Lessons for America from the Milk Tea Alliance

Hong Kong protestor in 2014 giving the three-finger Hunger Games salute. The yellow sticker reads: “I want real universal suffrage.” Image from IB Times

Historian and sinologist Jeffrey Wasserstrom is the Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of many books, including The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, and most recently, The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing.

We chatted to him about the Milk Tea Alliance, and America. This was recorded on the resonant date of June 4, 2025, before the No Kings protests in the U.S. of June 14.