Reischauer Lecture Series: The Century of Self-Definition: How China has Thought About Itself and Defined Itself to the World from the Late Qing to the Present Day

Speaker: RANA MITTER, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, St. Cross College, University of Oxford
Discussant: ARUNABH GHOSH, Associate Professor of History, Harvard University

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LECTURE 3 OF 3: A SENSE OF PURPOSE?
Some states have always maintained a sense that they have a mission in the world well beyond the maintenance of domestic order, the United States, France and Britain among them. Japan, China and the Koreas also inherited a strong sense of purpose in the modern era, from Meiji modernization to Mao’s “Three Worlds” and the Belt and Road Initiative, ideas drawing on the longer past – yet the definition of that purpose has been in constant flux. What defines East Asia’s sense of purpose today, can we speak of it in regional terms, and how does it relate to its long history of aspiration to be an intellectual and moral exemplar?

For more information, please visit: https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/rana-mitter-fairbank-center-annual-reischauer-lecture-series-night-three/

The Annual Reischauer Lecture Series is co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Korea Institute, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and Harvard University Asia Center.