A Chinese Harvard graduate was blissfully unaware that an all-out brawl was breaking out right behind her as she preached unity amid ‘difficult times.’
Yurong ‘Luanna’ Jiang was discussing her now-viral commencement speech outside of a café in Cambridge, Massachusetts as two men behind her started throwing punches.
‘The message itself is – if I had to put it into one sentence, it would be “Humanity rises and falls as one,”‘ Jiang told the Associated Press of her speech as a man wearing a black backpack could be seen apparently punching someone off camera.
Soon, he and another man could be seen falling over chairs, at which point a white-haired man in a black shirt climbs atop the man with the backpack.
Still, Jiang continued to speak about peace.
‘I think we are living in very difficult times,’ she said.
‘There’s a lot of division in terms of ideas, ethnicities, identities,’ the college grad continues as the man in the black shirt yells in the man with the backpack’s face.
At that point, a third man could be seen coming into view apparently trying to break the two men up, while Jiang suggests ‘we can use a little bit more moral imagination and imagine ourselves being connected with one another.’
Behind her the man in the black shirt could be seen still holding onto the other man as he stands up.
‘There’s a lot that’s going on outside of Harvard,’ Jiang then acknowledges, still seemingly unaware of the chaos behind her.
‘There’s conflict, there’s geopolitical competition, there’s a lot of things going on outside Harvard, but also [at] Harvard,’ she continued.
‘You know, the school has some disagreement with – in terms of whether the school should, you know, promote the presence of international students,’ Jiang said of President Donald Trump’s plan to block foreign students from obtaining a visa.
Meanwhile, behind her the man with the backpack could be seen grabbing the other man’s shirt, but the man in the black shirt is able to get free and walks away – apparently telling the man with the backpack to stay down in the process.
That man then also stands up and appears to be animated about what had just happened, as Jiang finishes up her thoughts.
It remains unclear what the men may have been fighting about.
‘I think, well, it’s particularly important because there’s a lot going on outside Harvard – the conflict, the geopolitical tensions,’ Jiang said of her commencement speech.
‘And especially important in Harvard because students can be very emotionally charged, because they deeply care about a lot of issues.
‘And when you are emotionally charged and activated, it is very easy to demonize another person.’
Jiang made similar points in her commencement speech, which came the same day that a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students.
She had argued to the Harvard community that ‘humanity rises and falls as one,’ as she shared how she was told as a young child that her generation would bridge international divides.
‘That promise of a connected world, it’s giving way to division, fear and conflict,’ Jiang said.
‘We’re starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently, or pray differently whether they are across the ocean or sitting right next to us are not just wrong. We mistakenly see them as evil,’ she argued.
‘But it doesn’t have to be this way,’ Jiang continued, saying that she learned from her time at Harvard that it is important to ‘sit with discomfort, listen deeply and stay soft in hard times.
‘Because if we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget those who were labeled as enemies – they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own.
‘In the end, we do not rise by proving another wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go,’ Jiang concluded.
Her message of unity was widely shared online – though some in the United States claimed Jiang has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
They have said Jiang’s father works for a non-government organization that serves the party, though some Chinese social media users claimed the organization her father works for is backed by prominent American companies and foundations.
DailyMail.com could not independently verify either claim.
Still, the founder and CEO of Republicans Overseas, a political organization for Americans abroad, even called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to cancel Jiang’s visa for her speech.
‘@MarcoRubio, this Chinese student Yurong “Luanna” Jiang is using her commencement address at Harvard to propagandize #XiJinping’s “a community with a shared future for mankind,”‘ Solomon Yue Jr, who was born in China and immigrated to the US, posted on X.
‘This #CCP infiltrator’s visa should be canceled. Her internship in America must be terminated.’
His comment came just days after Rubio announced that the Trump administration will ‘aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.’
Harvard has nearly 6,800 international students, who made up more than 27 percent of its enrollment in the past academic year, according to the BBC.
About one-third of those international students are from China, and President Trump has accused the Ivy League school of ‘coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.’
He also said that Harvard should reduce its international enrollment to just about 15 percent, the Washington Examiner reports.
Yet Harvard officials have remained defiant, with University President Alan Garber smugly taunting the president in his own commencement speech as he congratulated students from ‘around the world’ graduating from the prestigious university.
‘From around the world,’ he repeated for emphasis. ‘Just as it should be.’