After the founding of the People's Republic of China, many wanderers who studied abroad wanted to return to their motherland and contribute their strength to national construction. However, affected by the international situation at that time, most of the international students were in a situation where it was easy to go abroad and difficult to return to China after graduation, and Qian Xuesen and Yang Zhenning were among the representatives. Yang Zhenning could not return to China to visit relatives, and once met with his parents three times in the third country of Geneva, Switzerland, until 1971, when he returned to China for the first time, experiencing a lot of pain and extreme helplessness.
01 Gather in Geneva for the third time.
Yang Zhenning went to the United States to study in 1945, received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1948, and served as a lecturer at the University of ChicagoIn 1955, he became a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in PrincetonIn 1966, he was appointed Albert Einstein Professor and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After more than 20 years, it was not until 1971 that Yang Zhenning returned to China for the first time to visit relatives. During this period, he invited his parents to a third country, Geneva, Switzerland, three times to get together.
In 1957, Yang Zhenning won the Nobel Prize in Physics and had the opportunity to take his wife and children to work in Geneva, Switzerland for several months. Yang Zhenning took advantage of this opportunity to send a telegram to his father to Geneva. Yang Wuzhi was very excited to receive the telegram and went to Geneva alone to reunite with his son for a few weeks. This is the first time he has seen his father after 12 years in the United States, and it is also the first time that Yang Wuzhi has seen his grandson. Yang Wuzhi introduced various new atmosphere and new things to his son in New China, and also took his son to the Chinese Consulate in Geneva to watch the documentary "Xiamen Bridge".
In 1960, Yang Zhenning and his family went to Geneva to work again, and he invited his father to bring his family to Geneva for a reunion. This time, Yang Wuzhi was allowed to go with his wife, Luo Menghua, and Yang Wuzhi hoped to persuade his son to return to China. However, Luo Menghua's vision and views were different from Yang Wuzhi's, which played a negative role. After a stalemate, Yang Wuzhi was finally defeated.
In 1962, Yang Wuzhi and his wife were invited by their son to meet in Geneva again, but this time Yang Wuzhi didn't know how to speak. Because at that time, China suffered from serious natural disasters, the economic situation was not good, and there was a shortage of materials, and the lives of the people were seriously affected. Under such conditions, how can Yang Zhenning's physics research be carried out smoothly?Yang Wuzhi still hopes that Yang Zhenning will return to the motherland.
02 The reason why it is difficult to return to China
Soon after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Korean War broke out, and a new Cold War confrontation pattern was formed. Truman issued an order prohibiting all Chinese with a doctorate in science and technology in the United States from returning to China. Yang Zhenning is the object of this ban, and when the United States federal enforces this ban, his application to return to China is tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg, and it will not succeed.
In 1957, Yang Chenning won the Nobel Prize, which immediately attracted the attention of the Taiwan authorities, and Chiang Kai-shek sent Cao Xiuqing (Yang Zhenning's mother-in-law) to the United States to contact his daughter and son-in-law, hoping that Yang Chenning could come to Taiwan to help him develop physics. This also constituted a kind of pressure on Yang Zhenning, and he decided not to go anywhere to avoid causing trouble to his mother-in-law's family.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country was in ruins. Yang Zhenning was in a critical period of research, when China suffered from serious natural disasters, the economic situation was not good, and there was a shortage of materials, and the people's lives were seriously affected. If he took the risk of returning to China at this time, how could China, which was poor and white, ensure the smooth progress of his physics research?So Yang Zhenning decided to complete the theoretical achievements in the United States first, and then return to China on a later date.
Yang Zhenning, who is in the United States, has been under a lot of pressure. Since 1957, when he met in Geneva three times, his father persuaded him to go back to his motherland, which was not only China's suggestion, but also his father's deepest wish. Yang Zhenning is well aware of his father's inner contradictions, and not only hopes that he will return to his motherland, but also feels that he should stay in the United States so that he can reach a higher level academically.
03 Patriotism in no particular order.
In the face of his father's repeated persuasions, Yang Zhenning did not rush back to China, and in order to take advantage of the conditions of the United States to continue his research and reduce practical needs such as discrimination and insults, he became an American citizen in 1964. He decided to complete the theoretical results in the United States first, and then return to China at a later date, and he had absolutely no treason for treason.
Yang Zhenning's return to China was postponed again and again until Sino-US relations warmed up. His father met in Geneva three times to promote knee exchanges, which gave Yang Zhenning more understanding and understanding of New China, which directly influenced his decision to return to the mainland to visit relatives in the summer of 1971, and Yang Zhenning became one of the first overseas well-known scholars to visit China.
Since then, Yang Zhenning has returned to China many times to visit relatives and friends, and has been received and entertained by national leaders such as ***. Finally, he returned to China in 2023 and settled down, and with a pure patriotic heart, he made 20 years of contributions to physics education and research in Chinese universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University. This shows that patriotism is not in any particular order, and patriotism does not lie in doing big things or small things, and patriotism is proved by many small things.
I hope that everyone will be more tolerant, more understanding, and more respectful of Mr. Yang Zhenning, and his arrangement is reasonable.