Bring together and advance emerging research topics in the history of science diplomacy in twentieth-century China

This special issue has been produced based on the International Symposium on the History of Science Diplomacy in Twentieth-Century China, which was held at Peking University in March 2022.

Here, I would like to share with you some thoughts on the relationships between science and diplomacy. We are more than three years into the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has had profound impacts on people's lives around the world. Since the breakout of the pandemic, we have seen the importance of international collaboration in science and technology in both containing the spread of the pandemic and safeguarding sustainable global economic development. We are well aware that, unless every corner of the world gets the pandemic under control, it will be difficult to prevent ongoing transnational mass transmission. However, we have also seen how a lack of good-faith cooperation between governments and diplomats can seriously hamper scientific efforts. The value of modern public health and science has been ignored as political mistrust and mutual recriminations have arisen in many parts of the world. Emergency medical supplies do not always go to the places where they are needed most, but rather to where they have the greatest political potential.

Take COVID-19 vaccines as an example. Although they have been produced in a few large, developed countries during the pandemic, their global distribution has been highly uneven and politicized. Whether the ‘Global South’ can attain herd immunity via vaccination has been largely dependent on the will of a handful of Western countries, leaving the Global South at a significant disadvantage.

Some questions arise: How did such politicization and lack of cooperation in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic come about? How can it be changed? Is it possible to use the analytical framework of science and technology diplomacy to study it in depth and find ways to change it?

In 2010, the British Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science jointly released a report titled New frontiers in science diplomacy. The report stated that ‘science diplomacy’ encompasses at least three different components: science in diplomacy, which relies on science and technology to achieve diplomatic goals; diplomacy for science, which promotes international cooperation in science and technology through diplomatic means; and science for diplomacy, which promotes relations between countries through international cooperation in science and technology.

The disagreements and contests in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic have made it clear that science and diplomacy are never two distinct fields with clear boundaries. In the field of global health, it is precisely the interaction between science and diplomacy that is needed to coordinate international cooperation and channel resources internationally. Public-health officials assume the dual role of scientists and diplomats when negotiating transnational scientific projects.

The havoc wreaked by COVID-19 has prompted some to look back on the patterns and lessons of similar pandemics in the past. Although historians are often wary of drawing parallels between present-day and historical events, fearing that such lessons may, as historian Robert Peckham suggests, constrain our ability to grasp the complex place- and time-specific variables that drive contemporary disease emergence, I believe that studying history will help us understand the ways in which humans, governments and societies have responded when faced with crises. For instance, during the horrifying Manchurian pneumonic plague from 1910 to 1911 in North-east China, there was ostensible international cooperation to control the epidemic. Still, under the surface lay fierce competition among the Qing Government, Japanese imperialist forces and Russian power. The science of public health was inevitably politicized by each side in an effort to demonstrate its mastery of modernity, and, by extension, to demonstrate the superiority of its civilization.

Modern epidemiology experts in China, represented by Wu Liande (Wu Lien-Teh), fully mobilized international medical forces to effectively contain the dangerous pneumonic plague. They also convened the influential International Plague Conference, which provided an opportunity to build a highly internationalized Chinese public-health system while promoting the process of globalized pandemic prevention. Looking at these events, we see a strong correlation between the past and our present reality, which can inspire us to delve more deeply into the history of science diplomacy.

Peking University, one of China's first research universities, has been a leader in the study of international relations and the history of diplomacy for decades. With a comprehensive School of International Relations dedicated to the study of contemporary foreign relations between various countries, and recognizing the importance of diplomatic history, Peking University has established a strong academic tradition in the study of the past and the present. Yet, most Chinese scholars of diplomacy and history have concentrated on the non-scientific aspects of these fields. The Department of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Peking University and the Division of History of Science and Technology Commission on Science, Technology and Diplomacy have organized the International Symposium on the History of Science Diplomacy in Twentieth-Century China in the hope of bringing together and advancing emerging research topics in the history of science diplomacy in twentieth-century China.

Articles in this special issue have been selected from papers submitted to the conference. The topics cover a wide range of themes relating to the interaction between science, technology, medicine and diplomacy from the late Qing Dynasty to the era of the People's Republic of China. The history of science, technology and medicine in China in the twentieth century is very important both for modern China and for Chinese people. To accurately understand the modernization of China over those 100 years, it is necessary to analyse in greater depth the enormous impacts of modern scientific and technological developments on Chinese society, as well as the profound changes in the development of Chinese society as it interacted with the outside world. I believe that this special issue will greatly enrich our knowledge of the history of twentieth-century Chinese science diplomacy.

Today, science and diplomacy are game-changers in emerging global crises. This must prompt us to revisit existing scholarship and re-examine our scientific and diplomatic paths. Such an examination will greatly expand our understanding of the impacts of past, present and future technological advances on human society and civilization. It is my sincere hope that this special issue on science diplomacy will serve as a milestone and impetus for the study of science diplomacy in China and beyond, inspiring scholars from different disciplines to join our research network. I believe that such research will, in the end, benefit all humanity and contribute to global peace and harmony.