[Roundtable Discussion] Gen Z Protests in Pacific Rim Cities, 2019 to 2024
![[Roundtable Discussion] Gen Z Protests in Pacific Rim Cities, 2019 to 2024](//www.international.ucla.edu/media/images/w-large-es-bso.webp)
"Be Water" in Hong Kong, 2014 (by Jeffrey Wasserstrom)
Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, History Department, University of California, Irvine
Wednesday, February 11, 20263:00 PM
Bunche Hall, Room 10383
Roundtable Panel Information
This roundtable will look at Asian youth protests such as Hong Kong's "Be Water" movement, Bangkok's 2020-2021 demonstrations, and the Seoul struggle that put an end to a short-lived period of martial law. Some comparisons will also be made with youth activism on the U.S. side of the Pacific Rim during the same period. 2025 was hailed as the year of the Gen Z protester, due to movements everywhere from Nepal to North Africa involving young protesters rallying to the One Piece flag. As distinctive as last year's Gen Z protests were, including ongoing ones in South Korea, this event will help to put recent events into a novel perspective by reflecting on the half-decade that came before 2025 when young people were out on the streets in many Pacific Rim locales, as well as in other places such as Chile, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Moderated by Michael Berry (of Department of Asian Languages and Cultures of UCLA and Director of UCLA's Center for Chinese Studies), it will begin with brief comments by Jeffrey Wasserstrom (of UCI's History Department) introducing the discussion of Hong Kong and Thailand in his short book The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing (2025) and then shift to an open ended dialogue among panelists, with Ju Hui Judy Han (of UCLA's Gender Studies Department) and Judy Wu (of UCI's department of History and of Asian American Studies) bringing in events in South Korea and the United States..
Discussion
Moderated by Prof. Michael Berry, Dept. of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA
Professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom is a Distinguished Professor of History at UC Irvine where he also plays a leading role in its Forum for the Academy and the Public. He writes regularly for both academic journals and general interest periodicals and is the author, most recently, of Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink (2020) and The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing (2025), a pair of interrelated short book on youth activism. He is currently working on a book about Orwell and Asia, which is under contract with Princeton University Press.
Sponsor(s): Center for Korean Studies, Burkle Center for International Relations, Center for Chinese Studies, UCI's Forum for the Academy and the Public
