The development of quantum electronics and quantum optics as new fields of research in physics fall into the era of Cold War science. While scientific and technology knowledge continued to circulate internationally, it also faced boundaries raised by the climate of tension, conflict and competition between the world's leading military and scientific powers, the Soviet Union and the USA. By consequence, as Audra J. Wolfe and others have argued, the Cold War changed the practice of science over a prolonged period of time [1].

While historical studies of these practices in the physical sciences have been conducted for both for the United States and the Soviet Union, their partner countries so far have been less in focus. In this contribution, we analyze the development of research quantum electronics and optics in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the emergence of laser physics in the early 1960s [2] to the dissolution of state research agencies by the end of 1991. It is argued that despite the ostensible alignment of research with political objectives and considerable obstacles for scientific practice and exchange, individual research groups within the GDR were able to adapt to international trends and to contribute to the development of these fields.

[1] Audra J. Wolfe: Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America. (2013)
[2] Helmuth Albrecht: Laserforschung in Deutschland 1960-1970. (2019)

Fundamental physics in Korea in the 1950s was a low-priority discipline as the country struggled to rebuild from the devastation of the Korean War. Lacking adequate educational and research infrastructure in physics, students who wished to learn physics sought to travel abroad to further their training. The United States was an attractive destination due to its expansive funding in physics. As Korean students navigated the restrictions on exiting Korea and staying in the United States, the decisions of these scientists to return to Korea or remain in the United States were contingent on physics funding and immigration acts. Korean American physicist Benjamin Whisoh Lee (1935-1977) is such an example, where Cold War geopolitics and funding availability shaped his rapid rise from an impoverished student at the scientific and sociocultural periphery to a respected scientist and tenured professor. The 1962 Act that facilitated the entry of skilled specialists and the enactment of the 1965 Immigration Act enabled Lee to become an American citizen. Abundant funding in physics during the 1960s enabled immigrant physicists such as Lee to procure academic or research positions, becoming the quintessentially stereotyped "model minority" in the U.S. On the other hand, when funding dried up in the 1970s, an increasing number of Korean physicists returned to Korea. Through permanent return or temporary visits to Korea, these Korean and Korean American physicists became advisors on using American aid towards higher education, conduits of physics knowledge, and importers on the sense of eminence of fundamental physics among science.

High energy physics played a special role in China’s Science and Technology development since the People's Republic of China was established. Under the umbrella of the nuclear physics discipline, particle physics gradually growth into an independent discipline in the middle of the 1960s and then caught the highest leadership, such as Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai’s attention of its theoretical aspect related to philosophy.
To construct China’s own facilities on high energy physics is long decades dream of Chinese physicists since the 1950s. However, due to lack of experience and the Cultural Revolution, this dream was finally realized in the middle of the 1980s. This presentation will discuss Chinese physics community’s decision-making progress of the first high energy accelerator, the international cooperation between China, European countries and the United States since the 1970s as well as the scientific achievement of China’s high energy physics. This presentation sheds light on how China was integrated into the international physics community and made its special contribution since the 1980s, which is close to the theme of our symposium-Cold Wars and International Physics.