With the fifth anniversary of the last big Hong Kong marches behind us and the first anniversary of the National Security Law’s imposition on the horizon, Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Emily Feng assess the city’s recent past and significantly changed realities. What is the legacy of the protest surge of 2019? What is most and least surprising about how Hong Kong has been transformed in this decade? How can we place the Hong Kong story into national narratives about the way the PRC has been moving under Xi Jinping? How can we connect the Hong Kong events to trends in other parts of Asia and beyond?

In an interview conducted on April 9, 2025, Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Emily Feng, in conversation with Sewell Chan, discuss the implications of developments in Hong Kong over the last ten years for HK-mainland relations, Sino-American relations, and trends in the region.

About the speakers