This paper uses the transnational academic cooperation between William Hung's "Yenching School" of the Chinese "New History" and the Harvard-Yenching Institute directed by Serge Elisséeff as an entry point to examine if it is possible for the Chinese "New History" to break the methodological bottleneck set by French Sinology in historical research and make historiography truly a science that can stand on its feet alongside natural science and social science. Its concrete manifestations on both sides of the Pacific are the conflicts of ideas and interests between the Chinese historians, who were eager to break away from the approach of skill-priority and return to the principal themes of history, and the "Paul Pelliot School" which was losing ground in Europe and seeking a revival in the United States as "East Asian Studies."