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Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu. Every episode, I'll be talking to journalists, experts, and long-time China

watchers about the latest in Chinese politics, society, and more. There'll be a smattering

of history to catch you up on the background knowledge and some context as well. How do the

Chinese see these issues? At the beginning of December, three Hong Kong protesters were jailed, among them the high-profile

student protester Joshua Wong, whose name you would have heard of. They were sentenced

from between 7 and 13 months for unauthorised assembly under China's new national security law.

When people think about student protests in China, Hong Kong is probably what you think of.

And you will also know about Tianmen Square in 1989.

But there's one student protest that started at all in modern China.

May 4th, 1919.

A moment etched in the minds of all Chinese, but little talked about or known about in the West.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that China is no stranger to

student protests, and they are particularly potent for reasons that you will hear shortly.

My guest today is the historian Rana Mitter, former head of the China Center at the University

of Oxford, and author of numerous books on China's modern history. His latest, China's

Good War, is out now.

Rana, listeners might be wondering why we're taking them more than a century back to protest

that few have even ever heard of, but we'll get to its significance shortly. Firstly, can you

set the scene of what happened in that May 2019? Absolutely, Cindy. I mean, let's throw ourselves

...