Becoming a Cyber Power: China's cybersecurity upgrades and its consequences

CEFC News Analysis Debating Constitutionalism in China: Dreaming of a liberal turn?

Friend or Foe? The Diminishing Space of China's Civil Society

China’s New Rural Land Reform? Assessment and Prospects

Under the Shadow of China. Beijing’s policy towards Hong Kong and Taiwan in comparative perspective

Hong Kong After the Umbrella Movement: An uncertain future for “One Country Two Systems”

Explaining Localism in Post-handover Hong Kong: An Eventful Approach

ABSTRACT: The pro-democracy movement in post-handover Hong Kong had long been an intense struggle between the hybrid regime and prodemocracy civil society. Since the early 2010s, a new political force, broadly known as the localists, has entered the political domain through a series of protest events and elections. However, just as they gained a foothold in politics, the hybrid regime swiftly moved in to clamp down on the nascent movement to keep them out of the political system. What explains the ebbs and flows of Hong Kong’s localist movement? This essay posits that localism is not an inevitable product of the macro-structural socio-political process, but an amalgam of ideas and action logics assembled sequentially through events and discursive constructions. We argue that localism first emerged through the interplay between antimainlandisation protests and both online and intellectual discourse, and officially ascended to the political stage after the Umbrella Movement. Despite their meteoric rise, localists’ militant actions have allowed the hybrid regime to marginalise the nascent force through legal and non-legal repression, which has in turn created a “divided structure of contestation” among the opposition. KEYWORDS: localism, Hong Kong, democratisation, China, protests, hybrid regime, civil society.

Disciplining the Party: Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign and its limits

Taming the “Foreign Tigers”: China’s anti-trust crusade against multinational companies