Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
Yasheng Huang, Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
Moderator: Dorinda (Dinda) Elliott, Executive Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University

“It may have been the most important television program ever broadcast in the history of the world.”
—Rana Mitter, BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, “The May Fourth Movement,” December 9, 2021

Join us for a special screening of River Elegy (河殇), the landmark 1988 Chinese documentary series that sparked intense debate for its critique of China’s historical trajectory and traditional culture, followed by a panel discussion featuring Rana Mitter (Harvard University), Yasheng Huang (MIT), and Fairbank Center Executive Director, Dorinda (Dinda) Elliott. At the event, we will show a new digital transfer of the first two episodes of River Elegy, “In Search of a Dream” and “Destiny,” both with new English subtitles.

Originally aired on CCTV1 in June of 1988, River Elegy takes the color “yellow” (the Yellow River, the Yellow Emperor) as a metaphor for stagnation, contrasting it with “blue” (the open seas and maritime exploration), representing the modern world. Through a combination of literary, politically-charged narration and a striking visual collage of archival footage, the series mounts the argument that China’s adherence to Confucian orthodoxy and isolationist policies hindered its progress in the 20th century. It emphasizes the need for openness and reform and champions China’s strides toward economic liberalization under Deng Xiaoping.

At the time of its premiere, River Elegy‘s message resonated deeply in China, especially with a generation grappling with the process of modernization; its scriptwriter, Su Xiaokang, became one of the most revered public intellectuals of the era, especially after high-level Party officials like former president Yang Shangkun, Deng Pufang (Deng Xiaoping’s son), and premier Zhao Ziyang all promoted River Elegy and hosted special screenings. But after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (which some scholars have suggested were partly initiated by River Elegy‘s broad popularity), there was a swift political backlash and the series was banned.

Today, River Elegy remains a powerful artifact of its time, and provides an excellent opportunity for discussion, particularly as the values of a once popular universal liberalism—democracy, individual rights, rule of law, and human rights—seem to drift further out of grasp not only in China, but also here in the U.S. as well.

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.

Yasheng Huang is Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an associate dean in charge of MIT Sloan’s global partnership programs and its action learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. He is the author of 11 books in both English and Chinese and of many academic papers and news commentaries. His book, The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline, was published by Yale University Press in 2023. He is collaborating with Chinese academics on a book project, The Needham Question, based on a comprehensive database on Chinese historical inventions and politics.