a certain number of papers in top journals, leading to a massive industry of paid paper publications.

This effectively encourages all researchers to flock to popular, easily achievable research areas, which runs counter to the spirit of academic inquiry.

Furthermore, there's a serious bureaucratic atmosphere in academia; for instance, a paper might have a dozen or twenty authors, with the actual contributors often ranked behind their supervisors.

Another example is that 70% of research funding comes from competitive projects with an average cycle of no more than three years, which cannot support major projects requiring long-term accumulation.

Are these points valid? Yes, but they seem a bit superficial, as they describe phenomena more than underlying causes.

Next, I'll share my own perspective on why China's academic and research environment exhibits such a utilitarian and short-sighted orientation.

Before elaborating on my views, we need to understand what the Nobel Prize is for and what its judging criteria are.

According to the Nobel Prize website, the Nobel Prize was established according to the will of Mr. Alfred Nobel, and its highest core standard is "to have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind."

Note this qualifier: it's "the greatest benefit to humankind," not to a specific country, regime, or political party.

So, it's often discussed within China why figures like Qian Xuesen and Deng Jiaxian, with their immense contributions, didn't receive a Nobel Prize. Some even exaggeratedly claim, "It's not that Qian Xuesen couldn't win a Nobel Prize, but that the Nobel Prize isn't worthy of Qian Xuesen," which is frankly laughable.

Because what Qian and Deng did was merely contribute to the CCP's party-army, their sole contribution being to help consolidate the Party's autocratic rule and prevent the populace from rebelling.

Every country considered an "old friend" of the Chinese people has researchers with such so-called "great contributions": the Soviet Union had Igor Kurchatov, who built the atomic bomb, and Andrei Sakharov, who built the hydrogen bomb; North Korea has Seo Hyang-guk, the father of its nuclear bomb; Pakistan has Abdul Qadeer Khan; and Iran has Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Qian Xuesen and Deng Jiaxian were no different from those individuals.

By this standard, let alone the aforementioned individuals, even J. Robert Oppenheimer, who first developed the atomic bomb, would not be eligible for the award.

In fact, since the inception of the Nobel Prize, no scientist has ever won or even been nominated for developing a weapon, because it goes against the original purpose of the award.

Secondly, the academic explanation provided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences states that the Nobel Prize primarily rewards conceptual leaps rather than mere technological applications—that is, discoveries or inventions that bring about breakthroughs in knowledge and fundamentally change humanity's understanding of the world.

From this perspective, many of the so-called "great achievements" in Chinese textbooks, often lauded by nationalists, such as the artificial synthesis of bovine insulin or Hou Debang's combined soda ash process, are miles away from Nobel-level work.

Because they not only fall far short of changing humanity's understanding of the world, but they also don't even qualify as original technological applications.

For example, the first to study and determine the molecular structure of insulin was the British scientist Frederick Sanger, who consequently received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1958.

And that achievement, well-known to Chinese middle school students, should be fully named "the first in vitro artificial synthesis of biologically active crystalline bovine insulin."

"In vitro artificial synthesis" and "biologically active" are two important qualifiers, because it was neither the first in vitro synthesized insulin nor the first active insulin obtained by scientists, but merely one of many insulins synthesized in laboratories according to Sanger's molecular formula.

Besides the bovine insulin synthesized in China, there were also porcine insulin, human insulin, and so on, synthesized in countries like the US and Germany.

Moreover, this Chinese technology was quickly phased out after its success and never entered mass production, arguably having no practical impact whatsoever.

Its only impact was probably being written into textbooks, where, by omitting context, it boosted the national pride of several generations of Chinese children.

Hou Debang's Hou's process for soda ash is the same; it was neither the world's earliest method for producing soda ash nor today's most mainstream method, but merely one of the improved versions of the ammonia-soda process developed by the Belgian chemist Solvay.

Understanding this information, you'll comprehend why China, as the world's largest manufacturing nation, claiming a leading number of patents and papers each year, finds it difficult to win Nobel Prizes.

Because the achievements that nationalists believe best demonstrate China's strength can only be considered improved technological applications.

If you don't believe it, take stock of all the achievements frequently boasted about and celebrated by Chinese people, from the so-called "national heavyweights" like the Two Bombs and One Satellite, aircraft carriers, sixth-generation fighters, moon landings, space stations, drones, to the so-called "new four great inventions" in daily life—high-speed rail, online shopping, mobile payments, and shared bicycles—which of these has changed humanity's understanding of the world?

And which of these inventions is truly original?

This is not to say that application is unimportant, but you must face an objective fact: China's strength has never been originality, but rather cost control. This means reducing costs and increasing efficiency around something already invented by others, leveraging a large population and market scale to drive down costs, and establishing a low-cost, commercially viable supply chain.

For example, the new energy and photovoltaic power generation that Chinese people are proud of: the core lithium battery for new energy was invented by Japanese scientist Akira Yoshino, and the core technology for photovoltaic power generation was developed by three scientists at Bell Labs in the United States in the 1950s—neither are new technologies.

China's only advantage is making things cheaper, but the Nobel Prize was clearly not established for making things cheaper.

So why can't China, in addition to making things cheaper, also prioritize original or basic theoretical research?

It's worth noting that over the past three years, China's R&D investment has consistently ranked second globally, and its research funding as a percentage of GDP reached 2.58%, ranking 12th worldwide.

The fundamental reason might be that, from its establishment in 1949 until now, China has always been a nation built around wartime thinking.

Wartime thinking is a mindset activated and dominated when facing extreme survival challenges or major crises. Its primary characteristic is goal singularization, meaning all complex problems are simplified into one core objective.

For example, I enjoy playing simulation management games. Friends who have played these games know that building a city or a country is actually very complex, requiring attention to a multitude of different objective parameters, such as urban development, commercial prosperity, technological advancement, religious buildings, democracy index, freedom of the press and speech, military strength, and so on.

And these objectives often have certain incompatibilities, because your resources are limited; building one more military structure means one less religious building.

Experienced players often have to balance this multitude of objectives to build a civilization that is high-level overall, and this art of balancing is actually very similar to real life.

Politicians in democratic countries also have to consider things comprehensively when formulating policies, and cannot revolve around a single or very few objectives.

But wartime thinking is different; it simplifies the demands of everyone in society into one goal: winning the war.

For this goal, human rights, freedom of speech, and material living standards all have to take a backseat; everything serves the development of military power.

Normally, doing this in wartime is understandable, but the problem is that countries like China generalize the concept of war, thereby normalizing wartime thinking.

In plain language, it means: it's always wartime, and everything must be done according to wartime standards.

This might sound a bit abstract, so let me give an example.

Everyone knows V.K. Wellington Koo, right? He was the Republic of China's top diplomat who refused to sign at the Paris Peace Conference and later represented the Republic of China at the San Francisco Conference in 1945, where he signed the UN Charter.

In 1948, the CCP published its first list of 43 so-called "civil war criminals" in the People's Daily, with V.K. Wellington Koo ranked 22nd.

After 1949, V.K. Wellington Koo followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan, later served as Vice President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and settled in the United States after retirement.

In 1972, Zhang Hanzhi, a member of the CCP delegation attending the UN General Assembly, was entrusted by Mao Zedong to visit V.K. Wellington Koo and invite him to visit China.

Koo said, "I was named a war criminal by Mao Zedong; will I be criticized if I go back?"

Zhang Hanzhi quickly explained, "That was an extraordinary period."

Koo smiled and replied, "When has your party not been in an extraordinary period?"

V.K. Wellington Koo's response actually revealed the crucial truth.

I've mentioned in previous programs that the essence of the Communist Party is an ideology that sustains internal cohesion by continuously generating hatred, thereby creating legitimacy for its autocratic rule.

This hatred includes both external and internal targets.

Externally, it manifests as "preparing for war and famine, always ready for a world war"; internally, it's "great purges."

Therefore, for the Party, ensuring that society maintains a high level of hatred and a wartime atmosphere over the long term is crucial.

Only if everyone believes that "imperialism is bent on destroying us" can you implement wartime measures and suppress all dissenting voices.

If both domestic and international situations were peaceful, what reason would you have to maintain dictatorship and refuse democratization?

If you don't believe it, consider whether, even during the so-called "reform and opening up" period, the CCP's official media outside the military system frequently used the following types of language: in diplomacy, they spoke of "fighting spirit," "daring to draw the sword," "bottom-line thinking," and "anti-China forces"; in social governance, they spoke of "heavy blows," "iron-fisted rectification," "cracking down on gangs and evil," "encirclement and suppression," "grid management," and "combing searches"; in propaganda, they spoke of "holding the main front of public opinion," "main battlefield," "building ideological defenses," "seizing the ideological high ground," "daring to struggle," "being good at struggle," "consolidating and expanding achievements," and "achieving final victory"; in economic and scientific research fields, they would speak of "containment and suppression," "preventing chokeholds," "breaking technological blockades," "overcoming difficulties," "breaking out," "breaking the deadlock," "personally leading," and "tackling tough bones."

Even during the pandemic, they would still say things like "a major national battle has begun," "epidemic prevention and control blocking battle," "defense battle," "white-clad warriors," "commander-in-chief," "pledge to fight," "people's war," and "total social mobilization."

The pervasive use of such war terminology actually has only one purpose: to subtly cultivate a wartime mindset among Chinese people, so that they can quickly switch to a wartime state when needed.

Understanding this background, you can grasp why the entire Chinese society, from top to bottom, so strongly advocates efficiency while neglecting procedural justice and the rule of law, emphasizes central authority and the so-called "concentrating resources to accomplish big tasks," constantly talks about bottom-line thinking and national security, and promotes collectivism and a spirit of sacrifice.

You can also understand our previous question: why is China's scientific research so focused on quick results?

Because these are all extensions of wartime thinking, everything is for war or preparing for war.

What is the driving force for a scientist in a country at peace?

It's to seek knowledge, explore the world, and research how to benefit all of humanity, right?

This is also the original intention of the Nobel Prize.

And what about a scientist in wartime?

What would be demanded of him?

Everything is centered on national interests; your sole goal in scientific research is to win the upcoming war.

You can develop weapons, drugs that prevent soldiers from feeling fatigue, or create technological products to help the government generate export revenue and increase defense spending.

In short, your KPI is to help your government strike hostile nations, not to benefit all humanity or satisfy your own curiosity.

To give an extreme example, suppose you are a Nobel-caliber biologist; you might research T cells and how to treat cancer, much like Tasuku Honjo, who won this year.

But if you are a Chinese biologist who loves the Party and the country, according to the theories put forth in "Unrestricted Warfare," advocated by the CCP, you should research bacterial and viral warfare, or create a genetic weapon that can only kill Americans and Japanese.

Do you think this is alarmist?

No, this is a clear strategic thinking repeatedly reiterated and emphasized by the Party in official media.

As shown in the figure, these are article titles published in "China National Defense News," "PLA Daily," and China Military Online in 2014, 2017, and 2018, meaning "Gene warfare will revolutionize human warfare by reshuffling," "How gene weapons affect future warfare," and "Gene warfare casts a new shadow over humanity."

All three articles explicitly mentioned the need to prioritize research and development of microbial weapons such as bacteria and viruses, as well as ethnic genetic weapons.

The last article even unreservedly defended the CCP's extensive collection of Chinese genetic data using this as justification.

In essence, what the Party wants is a life-or-death struggle, to strengthen its own power and strike down enemies.

Under such guiding ideology, every penny of research funding needs to be anchored to a definite outcome, with returns visible in the short term. This means I don't want to risk exploring innovation because the cost of trial and error is too high.

I just want to "take what's ready-made." While you naive idealists are thinking about benefiting all humanity, foreigners are paving the way. Once you've spent time and effort eliminating wrong options and found the right path, I'll come and pluck the fruits of victory, overtake you, and then use your technology to defeat you all.

In such circumstances, how can you, as a Chinese researcher, expect to win a Nobel Prize?

If you want to benefit all humanity, doesn't that amount to "aiding the enemy"?

In summary, China's wartime system inherently suppresses innovation—note, it only suppresses innovation, not improvement.

Similar patterns were actually quite evident in Germany during World War II.

As we all know, Germany has been a major recipient of Nobel Prizes since their inception, producing a total of 32 laureates from 1901 until Hitler came to power in 1933, almost one per year.

However, during the 13 years of Nazi rule, only 8 Nobel Prizes were awarded, one of which was a Peace Prize given to someone imprisoned for exposing Nazi atrocities.

Of the remaining 7 natural science awards, 6 achievements were made before the Nazis came to power.

Only Otto Hahn, who won in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear fission, achieved his award-winning work during the Nazi era, and primarily for wartime purposes.

Furthermore, Germany won eight Nobel Prizes in the decade and a half after World War II, with the research for these achievements largely conducted before the Nazis came to power.

This means that after Hitler came to power, effectively only one Nobel Prize was produced, a stark contrast to the pre-war rate of one per year.

Of course, by some people's standards today, Nazi Germany was still thriving and achieved remarkable feats, not only increasing R&D investment but also building far more miles of highways than during the Weimar period, along with various large-scale infrastructure projects.

Other achievements, such as the V2 rocket, V1 cruise missile, the world's first combat-deployed jet fighter, the first rocket-powered aircraft, the first infrared night vision device, and the heaviest fully enclosed armored fighting vehicle "Maus," were also so-called "great national instruments" that could satisfy some people's vanity, but these had little to do with innovation and Nobel Prizes.

In fact, not just the Nobel Prize, but almost any relatively pure academic award that doesn't use war preparedness as a criterion for evaluation has eluded China.

Comparatively, the Nobel Prize is already considered good.

For example, the three top mathematics awards mentioned in the previous episode about Weidong Yi—the Fields Medal, Abel Prize, and Wolf Prize—have never been won by a Chinese national to date, though there have been a few ethnic Chinese recipients.

It's worth noting that the Fields Medal is only awarded to mathematicians under 40, meaning you can almost certainly win it within a few years of achieving a breakthrough. In such a case, can you still use the lag effect as an excuse?

If not mathematics, then what about other fields?

For example, top chemistry awards like the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the Priestley Medal—are there any Chinese recipients?

No, there aren't.

You might say Westerners are biased, but what about reputable domestic awards, such as the Shaw Prize, known as the "Nobel Prize of the East," which has categories for astronomy, life science and medicine, and mathematical sciences? After all these years, there are still very few Chinese recipients.

At the end of the program, I want to cite two sets of data to support my points above.

In 2024, Japanese scholars compiled a list of potential Nobel candidates from China and Japan. Note that this was compiled by ethnicity, not by nationality.

It should be noted that this list is very accurate, with Tasuku Honjo and Susumu Kitagawa, who won this year, prominently featured. This also indirectly confirms a common saying: for every Nobel Prize a country wins, dozens of Nobel-level achievements might be hidden behind it.

In this list, there are 31 Chinese candidates and 58 Japanese candidates. The gap doesn't seem very large, right?

But if you look closely, you'll find that among Japan's 58 candidates, all but one are Japanese nationals; the other 57 are Japanese citizens.

As for China's 31 individuals, 29 are foreign nationals or Taiwanese, with only Lu Yuming and Andrew Yao holding Chinese nationality.

Moreover, Lu is a genuine Hong Kong native, educated in Hong Kong and the UK.

As for Yao, he is Taiwanese, graduated from National Taiwan University, and earned his doctorate at Harvard.

In other words, not a single one of these 31 individuals can be considered truly homegrown in mainland China.

So, whether it's that Chinese people are incapable, or that this land is barren (a metaphor for a harsh environment unsuitable for innovation and talent growth), should be quite clear.