Zuoyue WangOne of Wang's mentors at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the early 1980s was the scientist and dissident Fang Lizhi is a distinguished scholar and a professor of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he specializes in the history of modern science and its interaction with U.S. and Chinese government policy. Wang, who grew up in China's Henan Province, earned a B.S. in physics at Henan Normal University, a Master's at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also won a National Science Foundation grant to study Chinese-American scientists during the Cold War and beyond. And he is the author of In Sputnik’s Shadow, which traces the role of scientific advisors during the Cold War. The following is a lightly edited transcript of his interview.  Wang Zuoyue.Illustration by Kate Copeland Q: Today, more than 300,000 Chinese students attend American colleges and universities. Tell us