“Review of ‘Denise Ho: Becoming the Song’” (Mekong Review, July 2020)

Sue Williams’ new film about Cantopop singer-turned-activist Denise Ho is, at base, a love story. Since 1989, Williams has been directing documentaries about China’s past and present, including films that cover its century of revolution with dramatic narrative and historical detail. Denise Ho: Becoming the Song is also a revolutionary tale, one that weaves Ho’s career trajectory with the history of Hong Kong since her childhood, a period in which the former British colony became a Chinese special administrative region.

Read more at: https://mekongreview.com/hos-sweet-home/

“Summer of protest: Are we witnessing a turning point in Hong Kong politics?” (The Big Q, August 13, 2019)

As Hong Kong’s summer of discontent passes its tenth week of street protests, analysts agree on one key point: this is the biggest political crisis the city has seen since its reversion from British colony to Chinese Special Administrative Region in 1997.

Read more at: https://www.thebigq.org/2019/08/13/summer-of-protest-are-we-witnessing-a-turning-point-in-hong-kong-politics/

“China’s Selective Memory” (Project Syndicate, May 2, 2019)

This year’s anniversaries of the 1919 and 1989 student protests in China will again highlight the Chinese authorities’ contradictory attitudes toward the two movements. As the People’s Republic looks ahead to the 70th anniversary of its founding this October, the country continues to reckon with its own history.

Read more at: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-may-fourth-tiananmen-student-protest-anniversaries-by-denise-y-ho-2019-05?barrier=accesspaylog

“Umbrella Movement on Trial” (Yale Daily News, November 26, 2018

On Nov. 14, 2018, a sociologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong gave his last lecture, entitled “Tribute to the Enlighteners.” To a standing room-only crowd of over 600 people, professor Chan Kin-man discussed his life of activism, which culminated in the 2014 Umbrella Movement, a demonstration in support of greater democracy for Hong Kong — a demonstration that lasted 79 days and drew the world’s attention to a moment of political awakening.

Read more at: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/11/26/ho-umbrella-movement-on-trial/

“The Double Helix of Chinese History” (Project Syndicate, March 15, 2018)

Now that China’s National People’s Congress has voted – 2,958 to two – to abolish presidential term limits, Xi Jinping could rule China indefinitely, rather than completing a tenure of two five-year terms in 2023. To what degree is Xi set to become the all-powerful ruler many observers predict?

Read more at: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-xi-authoritarianism-and-reform-by-denise-y-ho-2018-03.

“Reading Big-Character-Posters” (The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, November 7, 2017)

What is a Big-Character-Poster? It is a type of political writing, expressed on paper—in handwritten characters—and posted in a public place; a wall covered with such posters established a forum for discussion and dissemination.

Read more at: https://medium.com/fairbank-center/exhibiting-the-cultural-revolution-part-1-reading-big-character-posters-d3edd7bb0104.

“Exhibition as Theater: Art and China After 1989 at the Guggenheim” (Los Angeles Review of Books, “Exhibition as Theater, October 20, 2017)

The first time I saw Ai Weiwei’s art, I was appalled. Almost twenty years ago, long before he became an internationally-known contemporary artist, one of my Chinese-language classmates at Qinghua University brought me to Ai’s studio on the outskirts of Beijing.

Read more at: https://chinachannel.org/2017/10/20/exhibition-as-theater/.

“Can Free Speech on American Campuses Withstand Chinese Nationalism?” (China File, May 25, 2017)

Yang Shuping’s University of Maryland commencement address and its attendant furor is nothing new, as Pamela Kyle Crossley points out. In 1999, my classmates and I—in the Yale college courtyard from which Yifu Dong just graduated—woke up to find the entryways plastered with posters condemning the American attack on the Belgrade embassy.

Read more at: http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/can-free-speech-american-campuses-withstand-chinese-nationalism.