The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic silently started in early 2020, and no one was prepared for it. Unlike the outbreak of SARS in 2002-2003, a similar coronavirus, it was less contagious than COVID-19, but tended to be more deadly. The COVID-19 virus is much more contagious with a relatively lower chance of causing death. Nevertheless, it is still one of the most dangerous viruses in human history. Studies of COVID-19 have attracted tremendous attention from academia and governments. However, they tend to focus on the fields of biology, virology, public health, and psychology instead of the politics, policies, and political attitudes related to the pandemic. Of course, it is critical to understand the nature of this virus and seek proper policy remedies to stop the pandemic and help citizens to regain their everyday lives, but how the pandemic has affected the public and their views toward politics is equally important as it will determine political outcomes in the near future. We compare the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public opinion, the dynamics of party politics in Taiwan, and some of its strategic neighbors.

This book is an interdisciplinary study of the commerce–art–politics nexus of Hong Kong cinema from 2000 to 2020, investigating the current nascent generation of film workers who joined the industry as it gradually entered an era marked by the domination of Hong Kong/mainland co-productions. Fangyu Chen explores the filmmaking ideologies of the emerging filmmakers from both within and beyond their film texts and uncovers the artistic and ideological discrepancies between this generation and their predecessors—the established generation who contributed to the glory days of Hong Kong cinema during its economic boom. By tracing the studies of national cinema and transnational cinema, Chen debunks the national/transnational antagonism with the case of post-2000 Hong Kong cinema and argues that it has split into two: a transnational cinema represented by the established generation of filmmakers and a national cinema that is driven by the nascent generation who are struggling for better preservation of Hong Kong local culture and their own cultural identities. Employing a Hong Kong/mainland film dynamics perspective, this study addresses a gap in the academic study of Hong Kong cinema, drawing attention to the material conditions and artistic visions of the craft labour in the industry. Scholars of communication, film studies, and labor economics will find this book of particular interest.