Tianran Liu

Tianran Liu

December 31, 2025

History of modern science in China, Colonial perspective, The Institute of Scientific Research of the Puppet State of Manchukuo, Colonial science in East Asia.

For a long time, the historiography of modern science and technology in China has primarily centered on national salvation and autonomous construction, emphasizing the formation of a modern scientific system under foreign oppression and highlighting the agency of anti-colonial resistance. However, as global scholarship has increasingly explored the dynamics of colonial science, a colonial perspective—framed by imperial expansion—has gradually emerged, attempting to incorporate foreign-led scientific practices into broader narratives of global science. This study, while fully recognizing the proactive development of science in China, critically introduces the theoretical lens of colonizing science, pointing out that current Western academic discourse remains largely rooted in Euro-American experiences, with East Asia historically marginalized and imbalances persisting between narratives of the colonizers and the colonized. Drawing on both domestic and international scholarship, and using the Institute of Scientific Research of the puppet state of Manchukuo as a core case study, this research examines the institutional operation of colonizing science in the Japanese-occupied Manchurian region and its impact on local knowledge systems. It emphasizes that knowledge production within asymmetrical power structures is not a matter of unilateral imposition, but rather a complex process shaped by coercion, conflict, and limited interaction. By expanding existing trajectories in the history of science, this study seeks to offer a research framework grounded in the lived experiences of developing countries, thereby confronting epistemic injustice and historical erasure embedded in prevailing colonial narratives.

© 2025, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license