Nobel Laureates met recently in Hong Kong to sign a memorandum calling for cities to help guard against climate change. As the most creative places on the planet, big cities are the perfect place to meet this challenge.
Good historians know that history rarely teaches clear lessons. When it does, we should heed them. In the 1920s, urban visionaries completely refashioned midtown Manhattan, making it the most modern and…
As the last remaining protesters were being cleared from Hong Kong’s streets, many Westerners lamented the silencing of what they saw as China’s only pro-democracy voice. To them, the umbrella movement…
The latest Hunger Games film, Mockingjay – Part 1, is topping the international box office. Although it’s a Hollywood blockbuster aimed at young adults, it presents potentially quite subversive ideas of…
The haunting image of a masked protester defiantly hoisting two black umbrellas amid a cloud of tear gas flickered across global social media platforms in the seconds and minutes after the Umbrella uprising…
The umbrellas were out in full force on Monday night in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong – but mainly because it was actually raining. A few hundred people, myself included, had shown up to listen to…
Time is running out for Hong Kong’s protest movement. Beijing’s last shred of patience has worn thin; police have cleared one of the protest zones in the commercial neighbourhood of Mong Kok, arresting…
A direct link has been established between Hong Kong and Shanghai’s stock exchanges. The so-called Stock Connect means investors in Hong Kong can now buy shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange via…
President Obama arrived in Beijing Monday to participate in this week’s meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. He will have talks with China’s president Xi Jinping on the fringes…
The media spotlight has shifted away from Hong Kong and toward President Obama’s visit to Beijing, but students and activists remain in Admiralty and Mong Kok, and their demands for political change have…
After decades of deepening globalisation and interconnection, movements championing national identity and power are sweeping the globe. Breakaway regions, independence referendums, and campaigns for stronger…
We often think of the distinction between legal and illegal as a matter of black and white – but with its universal suffrage movement still underway, Hong Kong is dealing with a much more complicated reality…
Tempers have flared again at the site of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, with masked men attempting to dismantle the protesters’ barricades. After a tense fortnight, the eyes of the world are…
Complaints about the supposed political apathy of todays’ students are not uncommon among middle-aged professors. Historian [Mark Lilla](http://www.zeit.de/2014/37/ideologie-freiheit-westen](http://www.zeit.de/2014/37/ideologie-freiheit-westen…
Obviously, many Hong Kongers are not happy with the way their territory has been governed since it was returned to China in 1997. The recent protests have escalated to such a scale that the central Chinese…
Almost exactly a week after an infamous incident of police brutality against demonstrating students lit a fire under the Occupy Central campaign, the so-called umbrella movement is now facing another assault…
The recent mass demonstrations in Hong Kong that have been calling for greater democracy saw the police initially responding with riot squads, tear gas and pepper spray against peaceful protesters. However…