Over dinner one night in Chicago, during the spring of 1958, nuclear scientist Tseng Ter-lin (
Tseng and three other students from Taiwan had traveled to Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago earlier that year to study at the International School of Nuclear Science and Engineering under the "Atoms for Peace" program.
As their term of study was drawing to an end, they remained unclear as to what they could do with their specialized knowledge when they returned to Taiwan.
Across the table from Tseng that night was the then-head of National Tsinghua University, Mei Tai-chi (
"Mei told us that Taiwan had just signed a contract with General Electric to build a research reactor at Tsinghua," Tseng said.
Five years earlier, in 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower had launched "Atoms for Peace" as part of an attempt to stave off a nuclear arms race with the USSR and shift the attention of nuclear energy toward more peaceful applications.
The Republic of China on Taiwan, then a member of the UN, was one of 19 nations who participated in the program.
Since it would take another year to finish construction of the Tsinghua Open-pool Reactor, Mei told them there was no hurry.
"Go study wherever you want, and whatever you want. When a year has passed, come back to Taiwan to teach and continue work on the reactor."
Tseng eagerly accepted, and went to the University of Pennsylvania to obtain a Master's degree.
The roots of Nuclear Research in Taiwan
Tsinghua University, which before 1949 had been China's most prestigious school, was re-established on Taiwan after the US signed the "Atoms for Peace" agreement with Taiwan in 1955 -- at the same time as the establishment of the international school in Argonne.
The school housed the island's first nuclear science program; in fact, for a while it was the only institute at the school.
Tseng returned to Tsinghua in 1959 to the graduate institute of nuclear science. Two years later the schools' research reactor was on line.
Gradually the graduate institutes at the university expanded, and in 1964 undergraduate programs were added to its curriculum offerings.
An associate professor by that time, Tseng left Taiwan again in 1964 to receive a PhD from the University of Michigan.
China's first test of a nuclear bomb that same year sent shockwaves through the government in Taiwan. Soon afterward, it began considering how it could do the same -- and in 1968, it established the Institute for Nuclear Energy Research (INER), under the authority of the military.
After returning to Tsinghua in 1968, Tseng soon took the post as director of the nuclear science department.
But while there was a growing debate at the time over nuclear weapons and whether Taiwan should develop them, Tsinghua kept out of it, Tseng said.
"Tsinghua has always been interested only in the peaceful use of nuclear energy," he said.
Gradual fallout
Serving as department head in 1969 and 1970 and from 1977 to 1983, Tseng saw that it was becoming increasingly difficult to attract students to the program and to lead graduates over to government-run positions after they graduated.
Not only were more and more students going abroad and staying there, but competition from the INER also made things difficult.
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