Lecture: Internationalism, Identity, and Ideology in the Shaping of Postwar China, and the Legacy for Today
The Institute of Transnational History of China (ITHC), in collaboration with the Flourishing Cities: Past, Present, and Future Project (FGE), is delighted to invite you to a lecture by Professor Rana Mitter of Harvard University.
Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Time: 4:00-6:00 PM
Venue: Faculty of Arts Conference Room, Run Run Shaw Tower 4/F 4.36, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
Lecture Overview:
The postwar period saw China debate many issues that still have immense importance for understanding the China of today. Those years contain the period of the Chinese civil war of 1946-50, but also much more than that. It was also the time when China moved into a new phase of internationalization, and became embroiled in some of the biggest global debates about the links between economic and social development. It was also a time when ideological concerns were to the forefront. There were huge debates in China in those years about democracy and constitutionalism, as well as what a powerful new political force emerging in the countryside might mean. Meanwhile, new ideas about the interaction of gender and class fuelled debates over identity. In this lecture, Professor Mitter will look in detail at the thinking of Chinese Government ministers, idealistic revolutionaries, and other groups who shaped postwar China – and suggest that those debates have come back to haunt their 21st-century successors.
Speaker: Rana Mitter
ST Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
Speaker Bio:
Rana Mitter is ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author of several books, including Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II (2013) which won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, and was named a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and Economist. His latest book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard, 2020). His writing on contemporary China has appeared recently in Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Business Review, The Spectator, The Critic, and The Guardian. He has commented regularly on China in media and forums around the world, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos. His recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics “Meanwhile in Beijing” is available on BBC Sounds. He is co-author, with Sophia Gaston, of the report “Conceptualizing a UK-China Engagement Strategy” (British Foreign Policy Group, 2020). He won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the UK Historical Association. He previously taught at Oxford, and is a Fellow of the British Academy.
