Sharing Milk Tea, Dividing ‘Asians’? Studying Fractured Solidarity of Hong Kongers in the US and Japan

• In Event: 30282 - Transnational Solidarities for Racial Justice

Abstract

Transnational solidarity for racial justice is often imagined as an unproblematic extension of shared struggles across borders. However, alliances formed across different geopolitical and racialized contexts must continuously navigate internal tensions, competing positionalities, and shifting political landscapes. This paper examines the #MilkTeaAlliance—a coalition of Hong Konger, Thai, Taiwanese, and Burmese activists—as a case study of cross-border solidarity shaped by both global authoritarianism and racialized hostland politics. Drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork in the U.S. and Japan, I analyze how migrant activists negotiate multiple and often conflicting identity positions within coalition spaces. I introduce the concept of identity maps, distinguishing between articulated identity maps (explicit claims in coalition settings) and implied identity maps (bracketed or unspoken differences). By tracing coalition conflicts between the #MilkTeaAlliance and the #AsianAlliance in the U.S.—as well as the differing reception of Hong Konger activism in Japan—I reveal how solidarity is built, contested, and sometimes fractured when latent divisions surface. This study advances a relational approach to transnational social movements, demonstrating how racial, national, and geopolitical identities interact in unpredictable ways. By theorizing the fragility of coalition politics, this paper contributes to scholarship on transnational racial justice activism, migrant political mobilization, and the strategic dilemmas of cross-movement organizing.

Author

• Kennedy Chi-pan Wong, The King's University