China Seminar | 11 April 1996

The Black and Red Struggle

Please join us for a rare opportunity to listen to a talk by one of China’s most eloquent dissident intellectuals. Some in Honolulu will remember his visit to the University in 1990, shortly after the Tiananmen tragedy. The Tiananmen events necessitated Yan Jiaqi’s and his wife Gao Gao’s dramatic escape from China, followed by their years in Paris, supported by the French government. Mr. Yan’s voice of political conscience has been likened to that of Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic.

This spring (May 16) marks the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the traumatic Cultural Revolution that raged in China from 1966 to 1976. The University of Hawai’i Press has just published a translation of Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution, a comprehensive narrative account of this colossal event, by Yan Jiaqi and Gao Gao. Former members of the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and well known throughout China, the authors are in Hawaii for the appearance of this book.

The “Black and Red Struggle” refers to the struggle between the “black and red elements” during the Cultural Revolution. Yan Jiaqi’s talk, however, will address such struggles going on this very moment in China. The talk is one of the events celebrating the publication of Turbulent Decade.

The enclosed flyer conveys details of this important book.