Channel: YaleUniversity

Category: Education

Tags: council on east asian studies1946-1950internationalizationideologyyalemodern chinapostwar chinaconstitutionalismchinese civil wardemocracy

Description: The Council is pleased to present the 61st Edward H. Hume Memorial Lecture in Chinese Studies. Rana Mitter (Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford) presented "A Kite Flies Against the Wind: Internationalism, identity, and ideology in the shaping of postwar China, and the legacy for today” on February 23, 2022. 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 fueled debates over identity. In this lecture, I 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.