After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong's first Handover, 1997-2019

This book offers a sharp, critical analysis of the rise and fall of the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong, including prior events like Occupy Central and the Mongkok Fishball Revolution, as well as their aftermaths in light of the re-assertion of mainland sovereignty over the SAR. Reading the conflict against the grain of those who would romanticize it or simply condemn it in nationalistic fashion, Vukovich goes beyond mediatized discourse to disentangle its roots in the Basic Law system as well as in the colonial and insufficiently post-colonial contexts and dynamics of Hong Kong. He examines the question of localist identity and its discontents, the problems of nativism, violence, and liberalism, the impossibility of autonomy, and what forms a genuine de-colonization can and might yet take in the city. A concluding chapter examines Hong Kong's need for state capacity and proper, livelihood development, in the light of theOmicron wave of the Covid pandemic, as the SAR goes forward into a second handover era.

1, Analyzes the ongoing transition of power in Hong Kong 2, Forecasts potential futures for the HKSAR 3, Situates Hong Kong's role as a mediating city between China and the West in historical context

Autorentext

Daniel F. Vukovich is tenured at Hong Kong University, a Visiting Professor of Politics at East China Normal University, and an Advisory Research Fellow at South East University, Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. His Illiberal China: The Ideological Challenge of the P.R.C. was published by Palgrave in 2019. His first book was China and Orientalism (Routledge, 2012), and he publishes widely in post-colonial and global studies.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: In the Event: the Politics and Contexts of the 2019 Anti-ELAB Protests.- Chapter 2: Basic Law, Basic Problems: Autonomy & Identity.- Chapter 3: Re-colonization or De-colonization in the Enclave?.- Chapter 4: CODA: The Search for State Capacity After Covid & Colonialism.