APPARATUS E: WILDFIRES

In 2019, while I was drafting this book, it felt to me for a moment that politics in China entered a state of suspension, rocked into sudden possibility from its Special Administrative Regions. In a Hong Kong that prided itself on civic peace and its postcolonial democracy, incredibly high costs of living and sustained worry over the future were engendering protests that occupied highways, skybridges, and public spaces. These demonstrations were largely organized by youth but included every sector of Hong Kong society.¹ They recalled the Umbrella Protests of 2014 when massive public occupations of squares, roads, and skybridges demanded