Acupuncture bridged Chinese and Soviet science

Liang Wan, Simon Huxtable, and Sarah Marks examined how acupuncture fostered collaboration between Chinese and Soviet scientists from 1949 to 1961.

The authors challenge previous ideas that Soviet scientists simply took knowledge from China, instead demonstrating a reciprocal exchange of ideas. Their article in Isis details how acupuncture connected the Soviet Union’s Pavlovian science with traditional Chinese medicine. This created a shared area for Sino-Soviet scientific work during a period when political relations were developing.