Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China’s Crackdown Reveals about Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere

A gripping history of China’s deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world. For 150 years as a British colony, Hong Kong was a beacon of prosperity and freedom. When the territory was handed over to China in 1997, the Communist Party promised that Hong Kong would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. But as the halfway mark approaches in 2022, it is clear that China has not kept its word to govern under the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World tells the complete story of how a city once famed for peaceful protests became a place where police have fired more than 10,000 rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition at their neighbours, while pro-government hooligans attack demonstrators in the streets. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation firsthand and has unrivalled access to the full range of the city’s society, from student protestors to aristocrats and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, this book is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time. AUTHOR: Mark L. Clifford is executive director of the Asia Business Council, editorial chair of the Asian Review of Books and a board member at Next Digital. He served as editor-in-chief of both English-language papers in Hong Kong, The Standard and the South China Morning Post. An honours history graduate of UC Berkeley and a fellow at Columbia University, he holds a University of Hong Kong PhD in Hong Kong history. 31 illustrations, 1 map