Jerome Cohen on the Hong Kong protests and the law

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In this live show taped at New York University on October 16, Jeremy and Kaiser spoke with Jerry Cohen, the doyen of American studies of Chinese law. We explore the legal foundations for the Hong Kong handover in 1997, and how imprecision has contributed to many of the difficulties playing out in Hong Kong’s streets today.

5:43: Ambiguity in Hong Kong Basic Law

19:38: A look at the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill

32:35: Changing repercussions for detained and imprisoned Hongkongers

37:59: Hong Kongโ€™s legal system wilting under pressure from Beijing

51:08: The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019

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Recommendations:

Jeremy: A series of oral histories by Ben Mauk, Weather Reports: Voices from Xinjiang.

Jerry: The works of a few individuals shining a light on the atrocities occurring in Xinjiang: James Leibold, Jim Millward, and Adrian Zenz.

Kaiser: Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation, by Andrew Marantz.

This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.