La vita è bella

The “Milk Tea Alliance” began, as many modern political phenomena do, with a meme. In early 2020 a quarrel between Chinese nationalists and Thai internet users over a pop idol metastasised into a transnational online protest movement. It quickly drew in activists from Hong Kong, Taiwan and later Myanmar—societies that share little in language or political system, but much in experience: pressure from authoritarianism, frustration with entrenched elites, and a belief that democracy in Asia can be defended only through solidarity across borders. What emerged is an informal but increasingly consequential force in regional politics, binding together disparate democratic struggles under a shared symbol: a sweet, caffeinated beverage.

The Milk Tea Alliance is not an organization. It has no membership register, offices or hierarchy. Yet it has cultivated a recognisable identity, one that blends digital activism with street mobilisation. Its unifying force is cultural rather than institutional—a sense that the challenges faced by pro-democracy groups in Bangkok, Hong Kong or Taipei are variations of the same problem: the shrinking space for liberal values in a region grappling with a resurgent China, weakened civil society, and assertive militaries.

The Milk Tea Alliance flag, in its warm-toned version you can see with the title of this newsletter, blends burnt orange, soft peach, and muted taupe into three vertical bands, and symbolizes the Thai, Hong Kong and Taiwanese milk teas.

At the heart of the alliance sits Hong Kong, whose 2019–20 protest movement showed how much energy—and how much repression—Asia’s democratic yearnings can unleash. The national-security law imposed by Beijing in mid-2020 extinguished public dissent, but it also forced Hong Kong’s democracy activists to look outward. Many began collaborating more systematically with Taiwanese NGOs and Thai student leaders, helping shape a regional vocabulary of protest: decentralised organisation, encrypted communications, flexible leadership, and symbolic tactics that diffuse quickly online.

Thailand’s role, though often underestimated, has been pivotal. The country’s youth-led protests since 2020 have been among the boldest in Southeast Asia, directly challenging the monarchy and military establishment—taboos that had long held Thai politics hostage. Their willingness to confront entrenched power resonated with Hong Kong activists, who in turn shared methods for evading surveillance and coordinating mass rallies. The cross-pollination worked both ways: Thai protesters’ playful, pop-culture-infused style influenced demonstrations elsewhere, giving the alliance its light-hearted aesthetic even as its aims remained serious.

Myanmar’s entry into the alliance after the 2021 coup added urgency and tragedy. For many young Burmese, whose brief taste of democratic transition had ended abruptly, the Milk Tea Alliance offered a sense of international recognition at a moment of fear and isolation. Digital solidarity could not stop the junta’s violence, but it helped the civil-disobedience movement sustain world attention, and it reinforced the notion that the struggle for democracy in Asia is shared rather than isolated. Activists in Taipei and Bangkok organised fundraisers, taught online security techniques, and amplified Burmese voices that the junta sought to silence.

Taiwan, meanwhile, provides the alliance with something rare: a functioning, vibrant democracy on China’s doorstep. Its experience resisting disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks has given it a technical and moral leadership role. Taiwanese groups train regional activists in digital hygiene, election monitoring and media literacy—skills increasingly critical for movements whose battles now unfold on platforms that are both megaphones and minefields. Taiwan also demonstrates to would-be democrats in the region that political pluralism can coexist with economic dynamism and cultural confidence, even under intense geopolitical pressure.

Yet the Milk Tea Alliance faces structural limits. It remains strongest online, where borders are porous and state control incomplete. On the ground, its impact is uneven. In Hong Kong and Myanmar, governments have crushed dissent with a ferocity that digital solidarity cannot counter. Thailand’s reform movement has stalled, constrained by constitutional engineering and elite resistance. Even in Taiwan, democratic resilience requires constant vigilance against external coercion and internal polarisation.

The alliance’s loose composition is both asset and liability. Its lack of formal structure allows it to adapt quickly and avoid infiltration, but it also means it struggles to convert momentum into sustained political change. And although united by opposition to authoritarianism—particularly China’s—its members differ in their strategic goals. Hong Kong’s activists seek autonomy they are unlikely ever to regain; Myanmar’s hope to dismantle a military that has dominated politics for decades; Thais aim for constitutional reform; Taiwanese defend an already-consolidated democracy against external threat.

Still, the Milk Tea Alliance matters. It signals the emergence of a new democratic geometry in Asia—horizontal, networked and culturally rooted rather than state-led. It shows that liberal ideals in the region are not Western imports but home-grown aspirations shared by millions. And by linking protests from Yangon to Taipei, it quietly rewires the political imagination of a continent where the balance between authoritarianism and democracy remains fluid.

It feels earthy, modern, and quietly bold—a palette that evokes shared identity across borders, a calm resolve beneath the surface, and the warm, human connection at the heart of this pan-Asian pro-democracy movement.

In the end, the movement’s power lies not in its sugary logo but in its assertion that Asia’s democratic future will be shaped from the bottom up. In an era of tightening crackdowns and rising geopolitical tension, that may be the most radical idea of all.

I’ve travelled for years across each country of the Alliance, meeting remarkable people in all their differences and learning, step by step, that Asia is a universe you never fully grasp — you simply keep discovering it.

The photos in this story were taken in Bangkok’s Talat Noi district, with a Leica M11 Monochrom and an 18mm lens: narrow alleys, metal workshops, and that soft light that reveals more than it hides.

Below, a short video of the “best Thai coffee,” shared with my friend Kars Tuinder — a small ritual in a city that never stops surprising me.