City on fire The fight for Hong Kong

Hong Kong-based writer Dapiran, who has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, South China Morning Post, and Hong Kong Free Press, here covers the 2019 emergence of anti-government protests in Hong Kong. His first-person account shares his experiences at the demonstrations and recounts how Hong Kong residents reacted to new legal processes and policies from China. Readers may feel like they are on a journey in Hong Kong with Daprian as he unravels the intellectual and political developments of these movements and how the Hong Kong government responded and attempted to contain the protests. Drawing on a variety of sources--newspapers, social media, radio broadcasts, policy papers--Daprian explains the rise and implosion of the protests led by mostly youths and college students, and the economic, political, and cultural ramifications for Hong Kong. Readers interested in Hong Kong's history and politics and the history of social movements will find this engaging, engrossing book to be crucial in understanding the role of political demonstration in contemporary Hong Kong.

In 2019, Hong Kong was rocked by massive protests in response to the government's attempt to pass a bill that would have allowed accused criminals to be extradited to mainland China. Writer and Hong Kong resident Dapiran provides a thorough description of the events, from the murder of Poon Hui-wing in 2018, which was used as a justification for the extradition bill, to the district council elections in November 2019, which was an overwhelming victory for pro-democracy parties. Although the extradition bill was eventually withdrawn, the protests continued in part due to dissatisfaction with the undemocratic methods in which Hong Kong's Chief Executive and Legislative Council are elected. Dapiran shows how the protests brought worldwide attention to Hong Kong and civil liberties in an autonomous region. Readers will appreciate how the author places the events of 2019 in the context of earlier episodes in Hong Kong's history such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 1967 riots. VERDICT This fascinating read is essential for anyone interested in the current affairs of Hong Kong, specifically, and China, generally. Readers looking for a more academic take on a similar topic should consider Ngok Ma and Edmund W. Cheng's The Umbrella Movement.--Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX

Australian lawyer and journalist Dapiran, a longtime resident of Hong Kong, gives a commanding firsthand account of the recent--and ongoing--protests there. The author opens by first noting how freely Hong Kong police were in deploying tear gas to counter the seemingly unending chain of demonstrations that enveloped Hong Kong in 2019--in November, at a rate "approaching two rounds for every single minute of the day"--and how bravely the demonstrators fought back. As with the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989, the protests were touched off by a seemingly minor event, the question of whether an accused murderer sheltering in Hong Kong should be extradited to Taiwan, where he had committed his crime. That event gave rise to a broad-based discussion of whether the government in Beijing would observe the jealously guarded rights of the former British colony. "The year 2019 may be remembered as the year that defined post-handover Hong Kong; China's answer to that question will determine whether 2019 will also be remembered as the last year of Hong Kong as it once was," Dapiran writes. Beijing talks a good game of honoring those rights while taking an active role in trying to sway elections and inserting undercover soldiers and police on the streets, all the while attempting to avoid a Tiananmen-like crackdown at the cost of its international high standing. Dapiran argues that the 2019 protests were the continuation of the earlier "Umbrella Movement" of 2014. By implication, the author, who breathed in plenty of tear gas himself while monitoring them, suggests that the protests are likely to begin anew until Beijing honors the terms of the "One Country, Two Systems" model with which it has been trying to woo Taiwan to reunify--and he would seem to endorse the protestors' claim that they "were freedom fighters not only for their own city, but for the world." Excellent reportage that is of critical importance in understanding contemporary Chinese politics. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.