Hong Kong’s Long Struggle for Democracy
I was one of the organisers of the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement and was sentenced to sixteen months of imprisonment for inciting people to join a seventy-nine-day occupation of some major avenues in Hong Kong. Life in prison was difficult. Food was lousy. The temperature there was unbearably hot summer and chilly in winter. There were hundreds of rules regulating prison life. Sharing food and books or keeping an orange overnight could be punished by solitary confinement without books,...
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Escape from the British Museum: Cultural Heritage and China’s Rising Digital Nationalism
Chinese digital nationalism is having a moment. One display is a growing nationwide public interest in cultural heritage, a trend that is particularly pronounce... more
Games Gone Global: How China’s AI-augmented Games Found International Success
In June 2024, a report in the MIT Technology Review shows how AI is reinventing video games. Venture firms are investing in gaming start-ups, many of which util... more
China’s Second Generation of Left-behind Children
In March 2024, the shocking murder of a 13-year-old boy in Hebei province, allegedly by three classmates, triggered fierce debates on Chinese social media about... more
The Sacrificed Land: Q&A with Historian Ma Junya
Professor Ma Junya is a historian at Nanjing University. Ma’s book, The Sacrificed Land: Transformation of Huaibei’s Social Ecology, 1680–1949, first publ... more