Chen-Ning Yang and Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, who officially become academicians with the Chinese Academy of Sciences after giving up their U.S. citizenship, recently gave an interview to West China Metropolitan News to explain the reasons for their return.

Yang said that he became a U.S. citizen on March 23, 1963. He had considered the matter for a long time before making the painful decision. In a book published in 1983, he disclosed that his father never forgave him for abandoning his Chinese citizenship.

Yang said it was also not a simple decision to relinquish his U.S. citizenship on April 1, 2015. He remarked that the U.S. is a beautiful country, and that it gave him wonderful opportunities to do scientific studies. He is grateful to the country, and knows many American friends will not agree with the decision to give up his citizenship.

Discussing his thoughts on returning home, Yang cited words from his close friend Xiong Bingming: "Your father’s blood is running through your body, though he already passed away," Xiong told him. "Yes," Yang replied, "the blood in my body is the blood of my father, and the blood of the Chinese culture."

Yang, 94, feels gratified by the work he has done to build bridges between China and the U.S. He once said: “Without this bridge, there would be no real peace or stability in the world."

Yao said that educating young Chinese talents and promoting the development of high-level studies has been the most meaningful task of his life. He especially thanked the Chinese Academy of Sciences for allowing him to become an academician. He said he feels proud and pleased to be Chinese.

Yang and Yao are the first two foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to become official academicians. Yang joined the Division of Mathematics and Physics, while Yao is a member of the Division of Information Technical Sciences.

Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Tsung-dao Lee, for their work on parity non-conservation of weak interaction. He also proposed the Yang-Mills Theory and created the Yang-Baxter Equation in the 1950s and '60s. Yao is a 2000 Turing Award winner who has long been engaged in the study of computer quantum information science.