As I write this review in April 2019, the nine leaders of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement have been found guilty of public nuisance, with several of them sentenced to more than a year in prison. This is just one reason why, five years on, reaching a greater understanding of the Umbrella Movement and Taiwan's Sunflower Movement, which broke out just before and helped inspire the Hong Kong protests, has never been more critical. Ming-sho Ho's Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan's Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement offers much-needed data on where, why, and how these movements transpired.
The book's title and subtitle undersell the value of its contents. Ho does far more than just recount the story of the two movements; he also contextualizes them within Taiwan's and Hong Kong's political histories, explains the role that China has played in galvanizing them, and connects the movements to...
