Freedom Undone Book Launch

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

7:00-8:15pm Eastern Time

Above, watch the video of our online book launch for Freedom Undone: The Assault on Liberal Values and Institutions in Hong Kong, a new Asia Shorts volume by Michael C. Davis.

Freedom Undone

What happens when liberal constitutional institutions are undone? Can Freedom survive the loss of separation of powers with the associated legal and political accountability? The Chinese Communist Party has been at the forefront in its disdain for liberal institutions and promoting illiberal alternatives. This disdain placed Hong Kong people on the frontlines of the global struggle for freedom. Since its handover from Britain, Hong Kong has felt the brunt of China’s illiberal agenda, recently with increased intensity since the crackdown in 2019 and Beijing’s imposition of a National Security Law in 2020. Thousands have been jailed and a city famous for vigorous protests has been silenced. Professor Michael Davis, a close observer who taught human rights and development in the city for three decades, takes us on the constitutional journey of both the city’s vigorous defense of freedom and its repressive undoing—a painful loss for Hong Kong and a lesson for the world.

Session Participants

Michael C. Davis, long a professor at the University of Hong Kong, where he taught courses on human rights and constitutional development until the fall of 2020, is currently a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University, and a Professor of Law and International Affairs at O.P. Jindal Global University in India. He also enjoys research affiliations at New York University and the University of Notre Dame. He has held several distinguished visiting professorships, including the J. Landis Martin Visiting Professor of Human Rights Law at Northwestern University (2005-2006), the Robert and Marion Short Visiting Professor of Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame (2004-2005), and the Frederick K. Cox Visiting Professor of Law at Case Western University (2000).

    Angelina Chin is Associate Professor and Chair of History at Pomona College. Chin’s teaching and research interests revolve around the themes of colonialism, political movements, diaspora, feminism, sexuality, and disability in modern East Asia. Her research focuses on the social histories of marginal people, identities and citizenship, as well as transregional networks in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Japan.

    Chin is author of Bound to Emancipate: Working Women and Urban Citizenship in Early Twentieth-Century China and Hong Kong (2012) and Unsettling Exiles: Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong and the Southern Periphery During the Cold War (2023).

    She is currently working on two projects on disability. One is about the blind workers’ labor movements in Hong Kong since the 1960s. The other is a multimedia project on assistive technologies and devices for people with disabilities. She has collaborated with social scientists and engineers in Japan, including the Institute of Ars Vivendi at Ritsumeikan University, the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), and the Department of Robotics at the Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT).

      Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy in the Department of Sociology and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Protest with Chinese Characteristics (Columbia, 2011), The China Boom (Columbia, 2015), City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule (Cambridge, 2022), and Clash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War” (Cambridge, 2022). His academic publications have been translated into at least 12 different languages. His analysis of global and Chinese politics and economy has been cited or featured in major media outlets worldwide.

        Thomas E. Kellogg is Executive Director of the Georgetown Law Center for Asian Law, where he oversees various programs related to law and governance in Asia. He is a leading scholar of legal reform in China, Chinese constitutionalism, and civil society movements in China.

        Prior to joining Georgetown Law, Professor Kellogg was Director of the East Asia Program at the Open Society Foundations. At OSF, he oversaw the expansion of the Foundation’s work in China, and also launched its work on Taiwan and North and South Korea. During his time at OSF, Professor Kellogg focused most closely on civil society development, legal reform, and human rights. He also oversaw work on a range of other issues, including public health, environmental protection, and media development.

        Before joining the Open Society Foundations, Professor Kellogg was a Senior Fellow at the China Law Center at Yale Law School. Prior to that, he worked as a researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. He holds degrees from Harvard Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and Hamilton College.