China has often been treated as a peripheral or isolated case in the history of science. This panel challenges such narratives of separateness and instead explores the ways in which science in China has been linked and integrated into wider international currents and transnational networks. It does so through a series of papers that explore important individual, institutional, and governmental relationships that helped to shape the trajectory of Sino-foreign scientific relations during the twentieth century. These include examples of international mobility, ranging from the activities of foreign physicists at Yenching University during the Republican era (1911-1949) through Sino-American scientific cooperation during the Second World War to British scientists’ highly politicized visits to the People’s Republic of China in the decades following the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power in 1949. The complex relationships between states, scientists, and international organizations are further explored through papers examining Chinese scientists and scientific associations’ international activities. Collectively, the papers in this panel provide opportunities to consider crucial points of both continuity and change in Sino-foreign scientific relations across the twentieth century alongside the impacts and legacies of imperialism, war, and revolution.
