The Struggle for Hong Kong, 2014-2024
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
- Venue
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Room
- RB01
About this event
This panel discussion will look at the ten year period that has just ended, which began with the Umbrella Movement and concluded with a year that saw Hong Kong under tight control and political trials underway.
How has a spirit of resistance remained part of the Hong Kong story both within the city in subtle ways and within the diaspora in more overt forms? What are the most valuable comparisons to draw when trying to make sense of Hong Kong's recent past and think about its future and the activities of Hong Kongers around the world? How useful is it, for example, to place the Hong Kong story beside that of Tibet, for some purposes, beside that of Taiwan, for others? These are among the questions that Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Amy Hawkins (who collaborated on the 2020 Columbia Global Reports book Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink and have worked together again on an updated edition of that work published this month by Bui Jones Books) will take up in a discussion in which they will be joined by Isabel Hilton, the author of The Search for the Panchen Lama (2001).
Panellists
Jeffrey Wassersrtrom is Chancellor's Professor of History at UC Irvine and a former Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College. His most recent book is Vigil: The Struggle for Hong Kong (Bui Jones Books, 2025), an updated version of his 2020 Columbia Global Reports book Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink. His second Columbia Global Reports book, The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing, will be published in the spring.
Amy Hawkins is the Guardian's Senior China Correspondent. She covers the country's rise, challenges, and relationship with the world. She is a regular contributor to the BBC and the TLS, and before working at the Guardian she worked at the Economist. She has also published freelance articles in venues such as Foreign Policy and the Atlantic and wrote the "Foreword" to Vigil: The Struggle for Hong Kong (Bui Jones Book, 2025).
Isabel Hilton is a London-based writer and broadcaster and contributing editor at Prospect. The Founder of the China Dialogue Trust, the author of The Search for the Panchen Lama (2001), and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, she has published articles and reviews on China, Hong Kong, Tibet, and other parts of the world in periodicals ranging from New Yorker and the TLS to the Guardian and the Financial Times.
Chair: Professor Steve Tsang, Director, SOAS China Institute
Registration
This event is free to attend, but registration is required. Please note that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
This event is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed.
Organiser
Contact
- Email: sci@soas.ac.uk
