Tales of Two Cities: Prodemocracy Protests and Beijing’s Lengthening Shadow in Bangkok and Hong Kong, 2015-2025
The last decade has been a dramatic one for Thailand's capital city. The government shifted from military to civilian control, two Bangkok-based progressive political parties did well in elections and then were banned, and massive street protests rocked the metropolis, sparking strongarm police actions and then lèse-majesté prosecutions.
It's useful to place these developments within local, national, and Southeast Asia-wide contexts. This presentation argues, however, that it can also be valuable to widen our view and place Bangkok beside an East Asian city: Hong Kong. Since the mid-2010s, some activists in these two cities, have been inspiring, expressing solidarity, and forging ties with one another. At the same time, political life in both cities has been increasingly affected by the lengthening shadow of Beijing, albeit in more direct ways in Hong Kong's case than in Bangkok's. The authorities in both urban centres have also mirrored each other when it comes to publicity drives and repressive techniques, from police strategies to lawfare techniques. This event draws on China specialist Jeffrey Wasserstrom's work on pro-democracy protests in those two cities and Myanmar as well, and Wichuta Teeratanabodee's research on transnational solidarities and publishing ventures spanning the borders between East and Southeast Asia. Ranging from the aftermath of the 2014 coup in Bangkok and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and to events in the two cities in 2025, this talk builds and expands on the claims made in two essays the presenters have co-authored for the Journal of Democracy.
Speaker & chair biographies
Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom is a Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, where he also holds courtesy appointments in Law and Literary Journalism. He regularly writes for general interest periodicals as well as academic journals. His most recent book, The Milk Tea Alliance, was published earlier this year by Columbia Global Reports and his next book, Everything You Wanted to Know About China* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), will be published early next year by Brixton Ink.
Wichuta Teeratanabodee is a PhD Candidate in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on social movements in East and Southeast Asia and their transnational linkages. Her writings can be found, among others, in the Journal of Contemporary Asia, the Journal of Democracy, and New Mandala.
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Dr. Petra Alderman is Manager of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and researcher with a notable country expertise on Thailand. She is the author of Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand (Routledge, 2023) and of articles in various disciplinary and area studies journals such as International Political Science Review, Geopolitics, Politics, and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs.
*Banner photo by Manson Yim on Unsplash
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