Hong Kong

posts related to Hong Kong

HK’s last remaining activist

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Source: NYT (11/27/24)
Meet One of Hong Kong’s Last Remaining Pro-Democracy Activists
For Chan Po-ying, a labor rights leader, life is one of constant police surveillance, even on hikes. But she finds solace from tiny gestures of support.
By Tiffany May

Chan Po-ying posed for photographs in Hong Kong on Friday. Credit…Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

When a court in Hong Kong sentenced 45 pro-democracy politicians and activists to prison sentences of up to 10 years, it took down the city’s once-vocal opposition in one fell swoop, making clear the risks of dissent.

But a handful still remain.

One of them is Chan Po-ying, the 68-year-old leader of the League of Social Democrats, a political party focused on labor and social welfare.

Hong Kong’s opposition was once a small but formidable presence. Lawmakers organized filibusters to block bills they saw as limiting freedoms. Street marches were common. Then, after anti-government protests engulfed Hong Kong in 2019, China imposed a sweeping crackdown on the city.

Ms. Chan took over as the party’s chairwoman in 2021 after the arrest of several members and leaders, including her husband, Leung Kwok-hung, a former lawmaker better known as Long Hair. Mr. Leung was among those sentenced last week. Continue reading HK’s last remaining activist →

HK pro-democracy leaders jailed

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Source: NYT (11/18/24)
Dozens of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Leaders Are Jailed Up to 10 Years
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The 45 defendants, including Joshua Wong, were at the forefront of the opposition movement crushed by Beijing. Many had already been in jail for years.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

Ventus Lau is one of 45 activists and politicians who was sentenced in the city’s biggest national security trial. His girlfriend, Emilia Wong, a gender rights activist, talks about the impact his case has had on their relationship. Credit…Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Anywhere else, it wouldn’t have been controversial: a public vote by pro-democracy activists trying to strengthen their hand in legislative elections, to decide who should run. More than 600,000 people took part in the peaceful, unofficial poll.

But this was Hong Kong, just after the imposition of a national security law by Beijing, and officials had warned that even a straw poll would be taken as defiance.

On Tuesday, the price of defying Beijing was made clear. Forty-five former politicians and activists who had organized or taken part in the 2020 primary by the opposition camp were sentenced by a Hong Kong court to prison, including for as long as 10 years. Continue reading HK pro-democracy leaders jailed →

Sedition in Hong Kong

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Source: NYT (9/27/24)
This Is What Can Land You in Jail for Sedition in Hong Kong
Three men were the first to be convicted under the city’s recently expanded national security law, which has greatly curtailed political speech.
By David Pierson and Tiffany May

Visitors in a museum look at a screen where Xi Jinping is speaking in front of microphones.

Visitors watching a video of Xi Jinping at the National Security Exhibition in Hong Kong Museum of History in August. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

Wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan.

Scrawling pro-democracy graffiti on public bus seats.

Criticizing Xi Jinping on social media.

Three men in Hong Kong were sentenced to prison last week for these acts of protest, which in another era probably would have drawn little notice — showing the power of a newly expanded national security law aimed at muzzling dissent.

The rulings, rendered over two days by a judge whom Hong Kong’s leader handpicked, highlight the political transformation that has taken place here.

A financial center and a city accustomed to freedom of political expression, Hong Kong now more closely resembles mainland China, where criticism of the ruling Communist Party is rarely, if ever, tolerated. Continue reading Sedition in Hong Kong →

CUHK position

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The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Assistant Professor / Associate Professor (Substantiable-track) – (240002GQ)
Department/ Unit: Centre for China Studies
Closing Date: November 15, 2024

The Centre for China Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) seeks to appoint a faculty member to help further strengthen the study of modern and contemporary China in a global context. An interdisciplinary research and teaching unit that directly speaks to one of the University’s strategic areas for development, the Centre offers degree programmes at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Applicants trained in humanities disciplines with a focus on modern and contemporary China, especially those from the fields of anthropology, history, cultural and media studies, are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate should be able to teach courses in English to a diverse student body and is committed to interdisciplinary research and innovative pedagogy.

Applicants should have (i) a PhD degree in a relevant academic discipline; (ii) a clear research profile that contributes to and extends the existing strengths of the Centre; (iii) a strong record or potential of quality publications and grant applications; (iv) a strong dedication to teaching and student engagement. To be considered for appointment at the rank of Associate Professor, applicants should have achieved a high standing in the relevant research field and demonstrated academic and international professional leadership. Continue reading CUHK position →

HK editors convicted of sedition

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Source: NYT (8/28/24)
Hong Kong Editors Convicted of Sedition in Blow to Press Freedom
The editors said they published stories in the public interest. A judge ruled they were guilty of a crime against national security.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

Two men stand outside a building as a group of journalists photograph them.

Patrick Lam, left, and Chung Pui-kuen of Stand News leaving court in Hong Kong last year. Credit…Louise Delmotte/Associated Press

The two veterans of Hong Kong’s long boisterous news media scene didn’t shy away from publishing pro-democracy voices on their Stand News site, even as China cranked up its national security clampdown to silence critics in the city.

Then the police came knocking and, more than two and a half years later, a judge Thursday convicted the two journalists — the former editor in chief of Stand News, Chung Pui-kuen, and his successor, Patrick Lam — of conspiring to publish seditious materials on the now-defunct liberal news outlet. Both face potential prison sentences.

The landmark ruling highlighted how far press freedom has shrunk in the city, where local news outlets already self censor to survive and some foreign news organizations have left or moved out staff amid increasing scrutiny from the authorities.

During the trial, prosecutors characterized news articles and opinion pieces published by the two as biased against the government and a threat to national security. The articles were similar to those Stand News had been publishing for years. But after the authorities crushed protests that rocked the city in 2019, China imposed a national security law, and tolerance for dissent in the city’s freewheeling media began to evaporate. Continue reading HK editors convicted of sedition →

Fighting sexual temptation in HK

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Source: NYT (8/26/24)
Fighting Sexual Temptation? Play Badminton, Hong Kong Tells Teenagers.
Top officials in the Chinese territory have defended new sex education guidance that critics call regressive. Young people are amused.
By Olivia Wang and Mike Ives, Olivia Wang reported from Hong Kong.

People playing badminton in a gym.

Playing badminton in Hong Kong. Credit…Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

In Hong Kong, the authorities advise the young man to continue studying or to seek a diversion, including badminton, to avoid premarital sex and other “intimate behaviors.”

Critics, including lawmakers and sex educators, say that the Chinese territory’s new sex education materials are regressive. But top officials are not backing down, and the standoff is getting kind of awkward.

“Is badminton the Hong Kong answer to sexual impulses in schoolchildren?” the South China Morning Post newspaper asked in a headline over the weekend.

Hong Kong teenagers find it all pretty amusing. A few said on social media that the officials behind the policy have their “heads in the clouds.” Others have worked it into sexual slang, talking about “friends with badminton” instead of “friends with benefits.”

The sex ed materials were published last week by the Education Bureau in a 70-page document that includes worksheets for adolescents and guidance for their teachers. The document emphasizes that the lessons are not designed to encourage students to “start dating or having sexual behaviors early in life.” It also advises people in a “love relationship” to fill out a form setting the limits of their intimacy. Continue reading Fighting sexual temptation in HK →

Exhibit shows how China wants to remake HK

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Source: NYT (8/23/24)
A History Museum Shows How China Wants to Remake Hong Kong
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A new exhibit calls for the city’s residents to be patriotic, loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and ever vigilant to supposed threats to the state.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

A person spreads their arms wide as they pose for a picture in front of a Chinese flag in a darkened museum room. Other patrons are nearby, in shadow.

A new exhibit on national security at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Credit…Anthony Kwan for The New York Times

The Hong Kong Museum of History was the place to go to understand the city’s transformation from fishing village to a glittering metropolis. It housed a life-size replica of a traditional fishing boat and a recreation of a 19th-century street lined with shops.

That exhibit, known as “The Hong Kong Story,” is being revamped. People have instead been lining up for a splashy new permanent gallery in the museum that tells a different, more ominous story about the city — that Hong Kong is constantly at risk of being subverted by hostile foreign forces. The exhibit features displays about spies being everywhere and footage of antigovernment street protests in the city that were described as instigated by the West.

As he kicked off the exhibition this month, John Lee, the Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong, made clear that its overarching purpose was to be a warning to the city. “Safeguarding national security is always a continuous effort. There is no completion,” he said. The gallery, which is managed by Hong Kong’s top national security body, opened to the public on Aug. 7.

The exhibit points to a new aspect of the Hong Kong government’s crackdown on the city after antigovernment protests in 2019 posed the greatest challenge to Beijing’s rule in decades. The authorities have introduced security laws to quash dissent in the years since. They are now pushing to control how people will remember the recent political turmoil. Continue reading Exhibit shows how China wants to remake HK →

Backreading HK symposium–cfp

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Backreading Hong Kong Symposium on “Diaspora and Adaptation”
Call for Abstracts
Deadline: Sunday 25 August 2024

The 2024 edition of the Backreading Hong Kong Symposium will be held in person in Toronto on 18–19 November 2024. The theme of this year is “Diaspora and Adaptation”.

The concept of diaspora has profound implications for understanding cultural identity, migration, and community formation. In the context of Hong Kong, the dynamics of diaspora and adaptation are particularly poignant given its unique historical, political, and cultural trajectory. This symposium seeks to explore the multifaceted relationship between Hong Kong and the concept of diaspora, exploring not only how immigrants adapt to Hong Kong’s cultural and political ecology but also how the Hong Kong diaspora community adapts to different cultural environments globally. Additionally, the conference will broaden the scope of adaptation to include cross-genre adaptations of works of art, examining how artistic expressions are transformed to, within, and from Hong Kong.

We invite established and early-career scholars, researchers, and practitioners to present papers that address the following sub-topics, although submissions on related topics will also be considered: Continue reading Backreading HK symposium–cfp →

Open Books Hong Kong

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Open Books Hong Kong: Three Universities Launch Hong Kong’s First Open Access Books Programme

In a landmark collaboration, the libraries and university presses of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, and The University of Hong Kong are launching Open Books Hong Kong, a pioneering open access initiative, to foster global knowledge sharing and biblio-diversity. This is the first open access books programme in Hong Kong.

On 17 July 2024, the initiative releases nine books in the fields of humanities and social sciences. These Chinese-language works, authored by distinguished Hong Kong and international scholars, are freely accessible to the global community, demonstrating our commitment to the open dissemination of knowledge. Additional books will become openly available in the coming months.

Open Books Hong Kong not only showcases the high-calibre research published by Hong Kong’s three university presses but also addresses the significant gap in open-access resources for Chinese-language monographs. This pilot programme, currently modest in scope, is a bold step towards a sustainable model for sharing the rich insights and discoveries of the intellectual community of Chinese and international scholars. The programme aligns with the goals of the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong to embrace open access for the benefit of the academic community and the general public as well as to contribute to the global open knowledge movement.

The initiative builds on the strengths of Hong Kong as a bridge between China and the rest of the world and will foster cross-cultural understanding. Benjamin Meunier, University Librarian of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, said: “Open Books Hong Kong stands as a testament to the generosity and forward-thinking nature of Hong Kong people, offering a treasure trove of knowledge to all who seek it.”

For more information about the programme and to download the books, please visit our website at openbookshongkong.com.

Posted by: Minlei Ye minleiye@cuhk.edu.hk

HK Media and Asia’s Cold War review

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Man-Fung Yip’s review of Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War, by Po-Shek Fu. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/man-fung-yip/. My thanks to our new media studies book review editor, Shaoling Ma, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War

By Po-Shek Fu

Reviewed by Man-Fung Yip

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July, 2024)

Po-Shek Fu, Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 256pp. ISBN: 9780190073770 (paperback); 9780190073763 (hardcover)

Over the decades, Po-Shek Fu has established himself as one of the most respected scholars in the field of Chinese-language cinema. His latest book on the cultural Cold War in Hong Kong of the 1950s and 1960s, with a focus on film and print media, offers the first systematic English-language study of this important but little-examined subject.

Divided into four main chapters, plus a preface and an epilogue, the book covers the period—from the late 1940s to the late 1960s—to which the cultural Cold War in Hong Kong was most germane. The first chapter offers a comprehensive mapping of the cinematic Cold War in Hong Kong and makes a convincing case for what Fu calls the “cinematic containment” of leftist or pro-communist “patriotic” cinema on the part of pro-Taiwan forces and the United States. Each of the following three chapters focuses on a case study to further explore the complex dynamics and meanings of the cultural Cold War in Hong Kong: the US-sponsored Chinese Student Weekly and its ties with the liberal “third force” movement in Republican China in chapter 2; Asia Pictures, a film studio founded by Chang Kuo-sin 張國興 with support from the Asia Foundation (a CIA-funded nongovernmental organization), in chapter 3; and the Shaw Brothers studio in chapter 4. The epilogue concludes the book by focusing on the period of the late 1960s and 1970s, when the rise of a new, local-born generation challenged and reshaped the Cold War networks of émigré cultural production, which in turn led to a gradual winding down of Hong Kong’s status as a battlefield of Asia’s cultural Cold War. Continue reading HK Media and Asia’s Cold War review →

School of Cantonese Studies 2024

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School of Cantonese Studies 2024

School of Cantonese Studies 2024 will be jointly organized by Hong Kong Metropolitan University and the Education University of Hong Kong. The theme of School 2024 is Cantonese studies with a comparative approach. Speakers of the School will highlight the special features of Cantonese through comparisons with other major languages such as Standard Chinese and English. Topics in this 4-day School include phonology, grammar, language and society, historical development of Cantonese, IT in Cantonese learning and teaching.

Date: 12 – 15 August 2024 (Mon to Thu), am and pm
Venue: Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Homantin, Hong Kong

*Medium of instruction: Cantonese supplemented with English and Putonghua.

https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/fmo/campus-information/directions-to-campus/

About the SchoolSchool of Cantonese Studies was first organized in 2019 at the Education University of Hong Kong from 27 to 31 May 2019.The aims of the School are as follows:(a) to introduce recent developments and knowledge on different domains in Cantonese Studies to the participants;

(b) to introduce systematic and rigorous methodologies for conducting research on Cantonese;

(c) to provide a venue for scholarly exchange and interaction between scholars and participants of different backgrounds who are interested in Cantonese Studies.

The five-day event covered nine lectures delivered by twelve scholars specializing in Cantonese studies. There were 60 participants coming from different parts of the world. [See https://www.eduhk.hk/lml/scs2019/en/]

The School of 2021 (online mode) carried the theme “Cantonese Studies in the Digital Age”. In the two-day event, speakers of the School introduced some up-to-date Cantonese studies involving digital technologies, such as corpus-based research, online tools and resources for Cantonese studies, and digital processing of Cantonese corpus data. [see https://www.eduhk.hk/lml/scs2021/en/]

Continue reading School of Cantonese Studies 2024 →

HK convicts activists

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Source: NYT (5/30/24)
Hong Kong Convicts Democracy Activists in Largest National Security Trial
As part of China’s crackdown on even peaceful opposition, a court in Hong Kong convicted 14 people, who now face prison time along with dozens of others.
By Tiffany May

A black bus labeled “HKCS” turns off a road, toward a building. People with video cameras are in the foreground, filming.

A prison bus arriving at court in Hong Kong on Thursday, before verdicts were announced in a national security trial. Credit…Leung Man Hei/EPA, via Shutterstock

Fourteen democracy activists in Hong Kong were convicted on Thursday on national security charges, adding to the ranks of dozens of others — once the vanguard of the city’s opposition — who may now become a generation of political prisoners.

The authorities had accused 47 pro-democracy figures, including Benny Tai, a former law professor, and Joshua Wong, a protest leader and founder of a student group, of conspiracy to commit subversion. Thirty-one of them had earlier pleaded guilty. On Thursday, judges picked by Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed leader convicted 14 of the remaining activists and acquitted two others. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

The convictions show how the authorities have used the sweeping powers of a national security law imposed by Beijing to quash dissent across broad swathes of society. Most of the defendants had already spent at least the last three years in detention before the 118-day trial ended.

Some of those accused are former lawmakers who joined politics after Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule by the British in 1997. Others are activists and legislators who have advocated self-determination for Hong Kong with more confrontational tactics. Several, like Mr. Wong, who rose to fame as a teenage activist, were among the students leading large street occupations in 2014 for the right to vote. Continue reading HK convicts activists →

HK court bans democracy song

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Source: NYT (5/8/24)
Hong Kong Court Bans Democracy Song, Calling It a ‘Weapon’
The decision could give the government power to force Google and other tech companies to limit access to “Glory to Hong Kong,” an anthem of 2019 protests.
By Tiffany May, Reporting from Hong Kong

People, most of them wearing face masks, gather outdoors and sing at night. Many of them are holding their phones to shine lights.

People singing “Glory to Hong Kong” during a pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong in 2019. Credit…Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Hong Kong court on Wednesday granted a government request to ban a popular pro-democracy anthem, raising further concerns about free speech in the city.

The decision, which overturned an initial ruling, could give the government power to force Google and other tech companies to restrict online access to the song in Hong Kong. The decision threatens to deepen anxiety about the city’s status as an international gateway to China, away from its censorship controls.

At issue in the case is “Glory to Hong Kong,” which emerged in 2019 as an unofficial anthem for democracy protests and a flashpoint for the authorities, who considered it an insult to China’s national anthem. The song has been banned from Hong Kong schools and has drawn angry official rebukes when played, apparently by mistake, at international sports events.

Beijing has asserted greater control over the former British colony in recent years by imposing a national security law that has crushed nearly all forms of dissent. People convicted of posting seditious content online have gone to prison.

Lin Jian, a spokesman of China’s foreign ministry, said in a news briefing that the court’s verdict was a “legitimate and necessary move by Hong Kong to fulfill its constitutional responsibility of safeguarding national security and the dignity of the national anthem.” Continue reading HK court bans democracy song →

The Films of Chor Yuen–cfp

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Call for Papers: ReFocus: The Films of Chor Yuen
Editors: Jessica Siu-yin Yeung, Tom Cunliffe, and Raymond Tsang

The veteran film cultural worker Law Kar called Chor Yuen 楚原 (b. Cheung Po-kin, 1934–2022) “a stylist without an intrinsic style and an auteur without an eternal obsession”. Another veteran film cultural worker Shu Kei called Chor Yuen “The Last Guardian of Cantonese cinema” in relation to the Cantonese cinema’s decline in the late-1960s to early-1970s. These critical perspectives on Chor Yuen situate him in the producer-driven Hong Kong film industry and its studio system, contextualising his works within the industrial conditions and the seismic changes that took place at various crucial points between the late 1950s and the early 1990s. These commentaries also confirm Chor Yuen’s pivotal role in bridging the Hong Kong Cantonese cinema in the 1950s–1960s and more contemporary Hong Kong cinema.

Chor Yuen is one of the few filmmakers to have successfully transitioned from making films in the 1950s all the way up to his last in 1990, excelling in directing, writing, and producing films in most popular genres. His career encompasses and, in some cases, has instigated many of the most important trends and shifts over these decades. His agility in moving to and succeeding at different studios with different house styles and different genres is unmatched. In the “100 Must-See Hong Kong Movies” list compiled by the Hong Kong Film Archive Selection Panel, Chor Yuen’s works took up five places. Despite his illustrious status and copious works, there is little academic research on Chor Yuen. As such, this anthology will rectify this wrong, and assess Chor Yuen through the studios he worked for and the many genres he was involved in to demonstrate the central position he has in Hong Kong film history and the wider world of Chinese cinemas. It will also provide a much more comprehensive overview of his entire career to redress his image outside of Hong Kong as being known primarily as a director of aesthetically lush wuxia films. Continue reading The Films of Chor Yuen–cfp →

RFA closes HK office

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Source: WSJ (3/29/24)
U.S.-Funded Radio Free Asia Closes Hong Kong Office in Wake of New Security Law
News outlet cites questions about safety as the city intensifies scrutiny of ‘external forces’
By Elaine Yu

Hong Kong’s new law imposes severe punishments for interference by foreign forces deemed to threaten national security. PHOTO: JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

HONG KONG—Radio Free Asia, a U.S. government-funded news operation, closed its office in Hong Kong, an early sign of the impact that a new national security law is having on some media operations in the Asian financial center.

The law, which went into effect Saturday, imposes severe punishments for interference by foreign forces deemed to threaten national security and criminalizes the possession or disclosure of state secrets.

RFA, as a publication supported by the U.S. federal gov-ernment, was potentially more exposed than commercial media outlets to provisions in the new law. In a news briefing last month, Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang criticized RFA for what he called incorrect reporting that some of the new law’s offenses target the media, and noted that the publication is funded by Washington.

RFA President Bay Fang said Friday that the news outlet closed its Hong Kong bureau in response to the law and no longer has full-time staff in the city, but it is keeping its official media registration there.

Actions by Hong Kong authorities “raise serious questions about our ability to operate in safety,” Fang said. The news outlet maintains an organizational firewall to safeguard its editorial independence from its funder, the U.S. Congress, Fang added. Continue reading RFA closes HK office →