Imagining a city-based democracy : review of “The Appearing Demos: Hong Kong During and After the Umbrella Movement by Laikwan Pang,” University of Michigan Press, 2020

In the past five to six years, Hong Kong has gone through a drastic change. Six years ago, after the end of the Umbrella Movement, people resumed normal lives. It was hardly to be imagined that another large-scale social movement would occur within a decade. However, because of the extradition law proposed by the government, that is precisely what happened in 2019. The situation is changing on a daily basis; intellectual responses may already look dated at the time they are published. Yet, Laikwan Pang’s attempt at theorization and dialogue with Hannah Arendt’s philosophy, The Appearing Demos: Hong Kong During and After the Umbrella Movement, maintains its freshness, providing fruitful intellectual resources for readers to rethink the current situation of Hong Kong.