Comment by kragen
Comment by kragen 9 hours ago
9 if you count people from the Republic of China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_cou...).
But, since the Nobel was established, China has been invaded by Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain (largely India), France, the United States, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Japan again, and had a civil war which hasn't technically ended (plus the end of the Boxer Rebellion), a revolution, and the worst famine in human history. But probably the worst event for its Nobel chances was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution. The civil wars also brought to power brutal dictatorships, including in the so-called Republic of China.
The US has been invaded zero times and had zero civil wars during that period, and in the US, the Cultural Revolution and dictatorship are just starting. Consequently many people who might have been Chinese, German, Japanese, Russian, etc., during the period in question were instead born in the US. And note that, on the page I linked above, 6 Nobel laureates from the US were actually born in China: Charles K. Kao, Daniel C. Tsui, Edmond H. Fischer, Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee, and Walter H. Brattain (!).
> 9 if you count people...
13 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_Nobel_laureate..., including peace prize laureates Liu Xiaobo (2010) and the 14th Dalai Lama (1989).
> But, since the Nobel was established, China has been invaded...
> The US has been invaded zero times...
The number of external invasions is not a strong indicator of the number of Nobel Prizes, if you compare all countries, beyond just China or the US.
And as you mentioned, the Cultural Revolution greatly reduces the chance of Chinese Nobel, so internal events can take a large role. And Mao led to more deaths—not to mention destruction to science and culture—than external invasions in the last century combined.
> The civil wars also brought to power brutal dictatorships...
The dictatorship arguably hasn't ended, by taking another less brutal form. And to be precise, CCP brought the civil wars and its consequences, not the civil wars brought dictatorships.