Hong Kong in the Shadow of China

Hong Kong in the Shadow of China tells the story of why the umbrella movement” failed to bring Hong Kong a more democratic system. the most vivid part of the tale occurred in the fall of 2014, when the umbrella movement-so-called because of the umbrellas protesters carried for protection against rain and pepper spray-occupied major thoroughfares in the city. those protests only punctuated a protracted debate over how to vest leaders with more legitimacy, while preserving social stability. they also became the background before which members of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments, the business community, politicians of every stripe, and political activists held fraught discussions on electing Hong Kong's chief executive through universal suffrage and on whether China should control the process. because there was too little trust among these political forces, a significant opportunity for progress was missed, and the previous, non-democratic mechanism for picking the chief executive will remain in force in the foreseeable future.Richard Bush takes us inside the debates and demonstrations and then pulls back to critically explore what Hong Kong and China must do to ensure both economic competitiveness and good governance and how these developments affect united states policy.