The Hong Kong Crisis: Historical and Comparative Perspectives
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How can we better understand the evolving place of Hong Kong within the PRC and help students understand the current events there? Sinologist Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author of Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink (publication date: February 2020) analyzes the ongoing 2019 Hong Kong protests within the context of increasing political control in Xi Jinping’s China. He also offers analogies, frameworks, and comparative lenses for considering the 2019 protests in light of earlier Chinese protests (the 1919 May 4th Movement and the 1989 Tiananmen protests) and 20th-century European Cold War geopolitics.