In a first, two Chinese scholars win the Fields Medal - and China is thrilled

For the first time, two Chinese nationals have been awarded the prestigious Fields Medal for mathematics achievement – a win hailed across China as a milestone in the country’s bid to cement its role as a science and technology powerhouse. Wang Hong and Deng Yu were named Thursday as among four laureates of the top prize, which is awarded every four years to outstanding mathematicians under 40 by the International Mathematical Union. The two other winners this year come from Canada and the United States. Wang, 35, is the third woman to win in the award’s 90-year history. China’s social media has lit up in celebration of their achievement, with the top two trending topics on China’s X-like Weibo Friday morning discussing the win. State media and other news sites were awash with articles about Wang and Deng and what their success means for the country, even as both pursued their academic careers outside of China after studying at Peking University, a top-ranked research university in Beijing. “This is a landmark achievement for Chinese mathematics,” said one comment on social media that received thousands of views. “It’s the realization of a dream generations of Chinese mathematicians have shared: building China into a mathematical powerhouse!” Other posts celebrated Wang’s win as a breakthrough for women in STEM fields, with another social media commentator calling it “a hard slap in the face to those who have long preached that boys are better at mathematics than girls.” Wang, who grew up in Guilin in southern China and is now a professor at New York University and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France, was awarded for her work resolving a decades-old problem in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory. Deng, 37, a University of Chicago professor who grew up in the tech hub of Shenzhen, won for his progress on partial differential equations. The outpouring of pride and excitement is a testament to the importance of academic achievement in China, where top scientists can achieve celebrity status and students annually take one of the most competitive and challenging college entrance exams in the world. It also speaks to China’s longstanding hunger to rank among the upper echelons of modern science and technology achievement – an ambition that’s driven extensive investment from Beijing as it seeks to recruit top talent to its universities and fund groundbreaking work. China’s leaders see establishing the country as a dominate force not just in cutting edge tech, but also at the frontier of basic and theoretical sciences as part of the country’s so-called “national rejuvenation.” One commentary in state media Friday spoke to that, writing that “for a long time, there has been a stereotype in Western academia: China excels in competitive and applied mathematics, but lacks original breakthroughs in cutting-edge fundamental theories.” “The emergence of Wang Hong and Deng Yu has finally filled this gap, marking a new standard for Chinese mathematics and effectively breaking down prejudices,” it added. ‘Hope they will return’ Chinese state media described Deng and Wang as the first Chinese nationals to win the award. Another China-born scientist Shing-Tung Yau was awarded the prize in 1982, but he was not holding Chinese citizenship at that time. Mathematician Terence Tao, who was born in Australia and is ethnically Chinese, also won in 2006. In an interview with a Chinese state-linked media outlet released Thursday, Yau, now a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, described Wang and Deng’s awards as fulfilling a decades-long aspiration of the Chinese mathematics community – and said he hoped the two would return to China to teach. “We very much hope they will come back, because that is important for China,” he said, adding that he hoped in the future, “scholars trained entirely in China will also be able to win the Fields Medal.” China has long grappled with its best and brightest leaving for institutions in the United States or elsewhere and has been trying to reverse the phenomenon known as “brain drain” as its own institutions grow in prestige. Both Deng and Wang pursued their advanced studies overseas. Deng transferred from Peking University to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an undergraduate and then received his PhD from Princeton University in 2015. Wang, a graduate of Peking University, studied her masters degree in France before receiving her PhD from MIT in 2019. French President Emmanuel Macron personally called Wang to congratulate her on her win. Wang credited “brilliant colleagues” at every stage of her career for her success, in comments shared by NYU following the announcement of her award. “Moments like this never belong to just one person. They are the culmination of years of chance encounters and unexpected questions that steer you in the right direction,” she said. When asked, in an interview with Chinese media National Business Daily published Thursday, why more young Chinese mathematicians were gaining international renown, Deng attributed this to an “accumulation of knowledge and experience.” “After all, Chinese mathematicians have already done a great deal of excellent work in recent years, so it’s expected that someone will one day will become widely known.”