NPC Headliners: "The Milk Tea Alliance," Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Historian Jeff Wasserstrom will discuss his new book,The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia's Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing at a Headliners Book Event on Thursday, June 12 at 6 p.m.

Many activists and exiles from across Asia feel that their struggles are connected. Young activists from Thailand, Hong Kong, and Burma are willing to court danger to help one another. Why? The political situations in Burma, Thailand, and Hong Kong are radically different. Only Burma is in a state of civil war. Only Hong Kong has changed in just a few years from a place with virtually no political prisoners to one with many. Only Thailand is a monarchy with lèse-majesté laws.

Wasserstrom met dozens of dissidents fearing reprisal from the junta for his human rights work. These activists have expressed solidarity with one another online and on the streets. They sometimes refer to themselves as belonging to the “Milk Tea Alliance,” a nod to their shared opposition to nationalistic Beijing loyalists and the fact that their cultures' iconic drinks contain dairy, unlike mainland China’s traditional tea.