Happy Lunar New Year from the USC US-China Institute!
Cultural Revolution
Video: Ian Johnson on Sparks, his look at China's Underground Historians
![Ian Johnson, speaking about his book Sparks at the USC U.S.-China Institute on 2023-10-16.](https://china.usc.edu/sites/default/files/styles/article_thumbnail_scale_crop_300x150/public/article/thumbnails/usc-us-china-institute-combined-johnson-cover-web-thumbnail.png?itok=4dLg7zAj)
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Johnson spent a decade researching the work of these unofficial historians of China's recent past. This compelling study introduces readers to writers, filmmakers and artists, determined to preserve stories about mass movements that affected millions but get scant attention in the party-state's official history.
Video: Weijian Shan's Life from Exile to Equity
![](https://china.usc.edu/sites/default/files/styles/article_thumbnail_scale_crop_300x150/public/article/featured-image/Weijan-shan-usc-talk-image.jpg?itok=pkExw8Su)
The USC U.S.-China Institute and Asia Society hosted a talk with Weijian Shan, one of Asia’s best-known financiers, as he recounts his remarkable personal story of his exile to the Gobi Desert for hard labor at the age of 15 amidst the turmoil of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.
Video: Guobin Yang Discusses the Factional Violence in the Red Guard Movement
![](https://china.usc.edu/sites/default/files/styles/article_thumbnail_scale_crop_300x150/public/article/featured-image/guobin-yang-usc-image.jpg?itok=4o28DDOY)
Guobin Yang examines the factional violence in the Red Guard movement as well as the de-sacralization of that revolutionary culture throughout the 1970s and the rise of a new wave of protest that inaugurated the democratic movements of the reform era.
Morley Safer, 1931-2016 -- Reported from China during the Cultural Revolution
![](https://china.usc.edu/sites/default/files/styles/article_thumbnail_scale_crop_300x150/public/article/thumbnails/safer-mao-thumbnail_0.jpg?itok=qcIC1dRQ)
The famed 60 Minutes journalist passed away May 19. Safer, a Canadian, and posed as a tourist in 1967 to gain entry. His report for CBS, Morley Safer's Red China Diary, was broadcast in 1967. He spoke with USCI about the experience for Assignment:China.
Leese, Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China's Cultural Revolution, 2011
Daniel Leese's book was reviewed by David Buck for the History of Asia discussion list.
CIA, Mao's Cultural Revolution - Origins and Development, Oct. 6, 1967
In the midst of China's Cultural Revolution, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency prepared a report on the forces leading to the launch of the Cultural Revolution and its first year. It was written by Philip L. Bridgham. This report was declassified in 2007 (40 years after its preparation). Bridgham published a versions of this in The China Quarterly.
Van der Zouw and Zürcher, eds., Three Months in Mao's China - Between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, 2017
Zixian Liu's review first appeared on the History of Socialism discussion list and is reprinted her via Creative Commons license.
LRCCS Noon Lecture Series ~ Rethinking the Socialist Heroine: Feminine Agency in Chinese Dance Dramas of the late 1950s
The University of Michigan's Center for Chinese Studies presents at talk with Emily Wilcox about women in film.
LRCCS Noon Lecture Series ~ Is It Possible to “De-Maoify” the Cultural Revolution?
The University of Michigan's Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Yiching Wu on the role of Mao in the Cultural Revolution.
A Special Screening of "Summary of Crimes"
The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University hosts a screening and Q&A with Xu Xing.
Pages
Featured Articles
We note the passing of many prominent individuals who played some role in U.S.-China affairs, whether in politics, economics or in helping people in one place understand the other.
Events
Ying Zhu looks at new developments for Chinese and global streaming services.
David Zweig examines China's talent recruitment efforts, particularly towards those scientists and engineers who left China for further study. U.S. universities, labs and companies have long brought in talent from China. Are such people still welcome?