Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. & Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at the Sociology Department and School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of the award-winning book The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World and Protest with Chinese Characteristics: Demonstrations, Riots, and Petitions in the Mid-Qing Dynasty, City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule, and Clash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War.” His analyses of the Chinese and global political economy and Hong Kong politics have been featured or cited in major news outlets around the world, and his works have been translated into at least 11 languages.
Last Updated: October 11, 2022
Conversation
01.27.17
TPP is Dead, Now What?
On Monday, on his first full working day as president, Donald Trump officially withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade pact that did not include China and did not have the votes to...
Conversation
12.05.16
Should Washington Recalibrate Relations with Taipei?
On Friday, Donald Trump shocked the China-watching world when news broke that he had spoken on the phone to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The call was remarkable not for its content—Tsai’s office said she told Trump she hoped the United States “...
Conversation
11.15.16
Should China’s Neighbors Rely on the U.S. for Protection?
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of neo-isolationism that could see many traditional U.S. allies in Asia left without Washington’s support in the newly roiled waters of the South- and East China Seas. What will the governments...
Conversation
09.07.16
The Hong Kong Election: What Message Does it Send Beijing?
On September 4, Hong Kong elected a batch of its youngest and most pro-democratic lawmakers yet. Six new legislators, all under 40, won on platforms that called for Hong Kongers to decide their own fate. The youngest is 23-year-old Nathan Law, a...
Conversation
09.01.16
What Can We Expect from China at the G20?
On September 4-5, heads of the world’s major economies will meet in the southeastern city of Hangzhou for the G20 summit. The meeting represents “the most significant gathering of world leaders in China’s history,” according to The New York Times...
Conversation
07.20.16
How Should the Republican Party Approach China Policy?
On Tuesday, delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, chose Donald J. Trump as their nominee for President of the United States. We asked a range of contributors how the Republican Party should approach China policy.
Conversation
11.05.15
The China-Taiwan Summit
This Saturday, for the first time since 1949, the leaders of China and Taiwan will meet face to face. Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou will meet in Singapore, not as Presidents, but—to sidestep one of many lingering areas of conflict since the Chinese...
Conversation
09.30.15
The Future of Autonomy in Hong Kong
Yesterday, the governing board of Hong Kong University, one of the territory’s most esteemed institutions of higher education, voted to reject the promotion of Johannes Chan, a former law school dean, over the objections of the faculty and students...
Conversation
06.17.15
Has China’s ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Experiment Failed?
As Hong Kong’s legislature began debate this week on the reform package that could shape the future of the local political system, the former British colony’s pro-democracy lawmakers swore again they will reject electoral reforms proposed by the...
Books
03.16.15
The China Boom
Many thought China’s rise would fundamentally remake the global order. Yet, much like other developing nations, the Chinese state now finds itself entrenched in a status quo characterized by free trade and American domination. Through a cutting-edge historical, sociological, and political analysis, Ho-fung Hung exposes the competing interests and economic realities that temper the dream of Chinese supremacy—forces that are stymieing growth throughout the global South. Hung focuses on four common misconceptions about China’s boom: that China could undermine orthodoxy by offering an alternative model of growth; that China is radically altering power relations between the East and the West; that China is capable of diminishing the global power of the United States; and that the Chinese economy would restore the world’s wealth after the 2008 financial crisis. His work reveals how much China depends on the existing order and how the interests of the Chinese elites maintain these ties. Through its perpetuation of the dollar standard and its addiction to U.S. Treasury bonds, China remains bound to the terms of its own prosperity, and its economic practices of exploiting debt bubbles are destined to fail. Dispelling many of the world’s fantasies and fears, Hung warns of a post-miracle China that will grow increasingly assertive in attitude while remaining constrained in capability. —Columbia University Press{chop}
Conversation
03.11.15
Is China Really Cracking Up?
On March 7, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by David Shambaugh arguing that “the endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun...and it has progressed further than many think.” Shambaugh laid out a variety of signs he believes...
Conversation
02.12.15
Is Mao Still Dead?
It has long been standard operating procedure for China’s leaders to pay tribute to Mao. Even as the People’s Republic he wrought has embraced capitalist behavior with ever more heated ardor, the party he founded has remained firmly in power and his...