Co-sponsors: UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA Asia Pacific Center, Pomona Asian Studies, UCI Center for Asian Studies, UCD East Asian Studies,
UCSD International Institute

Online Event on Zoom
[US Pacific Time] October 13, 2022 6PM
[Hong Kong Time] October 14, 2022 9AM

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City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule

Abstract:
For decades, Hong Kong has maintained precarious freedom at the edge of competing world powers. In City on the Edge, Ho-fung Hung offers a timely and engaging account of Hong Kong's development from precolonial times to the present, with particular focus on the post 1997 handover period. Through careful analysis of vast economic data, a myriad of political events, and intricate networks of actors and ideas, Hung offers readers insight into the fraught economic, political, and social forces that led to the 2019 uprising, while situating the protests in the context of global finance and the geopolitics of the US-China rivalry. A provocative contribution to the discussion on Hong Kong's position in today's world, City on the Edge demonstrates that the resistance and repression of 2019-2020 does not spell the end of Hong Kong but the beginning of a long conflict with global repercussions.

Two Systems Two Countries: A Nationalist Guide to Hong Kong

Abstract:
Two Systems, Two Countries traces the origins of Hong Kong nationalism and introduces readers to its main schools of thought: city-state theory, self-determination, independence, and returnism. The idea of Hong Kong independence, Kevin Carrico shows, is more than just a provocation testing Beijing’s red lines: it represents a collective awakening to the failure of One Country Two Systems and the need to transcend obsolete orthodoxies. With a conclusion that examines Hong Kong nationalism’s influence on the 2019 protest movement, Two Systems, Two Countries is an engaging and accessible introduction to the tumultuous shifts in Hong Kong politics and identity over the past decade.

Ho-fung Hung

is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Protest with Chinese Characteristics (Columbia, 2011), The China Boom (Columbia, 2015), City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule (Cambridge, 2022) and Clash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War” (Cambridge, 2022).

Kevin Carrico

is senior lecturer at Monash University. He is the author of Two Systems, Two Countries: A Nationalist Guide to Hong Kong (University of California Press, 2022), The Great Han: Race, Nationalism, and Tradition in China Today (University of California Press, 2017) and translator of Tibet on Fire (Verso, 2016). He is also a former columnist for Hong Kong's Apple Daily.