This book shows that Hong Kong’s protests from June to December 2019 originated from not only an attempt to extradite a Hong Kong man involved in a Taiwan murder case, but also China’s effort at extraditing corrupt mainlanders who laundered dirty money in the territory. The mixture of peaceful and violent protests was due to the snowballing effect of protestors-police confrontations, the imbalanced way in which police exercised their power, and protestors’ strategies. The protests triggered the national security concerns of Beijing, which mobilized the People’s Armed Police to Shenzhen as a warning rather than sending them openly to Hong Kong to avoid undermining the image of “one country, two systems.” The entire debate raised the concerns of Washington, Taiwan, and foreign governments, heightening Beijing’s sensitivity. After the bill was withdrawn, the anti-extradition movement has become anti-police and anti-mainland, constantly challenging the legitimacy of the Hong Kong government and Beijing. This is a valuable read for China watchers, political scientists and all those interested in the future of East Asia.

This book explores the impact of governmental, institutional, and individual factors on journalists covering protests, using the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Movement as a case study. The discussion surveys the challenges frontline journalists have faced while covering protests that unfolded in complex and rapidly evolving geopolitical contexts and media ecologies. Complementing this is an analysis of the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress social movements by curtailing press freedom to silence criticism of the government and keep information about the protest efforts from the public. Separate chapters explore these issues from the perspectives of the citizen journalists, student journalists, and independent journalists who have played key roles in the most recent social movements in Hong Kong. It concludes with a look at the future of press freedom in the city after the passage of the National Security Law.

"Hong Kong is a city with a long history of civil disobedience. Antony Dapiran explores the historical and social stimuli and implications of public dissident movements from the turbulent 1960s until the most recent wave of protests, which became apparent in the 2014 Occupy Central movement. What emerges from these grassroots movements is a unique Hong Kong identity, one shaped neither by Britain nor China. City of Protest is a compelling look at the often-fraught relationship between politics and belonging, and a city's struggle to assert itself." --Publisher description.

The Hong Kong protests that began in the second half of 2019 captured the world’s attention as demonstrations against an extradition bill grew into a larger civil liberties movement. While protests began as peaceful demonstrations, the disproportionate police force with which the government responded escalated the situation to an international crisis. Kwok Pui-lan and Francis Ching-wah Yip bring together an international cohort to discuss the relation between Christianity and Communism and the neoliberal economy, as well as civil disobedience, religion and social movements, and the roles of the churches in social conflict. This interdisciplinary volume showcases theological reflections by many scholars and activists in Hong Kong.

A long-term resident and expert observer of dissent in Hong Kong takes readers to the frontlines of Hong Kong’s revolution. Through the long, hot summer of 2019, Hong Kong burned. Anti-government protests, sparked by a government proposal to introduce a controversial extradition law, grew into a pro-democracy movement that engulfed the city for months. Protesters fought street battles with police, and the unrest brought the People’s Liberation Army to the doorstep of Hong Kong. Driven primarily by youth protesters with their ‘Be water!’ philosophy, borrowed from hometown hero Bruce Lee, this leaderless, technology-driven protest movement defied a global superpower and changed Hong Kong, perhaps forever. In City on Fire, Antony Dapiran provides the first detailed analysis of the protests, and reveals the protesters’ unique tactics. He explains how the movement fits into the city’s long history of dissent, examines the cultural aspects of the movement, and looks at what the protests will mean for the future of Hong Kong, China, and China’s place in the world. City on Fire will be seen as the definitive account of an historic upheaval.

An urgent manifesto for global democracy from Joshua Wong, the 23-year-old phenomenon leading Hong Kong's protests - and Nobel Peace Prize nominee - with an introduction by Ai Weiwei With global democracy under threat, we must act together to defend out rights: now. When he was 14, Joshua Wong made history. While the adults stayed silent, Joshua staged the first-ever student protest in Hong Kong to oppose National Education -- and won. Since then, Joshua has led the Umbrella Movement, founded a political party, and rallied the international community around the anti-extradition bill protests, which have seen 2 million people -- more than a quarter of the population -- take to Hong Kong's streets. His actions have sparked worldwide attention, earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and landed him in jail twice. Composed in three parts, Unfree Speech chronicles Joshua's path to activism, collects the letters he wrote as a political prisoner under the Chinese state, and closes with a powerful and urgent call for all of us globally to defend our democratic values. When we stay silent, no one is safe. When we free our speech, our voice becomes one.

SCMP's reporting team looks back at Hong Kong's most wrenching political crisis since its return to Chinese rule in 1997. Anti-extradition bill protests that morphed rapidly into a wider anti-government movement in 2019 left no aspect of the city untouched, from its social compact to its body politic to its open economy. The demonstrations which continued well into 2020 have tested every institution of the city, from the civil service to the police to the courts and even its rail transport operator, and from offices and businesses to universities and schools, and from churches to families and even friends.This book is for anyone seeking to understand not just what Hong Kong has gone through but also the global phenomenon of increasingly leaderless protest movements. Fueled by profound angst about the place of millennial youth in society, widening income inequality, and the speed of digital communications, Hong Kong was in retrospect ripe to be the laboratory for a new-age protest movement, nearly a decade after the Middle East's Arab spring.The essays in the book collectively compose a picture of a society in trauma, bent and broken, but showing signs of an uncanny ability to bounce back. What shape it will be in a few years from now, however, is much harder to predict.Related Link(s)