Dr Yao-tai Li1
1UNSW Sydney, Australia
Biography:
Yao-Tai Li is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at University of New South Wales, Australia. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include migration, identity, contentious politics, and social media. He is the author of "Protest Walls: Co-authoring Contentious Repertoires" (published by Cambridge University Press). His work has been published in several scholarly journals including British Journal of Sociology, International Affairs, World Development, New Media and Society, Big Data & Society, International Migration Review, Discourse & Society, Identities, Social Movement Studies, Social Science Computer Review, among others.
Abstract:
This paper examines social media posts and uses surveys to determine whether and why pro-democracy individuals in Hong Kong reconcile two seemingly incongruent understandings of democracy – support for Hong Kong’s democratic future in alignment with global democracy and support for Donald Trump, who is often seen to have promoted democratic backsliding. The paper also examines how Hong Kong-based Trump supporters define global democracy and perceive the legitimacy of storming the Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2019 Hong Kong and the US Capitol attack in 2021. Situating in the debate between strategic and ideological aspects of Trump’s support, as well as the complex perceptions of global democracy, our findings suggest that the respondents’ domestic political affiliations are a significant variable in understanding why Hong Kong’s protest sympathisers support Trump and how they define democracy in connection to the fight against China’s authoritarianism, without considering the critiques of Western-based imperial repression, internal colonialism, and democratic/liberal imperialism.