Defying the Dragon, Stephen Vines
Defying the Dragon, Stephen Vines
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Defying the Dragon
Hong Kong and the World's Largest Dictatorship

Author: Stephen Vines

Narrator: Kathleen Li

Unabridged: 12 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/17/2022


Synopsis

Defying the Dragon tells a remarkable story of audacity: of how the people of Hong Kong challenged the PRC's authority, just as its president reached the height of his powers. Is Xi's China as unshakeable as it seems? What are its real interests in Hong Kong? Why are Beijing's time-honored means of control no longer working there? And where does this leave Hongkongers themselves?

Stephen Vines has lived in Hong Kong for over three decades. His book shrewdly unpacks the Hong Kong-China relationship and its wider significance—right up to the astonishing convergence of political turmoil and international crisis with Covid-19 and the 2020-21 crackdown.

Vividly describing the uprising from street level, Vines explains how and why it unfolded, and its global repercussions. Now, the international community is reassessing relations with Beijing, just as Hong Kong's rebellion and China's handling of the pandemic have exposed the regime's weakness. In a crisis that has become existential all round, what lies ahead for Hong Kong, China and the world?

About Stephen Vines

Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist who hosts current affairs TV show The Pulse. The founding editor of the Eastern Express, and author of Hong Kong: China's New Colony among other books, he has worked for the BBC, The Observer, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and The Sunday Times.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ben

Democracy, Resistance, and Human Rights An important read about Hong Kong. I also found that it tackled the COVID crisis quite well from the beginning of the pandemic. A lot of this book dealt with some pretty wild corruption cases. Yikes! There is also some good detail about human rights and what is go......more

Goodreads review by Kevin

The significance of the whole book is to record in history the process in which HK was completely destroyed by centralization, and how the people of HK resisted. HK is a mirror. Any democratic country that attempts to adopt appeasement policies towards totalitarian regimes should take warning. 24-73......more