Harvard grad speaking about her viral global unity speech unaware of fight breaking out right behind her

A Chinese Harvard graduate was at a cafe discussing her widely-circulated commencement speech about unity amid "difficult times", when two men behind her spontaneously started scuffling.

Speaking on her commencement speech

Yurong "Luanna" Jiang was seated outside a café in Cambridge, Massachusetts when the surreal juxtaposition of her words clashed with whatever was happening right behind her.

A video of the altercation can be viewed here.

"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 with a black backpack could be seen apparently punching someone in the background.

He and another man could be seen falling over chairs.

A dog was also quite invested in the exchange.

A man with white hair and in a black shirt then climbed on top of the man with the backpack.

Continued talking about peace

Jiang continued speaking about peace, unaware of the ironic scene playing behind.

"I think we are living in very difficult times," she said.

"There's a lot of division in terms of ideas, ethnicities, identities," she added, as the man in the black shirt yelled in the face of the man with the backpack.

A third man then appeared in an attempt to break up the scuffle, just as Jiang suggested "we can use a little bit more moral imagination and imagine ourselves being connected with one another".

The man in the black shirt could be seen holding onto the other man as he stood up.

"There's a lot that's going on outside of Harvard," Jiang continued, still apparently unaware of the altercation behind her.

"There's conflict, there's geopolitical tension, there's a lot of things going on outside Harvard, but also [at] Harvard,' she said.

"You know, the school has disagreement with — in terms of whether the school should, you know, promote the presence of international students,' Jiang said, referring to U.S. president Donald Trump's plan to block foreign students from obtaining a visa.

The man with the backpack could then be seen grabbing the other man's shirt, but the man in the black shirt was able to walk away.

He appeared to tell the man with the backpack to stay down.

As Jiang completed her piece to the camera, the man who was down also stood up and appeared animated.

What her commencement speech was about

Jiang touched on 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 told the Harvard community that "humanity rises and falls as one" and 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 added.

"But it doesn't have to be this way," Jiang argued, saying that her time at Harvard taught her 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", she said.

"In the end, we do not rise by proving another wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go," Jiang concluded.

Not all agreed with her

Some in the United States subsequently claimed that Jiang has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

They said her father works for a non-government organisation that serves the party.

This was disputed by some Chinese social media users, who claimed that the organisation is backed by prominent American companies and foundations.

Harvard has nearly 6,800 international students, who made up more than 27 per cent of its enrolment in the past academic year, according to the BBC.

About one-third of those international students are from China.

President Trump has accused the Ivy League school of "coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party".

Top photos via Associated Press YouTube & Harvard University