Victoria Hui
Victoria Hui, an associate professor of political science and faculty fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame, will testify Thursday, November 20, before a Congressional Executive Commission on China hearing titled “The Future of Democracy in Hong Kong.”
The hearing will examine China’s commitments to Hong Kong and the international community in light of recent pro-democracy protests. It will assess whether an increasingly polarized Hong Kong will be able to find a mutually acceptable plan for electoral reform and how the protests taking will place will continue to shape that debate. It also will focus on what the protests mean for the future of human rights and democracy in Hong Kong and China.
Hui also is a faculty fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame. She is the author of the award-winning War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2005), in which she argues that citizenship rights born of military competition—legal protection, freedom of expression, and material welfare—indigenously sprouted on Chinese soil long before they blossomed on European soil.
When the Umbrella Movement, as the 2014 Hong Kong protests are known, started, she created a blog to explain the movement with regard to theories of the state, contentious politics, constitutionalism, and human rights. Before coming to the United States, Hui grew up in Hong Kong and earned a B.SSc. degree in journalism and communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1990. She received her doctorate in political science from Columbia University in 2000.
Hui worked as the press officer for the then United Democrats of Hong Kong and its chair, Martin Lee, from 1991 to 1994. While studying and working in the U.S., she has continued to pay close attention to Hong Kong. She most recently visited the occupy sites during the recent fall break from Oct. 17 to Oct. 26.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the president and to Congress. Established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization, the commission consists of nine senators, nine members of the House of Representatives, and five senior administration officials appointed by the president.
Originally published at news.nd.edu.
