Three countries are claiming credit for the first Chinese woman winning Fields Medal
A debate has broken out in China over which country deserves credit for producing Hong Wang, who on July 23 became the third woman to win the Fields Medal, the world's most prestigious mathematics award.
On August 22, 2024, Wang Yuan, a 35-year-old mathematician, was awarded the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia. Wang, who is Chinese, received the prestigious award for her proof of the Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions, in collaboration with Joshua Zahl. She and Yu Deng, also honored on the same day, are the first Chinese nationals to win the Fields Medal since its inception in 1936.
Prior to Wang, only two women had been awarded the prize: Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska in 2022.
Wang's academic journey began at Peking University in 2011, where she earned her bachelor's degree. She then pursued a master's degree at Paris-Saclay after enrolling at France's École Polytechnique. Wang completed her doctoral studies at MIT in 2019, under the guidance of Professor Larry Guth. Currently, she teaches at New York University and holds a permanent professorship at France's Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, since September 2025.
Chinese officials hailed Wang's achievement as a significant milestone in China's bid to establish itself as a leading science and technology power. Tian Gang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasized that both laureates were educated in China and credited Peking University with providing their foundational mathematical education. Chinese President Emmanuel Macron praised Wang for embodying the excellence of French research and training and telephoned her to congratulate her.
Wang's peers at Peking University had mostly come through competitive circuits, some of which were affiliated with national training squads. Many were taking graduate-level courses as freshmen while Wang had not yet transferred in. Despite her academic prowess, Wang felt nearly invisible among her classmates who held Olympiad gold medals and even doubted her belonging in mathematics.
She briefly left mathematics for a period during her master's studies in France, switching to architecture. However, she later returned to mathematics and now teaches at New York University.
The Fields Medal does not yet place China alongside the U.S., Russia, France, and Britain, according to a commentary in Beijing News. The real marker will be a Fields Medal won by a mathematician trained to doctoral level at home. Wu Guosheng, head of Tsinghua University's department of history of science, pointed out that Chinese students excel in Olympiads but rarely win Fields Medals because they require exploration and a tolerance for apparent failure.
Y. Tony Yang, an endowed professor at George Washington University, argued that national success stories depend on talent formation, mentorship, and a transnational environment. He emphasized that a theorem becomes a global public good the day it appears on arXiv and its value accrues to whoever builds on it. Wang herself credited her colleagues at every stage of her career for their support.
Written by urgent.news from VnExpress International's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
