Political Crisis in Hong Kong:Pressure and Resistance in the 2010s
（Tokyo University Press,2021）
Toru Kurata
（Professor, College of Law and Politics, Rikkyo University）
It is a great pleasure for me to be able to receive the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Award for my book “Hong Kong Political Crisis”. It is a great honor for me to be able to receive the award that has been received by many respected seniors in Asian studies and to be added to the list of award winners. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Foundation and the judges for selecting my work.
The studies on Hong Kong’s political situation did not attract much public attention until recent years. Hong Kong successfully launched the “one country, two systems” formula with its return to China in 1997. The city is considered an economic city that is the center of international finance, trade and commerce, however, having only half the area of Tokyo, the small city’s politics was not considered noteworthy.
It was in the 2010s that it rapidly “politicized” and attracted worldwide attention due to huge protests. Hong Kong citizens awakened to democracy and became enthusiastic about political activities, overturning common sense that Hong Kong people are not interested in politics. For me, who has been observing Hong Kong politics for many years, unpredictable situations have been repeated. I was forced to re-establish the premise of thinking from the ground up to write this book.
After the completion of this book, the government’s counterattack against pro-democracy camp was strengthened in Hong Kong, and a large-scale crackdown began. It is premature to judge whether the Hong Kong’s political crisis has been subdued by the government or whether a hasty political reform will bring a new crisis to Hong Kong in the future. But at least I can say that the reason why the peaceful Hong Kong politics fell into such a crisis may be deeply related to the great fluctuation and destabilization of the world order. The “one country, two systems” formula was a child of the reconciliation of different ideologies, namely, capitalism and socialism. Today, Hong Kong is about to become a rift in the world.
The crisis in Hong Kong politics symbolizes the crisis in East Asia in our time. I would like to continue my research as an encouragement for peace and democracy in Asia.

Profile
Toru KURATA is a professor at Rikkyo University. He completed the doctoral course at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo in 2008, getting a Ph.D. (Academic). He specializes in Hong Kong politics. He has been in his current position after working as a visiting scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong (2003-06), a research fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2006-08), and an associate professor at the School of International Studies, Kanazawa University (2008-13). He is the author of “Hong Kong after the handover to China” (University of Nagoya Press, 2009, Suntory Prize for Social Sciences). He co-authored “Hong Kong: Free City Facing China” (Iwanami Shinsho, 2015), and co-edited “Hong Kong and “Sinicization” ” (Akashi Shoten, 2022) and ”The Deep Layer of the Hong Kong Crisis”(Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Press, 2019), etc.