Precarious Balance: Hong Kong Between China and Britain, 1842-1992 1563243806, 9781563243813, 9781563243806, 9781315701561

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Precarious Balance

History/Modem Asia “H o n g K ong h a s enjoyed re m a rk a b le sta b ility and p ro sp e rity u n d e r B ritis h ru le for th e p a s t 150 y ea rs. C h in a, in m ark ed co n tra st, h a s b een in a s t a t e o f p e rp e tu a l convulsion, rocked by in te rn a l rebellion, o v erth ro w o f th e C h ’in g D y n a sty , failed a tte m p ts to e sta b lish dem oc­ racy , w a rlo rd s, J a p a n e s e occupation, civil w a r betw een N a tio n a list a n d C o m m u n ist forces, a n d v io len t sw ings in economic a n d social policy u n d e r C o m m u n ist ru le since 1949. How will C h in a ’s re su m p ­ tio n o f so v ereig n ty a n d a d m in is tra tiv e a u th o rity affect H ong Kong’s s ta b ility a n d p ro sp e rity a f te r 1997? “P recarious B a la n ce a tte m p ts to a n sw e r th is question. T he te n e ssa y s in th i s book cover H o n g K ong’s h isto ry , show ing t h a t its larg e ly C h in ese p o p u latio n h a s often play ed a n active role in in flu ­ en cin g th e k e y ev e n ts in th e colony’s political, social a n d economic evolution— d e sp ite th e p o litical c o n stra in ts of Hong K ong’s subordi­ n a tio n to it s B ritis h overlord a n d th e sen sitiv ities of its soon-to-be C h in ese m a s te r. I f th e p a s t is p re lu d e to th e future, th e n Precarious B a la n ce is a v ita l source for s tu d e n ts , scholars, jo u rn a lis ts , an d o th e r p u n d its w ho w ill w a tc h a n d re p o rt on th is once-in-a-history peaceful tr a n s f e r of so v ereig n ty a n d how it affects th e in stitu tio n s a n d w ay of life o f H o n g K ong’s six m illion people.” —A lvin R a b u sh k a , Hoover In s titu tio n

Hong Kong Becoming China: The Transition to 1997 Ming K. Chan and Gerard A. Postiglione Series General Editors

Because of Hong Kong’s remarkable development under British rule for the past 150 years and its contemporary importance as a world economic and communi­ cations center on the Pacific Rim, and due to Hong Kong’s future status as a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China from 1997 well into the mid-twenty-first century, M.E. Sharpe has inaugurated this new multi-volume series. Published for an international readership, this series aims at providing both expert analysis and the documentary basis for a more informed understanding of Hong Kong’s transition as a free society and capitalist economy toward socialist Chinese sovereignty under the “One Country, Two Systems,” formula. This series will explore various crucial dimensions o f Hong Kong’s current development in this transition process and their implications for the international community. Individual volumes in this series will focus on key areas and issues ranging from China’s Basic Law for Hong Kong, education and social change, the existing common law legal system, the historical relationship between Brit­ ain, China, and Hong Kong, urban growth and infrastructural development, the control o f the media, social movements and popular mobilization, the cultural identity o f Hong Kong Chinese, to economic linkages with mainland China, the Beijing-Hong Kong-Taipei triangle, “brain drain” and migration overseas, as well as the internationalization of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Basic Law: Blueprint fo r “Stability and Prosperity ” under Chinese Sovereignty? edited by Ming K. Chan and David Clark; Education and Society in Hong Kong: Toward One Country and Two Systems, edited by Gerard A. Postiglione; The Common Law System in Chinese Context: Hong Kong in Transition, by Berry Hsu; Precarious Balance: Hong Kong between China and Britain, 1842—1992, edited by Ming K. Chan; and Reluctant Exiles? Migration from Hong Kong and the Overseas Chinese by Ronald Skeldon are the first five books in this series. M ing K. Chan is a member of the History Department, University o f Hong Kong, and Executive Coordinator of the Hong Kong Documentary Archives, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. During 1993-94, he is the Julien and Virginia Cornell Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College. G erard A. Postiglione is Senior Lecturer in Sociology o f Education, University of Hong Kong, and Director of its Education and National Integration Program.

Precarious Balance Hong Kong Between China and Britain 1842-1992 M in g K. C h a n

editor with the collaboration of John D. Young

An East Gate Book

Q Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK

An East Gate Book First published 1994 by M.E. Sharpe Published 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1994 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataioging-in-Publication Data Precarious balance : Hong Kong between China and Britain, 1842-1992 / Ming K. Chan, editor, with the collaboration of John D. Young, p. cm. — (Hong Kong becoming China ; vol. 4) “An East Gate Book” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56324-380-6. — ISBN 1-56324-381- 4 1. Hong Kong—Politics and government. 2. China—Foreign relations—Great Britain. 3. Great Britain—Foreign relations—China. I. Chan, Ming K. II. Young, John D. III. Series. DS796.H757P74 1993 951.25/04—dc20 93-32290 CIP ISBN 13: 9781563243813 (pbk) ISBN 13: 9781563243806 (hbk)

Contents

Contributors

vii

Series General Editor’s Foreword

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Introduction: Hong Kong’s Precarious Balance— 150 Years in an Historic Triangle Ming K. Chan

3

From Antiforeignism to Popular Nationalism: Hong Kong between China and Britain, 1839-1911 Jung-fang Tsai

9

Hong Kong in Sino-British Conflict: Mass Mobilization and the Crisis of Legitimacy, 1912-26 Ming K. Chan

27

From Nationalistic Confrontation to Regional Collaboration: China-Hong Kong-Britain, 1926-41 Norman J. Miners

59

Hong Kong in Sino-British Diplomacy, 1926-45 Kit-ching Lau Chan

71

Anti-Chinese Legislation in Hong Kong Peter Wesley-Smith

91

World War to Cold War: Hong Kong’s Future and Anglo-Chinese Interactions, 1941-55 James T.H. Tang

107

vi

CONTENTS

8. The Building Years: Maintaining a ChinarHong Kong-Britain Equilibrium, 1950-71 John D. Young 9. The MacLehose-Youde Years: Balancing the “Three-Legged Stool,” 1971-S6 James T.H. Tang and Frank Ching 10. Toward Colonial Sunset: The Wilson Regime, 1987—92 Frank Ching

Chronology of Major Events Bibliography Index

Contributors

MING K. CHAN is a member of the History Department, University of Hong Kong. Concurrently, he is executive coordinator of the Hong Kong Documentary Archives, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where he was a visiting profes­ sor in the History Department, 1992-93. He is the Julien and Virginia Cornell Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College, 1993-94. He is the author of the Historiography o f the Chinese Labor Movement, 1895-1949 (Stanford, 1981) and The British Sunset in Hong Kong: Historical Challenges in the Wilsonian Era o f Transition (Hong Kong, 1989); co-author of Perspectives on the Hong Kong and Chinese Labor Movement (Hong Kong, 1982) and School into Fields and Factories: Anarchists, the Guomindang, and the National Labor University in Shanghai, 1927—32 (Durham, 1991); editor and principal author of Dimen­ sions o f the M odem Chinese and Hong Kong Labor Movement (Hong Kong, 1986); and co-editor of the Hong Kong Basic Law: Blueprint fo r “Stability and Prosperity ” under Chinese Sovereignty? (Armonk, N.Y. 1991), the inaugural volume o f the Hong Kong Becoming China: The Transition to 1997 series, of which he is, with Gerard A. Postiglione, the series general editor. KIT-CHING LAU CHAN is a member of the History Department, University of Hong Kong. She is the author of Anglo-Chinese Diplomacy 1906-1920: In the Careers o f Sir John Jordan and Yuan Shih-k’ai (Hong Kong, 1978) and China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895—1945 (Hong Kong, 1990). FRANK CHING is an editor with the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is the author o f Hong Kong and China: For Better or fo r Worse (New York, 1985) and Ancestors: Nine Hundred Years in the Life o f a Chinese Family (New York, 1988). NORMAN J. MINERS is a member of the Political Science Department, Univer­ sity of Hong Kong. He is the author of The Government and Politics o f Hong vii

viii

CONTRIBUTORS

Kong, 5th ed. (Hong Kong, 1991) and Hong Kong under Imperial Rule, 19121941 (Hong Kong, 1987). JAMES T.H. TANG is a member of the Political Science Department, University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Britain's Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949-54 (London, 1992). JUNG-FANG TSAI is a member of the History Department, University of Charleston, South Carolina. He is the author of Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913 (New York, 1993). PETER WESLEY-SMITH is a member of the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Legal Literature in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1979); Unequal Treaty, 1898-1997: China, Great Britain and Hong Kong's New Terri­ tories (Hong Kong, 1980); Constitutional and Administrative Law in Hong Kong: Text and Materials (Hong Kong, 1987-88); and An Introduction to the Hong Kong Legal System (Hong Kong, 1988); and coeditor of The Basic Law and Hong Kong's Future (Singapore, 1988). JOHN D. YOUNG is honorary research fellow, Center of Asian Studies, Univer­ sity of Hong Kong. He is the author of Confucianism and Christianity: The First Encounter (Hong Kong, 1983) and Hong Kong in Transformation: From Colony to Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong, 1991).

Series General Editor's Foreword

As its late colonial era draws to a close, Hong Kong finds itself with a highly educated and fully literate population that enjoys the second-highest living stan­ dard, after Japan, within an economically booming Asia. Yet genuine democracy remains an illusion as Britain and China deny Hong Kong’s six million people a legislature that is even one-half directly elected. Illusion has played no minor role in the political history of Hong Kong. As this volume recounts, the Britain-China-Hong Kong relationship was once re­ ferred to as a “three-legged stool,” while the reality of political decision making was that Hong Kong seldom had a leg on which to stand. Nevertheless, the attention of the people of Hong Kong has become riveted on the process of political transformation. Through the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, they have been offered a “high degree of autonomy,” something that all hope will not turn out to be another historical illusion. Squeezed between two masters throughout most of its history, the people of Hong Kong may appear to have taken a passive role in decisions regarding governance. This volume, however, calls such a view into question. The reality is that throughout Hong Kong’s colonial history, its people have often played an active role in key events. Perched on the doorstep of sovereignty retrocession, Hong Kong can only look back to find answers about the forging of its own character and ethos. Why has it succeeded so well and yet failed in significant ways to secure a more certain future? Did Hong Kong’s people expect too much from Britain and China? How did Britain maintain the legitimacy of colonial rule? How did China influence Hong Kong’s earlier political development? Why do Hong Kong’s people appear to remain ambivalent about their fate, even as 1997 approaches? The editor and coauthors of this volume have opened a path to answering these questions. This collection on the historical relations among China, Britain, and Hong Kong has contributed to the growing critical scholarship on Hong Kong’s development and will appeal both to scholars of Chinese history and East ix

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HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

Asian international relations and to anyone interested in the past history, current predicament, and future prospects of Hong Kong. This fourth volume of the series Hong Kong Becoming China moves toward publication as local public opinion has taken the unusual step of supporting an outgoing colonial government’s political reform proposals to increase the extent of democratic components and strengthen the structure and procedural founda­ tion of a partially directly elected representative government. Yet support is gradually eroding as sharper confrontation between Britain and China looms again. Hong Kong’s people have found themselves in this position before. Their past experience will determine how and if they tip the precarious balance. Gerard A. Postiglione Hong Kong October 1993

Acknowledgments

Earlier drafts of some of the chapters in this volume were first presented in a symposium entitled “The Historic Triangle of China, Britain and Hong Kong,” held at Hong Kong Baptist College in June 1987. They have been revised for inclusion here. The contribution of John D. Young, then head of the History Department at Hong Kong Baptist College, in planning and hosting the sympo­ sium is deeply appreciated. Indeed, his encouragement in the initial preparation to turn the symposium proceedings into a collective work provided an early impetus for the eventual publication of this much expanded and updated volume. The various services rendered by my research assistants, Mark Kai-yu Chan, Wing-kai Choi, Chi-keung Kung, and Ching-fai Wong, at the University of Hong Kong have been indispensable to the editorial task of welding the nine essays into the present anthology. The comments and suggestions of Professors Mark Elvin and Diana Lary on portions of the manuscript were most helpful. To all those named above and to those who participated in the symposium, espe­ cially discussants our Mr. Leo Goodstadt, Dr. Daniel Kwan, Dr. Siu-tong Kwok, Dr. Tony Liao, Dr. Tai-lok Lui, Dr. K.L. MacPherson, Mr. T.L. Tsim, and Professor Gungwu Wang, I wish to express the profound gratitude of the coau­ thors and editor of this volume. Ming K. Chan July 31,1993 Stanford

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Precarious Balance

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1 Introduction: Hong Kong's Precarious Balance—150 Years in an Historic Triangle M ing K. Chan

After exactly 150 years of British colonial rule, in the autumn of 1992 Hong Kong found itself in the crux of a new crisis in the uneasy relationship between China and Britain. On July 3, 1992, Governor David Wilson retired and left Hong Kong. Although Wilson’s involuntary early departure at age fifty-seven was announced by Downing Street on New Year’s Eve 1991, no successor was named until late April 1992 after the British general election, which kept the Con­ servatives in power. British Prime Minister John Major appointed Christopher Patten the next governor of Hong Kong. Patten, a close ally of Major and British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, managed the Tory’s electoral victory as Con­ servative party chairman but lost his own House of Commons seat in Bath. In becoming the first British politician of senior cabinet rank to assume the gover­ norship of Hong Kong, which until then had always been filled by career colo­ nial administrators or China hands from the Foreign Office, Patten broke this bureaucratic tradition; more significantly, however, his appointment signaled a pos­ sible reorientation of British policy toward Beijing in regard to Hong Kong issues. Amid the W estern dem ocracies’ reappraisal of their relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen events, London’s continuous appeasement of Beijing regarding Hong Kong af­ fairs, especially local democratization, during the transition to the 1997 resump­ tion of sovereignty by China became increasingly untenable. At the microlevel, the decisive turn in London’s China-Hong Kong policy came after continuous British frustration over Beijing’s obstruction of Hong Kong’s new airport proj­ 3

4

HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

ect, despite the September 1991 Sino-British Memorandum of Understanding. It was against such a shift in British policy that on October 7, 1992, barely three months after his arrival, Governor Patten unveiled his blueprint for the sunset years of British rule, Our Next Five Years—Agenda fo r Hong Kong. Patten proposed a host of constitutional reforms paving the way for the 1995 legislative elections. This would be the last such electoral exercise to be con­ ducted under British rule, and elected legislators would supposedly serve until 1999, two years into Hong Kong’s new status as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the PRC according to the Hong Kong Basic Law. Thus, Patten’s proposal amounts to the last major British input into Hong Kong’s decolonizationdemocratization process before 1997. As the 1995 electoral outcome extends past 1997, even setting a precedent for future SAR practice, the PRC was naturally concerned and expected to be fully consulted by the British. However, both the manner of Patten’s direct appeal to the people of Hong Kong for popular support, without advanced clearance from Beijing, and the contents of his reform proposal, which exploited the gray areas and loopholes of the Basic Law, profoundly alarmed the Beijing leadership. Beijing saw this latest British attempt at enlarging popular electoral participation as a dangerous reversal of the 1985-91 British acquiescence of China’s increas­ ing intrusion into Hong Kong affairs, and Beijing’s opposition to Patten’s pro­ posed reforms soon escalated into a full-scale Sino-British confrontation. The bone of contention is much more than the electoral design for Hong Kong’s 1995 elections; rather it is the more crucial problem of Sino-British cooperation on all major transition issues and, by extension, the ultimate question of who rules Hong Kong in the countdown to 1997? Based on a long repertoire of Sino-British contradictions over Hong Kong and reinforced by an increasingly deep mutual mistrust since the Tiananmen events, the PRC’s campaign condemning the Patten reforms soon galvanized into an allout nationalistic outburst against perceived British aggression, past and present. In the autumn of 1992, Beijing attempted to arouse patriotic sentiment among Hong Kong Chinese in an anti-Patten united front mobilization. Direct verbal assaults by Beijing not only identified the British proposals as a serious infringe­ ment on Chinese national sovereignty but also linked Patten’s reforms to the mid-nineieenth century Opium Wars (which resulted in China’s humiliating de­ feats and the ceding of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula to the British in 1842 and 1860). The British eleventh-hour democratization efforts were also interpreted as part of an international conspiracy orchestrated by the AngloAmerican capitalist bloc to use Hong Kong as the Trojan horse to destroy commu­ nism in China. Thus, the Patten reforms were perceived as an attempt at neo­ imperialist aggression comparable to the 1900 eight-nation expedition into Beij­ ing to crush the Boxer Uprising. In the spring of 1993, Patten himself was denounced as the “sinner of a millenium” by the PRC officialdom, which had threatened to set up its own “kitchen” (shadow government) in Hong Kong before 1997.

HONG KONG'S PRECARIOUS BALANCE

5

The final resolution to this Sino-British crisis has yet to emerge, but the heated rhetoric of Beijing’s anti-Patten propaganda reveals not only the unquestioned sig­ nificance of Hong Kong in China’s external affairs but also the current policy relevance of the historical consciousness of Hong Kong’s colonial past. In the happier days of Sino-Western rapprochement before the shattering tragedy of the June 4, 1989 events, the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong was often hailed by Beijing as a peaceful and successful solution to a problem bequeathed by the dark history of imperialism in China. The latest SinoBritish hostility in the last four years of British rule suggests the still heavy burden of its bitter colonial legacy in the shaping of Hong Kong’s future under Chinese sover­ eignty. Beijing’s deep suspicion of democratization as a scheme to entrench post-1997 pro-British (hence anti-PRC) influence and its strong objection to allowing the Hong Kong legislature to make the final decision on Patten’s reforms (as constituting the third leg in a “three-legged stool,” which would infringe on bilateral Sino-British prerogatives [the other two legs]) reflect the PRC’s mistrust of both British colonialists and the Hong Kong democratic advocates. Indeed, the likelihood of another bilateral secret deal emerging from the cur­ rent Sino-British negotiations (which started on April 22, 1993, and concluded their twelfth round on September 27, 1993) to settle this crisis without the participation of the people of Hong Kong cannot be ruled out. In fact, the 1982-84 negotiations leading to the Joint Declaration, the spring 1990 confiden­ tial diplomatic exchanges on the pre-1997 electoral arrangements, and the sum­ mer 1991 clandestine liaison to conclude the airport memorandum were all Beijing-London bilateral maneuvers deliberately excluding the participation of the people of Hong Kong. As such, the unfolding drama of Hong Kong’s transi­ tion to 1997 is not unlike the 150-year record of Sino-British antagonism and limited collaboration in which Hong Kong’s people have often found themselves in an untenable position, squeezed between the two powers. Yet Hong Kong as a British colony populated by Chinese thrived in a spectacularly creative mode by maintaining a precarious balance between China and Britain. Perhaps any realistic portrayal of the historical and geostrategic predicament of Hong Kong’s embarrassing position as a British territory linked closely to Western economic development but dependent on mainland China for both its political sur­ vival and its economic well-being must incorporate the all-important factor of Hong Kong’s people. They are, according to the criteria set by London and Beijing, neither true British subjects nor genuine Chinese. To Richard Hughe’s well-known descrip­ tion of Hong Kong’s development under rather unique circumstances as “a bor­ rowed place on borrowed time,” one should add “with borrowed people.”1 Hong Kong has been more than a significant outpost of the British colonial empire, and the heroic record of the Hong Kong Chinese’s popular mobilization from the First Opium War in 1839 to the roaring 1920s, as delineated in chapter 2, by Jung-fang Tsai, and chapter 3, by Ming K. Chan, turned Hong Kong into a front line of Chinese nationalism vis-à-vis Western imperialism. As such, the

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patriotic identity of the Hong Kong Chinese rallying to the defense of Chinese national interests against foreign encroachment should more than validate their claim to genuine “Chineseness.” The current Chinese Communist leadership’s stern opposition to the democratization of Hong Kong (especially direct election of the legislature) contrasts most sharply with Zhou Enlai’s June 1925 call for universal direct election to the local legislature at the outbreak of the 1925-26 Canton-Hong Kong General Strike-Boycott. The recent emergence of a “Greater China” (encompassing Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan—the economically most developed comer of China despite the problems of multiple political jurisdiction) brings to mind the very crucial regional ties between Canton and Hong Kong that shaped Sino-British relations in the prewar era. This London-Hong Kong-Canton-Nanjing quadrilat­ eral link is vividly analyzed by Norman Miners in chapter 4, which also highlights the sharp difference between the policy objectives of the Hong Kong colonial regime and those of the London Foreign Office. This gap in policy orientation between the high-level British approach to China and the Realpolitik requirements in the more local Hong Kong-China relations, now obvious to the people of Hong Kong, actually has deep historical roots, as pointed out by Kit-ching Lau Chan in chapter 5. Based on her examination of formal Sino-British diplomatic relations from the mid-1920s to the end of the Pacific War, she concludes that there remains a very fluid state of unpredictability in the China-Britain-Hong Kong triangle. The maintenance of Hong Kong’s independent judiciary and common-law legal system has often been regarded as a vital pillar for the post-1997 “high degree of local autonomy” and an indispensable safeguard for the freedoms Hong Kong’s people now enjoy. However, one should not overlook the dark legacy of legal discrimination and blatantly anti-Chinese legislation that poi­ soned local Chinese perception Of and relations with the British colonial regime. Chapter 6, by Peter Wesley-Smith, on this under-studied but crucial dimension of Sino-British relations is a most timely reminder of the local Chinese’s deep mistrust, which stems from an indefensible record of British colonial unfairness in prewar Hong Kong. Chapter 6 also serves as a useful historical reference to the equally damaging recent record of serious personal misdeeds, criminal conduct, and administrative blunders in both the Hong Kong Legal Department and the judicial bench, which make it imperative that substantial reform be taken to improve Hong Kong’s legal system. As such, any advocacy for the full preservation of the existing unreformed Hong Kong judicial system, including its personnel, for transition to the post-1997 SAR is simply misguided and ignorant of both past and current flaws in the British colonial legal heritage. The international political power realignment, affecting Hong Kong within the rapidly changing context of Sino-British relations as shaped by the Second World War, the Chinese Communist Revolution, and the cold war, in some sense parallels the recent post-cold war deterioration in Sino-Western rapport, with

HONG KONG'S PRECARIOUS BALANCE

7

profound impact on Hong Kong’s transition. In chapter 7, James T.H. Tang provides an insightful survey of the Hong Kong question from the Pacific War (when the Japanese occupation of 1941-45 caused the colony’s status to become highly problematic) to the consolidation of Communist rule in China in 1955 (right after the Geneva Conference on Indochina and at the start of the Bandung era). The Chinese Communist tolerance of Hong Kong’s continued status under British rule since 1949 has been the result of key considerations in cold war politics, while the decline of British power in global politics has enabled China to be increasingly assertive in its Hong Kong presence. The Communist Chinese shadow over Hong Kong’s remarkable domestic development during the height of the cold war is vividly reflected in chapter 8, by John Young, on the period 1950-71. Young also delineates a historic turning point in the emergence of an increasingly strong local identity of the Hong Kong Chinese, as displayed in their support of the British colonial regime against the pro-Beijing leftist riots in 1967, which were a spillover of the PRC’s Cultural Revolution. Indeed, it was a very significant reversal of Hong Kong’s traditional grass-roots defense of the mainland’s interest against British colonial might. The highly unstable triangular linkage among London, Hong Kong, and Beij­ ing, despite the 1972 normalization of Sino-British diplomatic relations and the 1984 settlement of Hong Kong’s future status, is delineated in chapter 9, by James Tang and Frank Ching. The helplessness of Hong Kong’s people in the Sino-British secret deals, which sealed their fate without their participation and consent, did not give much weight to Hong Kong’s wish to be an equal partner in any “three-legged stool” political arrangement. By the mid-1980s, London’s retreat on the Hong Kong issue had permanently unbalanced any residual stabil­ ity of the China-Britain-Hong Kong three-legged stool. The regrettable and even tragic experience of transitional Hong Kong under the governorship of David Wilson is succinctly chronicled by Frank Ching in chapter 10. The British retreat under PRC pressure from an earlier, commitment to pre1997 democratization postponed the introduction of legislative direct election from 1988 to 1991. The finalization of the Hong Kong Basic Law in the spring of 1990 following Sino-British secret deals on the “convergence” between the pre- and post-1997 electoral arrangements, which became the bone of contention in the recent Patten crisis, reinforced the gridlock stalling Hong Kong’s already limited democratization. Popular mobilization in support of the Tiananmen dem­ onstrators led to a rebound of the Hong Kong democratic lobby, which achieved a landslide victory in the September 1991 legislative direct election, only to be neutralized by Wilson’s appointment of conservative elites who later turned pro-Beijing opportunists. A politically dictated rush decision for a new airport project without adequate customary public consultation or local support pro­ voked Beijing’s stem obstruction, culminating in the 1991 airport memorandum, which did not resolve the original problem but rather legitimized PRC interfer­ ence in pre-1997 local developments. These are some of the still painful bequests

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from the Wilson regime highlighted by Ching in chapter 10. In retrospect, the current Sino-British crisis over transitional Hong Kong can be regarded as the latest round in a very long and infamous repertoire of per­ ceived imperialistic aggression and aroused nationalistic response involving Hong Kong and its Chinese populace as vanguards and victims. These chapters collectively provide some keen observations and cogent analysis for a more informed understanding of the historical roots and the contemporary dramas of Hong Kong’s uneasy passage from Chinese frontier village to British Crown Colony and finally to Socialist China’s Special Administrative Region in 155 years. The life and work, hope and fear, of the people of Hong Kong, forever living with the uncertain prospect of a precarious balance between China and Britain, are reflected in various parts of this volume. As the colonial sunset disappears fast over the horizon, the true legacy of one and a half centuries of British rule in Hong Kong may well be its inability to transform this cosmopoli­ tan Chinese community, which it helped to foster into a shining example of economic success, into a genuine democracy serving the true interests of the Chinese nation at the threshold of the twenty-first century.

Note 1. Hughes, Hong Kong.

2 From Antiforeignism to Popular Nationalism: Hong Kong between China and Britain, 1839-1911 Jung-fang Tsai

This chapter does not attempt to provide a comprehensive political history of Hong Kong’s early relations with China and Britain. Rather, it focuses on one theme in the triangular relationship—namely, the origins of popular nationalism among the Chinese in the British colony in the formative period of its history. Limited space allows only brief discussion of selected historical events that occurred during the seven decades from 1839 to 1911. Ever since the British occupation of the island of Hong Kong in 1839 during the Opium War, the Chinese in the neighboring districts have time and again been forced by poverty, hunger, and political disturbances on the mainland to take refuge on the island, which provides relative safety and opportunities for employment. Consequently, it has often been maintained that “most residents [of Hong Kong] . .. see themselves . . . as willing subjects of a foreign government rather than involuntary slaves of a conquering colonial regime.”1 This assertion tells only part of the story, though. In fact, there was a long series of tensions and crises in which the Chinese people in Hong Kong expressed their displeasure with and hostility toward the British colonial authorities. This is an important aspect of the colony’s history that has been much neglected by scholars, who have often overstated the prevalence of stability, growth, and development. In this chapter, the term Chinese nationalism is defined as a sense of collec­ tive identity with and loyalty to China as a sovereign nation-state. Nationalism is used interchangeably with the word patriotism. It is a reflection of political consciousness, which may turn into popular action. To assert that the Chinese in 9

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HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

Hong Kong have been politically active seems to contradict another common belief—that they have been passive, apolitical, and pragmatic, concerned merely with the pursuit of wealth, comfort, order, and security. In reality, however, they, no less than their brethren on the mainland, could be provoked to action, as in the recent political mobilization protesting the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beij­ ing. Politicization of the masses in the colony far antedated this recent event, however. This chapter seeks to trace the emergence of Chinese patriotism, partic­ ularly among the working people, in Hong Kong in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A word of caution is necessary. Patriotism and national consciousness should be carefully distinguished from mere antiforeignism, which is defined as feelings of hostility toward foreigners and anything foreign. This latter sentiment was prevalent among the Chinese in most of the social unrest in Hong Kong during the nineteenth century. Antiforeignism did not necessarily entail feelings of pa­ triotic devotion to one’s nation-state. It would be grossly uncritical and anachro­ nistic to equate antiforeignism of the mid-nineteenth century with the Chinese national consciousness that slowly started to develop among the colony’s popu­ lace in the late nineteenth century. Some signs of popular nationalism began to emerge in the mid-1880s but did not find full expression until the Chinese republican revolution of 1911. It is important to remember that during the course of the colony’s history, there were both harmony and conflict, cooperation and antagonism, in the rela­ tionships between the Chinese and Europeans in Hong Kong. Hence, there were times of peace and stability, and also of social disturbance. Such relationships must be examined against the historical background of Britain’s acquisition of and control over Hong Kong. An introductory survey on the founding of the colony is in order.

The Founding of the Colony Before the arrival of the British, the Chinese population of Hong Kong island (measuring twenty-nine square miles) consisted of only about 4,000 people, mostly fishermen, farmers, and stone cutters. They lived in villages scattered throughout the island. In June 1839, the British fleet and merchant shipping began to arrive in Hong Kong. This attracted many boatmen, laborers, artisans, and adventurers from the neighboring districts of the mainland, who profited by supplying the British with provisions and other services. They defied the Chinese magistrates’ order not to have any dealings with the “foreign barbarians” (fangui).2 The proclamations of the British superintendent of trade, Captain Charles Elliot, in 1841 promised that all Hong Kong inhabitants would enjoy full security and protection; that the Chinese on the island were free to practice their own religions, ceremonies, and social customs; and that in the free port of Hong Kong all vessels were free from import and export duties.

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To avoid the disruptive conditions around Canton during the Opium War, a number of European merchants began to move their offices to Hong Kong. The whole establishment of the British Superintendency of Trade was moved from Macao to Hong Kong in February 1842, which further lured some leading Brit­ ish merchants to move their trade headquarters from Macao and Canton to Hong Kong. Large numbers of the Chinese outcast boat people and the poor Hakka laborers flocked to Hong Kong to work for “foreign devils,” risking the mandarins’ displeasure. In May 1841, the island had an estimated Chinese popu­ lation of 5,650, which by March 1842 had increased to 12,361, the total popula­ tion (including foreigners) being over 15,000.3 The densely populated Canton region, though fertile, experienced constant pressure on land and food resources.4 Poverty forced many Chinese laborers and artisans to emigrate to Hong Kong in search of employment opportunities. Many of these early immigrants were adventurers ready to run any risk to work for a living. Lacking in national consciousness, they eagerly worked for the British invaders during the Opium War, but they were also easily co-opted by the mandarins, who schemed to do harm to the British. Manchu Imperial Commis­ sioner Qi Shan secretly reported to Emperor Dao Guang in March 1842 that he had “secured the services of 3,000 Chinese residents of Hong Kong who had promised to rise against the foreigners at the proper time.” Thereupon, the em­ peror ordered Qi Ying to proceed to Canton to direct the attack on Hong Kong and to organize the uprising on the island. The plan did not materialize, however, because Qi Ying was recalled when Nanjing was threatened by the British forces.5 The Treaty of Nanjing (August 29, 1842), which concluded the war, forced China to cede Hong Kong to Britain in perpetuity. Subsequently, the development of the colony as a trading port was carried out at a brisk pace. Buildings of all kinds were set up, including commercial houses, government offices, private residences, ware­ houses, markets, and hospitals. The great demand for labor was quickly met by ample supplies from the Chinese mainland, particularly Guangdong Province. The island’s population had increased to 23,817 by June 1845.6

Tension between Chinese and Europeans, 1840s-1850s In the rapidly growing town of Victoria on the northeastern shore of the island, the Chinese emigrants from the same native place speaking the same dialect often clung together for protection and mutual assistance and competed with other dialect groups for resources and work opportunities. In the new frontier town under foreign colonial rule, however, Chinese residents of all dialects also experienced common problems that demanded cooperative solutions. They therefore organized their community to meet that demand. Neighborhood associ­ ations (jiefang) and temple committees were formed, incorporating various dia­ lect groups and providing public order and security. Under foreign colonial rule,

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conflict and rivalry did not preclude cooperation among Chinese dialect groups. The primary purpose of the British in acquiring Hong Kong was to make it into a trading port in Asia. Far from seeking to assimilate the local population, the British colonial government was willing to allow the Chinese to follow their own customs and social practices, so long as public order was maintained and trade enhanced. Chinese and Europeans formed separate communities, living in separate quarters of the town. During the 1840s the colonial authorities exercised minimal direct control over Chinese community life. An attempt in 1844 to assume strict control, provoking popular resistance, provides one illustration of the tensions between the Chinese and European communities in the colony. The Hong Kong Legislative Council passed a Registration Ordinance on Au­ gust 21, 1844, intended to control the Chinese population and to check the influx of the “scum” of Chinese into the colony. The government made a tactical error, however, of hastily passing legislation without prior consultation with the British residents, and this legislation required the registration of all inhabitants and imposed an annual poll tax of HK$5 on each European merchant and HK$1 on each Chinese coolie. This provoked strong resistance from both the European and Chinese communities in the colony. A meeting of the British merchants on October 28 resolved to present a memorandum to the governor, condemning the ordinance as “unjust,” “arbitrary and unconstitutional” in “taxing British subjects unrepresented in the most iniq­ uitous of forms.” 7 Yet the British residents approved of the registration and control of the colony’s Chinese population. “It is absolutely requisite,” they insisted, “that our Government should use the most stringent measures to restrict the influx of disreputable characters and to scrutinize those who are on the island.” 8 The British community objected to the indiscriminate application of such measures to the non-Chinese residents, however. The Chinese hated the poll tax and refused to be individually registered. They went on strike on October 31. The following day, all shops and markets were closed. Workers and domestic servants were all on strike. There was no rioting or noisy demonstration, though in one incident some coolies seized a baker’s boy carrying two baskets of bread; “a few brick bats were thrown on the occasion, and about a dozen of the ‘seditious rebels’ captured, and . .. flogged.” An exo­ dus of some 3,000 Chinese brought business to a complete standstill.9 This forced the Legislative Council to pass an amended ordinance on November 13, 1844, which did away with the poll tax and applied registration only to the lowest classes.10 The combination of antiforeign sentiment and resentment of the colonial government’s exorbitant demands provoked the Chinese general strike. The ten­ sion between Chinese and Europeans helped form a sense of Chinese community among all the dialect groups in the colony. A local English paper expressed great concern about the possibility of future Chinese attempts “to starve their rulers into a compliance with their wishes.” 11

FROM ANTIFOREIGNISM TO POPULAR NATIONALISM

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In the aftermath of the Opium War and throughout the 1840s and 1850s, tension and animosity characterized the relations between the Chinese and the British in the Canton Delta, the homeland of most Hong Kong Chinese. The British insistence on their right to enter the city of Canton caused popular out­ bursts against the Westerners in Canton. Strong antiforeign feelings were shared by the Cantonese in Hong Kong. Yet tension and conflict represented only one side of the relationship between the Chinese and the Europeans in the colony. They did not preclude cooperation, a pragmatic side of that relationship. Forced by poverty and disorder on the mainland to migrate to Hong Kong, many Chi­ nese found employment with the foreign colonists, whom they disliked. Paradoxically, the 1850s were a period of simultaneous rapid economic growth and deep sociopolitical crisis. The Taiping movement (1850-64) in China caused large numbers of Chinese, including wealthy merchants, to take refuge in Hong Kong. The Reverend Dr. James Legge reported: “As Canton was threatened [by rebels], the families of means hastened to leave it, and many of them flocked to this Colony.” 12 The Chinese population in Hong Kong increased dramatically from 28,297 in 1849, to 37,536 in 1853, to 121,497 in 1865.13 This influx o f people and capital gave a great impetus to trade and brought commer­ cial prosperity to the colony. Disturbances on the mainland also caused crises in Hong Kong. The Taiping partisans were active in and around the colony. On December 21, 1854, the Hong Kong police arrested several hundred armed partisans who were about to embark on an attack on Kowloon City. On January 23, 1855, the Victoria Harbor patrol had to order away the Taiping and the Chinese imperial war junks, which had come to the brink of a naval battle.14 War deepened the crisis in Hong Kong. The Arrow Incident occurred on October 8, 1856, involving a lorcha* named Arrow, which was owned by some Hong Kong Chinese. Anchored off Canton, it was registered with the British colonial government in Hong Kong and was flying a British flag. With the excuse of searching for pirates, Chinese officials arrested its Chinese crew and hauled down the British flag. Using this incident as a pretext, the British started the Arrow War (1856-60) against China to press for the opening of the city of Canton and for more concessions from China. In response to the British bombardment of Canton, Viceroy Ye Mingchen called unsuccessfully on the Chinese in Hong Kong to leave the colony im­ mediately. He had placards posted in the streets of Hong Kong and Canton, inciting people to fight the British enemy by any means and offering rewards for the heads o f compradors who collaborated with the enemy.15 It was in this wartime crisis that the famous Bread-poisoning Incident broke out. On January 15, 1857, about 200 or 300 Europeans in Hong Kong became ill

* “Lorcha” is a British term for a small boat.

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after eating the poisoned bread supplied by Zhang Alin’s Yi Xing Bakery. Al­ though members of Zhang’s own family were also poisoned, he and his fifty-one workmen were arrested. For many days the Chinese merchant elite pleaded in vain for their release. It was believed that the order to poison the bread came from Canton, but no proof could be found. In a panic, the colonial government made indiscriminate mass arrests. Some 800 or 900 “suspicious-looking charac­ ters” were rounded up, many of whom were deported or imprisoned. As no culprits could be found, a local English paper speculated that the bread poisoning might have been caused by a mere accident—flour could have been contami­ nated on board a cargo ship also carrying arsenopyrite.16 Whatever the real cause of the bread poisoning, the damage to racial relations had already been done by the colonial government’s arbitrary and high-handed measures. The incident left a legacy of bitterness and anticolonialism among the Hong Kong Chinese. Meanwhile, tensions intensified throughout the war. Canton was occupied by Anglo-French forces from January 5, 1858, to October 21, 1861. The loyalist Chinese officials in the neighboring districts moved the militia to compel the village elders to cut off all market supplies to Hong Kong and to send word to their Hong Kong clansmen to leave the colony immediately; the mandarins threatened to punish the relatives of those in the colony who did not comply. This resulted in an exodus in July 1858 of 20,000 Chinese, mostly laborers, from Hong Kong back to their homeland. This boycott of the European community came to an end only after Governor Bowring sent a naval force to coerce the mandarins to restore the market supplies to Hong Kong.17 Some Chinese historians claim that the 1858 exodus represented Chinese popular nationalism against foreign imperialism,18 meaning that the Chinese laborers who left the colony were motivated by patriotic loyalty to China as a nation-state at war with foreign invaders. While it was true that many people were hostile to foreign intruders, antiforeign feelings did not necessarily entail Chinese national consciousness. Perhaps we need to exercise more caution and restraint in reconstructing this historical event. Little evidence could be found to show that during the 1850s and 1860s the colony’s laborers possessed political consciousness of patriotic loyalty to the Chinese nation-state. In fact, a coolie corps of 750 Hakkas was organized to work for the Anglo-French forces in 1857.19 In addition, 2,000 Hakka coolies were recruited in 1860 to serve as porters for the Anglo-French expedition forces against Tianjin in North China. Furthermore, in the aftermath of war, the British takeover of Kowloon Peninsula just across Victoria Harbor on January 19, 1861, evoked no Chinese resistance.

National Consciousness and Workers’ Mundane Lives Chinese workers who relied on manual labor for a living constituted the great majority of the colony’s population. They included domestic servants, boat peo­ ple, sampan people, cargo coolies, dockyard workers, warehouse coolies, coal

FROM ANTIFOREIGNISM TO POPULAR NATIONALISM

15

coolies, hawkers, and sedan-chair pullers, among others. Most of them lived in poverty. In their daily struggle to make a living, the issue of national conscious­ ness seldom arose. Even if the Anglo-French invasion of China did in fact inspire national awareness among some members of the working class, it was probably of minor importance to them, especially after the war was over and peace was restored. Of primary importance to them was their daily means of subsistence. National consciousness was not easily found among coolies because it in­ volved a high degree of abstract conceptualization hitherto unrelated to their mundane lives. The historian who studies the lofty idea of nationalism must come down from on high to the streets of Hong Kong to observe the coolies’ living conditions. These conditions were not conducive to the nurturing of abstract concepts such as “love of China as my country” and “selfless devotion to China as my nation-state.” Let us observe one particular group of working coolies— the hawkers. There were several thousand hawkers, licensed and unlicensed, in the streets of Hong Kong during the 1870s and 1880s. Hawkers from the same native place, speaking the same dialect, tended to group together at work and live together in the same house or area. The vegetable hawkers thronged the approaches to the markets in the daytime. After dark, they “[took] the unsold remains of the bas­ kets of vegetables to their filthy and crowded rooms, [slept] among them at night, and then [sold] them cheaper next day, when they [were] in an unwhole­ some state.” According to the police report, the fruit hawkers were also “most unsanitary,” their stock being “kept overnight in their overcrowded houses.” The congee* hawkers were “a great nuisance, more particularly in the summer months when they got under the verandahs for shelter from sun and rain. They carried, as a rule, at one end of a bamboo a large cooking stove, with fire alight, and on the other end a stall which was not very easily moved from place to place. They congregated mostly above the water side and streets adjacent.” 20 A European missionary described the “Chinese street-cries in Hong Kong” in 1873 as follows: Assuming that every hawker cries once a minute (many do it more often) and that on an average, his business keeps him out of doors for seven hours a day, this will make about half a million street cries every day. Besides these li­ censed hawkers, however, there are about as many other persons, old and young, who cry out with the object of attracting attention to their trade. This would give about one million street cries a-day on this island.21 The shop frontages along Jervois Street and Jubilee Street were lined with hawkers’ stalls, which made the streets quite impassable morning and evening,

* “Congee” is rice porridge.

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and which very frequently gave rise to quarrels between shopkeepers and hawk­ ers. The police made frequent raids on hawkers and imposed fines on them for obstructing the street. In default of paying the fines, they were imprisoned, which helped to overcrowd the jail. They often preferred imprisonment to the fines, which they could hardly afford to pay.22 Thus, street hawkers were preoccupied with their daily worries and problems: among other concerns, their sleeping rooms were filthy and overcrowded; their congee, fruits, or vegetables quickly got stale or rotten, especially in the hot and humid summer months; their customers were fussy; certain shopkeepers would not allow them to place their stalls in front of the shops; they quarreled among themselves for better stands for their stalls; and they had to watch out for the police, who imposed fines and dragged them to the magistrate’s court. Coolies preoccupied with these mundane matters could not be easily con­ verted into dedicated patriots possessing a sense of collective identity with, and loyalty to, China as a sovereign nation-state. Nevertheless, such conversion was in fact very slowly taking place. As we shall see, under certain historical circum­ stances that developed in the mid-1880s, the colony’s laboring masses could be aroused to some vague awareness of, and concern with, the plight of China as a sovereign nation-state. By the years of the Chinese Republican Revolution of 1911, workers’ antiforeignism had been transformed into popular nationalism. Prior to the mid-1880s, however, there was little evidence of popular national­ ism among workers in the British colony. Generally, they harbored antiforeign­ ism without national consciousness. This observation does not mean to deprecate workers as incapable of the “high” passions of nationalism. To pay close atten­ tion to the coolies’ preoccupation with mundane matters is not to slight the coolies. Quite the contrary, it is to assert the “legitimacy” of such preoccupa­ tion— living a bare subsistence existence, coolies must attend to their immediate material interests and mundane needs. In pursuit of their interests, local laborers were not docile. The colony had a long history of popular unrest. Prior to 1884, labor strikes usually involved only certain segments of the working class; they struggled alone to express their displeasure with the British colonial government. In 1861 the cargo boatmen engaged in a strike to protest a colonial government ordinance requiring their registration. The sedan-chair pullers staged a strike in 1863 protesting an ordinance regulating and licensing public vehicles. A strike of cargo coolies broke out in 1872 because of the government’s attempt to levy fees on some unlicensed coolie lodging houses. In 1883, a disturbance was created by hawkers protesting the police’s removal of their stalls from thoroughfares. Hawkers and some rickshaw pullers, who had been thrown out of work, posted placards in the streets, threatening an uprising against the colonial government and the European community.23 Protection of self-interest was fused with antiforeignism in labor unrest. During the nineteenth century, labor unrest was directed for the most part at the government’s attempts to regulate workers’ lives and work. Popular unrest

FROM ANTIFOREIGNISM TO POPULAR NATIONALISM

17

threatened not only the government, however, but also community peace and Chinese commercial interests. The wealthy Chinese merchants who formed the Chinese community elite had moral obligations to the lower classes in conveying their grievances to the government. The elite’s frequent intervention between labor and government, seeking to restore peace and order, created a pattern of mediated conflict resolution in the colony. Workers’ parochialism often stood in the way of class solidarity and national consciousness. Manual laborers from different regions speaking different dialects fought with one another for resources and work opportunities. Yet in their re­ peated confrontations with the colonial government, they learned to take con­ certed action against a common foe. When their common interest was threatened by government regulations, the different dialect groups among workers of the same occupation joined forces to go on strike. Under certain circumstances, such as those in 1884, a popular movement could develop, involving practically all the working people in the colony in a nearly general strike.

The 1884 Insurrection: Incipient Popular Nationalism A wave of antiforeignism swept the southern provinces of China from Zhejiang to Yunnan during the Sino-French War (1884-85).24 Hong Kong also became involved. On September 18, 1884, a strike broke out in the shipyards protesting the presence in the harbor of a French warship that had taken part in the attack on Fuzhou. Many cargo boat people also stopped working. The British colonial authorities imposed fines on ten boat people for refusing to work for the French. This touched off a boatman’s strike on September 30. All loading and unloading of cargo in the harbor came to a halt for several days. Cargo-carrying coolies on shore also joined the strike. Some cargo coolies sought to prevent the rickshaw and chair pullers from serving foreigners. Police intervention led to riots. Crowds attacked foreigners in the streets. The Sikh constables fired into the crowd. One laborer was found dead, and many others were wounded. The British military authorities sent two companies of troops to help suppress the disturbances. It was not until October 6 that order was restored, yet sporadic attacks on Europeans continued after that date. The popular insurrection of 1884 was complex: a number of causes and circumstances converged to bring about the strike and riots. With the outbreak of the Sino-French War, the Chinese officials in Canton had issued proclamations exhorting all Chinese along the coast to patriotism and warning them against working for the French. As most Chinese in Hong Kong had relatives or property on the mainland, fear of mandarin retaliation was an important factor that ini­ tially caused many people in Hong Kong to refuse to work for the French. Other factors were also at work, though. The French attacks and threats of attack on various points along the Chinese coast had provoked anti-French feelings among all classes of people in Hong Kong, who were worried about their relatives on

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the mainland. Disregarding the Chinese feelings, however, the colonial govern­ ment prosecuted the local Chinese newspaper editors for publishing mainland Chinese officials’ patriotic proclamations. The government also imposed heavy fines on ten boat people who refused to work for the French. This was an important factor that set off the strike. All of these events occurred in the social context of the workers’ poor living conditions. Poverty and misery spawned social discontent and provided condi­ tions conducive to unrest. The strike soon spread to most sectors of the working population because many laborers faced the threat of a heavy fine and the loss of a whole month’s earnings. Concerned about their livelihood and practical inter­ ests, and morally indignant at the fines imposed by the colonial government, workers became politically activated. They not only refused to work for the French but also went on a nearly general strike protesting the colonial government’s repressive measures. In fact, such measures inflamed the people’s initial anti-French sentiment into an anticolonial and anti-imperialist movement with a nationalistic overtone. The strike and riots were led by head boatmen, head cargo coolies, cooliehouse keepers, and the Triad secret societies. The Triads engaged in a wide variety of acts, ranging from frequent petty crimes to occasional patriotic actions against foreign intruders. The Canton officialdom sought to enlist the Triads to fight against the French by promising them material rewards and by appealing to their antiforeign sentiment. Reporting to the Colonial Office in London, Hong Kong Governor George Bowen testified to the emergence of “popular nationalism” in the colony. He stated that at the time of Britain’s previous war with China in 1858-60, the southern Chinese cared little for Beijing, so that there was no difficulty in raising in Hong Kong a corps of 2,000 coolies to serve as porters to the Anglo-French expedition against Beijing. “But now all is changed. The Chinese artisans, coolies, and boatmen refused all offers of pay to do any work whatsoever for the French ships at Hong Kong.” 25 Governor Bowen attributed this change to the founding of a vernacular press, the opening up of rapid communication between the North and the South of China by steamers and telegraphs, and the irritating hostilities of the French at various points along the coast. All these had combined with “other causes” to awaken a common national spirit among the Chinese people. The Canton authorities also worked hard to enhance patriotism by exhorting the Chinese to “comprehend the distinction between China and a foreign coun­ try, and show a devoted regard for [their] fatherland” by helping to defeat the enemy and protect their homes and relatives.26 The “other causes,” which Gover­ nor Bowen did not specify, included precisely those measures adopted by the colonial authorities to suppress Chinese patriotic feelings—for example, the prosecution of Chinese newspaper editors who published mainland Chinese offi­ cial proclamations, the imposition of fines on boat people, and police shootings into crowds, injuring some and killing others.

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Many people in Hong Kong became aware of the Chinese nation-state’s war against the French, who had the sympathy of the British and other fangui (for­ eign devils). According to a Hong Kong police report, the boat people were infuriated by the fines and “much enraged against the French for attacking their country without reason.” 27 They posted notices in the streets protesting the fines and imploring the Chinese merchant elite to “be good enough to assist us with the strength of one arm in order that we may not be laughed at by the French.” 28 Self-interest was fused with patriotism in the coolie labor strike. Sun Yatsen, then a student at the Hong Kong Government Central School, was impressed and encouraged by the patriotism of the dock workers who refused to repair the damaged French vessels docked in Hong Kong. Labor solidarity had its limitations, however, for the activists had to use force to coerce many reluctant and refractory workers to join and continue the strike. Although large numbers of workers joined, many others remained passive and reluctant participants. Nevertheless, for the large numbers of workers who en­ gaged in the strike and riots and who attacked the police and Europeans in the streets, the difference of dialect or birthplace had largely, though temporarily, faded into the background. In 1884 anti-French patriotic sentiment was prevalent among all classes of Hong Kong Chinese. However, the Chinese merchant elite did not take the lead in the popular protest movement. With strong economic ties to Western capital interests, merchants wanted law and order in the colony. Sympathetic to the boat people who were fined by the colonial government for refusing to work for the French, the merchant elite sought to mediate between the striking coolies and the government to restore peace and order to the colony. Even so, the elite did not regard the coolie strike and riots as “legitimate” expressions of patriotism. Among the rioters in 1884 were some teenage boys. “It does not take much sophistication to recognize the conflict between ‘our people’ and ‘foreigners,’ between the colonized and the colonizers,” observes Eric Hobsbawm.29 In a colonial situation imbued with popular animosity to foreign colonial rule, teen­ age children frequently joined in popular protest movements. These children must not too hastily be dismissed as merely “naughty” and hence without signifi­ cance. In fact, children have played useful roles in history. The late Professor Huang Jilu recollected that the Tongmenghui revolutionaries in Szechuan in 1911 used primary school students to do useful work. As a primary school student then, Huang Jilu served as a messenger for his imprisoned brother and other revolu­ tionaries. It was also reported that “Zhu Qinglan, commander of the 16th Divi­ sion in Szechuan, telegraphed the Manchu military council that 80 or 90 primary school pupils were making trouble in the governor’s office.” 30 Teenage children were susceptible to the influence of a revolutionary situation. Long neglected by most historians, this aspect of social history deserves serious scholarly attention. For example, in the Israeli-occupied Arab territories, Arab children throw

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stones at Israeli tanks; in apartheid South Africa, black children help to overturn and set fire to police automobiles. Children’s participation in popular protest movements is sociologically significant precisely because they are children; even teenagers become politicized in societies imbued with intense ethnic hatred and national tensions. Children, like adults, live in society and are susceptible to the influence of its political culture. Growing up in a colonial situation characterized by a tradition of popular hostility to British colonial rule, the Hong Kong Chi­ nese teenagers readily became politically activated and frequently joined the social protest movements. In 1884 and on various other occasions, they hung posters in the streets and threw stones at the Sikh police. Incipient popular nationalism aroused in 1884 proved ephemeral, however. Local issues affecting the working people’s livelihood remained of primary im­ portance to them. Issues of national import, if not related to local issues, had little appeal for the populace. This is not difficult to understand. The common people would be more likely to become patriotic if their concerns with local issues and self-interests were fused with national issues. This fusion would pro­ vide a powerful incentive to popular nationalism. In other words, the common people are often “conditional patriots.” But what about nationalists among the social elite? Are they not conditional patriots also? Are they always as “selfless” and “disinterested” as they often claim to be? Let us examine some elitist nationalists in Hong Kong.

Elitist Nationalists: He Qi (Ho Kai) and Hu Liyuan A series of important events occurred in China during the last two decades of the nineteenth century—the Sino-French War (1884-85), the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, the imperialist powers’ “scram­ ble for concessions,” and the Boxer Uprising in 1900. These events aroused nationalistic responses from a new generation of Chinese merchants, profession­ als, and intelligentsia in Hong Kong. He Qi and Hu Liyuan established their fame as advocates of reform in China.31 With strong economic ties to Western capitalist interests in the colony, some leading Chinese merchants in Hong Kong advocated collaboration with Great Britain to remake China under British tute­ lage. Some members of the Westernized intelligentsia, inspired by nationalism and republicanism, organized the Xingzhonghui Revolutionary Society, seeking to use the British colony as a base for revolution against the Manchus. He Qi and Hu Liyuan provided some inspiration for young revolutionaries such as Sun Yatsen and Xie Zuantai (Tse Tsan Tai). Between 1887 and 1900, He Qi and Hu Liyuan coauthored a number of essays calling on the Chinese government to reform so as to enrich and strengthen the nation. Their reformist thought was shaped by their social back­ ground and personal experience in the British colony. Both were inspired by Western classical liberalism as formulated by the liberal thinker John Locke, the Enlightenment philosophers Adam Smith and Baron Montesquieu, and the Utilitari-

FROM ANTIFOREIGNISM TO POPULAR NATIONALISM

21

ans Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. He Qi went to Britain to study in 1873 when the bourgeois ethos of the mid-Victorian era still permeated the island-nation; he left Britain in 1882 (with medical and law degrees), just before laissez-faire liberalism began to face the serious challenge of trade unions and socialist movements. Impressed by Britain’s wealth and power, He Qi came to value Britain’s liberal tradition, which stressed individual rights, free trade, industrialism, and constitutionalism. Hu Liyuan, a bicultural scholar from a merchant family, was inspired by the same tradition of Western classical liberalism. Though he did not go to England, he acquired a mastery of the English language in Hong Kong. Classical liberalism appealed to He Qi and Hu Liyuan not only because of its intrinsic value; it was also congenial to their commercial and professional inter­ ests and aspirations. Living in the burgeoning city of Hong Kong, the Western­ ized barrister and physician He and the scholar-merchant Hu fared well under the protection of the British colonial government. They came to admire and advocate the British liberal political institutions and the capitalist economic sys­ tem as models for China. They found Lockeian liberal thought (with its emphasis on man’s “natural rights” to life, liberty, and property) particularly congenial to their tastes and interests. He and Hu helped to promote the Chinese reform movement. They exposed the corruption, inefficiency, and oppression of China’s gentry-dominated ruling bureaucracy. They insisted that merchants and businessmen were the backbone of the nation, commercialism the road to the nation’s wealth and power, and capitalist private enterprise the best way to develop China’s economy. Thus, they equated the merchants’ interest with the nation’s interest; what was best for the merchants was best for the state. They advocated a thorough reorganization of China’s government, with a ministry of commerce taking the leading position. They demanded that merchants and overseas Chinese businessmen have the right to serve as government officials and the people’s representatives.32 He Qi and Hu Liyuan’s essays represented a modern commercial elite per­ spective from Hong Kong. In advocating parliamentary democracy and commer­ cial capitalism, they were motivated by both a nationalist concern for China’s wealth and power and a private concern for the merchants’ interests. They wished to change the existing sociopolitical order dominated by the gentryscholar-officials who represented the bureaucratic state, to share power with the official establishment, and to promote simultaneously the national interests and merchants’ interests. The fusion of public and private concerns shaped the elitist nationalism of these two Hong Kong Chinese reformers—who were not alto­ gether “selfless” and “disinterested.”

Revolutionaries and Laborers At the turn of the twentieth century, the elitist nationalism as propagated by the Hong Kong merchants and intelligentsia and by the Xingzhonghui revolutionär-

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ies held little appeal for the colony’s working class because it was built on a sectional foundation. The elitist nationalists seldom sought to advance the laborers’ interests. The leading Xingzhonghui revolutionaries came mostly from the Westernized intelligentsia, and a number of them were baptized Christians. Except for their ethnicity, they had nothing in common with the working people. In their attempts to organize armed uprisings against the Manchus, they sought to recruit antidynastic secret society members, who, however, were not easily converted into dedicated republican nationalists. In the abortive Canton uprising of October 27, 1895, some 600 coolies from Hong Kong were hired at HK$10 per month by the revolutionaries, but the coolies thought that they were engaged as soldiers for the Manchu government! They showed no interest in the revolutionary uprising.33 A gap separated the elitist nationalists from the working people. It would take several more years before some Tongmenghui revolutionaries came to realize that they had to “stoop” to work with laborers to help meet their mundane needs in order to win them over to the revolutionary cause. Among the laborers in Hong Kong, the skilled and semiskilled workers, such as seamen and mechanics, were more literate than nonskilled workers and were generally more responsive to the Tongmenghui revolutionary cause. The earliest supporters of Sun Yatsen’s program included the Cantonese seamen. Their lead­ ers, such as Su Zhaozheng and Yang Yin, both natives of Sun’s home county of Xiangshan, had joined the Tongmenghui before 1911. Su Zhaozheng was a member of the Lian Yi and Zhong Yi societies set up by the revolutionaries in Hong Kong.34 The Tongmenghui revolutionaries also began to establish close ties with the Chinese mechanics. Subjected to racial discrimination and frequently involved in labor disputes with their foreign employers, the colony’s mechanics became politically conscious and felt the need to combine forces to defend their interests, looking to the revolutionaries for help. Ma Chaojun, a labor leader, played an important role in bringing together the mechanics and the revolutionaries. On March 24, 1909, the Hong Kong Chinese Mechanics’ Association (Xianggang huaren jiqihui) was formally founded. Shortly afterward, on July 24, 1909, the Chinese Institute for the Study of Mechanics (Zhongguo yanji shushu) was set up to provide education for the mechanics and their children. Renamed the Chinese General Association for Engineering Studies (Zhongguo jiqi yanjiao zonghui) in 1910, it was dedicated to labor education and revolutionary activi­ ties. It also helped to found a sister association in Canton named the Guangdong General Association for Engineering Studies, laying the foundation for the future Guangdong provincial mechanics’ union.35 The traditional bonds of provincialism and localism served the cause of Na­ tionalist revolution. Sun Yatsen and other Cantonese revolutionaries often ap­ pealed to provincial and local ties to recruit their fellow Cantonese into the revolutionary camp. The Siyi Association in Hong Kong provides an illustration

FROM ANTIFOREIGNISM TO POPULAR NATIONALISM

23

of how localism served to enhance the nationalist cause. In fact, as early as 1894 and especially after 1905, the revolutionaries from Siyi were actively propagat­ ing revolution among the Siyi people both in Guangdong and in the United States.36 The Siyi Association in Hong Kong came to consist of merchants, traders, artisans, and coolies, many of whom became members of the Tongmenghui. The association provided much of the power and leadership for the patri­ otic movements in the colony to support the revolution in Canton.

Hong Kong in the Chinese Revolution, 1911 The 1911 Revolution gave an important stimulus to popular nationalism among the Chinese in Hong Kong. A great proportion of the people from all classes in the colony were aroused to a new awareness of and concern with China’s politics and problems. Since the Wuhan uprising of October 10, 1911, the colony’s Chinese had largely been in favor of the revolution. This was reflected in the disturbances during the anniversary celebration of Confucius’s birthday in Hong Kong on October 18. A crowd of about 400 Chinese attacked the offices of the royalist Baohuanghui newspaper Shangbao and of the Bank of China, forcing them to remove the Manchu imperial dragon flags.37 Moreover, within a few days after October 10, thousands of men in Hong Kong had cut off their queue, which had been a humiliating symbol of submission to the Manchus. On November 6, news (which later proved untrue) was received by the Chinese press in the colony that Beijing had fallen to the revolutionaries and that the Man­ chus had fled. This provided “the occasion of the most amazing outburst which has ever been seen and heard in the history of this Colony,” Governor Frederick Lugard reported to the Colonial Office in London. “The entire Chinese popula­ tion appeared to become temporarily demented with joy. The din of crackers . . . was deafening and accompanied by perpetual cheering and flag-waving.”38 The spontaneous popular jubilation continued on November 7. The jubilant crowds consisted of revolutionary activists, Republican partisans, shopkeepers, mer­ chants, traders, boat people, barbers, hawkers, and other workers. This rejoicing at the alleged fall of the Manchu government in Beijing was a spontaneous outburst of Chinese patriotism in the British colony. What was the colonial authorities’ attitude toward this? They were tolerant, realizing how vain and counterproductive it would be to attempt to forcefully suppress such an outburst of Chinese feelings. With Governor Lugard’s reluctant consent, November 13 was observed as a public holiday by the Chinese in the colony to celebrate the birth of the Republican government in Canton.39 The twin cities of Hong Kong and Canton were closely connected in several important ways. Geographic proximity has been a decisive factor shaping the colony’s history. Unlike Taiwan, which is separated from the mainland by a strait about a hundred miles wide, Hong Kong is connected with China geo­

24

HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

graphically. This has had important consequences. Ethnically, most Hong Kong residents had relatives (and property) in Canton and its surrounding area. Interac­ tions between them were constant and uninterrupted. Economically, the two cities were joined by inseparable ties, with Hong Kong serving as an entrepot— importing goods for Canton merchants to distribute to the mainland and export­ ing goods that Canton had collected from inland. Such demographic and commercial ties provided the socioeconomic incentives for patriotism among the Chinese in the colony. Politically, the Republican conspirators who had used Hong Kong as a revolutionary base now became leaders of the new Canton government in 1911. The successful Republican Revolution in China inspired the Chinese people of Hong Kong to a new national awareness and political consciousness. The year 1911 marked the beginning of a new era in the development o f popular national­ ism among the Chinese in Hong Kong, who, however, seemed destined to expe­ rience more frustration than gratification in the years during the Chinese Republican era and beyond.

Notes 1. Stephen, “Hong Kong Is the Lifeboat,” p. 210. 2. Smith, “The Chinese Settlement of British Hong Kong,” pp. 26-27. 3. Smith, “The Chinese Settlement of British Hong Kong,” p. 26; Eitel, Europe in China pp. 167-71,181—83, 186. 4. Yan et al., Zhongguo xiandai jingjishi tongji ziliao xuanji (Selected statistics on China’s modem economic history), pp. 362-67; Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate pp. 179-80, contains much information about socioeconomic conditions in Guangdong. 5. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 150. 6. Endacott, A History o f Hong Kong, p. 65. 7. Friend o f China and Hongkong, November 2, 1844, p. 563. 8. Friend o f China and Hongkong, November 2,1844, p. 561. 9. Friend o f China and Hongkong, November 2,1844, p. 561. 10. Shang, Xiangjiangjiushi (The Hong Kong old events), pp. 105-7; Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 224—26; and Norton-Kyshe, History o f the Laws and Courts o f Hong Kong 1: p. 69. 11. Friend o f China and Hongkong, November 2,1844, p. 561. 12. Legge, “The Colony of Hong Kong,” p. 184. 13. Historical and Statistical Abstract o f the Colony o f Hong Kong, 1841—1930. 14. Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 302—3. 15. Lu Yan, Xianggang zhanggu (Hong Kong historical records), 2: pp. 155-61; China Mail, November 27, 1856. 16. For this incident, see Shang, Xiangjiang jiushi, pp. 79-91; Lu Yan, Xianggang zhanggu 2: pp. 162-64; and Norton-Kyshe, History o f the Laws and Courts o f Hong Kong 1: pp. 418-21. 17. Norton-Kyshe, History o f the Laws and Courts o f Hong Kong 1: p. 495; and Eitel, Europe in China, pp. 319—20. 18. Yuan, “Xianggang gongren yundong lishi de jike tedian” (Some characteristics in the history of the labor movement in Hong Kong), p. 178.

FROM ANTIFOREIGNISM TO POPULAR NATIONALISM

25

19. Eitel, Europe in China, p. 316. 20. Correspondence Relative to the Magistrate’s Court, Police and Prisons Vol. 11 (1889), pp. 219—24. 21. Nacken, “Chinese Street-cries in Hong Kong,” p. 129. 22. Correspondence Relative to the Magistrate’s Court, Police and Prisons, Vol. 10, pp. 571—73, Vol. 11, pp. 208-16, and Vol. 14, p. 109; and Hongkong Daily Press, May 5, 17, 19,1883. 23. Hongkong Daily Press, May 23, 1883. 24. For this section on the social unrest in Hong Kong in 1884, see Tsai, “The Hong Kong Insurrection, 1884,” Tsai, “The 1884 Hong Kong Insurrection,” pp. 2-14; Sinn, “The Strike and Riot of 1884” pp. 65-98; and Chere, “The Hong Kong Riots of 1884.” 25. Bowan to Derby, Public Record Office (PRO), Colonial Office (CO) 129/220/ 5502, February 23, 1985, pp. 281-82. 26. Ibid. 27. “Correspondence Relative to the Magistrate’s Courts” 3, police court case no. 146. PRO, CO 882,4 (33): 14,23,25,26,29, 31,32. 28. Endacott, A History o f Hong Kong, p. 172. 29. Hobsbawm, Bandits, p. 103. 30. Compilation Committee, Symposium, p. 272. 31. For a detailed discussion of these two Hong Kong gentlemen, see Tsai, “The Predicament of the Comprador Ideologists,” pp. 191-225. 32. He and Hu, “Xinzheng lunyi” (Discourse on the new government), and “Quanxuepian shuhou” (Review of Zhang Zhidong’s exhortation to learning), in Hu Yinan xiansheng quanji (Complete works of Mr. Hu Liyuan) 4:18, 6:20-21, 18:4. 33. Governor Robinson to Joseph Chamberlain, March 11, 1896, PRO, CO 129/271/ 7908,439,441. 34. Wales, Chinese Labor Movement, p. 209; and Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Em­ pire,” p. 35. 35. Chen Da, “Woguo nanbu de laogong kaikuang” (General conditions of laborers in the south of our country), pp. 4-7; Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 33-34. 36. Liu and Cheng, “Xinhai geming yundong zhongde Taishan xian yu huaqiao” (Taishan county and the overseas Chinese during the 1911 revolutionary movement), pp. 92—113. Siyi refers to the four districts in Guangdong, namely, Kaiping, Enping, Xinning, and Xinhui. 37. Hongkong Daily Press, October 19 and 20, 1911; Huazi Ribao (Chinese mail), October 20, 1911. 38. Governor Lugard to the Honorable Lewis Harcourt, November 23, 1911 (confi­ dential), PRO, CO 129/381/41103, pp. 196-97. 39. Hongkong Daily Press, November 13,1911.

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3 Hong Kong in Sino-British Conflict: Mass Mobilization and the Crisis of Legitimacy, 1912-26 M ing K. Chan

Hong Kong under British rule was a direct result of the first major Sino-British conflict in modem times. Since its origin, Hong Kong has remained both a focal point and an arena, and sometimes the bone, of contention or even a hostage, in Sino-British conflicts. A quarter century ago, Hong Kong was simmering in a long, hot summer of political riots and civil disturbances sparked off by local labor strikes. The true cause was the spillover of ultraleftist fever from the Cultural Revolution on the Chinese mainland, which had nearly excommunicated the rest of the world, Britain included. The summer of 1967 was in some sense a restaging of old plays from the rich repertoire of mass mobilization against British colonialism. Forty years earlier, Hong Kong was enjoying a reprieve from the political heatwave emitted from China. Indeed, the summer of 1927 witnessed the dawn of a new era of relative peace and stability in Sino-British relations; Hong Kong had just begun its slow rebound from the social dislocation and economic de­ pression induced by the devastating Canton-Hong Kong General Strike-Boycott of 1925-26. This sixteen-month-long movement seriously challenged many of the assumptions and justifications on which the British colonial regime had based its claims to legality vis-à-vis both the local Chinese populace and China. Before looking at Hong Kong in the roaring 1920s, with its exciting record of three major labor strikes amid the web of Sino-British entanglement, it is useful to review two important yet little-known episodes of grass-roots protest in the early Republican years. The 1912-13 Tramway Boycott and the 1919 May 27

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HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

Fourth Boycott exemplified interesting features of patriotic outburst among the Chinese grass roots in the British colony. Indeed, the birth, growth, and development of Hong Kong has been a chroni­ cle mirroring Sino-British relations during the past one and a half centuries. Following the British possession of Hong Kong in the Opium War of 1839^42, the successive expansions of the British domain in 1860 and 1898 were made possible only at the expense of China. The Chinese state, therefore, considers Hong Kong under the British flag an affront to Chinese sovereignty and national pride and has seldom been able to look at it in a positive light. On the other hand, the Chinese living in Hong Kong have complex and mixed feelings toward the colony and the British rulers because of their loyalty to their motherland and their resentment toward colonial discrimination. Throughout the history of its rule in Hong Kong, the British administration has had to be sensitive to two Chinese factors—one external and one on the home front: the Chinese state on the mainland, especially the Cantonese authorities as Hong Kong’s immediate neighbor, and the local Chinese populace, with their own aspira­ tions, requirements, and sense of legitimacy. Given these two factors, the British in the sunset years of their governance in Hong Kong should be more aware of the true nature of their colonial rule, which has been characterized by an acute lack of representative mandate, public accountability, and, above all, popular legitimacy among the majority of the people of Hong Kong. It is against such intricate British colonial state-local Chinese society-mainland Chinese nation relations that the fol­ lowing episodes of grass-roots mobilization unfolded in Hong Kong, adding histori­ cal significance to the meaning of legitimacy at this particular juncture of Hong Kong’s transition to Chinese sovereignty.

Popular Protests in Hong Kong, 1912-19 The 1911 Revolution and the establishment of a new republic in 1912 not only signaled the end of two millennia of monarchical order but ushered in a rising tide of popular nationalism and revolutionary fever on the Chinese mainland. Such sentiment sounded strong echoes in the collective consciousness of the Chinese grass roots in Hong Kong. The presence of a modern Chinese state— supposedly more enlightened and egalitarian— further aroused the patriotism of many Hong Kong Chinese, while the new political situation in Canton disturbed the British colonial establishment, which had never perceived the anti-Qing rev­ olutionaries in a positive light. This was not simply because of the British reluc­ tance to let Hong Kong turn into a “subversive base” jeopardizing relations with the ruling Chinese state. A real concern of the colonial authorities was the revolutionary partisans’ call for the abolition of unequal treaty rights. As such, the political and psychological reactions in Hong Kong to the victorious Repub­ lican cause were markedly different between the Chinese grass roots and the British officialdom.

HONG KONG IN SINO-BRITISH CONFLICT

29

In fact, the November 1911 popular jubilation at the demise of Qing rule (at least in Guangdong, where the viceroy fled on November 9) was coupled with the hope among many Chinese in the colony that foreign domination could also be brought to an end, not just on the mainland but in Hong Kong as well. As such, the widespread disorder in Hong Kong during late 1911, when Europeans were attacked and police actions were resisted, can be understood in the context of popular outburst against colonialism amid the new Republican patriotic fever. The British administration responded to this and other subsequent fallout effects from the new Republican order with stern legal and administrative mea­ sures. To restore order and subdue the rowdy mobs, Governor Frederick Lugard invoked emergency powers under the Peace Preservation Ordinance on Novem­ ber 30, 1911, giving the police the wide-ranging power to disperse crowds, enter houses, and make arrests. On the same day, an amending bill was rushed through the Legislative Council in a single sitting, empowering magistrates to impose heavy corporal penalties for a wide range of offenses. The local British garrison was reinforced with troops from India, and city streets were patrolled by armed soldiers until the emergency powers were revoked in March 1912.1 To contain the outbreak of banditry and piracy created by ex-Qing soldiers and roaming mainland militia, in the border area and outlying islands, the Hong Kong government reinforced police stations and built a new marine police launch in late 1912. Troops from the Indian battalions were deployed in the New Territo­ ries and along the Hong Kong-China border. The British administration also passed the Protection Against Piracy Ordinance of 1913 giving the police the right to search all passengers on river steamers plying between Hong Kong and the Canton Delta ports.2 It was the financial insolvency of Guangdong’s new Republican regime, however, that exerted an even more damaging effect on the colony.

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The Tramway Boycott 1912-13 One consequence of the extremely close trading networks and intense human traffic between Hong Kong and Guangdong was the free circulation of Chinese currency in Hong Kong and vice versa. To strengthen the local monetary system against the flood of depreciated Chinese coins, the Hong Kong government decided to prohibit the use of Chinese coins. The April 1912 Foreign Copper Coin Ordinance banned the importation and circulation of foreign copper and bronze coins. This measure was regarded by many Chinese in Hong Kong as an unfriendly act and highly disrespectful toward the new republic. The Hong Kong government’s stem enforcement of this law added insult to the injured Chinese nationalistic pride and provoked the three-month-long Tramway Boycott in the winter of 1912-13.3 In November 1912, Governor Francis Henry May (who had taken office in July) persuaded the two tramway companies and the Star Ferry Company to

30

HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

refuse Chinese coins for fare payment. These public transport concerns had in the past suffered from the depreciation of mainland coins that were of the same denomination and size as Hong Kong coins. This new policy, which began on November 18, 1912, created considerable problems as Hong Kong coins were few and the colony was flooded with Chinese coins. Many European and Chi­ nese passengers were unable to pay their fares in the legal tender. By the second week, a boycott of the low-level tramway broke out, with trams being stoned frequently; local shopkeepers either refused service to those who got off the tram cars or charged them exorbitant prices. After the police arrested some stonethrowing coolies, the stoning ceased. By then, however, the tram cars were almost empty, and even with a policeman or soldier riding on the car for protec­ tion, the only Chinese on board were the driver and the conductor. The pro­ liferation along the tram route of posters in Chinese threatening tramway riders with death by explosion offered clear evidence of a deliberate boycott. At con­ siderable inconvenience, workers who used to ride the trams to and from work walked instead. Even in inclement weather, the trams remained empty. The British attributed this widespread and effective boycott to the “power of intimidation” by the mechanics’ and craft guilds and other Chinese social organizations.4 After Chinese community leaders tried ineffectually to break the boycott, Governor May had the Legislative Council pass in a single sitting on December 19, 1912, a Boycott Prevention Ordinance. This draconian law defined a boycott as “any act calculated to persuade or induce any persons not to make use or occupy any movable property in any lawful manner, or not to work for any persons in a lawful manner in the ordinary course of trade, business or employ­ ment.” Besides heavy penalties for threatening violence, picketing, and inciting to boycott, this ordinance also authorized the governor to declare any area in the colony as a boycotting area, over which a special punitive rate could be levied and paid to persons or companies incurring loss due to the boycott.5 On January 4, 1913, the Hong Kong government publicized its intention to impose this special levy on all the areas along the tram route that were pro­ claimed “boycott areas.” A twelve-day grace period was given to Chinese repre­ sentatives and merchants from the affected areas to break the boycott. A solution was soon worked out: the Tramway Company issued tickets in bulk (at a small discount) to property owners and merchants for sale to their employees. Grad­ ually, more and more Chinese used the tram, and passenger traffic returned to normal by February. Hence, no penal rate was levied, and the Boycott Preven­ tion Ordinance was suspended on February 4, 1913. The government later paid out of its revenue HK$45,000 to the Tramway Company as compensation for the loss it sustained in the boycott.6 Other Hong Kong companies soon openly refused Chinese coins. The Hong Kong government enacted without public opposition two more related bills, the Foreign Notes (Prohibition of Circulation) Ordinance and the Foreign Silver and

HONG KONG IN SINO-BRITISH CONFLICT

31

Nickel Coins Ordinance in the summer of 1913.7 Soon afterward, Cantonese coins and notes from Macau vanished from the British colony. No doubt the breaking of the Tramway Boycott enhanced the authority of Governor May, who, in less than two years and at relatively minor direct finan­ cial cost, solved his predecessors’ perennial problem of Chinese coins inundating the colony. Perhaps because of his “old police instincts” (he was head of police in Hong Kong, 1893-1902), Governor May struck back firmly at challenges to British rule and assumed for the government wide and drastic emergency pow­ ers.8 It was the weakening of the mainland Chinese state since the 1911 Revolu­ tion, however, that afforded May greater latitude to respond with force to threats originating from China. In flinging down the gauntlet with the Boycott Prevention Ordinance, par­ ticularly section 9 (the imposition of special punitive rates on a chosen “boy­ cott” area), May set a draconian precedent for the colony’s statute book.9 This unfair requirement of collective responsibility for all the inhabitants in the chosen area, implicit in section 9, was contrary to the presumption of innocence in the common law, supposedly the foundation of the colony’s B ritish-style legal system. Rather, it was more akin to the traditional Chinese baojia system of neighborhood collective security and mutual surveillance/ guarantee in both rural and urban areas. As a contemporary observer summed up the situation, “It was the kind of measure an occupying army might use to enforce its will.” 10 Not unlike that used in the high-handed suppression of the 1894 anti-French boycott, a disturbing rationale behind this 1912 ordinance was the colonial officialdom’s overemphasis on the intimidation efforts of the guilds, secret socie­ ties, and fraternal associations. In adopting this strong boycott-breaking measure, the British authorities tended to ignore the genuine nationalistic pride among the local populace, who saw in the outlawing of Chinese coins (as tokens of Chinese sovereignty) a real insult to their new republic. As a corollary to a crucial point in the 1894 boycott (i.e., an individual’s right to refuse to provide labor or offer service in a free society and economy), the Tramway Boycott raised the ques­ tions of (1) an individual’s right to withdraw patronage or cease consumption of a particular service or product and (2) an individual’s right to free speech in trying to persuade or induce such nonpatronage or nonconsumption in others without being subject to punitive pressure from the state. One could also argue that in paying out of the public coffers HK$45,000 to cover the Tramway Company’s loss, which amounts to direct state intervention in private profitmaking undertakings, the Hong Kong government might also have violated its own sacred laissez-faire precepts. As later events testified, the Boycott Preven­ tion Ordinance did not end the use of boycott as a well-practiced and highly effective weapon against British colonial rule. The coinage and antiboycott legislation was by no means the end of May’s attempt to assert colonial might vis-à-vis the “undesirable” influence emanating

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HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

from the Republican mainland. To counter the Chinese revolution’s undermining impact on the conservative ideas and traditional values taught by Hong Kong’s several hundred vernacular schools, which to that point had remained unas­ sisted and uncontrolled by the government, Governor May enacted in August 1913 the Education Ordinance, which required every school to register with the director of education, conform to government regulations, and submit to official inspection.11 This new educational control was a clear departure from the avowed colonial practice of official noninterference with the internal affairs of the local Chinese community (this noninterference applied, for example, to the practice of herbal medicine). As observed in a recent study, this 1913 ordinance represented “in some ways the high-water mark of colonial power and authority over educa­ tion.”12 However, the true effectiveness of such colonial authority was far from the optimistic conclusion drawn in another recent study: “whatever thoughts of revolutionary radicalism may have simmered in Chinese scholastic minds, the tight new regulations must have nipped them in the bud.”13 The rising tide of Chinese nationalism and revolutionary activism soon drew the active participa­ tion of Hong Kong students in the anti-Japanese May Fourth Boycott of 1919 and in the 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott against British imperialism.

The May Fourth Boycott, 1919 When World War I broke out in Europe on August 4, 1914, Hong Kong as a British colony did not remain neutral. Germans in Hong Kong were either in­ terned or deported, and local German businesses were either liquidated or taken over by the British. Under the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Britain supported the Japanese seizure of Qingdao (Tsingtao), Germany’s concession in China’s Shandong Province. China itself remained neutral in the war until March 1917, when the Beijing regime declared war on Germany. This act rendered the Japan­ ese occupation of Qingdao and unilateral assumption of former German eco­ nomic interests in China highly questionable in international law in view of China’s right to fully recover Qingdao and all such interests as both the original sovereign and a belligerent state. This was the root cause of the epic 1919 May Fourth protests. Hostilities on the European front did not involve Hong Kong directly except for trade dislocation and inflation because of wartime shipping and embargo. In a display of loyalty, the colonial establishment allocated HK$10 million (equiva­ lent to total government revenue for 1914) as a donation to the British war chest.14 However, British support of Japan as an ally did not fit in well with popular Chinese resentment against Japanese aggression in China. Taking advantage of Chinese President Yuan Shikai’s monarchical ambition despite strong domestic opposition, the Japanese government presented the infa­ mous Twenty-one Demands in January 1915. Unable to reject the Japanese

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ultimatum, on May 7 Yuan acceded to all of these demands, except for the fifth part of the demands which would have turned China into a Japanese protectorate. Public protests soon broke out in Chinese cities, and a campaign to promote the use of Chinese products and to boycott Japanese goods gained popular support. In Hong Kong, students and dockworkers also staged protests calling for a boycott of Japanese products to commemorate this May 7—National Humilation Day.15 Japanese stores in Wanchai were stoned by angry Chinese m obs.16 Upon receiving the news about China’s inability to recover Qingdao at the Versailles Peace Conference, Chinese students staged a mass protest in Beijing on May 4, 1919. This led to a tidal wave of nationwide demonstrations, boy­ cotts, and strikes from late May to late June against both the Beijing regime and Japan. A boycott against Japanese goods was organized in Canton with a parallel “use native products” campaign. Local students went on strike to propagate and enforce the boycott. Massive parades and public meetings were held, and a bonfire of Japanese goods was lit. In the streets and stores of Canton, workers destroyed stocks of Japanese goods. Even after China’s refusal in late June to sign the Versailles treaty that would sanction Japanese claims to Shandong, the boycott in Guangdong continued vigorously until the winter.17 According to a U.S. diplomatic report, the boycott was more effective in Canton than elsewhere in China.18 The May 4 events on the mainland also provoked strong response among the Chinese populace in Hong Kong, who were aware that Japanese and British imperialism were colluding to obstruct a fair and just settlement of the Shandong issue at Versailles. In fact, after the outbreak of the war, there was a much stronger Japanese presence in Hong Kong, with many new Japanese busi­ nesses appearing in Wanchai. Japanese warships also frequently cruised outside Hong Kong, reportedly as naval support to buttress the British position against the German threat.19 In May 1919, a boycott against Japanese goods developed among Chinese merchants in Hong Kong, who specified the exclusion of Japanese products in their business contracts.20 At guild and chamber meetings, Chinese merchants resolved to promote the use of native products to replace Japanese goods. Major Chinese-owned department stores publicly announced their orders for more Chi­ nese silks and yard goods as well as other items from the mainland. To show their compliance with the boycott, they even invited the public to make inspec­ tion tours to verify the absence of “enemy goods” in their stores.21 By late May the campaign had gained such support that Chinese cloth sud­ denly became very fashionable in Hong Kong, where dealers in native yard goods could hardly keep up with demands and had to rush in new supplies.22 On the other hand, for importers of Japanese items, business was extremely poor. For instance, the British firm Wheelock & Co. reported on May 22, 1919, that “there has been no new business done by Japanese coal during the past fortnight.”23 Even housewives refused to use Monkey brand matches, as they were manufac­

34

HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

tured in Japan.24 By then, the local boycott had been effectively linked to the patriotic movement on the mainland: Chinese passengers in the coastal traffic from the southern ports (Amoy, Fuzhou, and Swatow) to Hong Kong who for­ merly traveled on Japanese steamers switched to vessels flying other nations’ flags.25 In the colony’s private vernacular schools, teachers used the classrooms for patriotic lessons, and the promotion of Chinese product’s and the boycott of Japanese goods even became topics for student essay assignments. Some stu­ dents even cleared their own homes of all Japanese-made objects, which were dumped at a junction near the Central Police Station and then set aflame.26 Many Chinese residents also stripped their own homes of Japanese mirrors and paint­ ings, and Japanese porcelain was discarded in many households as well.27 The determination and popular support behind this boycott distinguished it from ear­ lier boycotts in the colony. As a committee member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce observed in mid-June, this anti-Japanese boycott was “unlikely to fizzle out as others had done.”28 This boycott was, of course, quite an embarrassment to the colonial establish­ ment, which prided itself on the colony’s status as an international free port under the British Crown. In late May, the Hong Kong authorities issued a strong warning that “unlike the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong is a British colony” and therefore the police were prepared to “arrest and prosecute” any person involved with the mounting of propaganda posters in public or “other riotous conduct.”29 The aroused Chinese populace, however, was not to be deterred by colonial police power. By early June, posters and leaflets promoting the use of Chinese products with increasingly radical rhetoric proliferated in the main business areas. Many posters were glued to the wall with egg white, making their removal extremely difficult. Some posters even appeared near police stations.30 The whole May Fourth protest movement reached a fever pitch in early June, when the triple strike by students, workers, and shopkeepers broke out in Shang­ hai and soon spread to other treaty ports throughout China. Alarmed by a possi­ ble outbreak of disturbance, the administration further reinforced armed police patrols on Hong Kong streets.31 It was at that juncture that the “patriotic um­ brella” case occurred, a case that illustrates some aspects of colonial attempts to suppress legitimate manifestations of Chinese nationalism. On June 3, eight students from a vernacular school, holding Chinese-made umbrellas bearing the Chinese characters “native goods,” marched along Queen’s Road Central, one of the colony’s main thoroughfares. They attracted more than a hundred followers. When the students reached the Central Fire Station, they were arrested. The next day, in the magistrate’s court, the headmas­ ter of the school was charged with aiding and abetting in the organization of a public procession, and the students were charged with taking part in it without a permit from the secretary for Chinese affairs. The prosecution conceded that the marching students did not create any disturbance, but the umbrellas they held did

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attract a crowd because of their boycott implication. It was the most sensational trial at that time, attracting so many spectators to the courtroom that not an empty seat was left in the public gallery, and a large crowd was left waiting outside. In the June 12 verdict, the school headmaster was fined HK$10 for instigating the procession, and the students were each fined HK$3 for causing traffic congestion. Evidently, the prosecution had no solid case, nor could the police furnish adequate evidence to convict them of more serious charges.32 The arrest of the students with “patriotic umbrellas” only provoked stronger reaction from the boycotting public. On June 6, an array of broken Japanesemade straw hats, banners with Chinese characters urging the boycott of Japanese goods, and tattered cloths with the inscription “native goods” were suspended from a tree in the center of town until the police dispersed the crowd and removed the exhibits.33 It was also reported that Chinese mobs shouting boycott slogans stoned the Japanese stores in Wanchai. Police suppression of an attack on one store was matched with another attack elsewhere and this on-and-off scenario lasted several hours. Eventually, the police had to advise Japanese stores to close down temporarily, and Japanese residents were asked to stay home to avoid incidents. They were accorded police protection, including the provision of food and water. Even the auxiliary police, which was formed in World War I but demobilized in late 1918, had to be reactivated for armed patrol duties.34 The Japanese, however, were not satisfied with the protective measures pro­ vided by their British allies. Instead, they tried to extinguish the sparks of nation­ alism among the local Chinese. The Japanese consul in Hong Kong reportedly urged the director of education to inspect all private Chinese schools in order to suppress the use of a certain Shanghai-published Chinese textbook, Lunshuo Wenfan (Model essays on discussion of issues), whose contents involved the promotion of Chinese products and the boycott of Japanese goods. Accordingly, the chief inspector of Chinese schools personally visited the Chinese schools in Wanchai to scrutinize their textbooks and their Chinese essay assignment topics. Police detectives also searched the bookstores on Hollywood Road to confiscate these “undesirable” textbooks.35 The government took all these disciplinary mea­ sures, alarmed at the nationalistic ferment among students with radical ideas from the mainland, apparently not realizing that such ideas in fact originated in the modern West. At the height of the boycott movement, students in govern­ ment schools such as King’s and Queen’s colleges and the elite missionary schools held meetings to form a students’ federation, until official pressure aborted their efforts. Later, however, some Queen’s College students managed to form a secret Patriotic Corps to continue the boycott, which was actively sup­ ported by the Hong Kong seamen.36 From the start of the Beijing protest on May 4, 1919, the local Chinese language newspapers reported the patriotic activities in vivid detail and ran editorials condemning Japan over the Shandong issue. Even though they did not

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advocate a boycott against Japanese goods, they did not escape the strong arm of the colonial regime. The secretary for Chinese affairs warned the major Chinese dailies such as Huazi Ribao (Chinese Mail), and Xunhuan Ribao (Universal Circulating Herald) to be extremely “cautious and balanced” in their reportage and editorials and to refrain from provoking anti-Japanese activities. Such terms as imperialism were not permitted to appear in print.37 Indeed, colonial censor­ ship was no empty threat. For instance, because of its pro-Yuan Shikai monar­ chist stand, the Hong Kong government fined and jailed in early 1916 the editor of Shi Bao, the vocal revolutionary organ, for publishing an anti-Yuan article deemed as “calculated to excite disorder in China.”38 Despite such repressive police state tactics, the fierce patriotic sentiment among the Chinese populace could not easily be dampened. Even the Education Department’s deliberate promotion of ultraconservative values and Confucian ortho­ doxy in the local school curriculum in the aftermath of the 1919 boycott failed to eradicate the May Fourth spirit among the youth of Hong Kong. In the mid-1920s, Hong Kong itself would become the target of Chinese nationalistic assault on British imperialism, with students from the colony’s government schools serving as van­ guards. Although the Tramway and May Fourth boycotts were both spontaneous actions, manifesting local grass-roots patriotism without the direct involvement of the mainland Chinese state or society, the labor collective actions of the 1920s would draw the grass-roots movement to the front line of Sino-British conflict.

Economic Strikes and the Canton Connection, 1920-22 The nationwide May Fourth patriotic strikes and boycotts also accelerated the politi­ cal maturity and social awakening of the Chinese labor force in Hong Kong. Since 1917, the Canton regime under Sun Yatsen, with its clear sympathy for organized labor and mass movements, offered new dynamism conducive to the collective action of the Hong Kong labor force with its built-in China connections. On May 1, 1918, Canton hosted China’s first public commemoration of International Labor Day, with local unionists and Hong Kong labor elements as the major participants. This symbolized both the coming of age of the labor movement in the Canton Delta and the solidarity among the workers on the mainland and in the colony.39 The immediate post-World War I years witnessed a series of labor strikes in Hong Kong that had direct and profound implications for Sino-British relations. The rising tide of nationalism and revolutionary fever on the Chinese mainland coincided neatly with objective economic factors to provide Hong Kong workers with new opportunities for the launching of successful collective actions to safe­ guard their socioeconomic interests. The inflation spiral that was set in motion at the onset of World War I and the industrial boom of the early 1920s produced both sharp increases in the cost of living and great demands for productive manpower. Against this interplay of the market forces of supply and demand, which enhanced tabor’s bargaining power, and the necessity of meeting their

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survival needs, the newly awakened and organized workers in Hong Kong made full use of the prosperity to seek fair wage adjustments and improvements in work conditions through collective actions. The soaring rise in prices throughout the Canton Delta after World War I can be measured by Canton’s wholesale price index, which jumped from 103.6 in 1914 to 146.6 in 1922, while the wholesale price of rice—the staple food of the Cantonese—rose more than 50 percent during this period.40 The inflationary pressure was particularly severe on Hong Kong, where the currency dropped in value by 50 percent from late 1918 to early 1920.41 The worldwide shortage of cereals caused the price of rice in the colony to rise so drastically that rice riots broke out and rice stores were looted in June 1919. The situation calmed down in July with the arrival of a huge supply of rice purchased by the Hong Kong government. The government also enacted the Rice Ordinance of 1919, which gave it the sole right of arranging for the sale of rice at a controlled price. However, the price of rice remained higher than before the war.42 The rapid population growth in Hong Kong (an increase of 37 percent, to 625,166, from 1911 to 1921) also led to a serious housing shortage and an exorbitant escalation of rents. This further depressed the already meager liveli­ hood of the populace, whose wages had not risen concomitantly. Even a govern­ ment commission in 1919 suggested a 30 percent wage increase for public servants.43 It was against such a background that the Canton Delta experienced a wave of labor strikes coupled with an intensive unionization process during 1920-22. All forty-two strikes in Hong Kong and forty-two of the forty-four strikes in Canton in that period stemmed from demands for higher wages and better working conditions.44 A noteworthy feature of the three major Hong Kong strikes in the 1920s was the role of mainland China as asylum and sanctuary for striking Hong Kong workers. The active moral support and the very substantial material assistance provided to Hong Kong strikers by the Cantonese labor organizations and other public bodies, under the benevolence of the Canton authorities, were crucial. These social, economic, and political resources from China enabled the Hong Kong workers to be rescued from the immediate domination of the British colo­ nial state, and therefore substantially increased the labor force’s bargaining power. As such, large-scale mobilization of Chinese workers in Hong Kong, with Canton as sanctuary, harbored the explosive potential for Sino-British con­ frontation at the regional level. Strikes in Hong Kong did escalate into clashes between the Chinese state’s protective patronage and the British colonial state’s coercive capacity over labor.

The 1920 Mechanics9Strike: Grass Roots Economic Victory The inaugural case in this post-World War I series of spontaneous and success­ ful economic strikes in the Canton Delta is the nineteen-day Hong Kong

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mechanics’ strike in the spring of 1920. After a decade-long process of evolu­ tion, the Hong Kong Mechanics’ Union (officially the Hong Kong Chinese Engineers’ Institute) was established in October 1919. Its origins can be traced to the recreation clubs formed among Chinese mechanics (locally known as “fitters”) after a successful protest against the brutality of European foremen at the British-owned Taikoo Dock in late 1908 45 Once they were firmly organized, the Hong Kong mechanics immediately sought economic improvement. After repeated requests for a 40 percent wage increase failed, they staged a strike on March 31, 1920. Dockyard workers began to walk out. Facilitated by the close links between the mechanics’ unions in Hong Kong and Canton, a thousand Hong Kong mechanics began their exo­ dus to Canton on the first day of strike. As the strike spread, major dockyards, manufacturing enterprises, and public utilities were seriously affected. The Hong Kong government’s secretary for Chinese affairs, E.R. Hallifax, approached the management for possible settlement of the strike with a plan to divide and conquer: offer differential wage increases to different categories of mechanics in separate negotiations. Meanwhile, British troops were dispatched to run the pub­ lic transportation and utilities, but, as the strikers were all skilled professionals, they were impossible to replace immediately. By the end of the second week, some 9,000 mechanics in twenty-six industries had returned to Canton and left behind a nearly paralyzed Hong Kong. Finally, on the eve of the waterworks technicians’ threatened walkout, an overall settlement was reached on April 19 after resumed mediations by a panicky government, with the mechanics gaining a wage increase of 32.5 percent for those earning less than HK$100 per month and 20 percent for those earning more.46 Without doubt the Canton sanctuary system was crucial to the mechanics’ victory. The support extended by labor unions and public organizations there reflected ethnic solidarity, local ties, and national pride, as well as professional cohesion. The Hong Kong community as a whole was sympathetic toward the strikers, who had conducted themselves well and had not created any distur­ bances. As a Hong Kong Morning Herald editorial stated, “The Chinese cannot put up with living in this way any longer, and are compelled to strike for higher wages.” 47 Local public sentiment was summed up by the North China Herald: “a good deal of criticism is levelled at the employers on the grounds that they would not recognize the justice of the men’s claims until forced to do so by strike.” 48 The initial insolence of the British management, based in part on presumption of government support, was in sharp contrast to the economic con­ cessions they were forced to yield to the Hong Kong mechanics. In ignoring the mechanics’ need-based requests for wage increases, the British management simply did not realize that “they were no longer in a position to control their work force at will, far less to dictate to” the Mechanics’ Union. Thus, the strike victory was a shock to them, as they found they could no longer “rely on a supply of unquestioning cheap Chinese labor.”49

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The dockyards were not the only employer of skilled mechanics; in fact, the Hong Kong government was a major employer of skilled mechanics, and this might have compromised its role as an “impartial” mediator. At first the employ­ ers asked Secretary Hallifax to negotiate a settlement on their behalf, which would be binding on all other employers of mechanics, and Hallifax committed a great mistake by not dealing directly with their union.50 It was no easy task for the colonial regime to be simultaneously a major employer, a negotiator repre­ senting the dockyards’ management, and the mediator-arbiter of this industrial conflict. To many Hong Kong workers and Cantonese leaders, the collusion of the colonial government and the British elite in Hong Kong was not surprising, due to the close institutional links and tightly knit interpersonal networks buttressing the British colonial state. Besides an entrenched system of interlocking director­ ship among leading banks, major trading firms, industrial concerns, and public utilities, the expatriate elite also monopolized, through government appointment, the non-civil servant seats in the highest policy-making organs of the colony— the Executive and Legislative Councils. To Chinese on both sides of the Hong Kong-China border, the economic and legal-political arms of the British colonial establishment often seemed one and the same.51 The Hong Kong workers’ struggles for economic justice were perceived, therefore, as struggles against British imperialist domination, a cause truly patri­ otic, worthy of support from the Chinese state and society. It was reported that Cantonese merchants in Shanghai donated $70,000 (Chinese silver dollars) in response to Sun Yatsen’s call for support for the strikers.52 The Cantonese had long been envious of Hong Kong’s growth and prosperity and at times became uneasy about the economic interdependence between Canton and Hong Kong because of the colony’s greater international prominence. Some Cantonese even held Hong Kong and the British responsible for the economic misfortunes of Canton.53 Such deep-seated and widespread Cantonese resentment eventually came to the surface with British imperialist provocations in the mid-1920s. To the rank-and-file workers of the labor force, the Hong Kong mechanics’ victory clearly demonstrated the need for unionization and encouraged them to act more aggressively to advance their own interests. Within six months of the mechanics’ strike, fourteen new unions appeared in Canton, and at least twentyeight strikes involving 86,000 workers occurred there during 1921. Most of these strikes, including that of the Canton mechanics, succeeded in winning wage increases of 20 to 50 percent. These successful examples of labor activism in turn promoted more widespread unionization, and by 1922 Canton had about eighty labor unions.54 In Hong Kong, this new labor activism manifested itself in a series of industrial disputes, mostly settled by wage increases, and the prolifer­ ation of labor unions, which numbered over thirty in 1920 and increased to over eighty a year later.55 In response to the prospect of militant labor activism, the Hong Kong govern­

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ment repealed the Societies Ordinance, which was passed on November 16, 1911, amid the local disturbance triggered by the 1911 Revolution. Instead, it enacted in late June 1920 a new Societies Ordinance, abolishing the compulsory registration of societies as it was “of little use for the effective control of disorder by guilds and societies.” The new ordinance gave the governor absolute discre­ tion to declare unlawful any society that was used or even might be used for unlawful purposes or “for purposes incompatible with the peace and good order of the colony,” or was “by reason of its actions or proceedings calculated to excite tumult or disorder in China or to excite persons to crime in China.”56 Unfortunately, despite the original intent of this new ordinance to maintain local peace and order as well as to preserve harmony with China, the colonial regime’s unjustified application of its draconian provisions to suppress an economic strike by local seamen two years later resulted in a historic British humiliation in an unnecessary confrontation with Chinese nationalism.

The 1922 Seamen’s Strike: Colonialism’s Self-Inflicted Wounds The seamen’s strike of January 13-March 6, 1922, intensified, among other things, the British colonial regime’s insensitivity toward the legitimate socioeco­ nomic claims of the Chinese workers and above all, toward their increasingly strong national pride. It stemmed from the newly established Chinese Seamen’s Union’s demands for 10 to 40 percent wage increases and reform of the recruit­ ment system.57 After its third request (since September 1921) for wage adjust­ ments was ignored by the shipping companies, which had already granted wage increases to foreign seamen, the Seamen’s Union struck on January 13, 1922.58 Following in the footsteps of the mechanics in 1920, the striking seamen immediately left Hong Kong for Canton. By the end of January, more than 10,000 Hong Kong seamen were being lodged and fed by the labor unions in Canton. The initial mediation by the Hong Kong government failed when ship owners withdrew their January 17 offer of wage increases of 7.5 to 25 percent after receiving the seamen’s counterclaim of 17.5 to 32.5 percent. The colonial authorities’ attempt to recruit seamen from Ningbo as strike breakers was frus­ trated by the seamen’s sense of nationalism and working-class solidarity. On the other hand, the striking seamen’s appeal for support moved the cargo coolies and other transport workers in Hong Kong to demand higher wages and join in a sympathy strike in late January; the number of strikers reached 30,000 by early February. The strike resulted in the total stoppage of shipping, paralyzing the colony’s trade and supply lines. In response, the Hong Kong government resorted to police measures against the alleged “intimidation” by the unions. On February 1, 1922, Governor Reginald Stubbs issued an order in council banning the Seamen’s Union as “an unlawful society” that “is being used and is likely to be used for purposes incompatible with the peace and good order of the Colony.”59

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In the ensuing police raid, the Seamen’s Union headquarters was closed, and the union’s Chinese signboard, bearing the calligraphy of Sun Yatsen, was removed. A week later, the Hong Kong authorities also banned three coolie guilds whose members were already on strike. These measures escalated and transformed this economic strike into a political confrontation between British colonial might and Chinese patriotic pride and working-class solidarity. In fact, British coercion provoked a general strike on February 28 by over 120,000 workers (almost a quarter of the entire population of 541,156) from nearly all trades and services, reducing Hong Kong to a ghost town and a dead harbor. To prevent a general exodus to Guangdong, the colonial regime sus­ pended train service to discourage the Chinese from leaving the colony. On March 4, in Shatin, the police fired on strikers returning to Canton on foot; five were killed and dozens were wounded. This police brutality unleashed an angry wave of walkouts by, among others, bank employees, printers, tramway conduc­ tors, cooks, and domestic servants. The colony deteriorated further, with all public transport halted, most offices closed, food supplies rationed, and waste accumulating. At that point, the shipping companies and government had no choice but to reach an immediate settlement with the strikers. The strike finally ended on March 7: a victory for the Chinese seamen and the Cantonese community behind them, but a capitulation of the British, who lost prestige throughout China. The seamen gained wage increases of 15 to 30 per­ cent. Of much greater political significance, however, was the fact that Governor Stubbs was forced on March 6 to rescind his own February 1 order in council banning the Seamen’s Union.60 Symbolically, and amidst public celebration, the same policeman who had taken down the union signboard had to hoist it back up in the reopened union headquarters the following day. Let us focus at this juncture on the political aspects of Sino-British-Hong Kong interaction. Together with the myth of British imperial omnipotence in China, the colonial regime’s claim to legality and legitimacy was now broken. The British colonial state relinquished its role as an impartial arbiter-mediator of sectorial conflicts by colluding with big business and thereby diminished its own effectiveness in conflict resolution. The ban on labor unions did not solve the root cause of the strike; it only provoked stronger and more widespread sympa­ thetic collective actions. It also made the government a direct party in what was originally an industrial dispute. Indeed, the government found itself in a legal predicament in trying to reach a settlement with an “illegal” organization, and the reopening of the Seamen’s Union became a deadlock issue in the negotia­ tions to end the strike. There was also the issue of intimidation by strikers to provoke sympathy strikes by the labor unions, which gave the government a pretext for legal pro­ scription. In fact, the real situation was more complicated. While the seamen leaders did form a coalition with thirteen major unions for mutual defense in December 1921, the enforcement of strike discipline among rank-and-file labor­

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ers after the strike broke out could hardly be characterized as violent or exces­ sive. A deep reservoir of resentment against colonial discrimination, the choking pressure of inflation made worse by inadequate wages, and the intransigence of arrogant expatriate employers lay behind the grass-roots compliance with the call for sympathy strikes. Even the procolonial South China Morning Post conceded the genuine solidarity among local labor: “Cases of intimidation happen in most strikes, but intimidation succeeds on a large scale only where there is a consen­ sus of opinion in its favor.. . . Therefore, it is disastrous to delude ourselves into the belief that sympathetic strikes are simply the work of a few agitators who succeed solely by intimidation in dragooning whole masses of the workers against their will to participate in strikes.”61 On the other hand, in league with intransigent ship owners, the Hong Kong government also practiced its own form of intimidation, threatening potential strikers with dismissal and even insult. For instance, Secretary for Chinese Af­ fairs Hallifax, in a blatantly proshipping remark right before the strike, said that the seamen should not expect anything from strike action.62 It was with such anti-Chinese labor and pro-big business bias that the colonial government, in­ fluenced by its own apprehensions and hypersensitivity, resorted to counter­ productive measures. Indeed, it dealt itself a near fatal blow by provoking, through repressive measures that were, in the words of the British Foreign Of­ fice, “not justified” and “undesirable,”63 an unnecessary confrontation with Chi­ nese nationalism. At a deeper level, this revealed the colonial government’s real lack of consis­ tent and informed policy guidelines toward the local Chinese community, espe­ cially the grass-roots element. In this instance, the strikers were not well served by the local Chinese elite who, despite their mediating role, sided with the government and the ship owners. The elite segment of the local Chinese popu­ lace was upset not only by its business losses due to the strike but also by the growing influence of the labor unions, which usurped the elite’s own leadership among the local Chinese.64 The false accusation by the two appointed Chinese legislative councillors (who opposed any concession to the strikers) that the unions were linked to communist agitators further distorted the Hong Kong government’s perceptions of the real nature and aims of the strike. Even long after the strike, the colonial authorities insisted that the whole event had little to do with the wage increases or other economic issues, but rather that it was a political plot engineered by Cantonese extremists trying to pressure the Hong Kong government.65 Unfortunately, this was a view shared by many Westerners in Hong Kong and China, who blamed the colonial regime for crisis mismanagement and bemoaned the passing of an era of docile Chinese labor. As the Times observed propheti­ cally after the end of the strike, “the relief of the foreign community is tempered by a feeling of loss of prestige and a fear of the possibility of further troubles to come.” 66 In view of the colossal economic loss resulting from the strike, the

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vulnerability of Hong Kong as British colony to grass-roots collective action with mainland support can hardly be underestimated. In monetary terms, the shipping lines suffered losses of more than HK$5 million, the strikers at least HK$350,000 in lost wages, and the colonial government about HK$500,000 in emergency preparations. The total value of shipping entering and leaving Hong Kong throughout 1922 declined by about HK$150 million, or almost 9 percent, while the number of junks in local trade declined by 12.6 percent and the number of British steamers by more than 9 percent.67 As for the Canton side, there is absolutely no doubt that neither the Canton government nor the Guomindang (GMD) party under Sun Yatsen initiated the strike. The homecoming of the Hong Kong strikers presented both with a fait accompli. Although the Canton government adopted an official stance of benev­ olent neutrality, the personal sympathies of the Canton leadership were clearly on the side of the strikers. Nationalist sentiments, local ties (like Sun, most of the senior seamen leaders were natives of Zhongshan), and personal connections from the old revolutionary network (the seamen were a major source of support for Sun’s various schemes against the Qing and Yuan Shikai regimes) all played a part in their support. Canton did not seek to exploit the seamen’s strike for any political leverage vis-à-vis the British, however. The Canton leadership already had delicate inter­ nal politics to cope with among themselves. At the request of the British, Gover­ nor of Guangdong Chen Jiongming attempted mediations in mid-January and succeeded in persuading the Seamen’s Union to present a revised proposal for wage increases with some important concessions in late January. Chen’s concern for the decline in provincial revenue due to trade interruption shaped his decision to mediate. To show his impartiality and to maintain public order in Canton, Chen even curtailed the strikers’ activities and stopped illegal picketing. How­ ever, the shipping line’s intransigence and the banning of the unions frustrated Chen’s efforts. Nonetheless, his renewed efforts at mediation in late February at the request of the British did help to bring about a speedy settlement in early March. On the other hand, the GMD under Sun was much more open about its active support of the Hong Kong strikers. It not only lent space to the Strike Support Office in its party headquarters but also organized receptions for the strikers. The GMD also took advantage of the situation to recruit new members, and report­ edly some 20,000 strikers, half of them seamen, enrolled in the GMD at that time. Furthermore, when the exiled Seamen’s Union in Canton faced financial exhaustion in mid-February, official funds totaling $100,000 (Chinese silver dol­ lars) were distributed to the union disguised as a series of personal loans (evi­ dently never repaid) from a local general. Sun’s sympathy must not be exaggerated, however; he was not in a position to exert decisive influence on the strike because throughout that period he was residing in Guilin to organize his troops for a northern expedition. In fact, Sun’s concern with the interruption of

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military supplies because of the strike led him to urge the seamen to accept a settlement even short of a total victory. On the whole, although neither the Canton government nor the GMD initiated the strike, they did provide vital aid to the strikers. Thus, the seamen were sustained in Canton while the government kept its facade of “benevolent neutral­ ity” and sincerely tried to facilitate an early settlement of the strike. There was no desire on the part of Sun, the Canton government, or the GMD to antagonize the British and Hong Kong governments over a strike that Canton had neither initiated nor directly controlled.68 It should also be noted that aside from some propaganda work after the seamen had already walked out, the Chinese Communist party (CCP), then in its infancy, did not play any direct or significant role in the whole strike movement. In fact, the prominent seaman leader Su Zhaozheng did not become a CCP member until 1924 69 However, the revolutionary potential of Chinese workers, properly organized and mobilized, as vanguards in domestic socioeconomic strike and in nationalist struggle against imperialism was not lost on the CCP or the GMD. The ripple effects and the political profundity of the seamen’s strike on the Chinese labor movement and Chinese politics were truly far-reaching. As an act of goodwill, Sun Yatsen soon abrogated article 224 of the Provisional Chinese Criminal Code, which had stipulated fines and imprisonment for work­ ers on strike. The CCP, at its Second Party Congress in July 1922, specifically mentioned the seamen’s strike in its Manifesto, which called for the intensifica­ tion of party efforts among workers.70 Soon after the seamen’s victory, a new wave of collective labor actions hit Hong Kong and Canton. Labor groups that had struck in support of the seamen continued to strike for their own economic demands, and a large number of workers who were not previously involved also launched their own industrial actions. Using the Seamen Union’s demands as the standard, most of these strikes were successful, resulting in a general round of wage increases averaging 30 percent. These economic strike victories generated new momentum for more extensive unionization throughout the Canton Delta. This high tide of labor activism created a favorable atmosphere for the First All-China National Labor Congress to be convened on May 1, 1922, with the active participation of both GMD and CCP elements, an event foreshadowing their United Front a year and a half later.71 Despite Canton’s relative restraint on this occasion, the embittered British colonial regime failed to learn the lesson inherent in the seamen’s strike. The British nearly resorted to armed intervention against Canton as in classic gunboat diplomacy fashion on two separate occasions: the 1923 Canton maritime cus­ toms revenue dispute and the 1924 Canton Merchant Corps Incident.72 In both cases, Governor Stubbs showed his contempt for the Canton government under Sun. Yet Stubbs failed to appreciate the dubious legitimacy of his colonial ad­ ministration among many of his colonial “subjects” and Chinese neighbors. It

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was within such a hostile Sino-British relationship at the regional level that a political storm broke out in mid-1925 engulfing Hong Kong in the worst crisis since its birth as a British colony.

The 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott: Confrontation with Chinese Nationalism and Communism The GMD-CCP United Front, formed in January 1924 and committed to an anti-imperialist national revolution, further strained relations between Hong Kong and Canton. Britain, as the premier imperialist power, and Hong Kong, as the citadel of British interests in China, became the natural targets of Chinese patriotic assault. The 1925 May Thirtieth incident in Shanghai raised the curtain on a nationwide anti-British protest movement that provoked some 130 reported strikes throughout China.73 The most significant, longest-lasting event and, in­ deed, the climax of this entire movement was the Canton-Hong Kong General Strike-Boycott from June 1925 to October 1926, which came very close to ruining Hong Kong and liquidating British interests in South China. From begin­ ning to end, it was a gigantic political protest sponsored by the United Front in Canton using economic warfare against British imperialism. At its peak, the movement, drawing some 250,000 Hong Kong strikers and their families back to the Canton Delta, paralyzed the colony. Indeed, the full magnitude and sheer severity of the strike-boycott’s impact on Hong Kong were a hundred times greater than the seamen’s strike. For the duration of the strike-boycott, Hong Kong’s total trade fell by 50 percent, shipping tonnage was down by almost 40 percent, share value in the stock market dropped 40 percent, property prices and rents decreased 60 percent, and two runs were made on the local banks. The local economy was so devas­ tated that many businesses became insolvent, with bankruptcy cases numbering more than three thousand by the end of 1925. Even the colonial government, which had enjoyed a budget surplus of HK$2-HK$3.7 million during 1921-23, incurred huge deficits of over HK$5 million in 1925 and almost HK$2.5 million the next year. A loan of £3 million had to be requested from London to relieve the colony’s distress. Conservative estimates put Hong Kong’s total economic losses at either HK$2 million per day or even £5 million per a week. The strike-boycott’s effect on British exports to China and Hong Kong during 1925— 26 was equally disastrous, dropping one-third from 1924’s total value of £29 million.74 However, statistics on the economic calamity of Hong Kong cannot convey the full dimensions of the physical destitution, personal sacrifices, psychological impact, and, above all, political consequences of the strike-boycott. In its mode of operation, the strike-boycott was in some respects a large-scale repeat perfor­ mance of the 1922 seamen’s strike—tight internal organization, effective en­ forcement, asylum in Canton, support from the GMD. Yet their causes and

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immediate effects were utterly different. In all its essential aspects, the 1925-26 movement was a nationalistic protest against imperialism, using economic means for political ends, not vice versa. As such, the whole movement was closely interrelated with the political currents at that time. The General Strike-Boycott has been the subject of several major studies, so the main focus here is on some outstanding features of the Realpolitik in this turbulent drama of Sino-British confrontation.75

The Chinese Input: Political Patronage and Material Support A major difference between this strike-boycott and the previous Hong Kong experience of mass mobilization and collective labor action was the direct in­ volvement of the Chinese state and the CCP in Canton as the principal protago­ nists underwriting the movement against British Hong Kong. There is no doubt as to the involvement of the CCP in almost every aspect of the leadership, policy formulation, organization, and management of the strike-boycott. Organizationally, the strike-boycott came under the direct jurisdiction of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which was established and headquartered in Canton in May 1925 as the CCP’s supreme national organ in the Chinese labor movement. Immediate control of the strike-boycott rested with the ACFTU’s Canton-Hong Kong Strike Committee, headed by Su Zhaozheng (chairman of the Seamen’s Union, the largest and most influential Hong Kong labor organ). Its chief adviser was Deng Zhongxia, prominent CCP labor orga­ nizer and secretary-general of the ACFTU. Politically, the chain of command for the strike-boycott reached directly into the CCP’s Guangdong Provincial Com­ mittee, which for the first time exercised Communist control (as the GMD’s coalition partner) of a territory in China. Besides Su Zhaozheng, Deng Zhongxia, and eight others, the Guangdong Provincial Committee’s membership included the preeminent figures of China’s future, Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao (Madame Zhou Enlai). At one point Zhou also chaired the Guangdong Provincial Commit­ tee, and with his other concurrent military and political posts, Zhou was then the most powerful Chinese Communist in Canton.76 Demonstrating his full support, Zhou led a sizable contingent of Whampoa Academy cadets in the mass protest rally in Canton on June 23, 1925. Thus, Zhou himself was in the procession at Shakee when British troops fired on Chinese demonstrators parading along the Chinese side of the river across from the British concession on Shameen Island.77 The Shakee Massacre of June 23, 1925, resulting in 52 Chinese killed and 117 wounded, had the immediate effect of fueling the anti-imperialist fever among the Chinese in Canton and Hong Kong for a full-scale struggle against the British. On the GMD Left, the wholehearted support of Liao Zhongkai (father of Liao Zhengzhi) was indispensable to the effectiveness of the strike-boycott. Liao’s enthusiasm for the Hong Kong workers’ anticolonial cause was behind Canton’s

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financial support to the seamen in 1922.78 As arranged by Liao (who was finance minister in the Nationalist government at Canton), the strike committee received very substantial official funds to provide for the Hong Kong Strikers in Canton and its multitude of activities. The total amount of strike funds administered by the strike committee between June 1925 and July 1926 was about $5 million (Chinese silver dollars), of which $2.8 million came directly from the Canton regime (which levied a special property tax and a surtax on commercial licenses for strike support). In his capacity as head of GMD Central’s Labor Department, Liao condemned casinos, opium dens, and unoccupied residences, which were then turned into dormitories for the strikers from Hong Kong. Liao was instru­ mental in setting up the Labor Training Institute and other schools for the educa­ tion and indoctrination of the strikers. He also created jobs for the strikers in construction or public projects.79 Eventually, a new twenty-five-mile-long high­ way linking Canton City with the river port at Whampoa was built by the strikers, the first concrete step toward actualizing Sun Yatsen’s dream of devel­ oping Whampoa into a major international port to free Canton from British economic domination through Hong Kong. Another crucial dimension of the leftist assistance to the strike-boycott was the supply of arms and ammunitions, and special training programs for the 3,000-strong Hong Kong strike pickets by Whampoa Academy (under Comman­ dant Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek]).80 In this regard, both Liao Zhongkai as the GMD political commissar of the academy and Zhou Enlai as director of the academy’s Political Department were instrumental in arming the Hong Kong strikers for their struggle against British colonialism. The strike committee’s armed capacity to exercise quasi-police functions (land and marine pickets and its own regulations, court, and jail) earned it the label of “a state within a state” or “a Red labor regime” in Canton. Liao’s pivotal role as the de facto head of the leftist coalition underwriting the strike-boycott was grounds for public allega­ tions that the British were behind his assassination on August 20, 1925. The true identity of the culprits remains unclear. The strike-boycott, with the presence of 250,000 strikers in the Canton Delta, was a great asset to the CCP-GMD Left; it also alarmed the GMD Right. The very effectiveness of this Communist-led mass mobilization intensified internal discord within the GMD. Jiang Jieshi’s March 1926 coup d’état against the Left was the crucial turning point in the power struggles in Canton that deeply af­ fected the political patronage of the strike-boycott. Yet the nationalist appeal of the movement remained so strong that even the ascending GMD Right could ill afford to terminate it immediately, even though that would further diminish Communist influence in Canton. With the launching of the Northern Expedition and the departure of its armies northward to the Yangtze in July 1926, the Canton authorities attempted to end the strike-boycott through direct negotiations with the British. The political change in Canton resulted in the exclusion of Su Zhaozheng from any direct role

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in the July negotiations. In fact, the Hong Kong strikers’ original demands were not included in the Sino-British negotiations, which soon failed due to deadlock over responsibility for the Shakee shooting and financial compensation for the strikers. In September, the Canton government unilaterally declared the termina­ tion of the strike on the Chinese National Day, October 10, 1926 (which was the fifteenth anniversary of the 1911 uprising in Wuhan), while still maintaining the boycott against British goods. As the strike-boycott was primarily a patriotic movement, which used eco­ nomic means for political ends, its continuation was subject to the political considerations of its sponsors. Therefore, its termination due to Canton Realpolitik should not come as a surprise. It was clear to everyone, including the London and Hong Kong authorities, that the strike ended at that particular juncture be­ cause the Canton leadership saw to it that it did. In that sense, there is some justification to the claim advanced in Chinese Communist historiography that Jiang Jieshi and the GMD Right had both betrayed the Nationalist revolution and sold out the Hong Kong strikers with their demands against British colonialism unfulfilled.81 At the outbreak of their strike in June 1925, the Hong Kong strikers not only echoed the call for the abolition of unequal treaties and the other requirements of the Shanghai May Thirtieth protesters but also presented six specific demands to the colonial regime to redress local Chinese grievances.82 Of course, all these demands were rejected by the British administration under Stubbs. Nonetheless, in hindsight these six demands, listed below, still have some relevance to con­ temporary Hong Kong politics and social movements in the transition era. 1. The rights to the freedom of speech, publication, assembly, and organiz­ ation. 2. Universal franchise of local Chinese for direct election to the Legislative Council based on proportional representation. 3. Nondiscrimination of Chinese, who should enjoy legal equality with the European residents of the colony. 4. Industrial legislation to protect labor interests, including an eight-hour workday. 5. The introduction of a rent-control program and the provision of adequate housing. 6. The right for Chinese to reside anywhere in the colony. In fact, even though the Hong Kong workers had made significant contribu­ tions to the modem Chinese revolution, they had to pay a very high price: the sacrifice of their own collective interest. In agreeing with the GMD’s decision to end the strike-boycott, the CCP leadership also considered the Hong Kong strikers’ demands unrealistic and not to be actualized in this strike-boycott settlement. As such, not only had the GMD betrayed the idealism of this anti­

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imperialist movement, but, to some extent, so did the CCP, which was then under Stalinist dictate to preserve the United Front. Because of this Realpolitik power play and the resulting nonfulfillment of strikers’ demands, the people of Hong Kong had to wait another sixty-five years before they gained the right of direct election to the local legislature in 1991.

The British Response: Overreactions and Countermeasures The most crucial single incident in the initial stage of the General Strike-Boycott was the Shakee Massacre on June 23, 1925, five days after the strike broke out in Hong Kong. It is, indeed, an act of historic irony. The May Thirtieth movement arose from the May 15, 1925, killing of a Chinese textile worker by Japanese management in Shanghai, which provoked strong public protests, and then the British police’s indiscriminate shooting of Chinese protesters (fifteen killed and more than forty wounded) in the International Settlement on May 30 triggered off the nationwide sanction. Seemingly blind to the lessons of the recent past, the British in Shameen repeated tragic history. While the truth of who fired the first shot in Canton on June 23, 1925, remains unclear, there is no doubt that the Shakee Massacre galvanized the anti-imperialist fever throughout the Canton Delta and escalated the strike into a full-fledged anti-British struggle. The Shakee Incident and other British reactions stemmed perhaps more from flawed perceptions of reality and misguided policies than from sheer imperial arrogance or deliberate colonial insensitivity. In confronting the General Strike-Boycott, Governor Stubbs showed a serious misconception of the full dimensions of the movement and of the Chinese deter­ mination for a protracted struggle. In particular, some of Stubbs’s emergency measures, instituted supposedly to safeguard Hong Kong, had the opposite effect of provoking stronger Cantonese retaliation. Right after the Shakee Massacre, Stubbs imposed an embargo on the export from Hong Kong of any foodstuffs and fuel—his first “lesson” to the radical Left in Canton.83 This was coupled with another embargo, on the export of gold and silver bullion and local currency from the colony. Such moves were interpreted by Canton as a British economic blockade. In response, the strike committee instituted a vigorous total embargo against Hong Kong and other British interests in China. In August 1925 the strike committee adopted as the cornerstone boycott strategy a “special permit system,” which allowed the entry into the ports in Guangdong of any non-British goods which did not come by British vessels or via Hong Kong or Macau. Thus, the boycott movement became entirely anti-British and anti-Hong Kong rather than what British propaganda had falsely labeled an “indiscriminate Red xenophobia” against all foreign interests in China. The economic consequences of the embargoes and the counterblockade were only too obvious. Canton’s principle of “freedom of trade to any non-British

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firms, goods, or vessels which bypass Hong Kong” led to near total devastation of Hong Kong’s economy. In contrast, the strike-boycott brought unprecedented growth and unexpected prosperity to Canton. It enabled Canton to achieve a higher degree of economic independence, with direct external trade bypassing Hong Kong. It enjoyed both a shipping boom, which seriously overcrowded Canton harbor, and a considerable increase in provincial revenues; Cantonese currency reached its all-time high against Hong Kong notes.84 The externally isolated colonial regime was keen to exploit the local Chinese labor force’s internal discord over partisan politics to gather support for its antistrike measures. The strike-boycott was launched on June 19, 1925, with a walkout by the seamen, whose union leadership was by then under direct CCP domination. Partly because of its anticommunist stance and partly because it was satisfied with the economic gains won in 1920, the Mechanics’ Union refused to join this political collective action. Several other conservative local unions fol­ lowed its lead and refrained from participating in the strike-boycott, which was regarded as a dangerous revolutionary ferment without economic justification. Stubbs played up the nonstrikers’ resistance to intimidation by offering to pay government compensation of HK$2,000 to the family of anyone who lost his or her life as a result of continuation at work. He even set up the Labor Protection Bureau under a retired Canton militarist with a hundred former soldiers and other questionable characters (even ex-pirates) to fight against labor agitators and to deter intimidation. The limited success of this operation might not be worth the moral debasement of its claim to legality and decency by the colonial regime. It tried to justify the use of “thug power” by claiming that to “intimidate the intimidators” the government needed those “of a bold type,” who were likely to “have had a somewhat adventurous existence.”85 Another noteworthy measure introduced by Stubbs during the strike-boycott was the systematic attempt at counterpropaganda in addition to strict censorship of the press. The Bureau of Counterpropaganda was established for the first time in the colony. As the only Hong Kong newspaper that did not cease publication in the early days of the strike, the Wah Kiu Yat Po, refused to publish without verification of the colonial authorities’ dole of “news” and “views,” the govern­ ment decided to set up its own newspaper. With the initiative of appointed Chinese legislative councillors and comprador elites, and with a monthly govern­ ment subsidy of HK$300, the daily Kung Sheung Yat Po was inaugurated in July 1925, but not only for local circulation; it was also “sent to Chinese centers in the U.S., Australia and other places . . . to condemn the Reds.”86 This serves as a historical reminder of the Hong Kong government’s 1987 claim to a perfect and unblemished record of legal propriety and administrative decency amid the pub­ lic outcry over legislation on “false news” (which had to be repealed a year later), restricted press freedom, and lack of legal authority for politically dictated film censorship. The vicissitudes of official policies toward Canton undermined any effective

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British capacity for positive approaches to meet the challenge of Chinese national­ ism and to defuse its own crisis of legitimacy. In Hong Kong, Stubbs swung from proposing direct British armed intervention to crush the radical Left in Canton, to hoping for a speedy end to the strike-boycott through mediation between the local Chinese mercantile elites and their Canton counterparts, to waiting for factional strife within Canton to liquidate the anti-imperialist movement. When Stubbs finally left the governorship of Hong Kong in October 1925, he departed a bitter man, with the colony in ruins and the strike-boycott still going strong. His successor, Sir Cecil Clementi, who took office in late 1925, at first at­ tempted the “soft” approach by extending a “hand of friendship” to the Chinese community. Mindful of the strikers’ demand for universal franchise of direct election to the Legislative Council and of the acute lack of popular mandate in the colonial power structure, Clementi appointed Chou Shou-shen the first Chi­ nese member of the Executive Council in 1926. Frustrated, however, by the ineffectiveness of his gestures of “friendship,” Clementi soon moved increas­ ingly toward more militant measures against Canton and the strikers. The larger global perspective of the full spectrum of British Far Eastern interests held by the Foreign Office at Whitehall saved the Colonial Office from any major attempt at armed intervention in Hong Kong or Canton. In fact, the only exercise resembling gunboat diplomacy during the strike-boycott was the September 4, 1926, police action by the British West River Flotilla to clear Canton’s harbor and wharves of strike pickets to enable normal operation by the Maritime Customs (under British administration). The actual damage caused by this British naval exercise in Canton was more psychological than physical. It helped to reaffirm the move for an early settlement. By then, the Canton regime had already decided to end the strike on its own terms by levying a special 2.5 to 5 percent surtax on luxury goods the proceeds of which were for strikers’ com­ pensation. Unwilling to prolong this costly confrontation with Chinese revolu­ tionary might, the British, despite treaty rights, acquiesced to this new tax.87 It seemed that where gunboat diplomacy had its limits, dollar diplomacy might sometimes have positive effects. In fact, this British acquiescence can be regarded as a prelude to its support for China’s regaining tariff autonomy in 1929. The need to win Chinese good­ will in order to advance or protect British economic interests in China was a key factor behind the Foreign Office’s new approach to the GMD with emphasis on cooperative spirit. In the July 1926 negotiations, the British rejected the Chinese claims for strikers’ compensation. Instead, the British offered a HK$10 million loan for the development of Whampoa Port, conditional on the chief engineer and accountant being British and on the construction of a loop line in Canton connecting the Canton-Kowloon Railway with the Canton-Hankou line. This offer was refused by the Canton government, as the loop line would have made the new Whampoa Port superfluous (by allowing through traffic from Hong Kong to central China, bypassing Canton) and thus was only a thinly disguised

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British attempt at continued economic domination. Furthermore, not only did the rigid British conditions for the loan prevent any allocation of the money to pay off the patriotic strikers, but compliance might be interpreted as a sign of capitu­ lation to British interest, which would dangerously undermine the Canton leaders’ own political standing.88 Eleven years later, this loop line was built by the Chinese government to facilitate wartime supply. Perhaps these events can serve as historical comparisons with the recent Beijing-Hong Kong-London controversy over the new Hong Kong airport project. The Foreign and Colonial Offices’ sharp disagreement over policy toward China was paralleled by serious personal discord and communication gaps be­ tween the Hong Kong governor and British diplomats stationed in China (espe­ cially the consul general at Canton) during this period. The eventual triumph of the old China hands in the British Foreign Office over parochial but militant colonial considerations led to the December Memorandum of December 1926. In part impressed by the growing strength and potential of the GMD as demon­ strated in the Northern Expedition and the strike-boycott, London gradually shifted its attention from Beijing to Canton as the future of a rejuvenated China. Meanwhile, frustrated by its own inability to face the challenge of the Chinese Nationalist revolution with military force, Whitehall opted for a new and more conciliatory approach toward the new force of Chinese nationalism. This was a major breakthrough in British policy, laying the foundation for more cordial Sino-British relations; in fact, Great Britain was the first major power to recog­ nize the Nationalist government in Nanjing (1929).89 In this sense, the General Strike-Boycott made a positive imprint on the history of Sino-British-Hong Kong relations. The momentum generated by the Canton-Hong Kong General Strike-Boycott more than provided a solid mass base to the Nationalist revolution in Guangdong; it further aroused the revolu­ tionary enthusiasm of the grass roots in central China. In January 1927, organ­ ized labor literally “liberated” the British concessions in Hankou and Jiujiang in response to British brutalities.90 The British imperialist retreat in relinquishing these concessions was followed by their rendition of Weihaiwei in 1930, setting a precedent for Hong Kong’s retrocession to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.91 However, it should be clear from the above analysis that both the Chinese party/state (whether the GMD or the CCP) and the London authorities were more concerned with the larger power equation of the Sino-British relationship at the national level than with the protection of the true interests of the Hong Kong people, which, in fact, both were prepared to overlook. This is more than histori­ cally significant; it is particularly poignant today during the transitional era.

Epilogue The demise of the GMD-CCP United Front in the spring and summer of 1927 and the subsequent anti-communist “white terror” in Canton and elsewhere in

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China reinforced the Hong Kong government’s determination to crush the radi­ cal elements in the local labor movement. The colonial authorities wasted no time in avenging their past humiliation at the hands of the radical Chinese labor force. The prime target was, of course, the mastermind behind the 1922 fiasco and the powerhouse of the 1925-26 devastation—the Seamen’s Union, which by then had become vulnerable in the political purge on the mainland. In April 1927, the Seamen’s Union was declared illegal, its offices raided, its leaders arrested, and its organization banned. In July 1927, the Illegal Strike and Lock­ out Ordinance was promulgated in Hong Kong, under which strikes became illegal if they were designed to coerce the government or had any objectives other than the dispute within a given trade. The use of union funds for political purposes outside Hong Kong and the formation of any union in the colony as a branch of any union in China were also explicitly prohibited. Such stem measures did much to inhibit the growth of labor unionism in Hong Kong for the next two decades. In reviewing the impact of official restric­ tions since the 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott, the Hong Kong government’s labor officer reported in 1939: “After the failure of the General Strike in 1925— 26 . .. the surviving Hong Kong unions became little more than friendly socie­ ties concerned more with the provision of funeral expenses for the dead than the improvement of the conditions of the living. Since 1927, there have been no major labor disputes in Hong Kong. The Boycott of 1925-26 left the unions impoverished and unpopular. The restrictions imposed on unions in China de­ pressed the spirit of unionism in Hong Kong, and several years of trade depres­ sion were not conducive to their recovery.”92 It is most regrettable that the fear of one China factor—or perhaps “China syndrome,” the radical Left—induced the Hong Kong government to resort to measures that distorted and repressed its organic relations with the other China factor—the local Chinese grass roots. In such a process, the colonial regime further distanced itself from, and delegiti­ mized itself with, the Chinese community.93 Twenty-five years ago, when facing the threat of spillover of Cultural Revolu­ tion radicalism from the mainland, the great majority of Hong Kong Chinese chose to reverse their historical role. Instead of unquestioning patriotic response to the call of the Chinese state, now under Chinese Communist dictatorship, they overwhelmingly supported the local police in suppressing the senseless leftist violence. In the aftermath of the 1967 disturbances, the Hong Kong authorities adopted a more positive posture in an effort to defuse the accumulated popular discontent and to redress some of the legitimate grievances of the populace. The multitude of new social undertakings by the colonial government in various fields during the last two decades provides a sharp contrast to the post-1926 repression. Indeed, with the change in time and in the relative strength in the Sino-British power equation, the colonial establishment seems to have begun its reckoning with the lessons of the 1920s. In late 1922, a British diplomat in Beijing made

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the following comments on the Hong Kong government: “The root of all the trouble in modem years between Hong Kong and South China is laid in the fact that Hong Kong appears to be governed as a part of the mainland of England, entirely for the British, without regard for the fact that in origin and in reality Hong Kong is part of the mainland of China and is inhabited mainly by Chi­ nese.”94 Such criticism was difficult for the colonial regime to swallow then. But the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration mandating the British return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997, has shattered any lingering colo­ nial illusion or pretension. Hong Kong becoming China is an undeniable reality. Perhaps, in the eleventh hour of the colonial sunset, there is still room for the British administration to undertake more enlightened and conscientious efforts to meet the real aspirations and needs of the local Chinese. A final, if only belated, realization of the critical differences between self-anointed administrative legal­ ity and genuine legitimacy based on popular support would indeed be a sign of the maturing of the colonial state. It is in the hearts and minds of nearly six million local Chinese that the true legacy of one and a half centuries of British rule in Hong Kong will be remembered. Notes 1. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , p. 4. 2. Crisswell and Watson, Royal Hong Kong Police , pp. 101-2. Also see Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , p. 5. 3. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , p. 5. 4. Atkinson and Williams, Hong Kong Tramways, p. 28. 5. Atkinson and Williams, Hong Kong Tramways, pp. 28-29. 6. Atkinson and Williams, Hong Kong Tramways, pp. 29-30; Bamett, Tramlines, pp. 39-40; Sayer, Hong Kong 1862-1919 , p. 114. 7. Lam, Currency o f Hong Kong, pp. 14, 24. 8. Sayer, Hong Kong 1862-1919 , pp. I l l , 113. 9. Sayer, Hong Kong 1862-1919 , p. 114. 10. Birch, Hong Kong , p. 38. 11. Sayer, Hong Kong 1862-1919 , pp. 112-13. The quote is from Governor May’s speech in the Legislative Council introducing the education bill. 12. Sweeting, “Hong Kong Education within Historical Processes,” p. 45. 13. Cameron, An Illustrated History o f Hong Kong , p. 218. 14. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , pp. 7-8. 15. Huazi Ribao (Chinese mail), May 9 and 25, 1919. 16. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi” (Recollection on the May fourth movement in Hong Kong), p. 41. 17. Sha, Wusi yundong zai Guangdong (The May fourth movement in Guangdong), pp. 57-125. Also see North China Herald , June 7 through December 13, 1919, for the May 4 activities in Canton; and China Weekly Review , October 4 through December 6, 1919. 18. This observation was made in the United States Minister’s Report, Foreign Rela­ tions o f the United States, p. 392, file no. 893.00/3257. 19. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi,” pp. 40-45.

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20. Huazi Ribao , May 22, 1919. 21. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundongzaiXianggang de huiyi,”pp.41-47. 22. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundongzai Xianggang de huiyi,” p. 42; Huazi Ribao , May 31, 1919. 23. China Mail, May 30, 1919; Huazi Ribao, May 31, 1919. 24. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi,” p. 42. 25. Huazi Ribao , May 29, 1919. 26. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi,” pp. 41-42. 27. Sha, Wusi yundong zai Guangdong , p. 169. 28. China Mail, June 14, 1919. 29. Huazi Ribao , May 28, 1919. 30. Huazi Ribao , June 4, 1919. 31. Huazi Ribao, June 4, 1919. 32. On this case, see China Mail, June 6, 1919; Huazi Ribao, June 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 1919; Sha, Wusi yundong zai Guangdong , pp. 169-170; Lu Yan, Xianggang zhanggu (Hong Kong anecdotes) 6: 109. 33. China Mail, June 6, 1919. 34. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi,” pp. 41-42. 35. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi,” pp. 42-43. 36. Lu Yan, Xianggang zhanggu 6: 109, 111; Sha, Wusi yungdong zai Guangdong, p. 171. 37. Chen Qian, “ ‘Wusi’ yundong zai Xianggang de huiyi,” p. 43. 38. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, 1895-1945 , p. 138. 39. Ming K. Chan, “Nationalism, Localism and Revolutionary Mobilization,” pp. 351-66. 40. Guangzhoushi zhengfu (Canton municipal government), Guangzhoushi zhengfu tongji nianjian (Canton statistical year book, 1929), p. 361. 41. Hong Kong Administrative Reports , 1920, p. 1; Frank H.H. King, The History o f Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, vol. 3, The Hongkong Bank between the Wars and the Bank Interned, 1919-1945 , p. 72. 42. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule, pp. 8-9. 43. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , pp. 9-11. 44. These strike figures come from Kimura, Chugoku rodo undo shi nenhyo (Chronol­ ogy of the Chinese labor movement, 1557-1949), pp. 70-116; Hong Kong Administrative Reports , 1920, 1921, 1922. 45. See Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 166-72, for the evolutionary devel­ opment of the mechanics’ organs in Hong Kong and Canton. 46. Li and Ren, Guangdong jiqi gongren fendoushi (History of struggles of the Guangdong mechanics), pp. 61-62; and Chow, “A Study of the Hong Kong Chinese Engineers’ Institute,” pp. 68-81, for the mechanics strike. 47. As quoted in Cameron, An Illustrated History o f Hong Kong, p. 227. 48. North China Herald , May 1, 1920. 49. Cameron, An Illustrated History o f Hong Kong, p. 227. 50. Cameron, An Illustrated History of Hong Kong , p. 227. 51. On the collusion of interests in the colonial establishment’s stance toward the Chinese grass roots, see Ming K. Chan, “Labor vs Crown.” 52. North China Herald , April 24, 1920. 53. Ming K. Chan, “A Tale of Two Cities,” pp. 157-59, pp. 174-76. 54. Chen Da, ‘The Labor Movement in China,” p. 329; Chen Da, Zhongguo laogong wenti, (Chinese labor problems), p. 100; Kimura, Chugoku rodo undo shi nenhyo, pp. 87-95.

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55. Wai-kwan Chan, The Making o f Hong Kong Society , p. 164. 56. Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1920, c l3; Hong Kong Hansard: Reports o f the Meetings o f the Legislative Council o f Hong Kong, Session 1920, pp. 28, 38; the full text of this 1920 ordinance can be found in Hong Kong Government Gazette, vol. 66, 1920, p. 252. For the 1911 ordinance, see Hong Kong Hansard, Session 1911 , pp. 203-4. 57. On the evolutionary development of the Seamen’s Union, see Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 172-79. 58. See Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” chap. 10, for a detailed account and analysis of the seamen’s strike. While there are several major studies, the best overall account of this important strike remains Gary Glick, “The Chinese Seamen’s Union and the Hong Kong Seamen’s Strike of 1922,” Also see Jean Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, 1919-1927, pp. 180-85; and Wai-kwan Chan, The Making o f Hong Kong Society, pp. 166-91. Chinese Communist historiography on this strike includes: Yin, Xianggang haiyuan dabagong (The Hong Kong seamen’s strike); Zhang Hong, Xiang­ gang haiyuan dabagong (The Hong Kong seamen’s strike); Jiang Minrui, Guangdong haiyuan de guanghui licheng (The glorious endeavors of Guangdong seamen), chap. 2. 59. See Hong Kong Government Gazette , February 1, 1922, Nos. 55 and 56, for this order in council. 60. See Hong Kong Government Gazette, March 6, 1922, Nos. 112 and 113, for this rescinded order. 61. Editorial, South China Morning Post, March 14, 1922, as quoted in Wai-kwan Chan, The Making o f Hong Kong Society , p. 178. 62. England and Rear, Industrial Relations and Law in Hong Kong , p. 125. 63. Foreign Office (FO) to Colonial Office (CO), July 8, 1922, FO 405/237,4. 64. Wai-kwan Chan, The Making o f Hong Kong Society , pp. 189-90. 65. This misconception was also shared by the British consul general in Canton, Jamieson, and other British officials. See Jamieson to Peking Legation, September 28, 1922; FO 238/3484, 5141; “Report on the Strike,” March 18, 1922, CO 129/475, 20132. Western opinions are reflected in Daily Mail, March 6, 1922; Times (London), March 4, 1922; and North China Herald , May 13, 1922. 66. Times (London), March 16, 1922. 67. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” p. 303. 68. On the role of Canton authorities and the GMD in the strike, see Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 289-96. 69. For biographical accounts of Su Zhaozheng (1885-1929), see Wales, The Chinese Labor Movement, Appendix; Borrman, Biographical Dictionary o f Republican China , pp. 153-55; Bianco and Chevrier, Dictionnaire Biographique du Mouvement Ouvrier Inter­ national: La Chine, pp. 567-69; Zhonggong Guangdong shengwei dangshi yanjiushi, Su Zhaozheng yanjiu shiliao (Research Materials on Su Zhaozheng); Gongren chubanshe, Zhongguo gongren yundong de xianqu (Pioneers in the Chinese labor movement), pp. 5-70; and Zhonggong dangshi renwu yanjiuhui, Zhonggong dangshi renwuchuan (Biog­ raphies of Chinese communist party history figures), pp. 66-100. 70. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” p. 305. 71. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 304-5. 72. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong , pp. 156-67. 73. On the May Thirtieth movement, see Rigby, The May 30th Movement; Clifford, Shanghai, 1925\ and Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, 1919-1927 , chap. 11. 74. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 325-31. 75. The following account on the 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott is based primarily on Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” Chap. 11. Also see Virgil K.Y. Ho, “Hong Kong Government’s Attitude”; Chung, “A Study of the 1925-26 Canton-Hong Kong Strike-

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Boycott,” Motz, “Great Britain, Hong Kong, and Canton,” and Kwan, “Deng Zhongxia and the Shenggang General Strike 1925-26.” 76. Hsu, Chou En-lai, pp. 48-49; Tan, “Nanyue fengyun sanshinian” (Thirty years of turbulence in Guangdong), pp. 49-88. 77. Malie zhuyi jiaoyanshi zhonggong dangshi zu (Marxism-Leninism research section’s Chinese communist party history group), “1924-1926 nian, Jingai de Zhou Enlai tongzhi zai Guangdong” (Comrade Zhou Enlai in Guangdong, 1924-1926), pp. 36-37. 78. Guangdongsheng shehui kexueyuan lishi yanjiushi (Historical research section of Guangdong provincial social science faculty), Liao Zhongkai ji (Biography of Liao Zhongkai), pp. 253-79. 79. Jiang Yihua, Guomindang zuopai de qizhi—Liao Zhongkai (The banner of the Guomindang left—Liao Zhongkai), pp. 119-23. 80. Guangdong geming lishi bowu guan (Guangdong museum of revolutionary his­ tory), Huangbu junjiao shiliao (Source materials on the Whampao academy), pp. 285-86. 81. Ming K. Chan, Historiography o f the Chinese Labor Movement, 1895-1949 , pp. 95-97. 82. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong yundong jianshi 1919-1926 (A concise his­ tory of the Chinese labor movement, 1919-1926), p. 225; Cai and Lu, Shenggang da bagong (The Canton-Hong Kong general strike-boycott), pp. 33-35. 83. Virgil K. Y. Ho, “Hong Kong Government’s Attitude,” p. 36. 84. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 325^12. 85. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britian, and Hong Kong, p. 190; and Miners, Hong Kong under imperial Rule , p. 16. 86. Virgil K. Y. Ho, “Hong Kong Government’s Attitude,” p. 12. 87. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” pp. 351-53. 88. Ming K. Chan, “Labor and Empire,” p. 350. 89. Wilson, “Britain and the Kuomintang, 1924-1928”; and Fung, The Diplomacy o f Imperial Retreat, offer detailed analyses of this British policy reorientation toward China. 90. Ming K. Chan, Zhongguo yu Xianggang gongyun zongheng (Dimensions of the Chinese and Hong Kong labor movement), pp. 36-52. 91. Atwell, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers, chaps. 6 and 7. 92. Butters, Report on Labour and Labour Conditions in Hong Kong. 93. On this issue of legitimacy in the contemporary context, see Scott, Political Change and the Crisis o f Legitimacy in Hong Kong.

94. Alston to Tyrell, June 22, 1922 (F2805/2805/10), FO 371/8040.

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4 From Nationalistic Confrontation to Regional Collaboration: ChinaHong Kong-Britain, 1926-41 Norman J. Miners

The formulation of a historic triangle of Britain, China, and Hong Kong might have oversimplified the framework of Hong Kong’s international relationships before the Pacific War. For the greater part of the period 1929 to 1940, the governments of Guangxi and Guangdong were effectively outside the control of the Nationalist government, which had been set up in Nanjing in 1927. The British government recognized Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) as the ruler of the whole of China in 1929, but, in practice, the authorities in Canton paid little attention to the views of Nanjing and were at times in open revolt against it (for example, General Chen Jitang in 1936). As far as the Hong Kong government was concerned, however, it was far more important to be on friendly terms with the regime in power in Canton, which was capable of ruinously interfering with the colony’s entrepot trade with southern China (as had been shown by the 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott), than it was to cultivate good relations with the central government in Nanjing. Thus, Hong Kong’s interna­ tional relations were more quadrilateral (London-Nanjing-Canton-Hong Kong) than triangular in shape. It is possible to complicate the picture still further. British firms active in other parts of China, whose interests in Hong Kong formed only a small part of their trading empires, sometimes had cause to be dissatisfied with the policies pursued by the Hong Kong government. When this situation arose, they were not slow to voice their complaints in London, in the hope that the Colonial Office would direct the Hong Kong administration to modify its policies. Another extra­ 59

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neous factor, particularly after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, was the pressures from Japan. To persuade (or compel) the British authorities to put a stop to the transport of military supplies to China along the Canton-Kowloon Rail­ way, the Japanese threatened to bomb the bridges on the line. They also put pressure on Hong Kong by attacking sailing junks in the waters of the colony. Hong Kong was at the center of a complex network of foreign actors, all of whom were poten­ tially capable of exerting pressure on Hong Kong either directly or through an intermediary in order to influence the policies of the colonial government.

Clementi and Canton-Hong Kong Rapprochement, 1926-30 The Hong Kong government itself was not simply a passive focus for these pressures. In the 1920s Sir Reginald Stubbs (governor, 1919-25) and Sir Cecil Clementi (governor, 1925-30) both actively intervened in the politics of Guang­ dong Province in order to help one or another of the Chinese factions there to gain and hold power. They also lobbied actively in London to influence the China policies of the British government, demanding that gunboats be used in support of British interests in South China. Clementi was particularly insistent in putting forward his view that China had irretrievably broken up and that Britain should accord recognition to the regional governments that were effec­ tively in control of their own provinces. Clementi pressed this policy on the British government as being in accordance with the realities of the situation in China, and also as being in the best interests of the colony of Hong Kong. He put his position very clearly in one dispatch to the Colonial Office: “As Governor of Hong Kong I am bound to put before the Secretary of State the Hong Kong point of view and I am bound to think that British policy in China ought to be based chiefly on the requirements of Hong Kong. I say this with full appreciation of British interests in the rest of China.”1 Unfortunately for Clementi it was the foreign secretary and the cabinet who were responsible for the conduct of international policy, so the Colonial Office could do no more than pass on d em en ti’s suggestions to the foreign secretary with its endorsement. But even the Colonial Office was rather skeptical of d em en ti’s judgment. The permanent under secretary commented on one occa­ sion: “The trouble appears to be that he thinks that in his capacity as Governor of Hong Kong he is also responsible for the control of all the naval, military and air forces in South China, as well as shaping our policy there.”2 In fact, Clementi achieved very little, since his views were out of harmony with the changes that were taking place in British policy toward China in the late 1920s. In a memorandum circulated in December 1926, the Foreign Office signified its willingness to give up the privileged position Britain enjoyed as a result of the nineteenth-century agreements with the Qing dynasty and to deal with China on the basis of equality.3 Britain was prepared to renegotiate the unequal treaties and to allow the Chinese government to fix its own tariffs. In 1927 the British concessions

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in Hankou and Jiujiang were handed back to China. In 1929 China obtained full tariff autonomy and Britain extended diplomatic recognition to the Nanjing gov­ ernment. In 1930 the leased territory of Weihaiwei was restored to China. This new policy of conciliating Chinese nationalism by a calculated and negotiated retreat from Britain’s former privileged position in China was most unwelcome to Clementi, as it was to most of the British business community in China. Clementi believed that Britain should defend its special position in China by prompt and firm actions backed by the threat or use of force when necessary; weakness in the face of Chinese demands would only encourage further en­ croachment. He advocated the annexation of the New Territories, or alternatively the granting of renewable seventy-five-year leases there extending beyond 1997 (when the ninety-nine-year lease granted in 1898 expires) in order to make clear Britain’s determination never to give up the area.4 The Foreign Office refused to consider any such proposals. The British minister in China, Sir Miles Lampson, pointed out that any such initiative would be useless because no Chinese govern­ ment would ever agree to such a concession. Even to raise the matter would arouse all the old suspicions of Britain’s intentions that Lampson was trying to still, and might give rise to a campaign for the immediate rendition of the leased area.5 A similar reply was given by the Foreign Office when the future of the New Territories was raised by Sir William Peel in 1931, and by Sir Geoffry Northcote in 1938. However, although the Foreign Office was not prepared to give formal recog­ nition to the government in Canton, Hong Kong was permitted to deal with the authorities there on a bilateral basis and to conclude informal arrangements that did not raise the question of recognition.6 Clementi took full advantage of this and was able to establish very friendly relations with General Li Jishen in Can­ ton. The two governments cooperated in joint actions against the notorious haunt of pirates at Bias Bay. The Hong Kong extradition ordinance was amended to allow criminals to be repatriated at the request of the Canton authorities without reference to Nanjing, and a number of Communists who had escaped to Hong Kong after the failure of the Canton Commune Uprising of December 1927 were returned to Canton for summary execution. Li saw that no impediments were placed in the way of Hong Kong’s trade with South China, and he dispersed the remnants of the strike committee, which had organized the 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott against the colony. Clementi, in his turn, encouraged the Hong Kong merchants to raise a loan to assist Li. However, he was unsuccessful in his efforts to persuade the British government to lift the embargo imposed on the supply of military equipment to China so that Li could obtain the weapons he wished to purchase from abroad.7

Sino-Hong Kong Economic Jurisdictions During the Early 1930s In 1930 Clementi left Hong Kong to become governor of the Straits Settlements and was succeeded by Sir William Peel (governor, 1930-35). Peel was a much

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more relaxed and phlegmatic man than his predecessor, and during his five years as governor he was able to remain on good terms with both the authorities in Canton and also the British legation in China.8 He had none of d e m e n ti’s abrasive energy and had no inclination to meddle in the internal affairs of Guangdong. The long and detailed reports on the political situation in South China that Clementi. had regularly sent to London were discontinued. Neverthe­ less, the events in China were bound to have repercussions in Hong Kong, even though the Chinese authorities embarked on these policies without any deliberate intention of causing trouble for the colonial government. The open toleration of the growing of the opium poppy and the cheap supplies of opium put on sale by the Guangdong Opium Suppression Bureau under the label of “anti-opium medicine” undercut the sales of the Hong Kong govern­ ment’s own official opium monopoly, causing the government financial diffi­ culties.9 When China went off the silver standard in 1935, Hong Kong was compelled to do the same or risk losing trade to Shanghai. This enforced devalu­ ation of the Hong Kong dollar meant that the budget for 1936 could not be balanced, and the government had no alternative but to institute a levy on the salaries of civil servants, cutting rates of pay by up to 12.5 percent.10 The main problem that soured relations between China and Hong Kong in the 1930s was the question of smuggling. In 1929, China attained tariff autonomy and promptly raised its customs duties above the limit of 5 percent imposed by the treaty powers in the nineteenth century. When tariffs were as low as this, smuggling from the free port of Hong Kong into China was minimal. However, as soon as tariffs were raised to 12.5 percent, and later to 25 percent or more for some items, smuggling quickly became a serious problem. Goods were brought into China either as unmanifested cargo carried by the crews on the regular steamship services to the South China ports or by Chinese junks sailing from Hong Kong to small harbors and beaches along the coast where there were no Chinese Maritime Customs stations. These new tariff barriers threatened the existence of Hong Kong’s growing man­ ufacturing industry, which would be unable to sell its products competitively in China after paying the new tariffs. There was also the danger that the large coastal trade between North and South China might bypass Hong Kong if goods shipped through Hong Kong lost their national status and had to pay duty on reentry into China. To deal with these problems, the British government allowed Hong Kong to enter into negotiations with China to conclude a commercial agreement. The only effective way to control the smugglers was to set up a branch office of the Chinese Maritime Customs in Hong Kong that would collect payment of the new customs duties before the goods were shipped out of Hong Kong Harbor. However, ever since 1868, the colonial government had strenuously opposed all suggestions that a Chinese consul or any other official representative of the Chinese government be allowed to set up an office in Hong Kong. In exchange for such a large concession on Hong Kong’s part, Clementi tried to obtain

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various benefits for the colony, including the retention of Chinese native status by Chinese goods shipped via Hong Kong between North and South China, the right of Hong Kong shipping to trade on China’s internal waterways, and the admission of Hong Kong’s manufactures into China without payment of duty. The Chinese government was prepared to agree to only the first of these re­ quests. The proposal for duty-free entry of Hong Kong manufactures was dropped, but for some time negotiations were stalled by d em en ti’s insistence on the grant of inland navigation privileges for Hong Kong shipping. British business houses such as Swire and Butterfield were unhappy at d e m e n ti’s intransigence and expressed their dissatisfaction to London that the conclusion of an agreement might be lost on a matter that would largely benefit Chinese firms in Hong Kong rather than British shipping interests. After Peel replaced Clementi as governor, the request for this concession was withdrawn, and a draft agreement was reached that both Hong Kong and the British govern­ ment found acceptable. At the last moment, however, the Executive Yuan (cabi­ net) of the Chinese government in Nanjing refused to sign the agreement because of the opposition of the delegates from Canton, who objected to the grant of any special privileges to Hong Kong. It was alleged that the main reason for their opposition to the agreement was the considerable personal profit that many members of the Canton government derived from the smuggling trade, particu­ larly from the goods shipped through the so-called free port of Zhongshan, which had been established in Guangdong Province.11 The Hong Kong government was not unduly worried by the failure to ratify the customs agreement. It could now claim that it had shown its willingness to help China suppress smuggling and that it bore no blame for the failure to conclude the agreement. The coastal trade between North and South China did not suffer, as the British inspector general of Chinese Maritime Customs, Sir Frederick Maze, issued an administrative instruction to customs that goods shipped from Chinese ports through Hong Kong should not be liable to duty, provided that the goods re­ mained in their original containers and reentered a Chinese port within two months. The problem of smuggling from Hong Kong to China continued to strain relations for the next seven years, until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. Since all the revenue collected by customs went to the central government in Nanjing, officials of the provincial governments had no incentive to suppress the smuggling trade and in fact often cooperated with the smugglers. The Chinese government wanted the Hong Kong administration to take effective measures on its behalf, and, in order to put pressure on it to do so, the Chinese government imposed unusually heavy fines on British ships where smuggled goods were found, in the hope that the ship owners who were obliged to pay the fines would influence the Hong Kong government to take action. Wishing to demonstrate its readiness to help China, the Hong Kong govern­ ment issued regulations in 1932 making it an offense to place any unmanifested cargo aboard a steamship. This order did not apply to sailing junks, however,

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and, on the grounds that it could not afford the cost, the government made no attempt to enforce the new regulations by instituting searches. The ship owners lobbied in London, asking that the Hong Kong government be instructed to do this, but the Colonial Office refused on the grounds that the ship owners and not the Hong Kong taxpayers should pay for a service that would be carried out for their benefit. It was suspected that the Hong Kong government was unwilling to take any very active steps to stamp out smuggling, because this would make it unpopular with the Chinese population of Hong Kong and would also antagonize the government of Canton, with which Hong Kong was always anxious to be on good terms.12 The Canton government, however, was not equally disposed to seek friendly relations with Hong Kong. Canton had always believed that Hong Kong’s pros­ perity had only been achieved at Canton’s expense, and so it was ready to take any steps that might obstruct the progress of its rival. The railway administra­ tion in Canton created continual difficulties over the operation of the CantonKowloon Railway (CKR) and objected to all proposals for the construction of a loop line to connect the CKR with the Canton-Hankou Railway, which was then nearing completion. The road systems of Guangdong and Hong Kong were not linked, because Canton was unwilling to build a bridge over the Shenzhen River. Plans were drawn up to develop Whampoa as a deepwater port, in the hope of diverting shipping from Hong Kong, in spite of the immense problems of dredg­ ing the shifting sandbanks of the Pearl River. In 1934 the Canton authorities sent agitators into the Walled City of Kowloon to encourage the squatters who had settled there to resist resettlement by the Hong Kong government, on the grounds that the Walled City remained Chinese territory under the terms of the 1898 convention and so the British had no right to exercise jurisdiction there. The Walled City dispute dragged on for four years. The Foreign Office would not allow the Hong Kong government to evict the squatters by force, so they had to be persuaded to leave by greatly increased offers of compensation and rehousing. All these incidents illustrated what the governor, Sir Andrew Caldecott (governor 1935-37), described as the “tradition­ ally anti-foreign attitudes of the administration in Canton.”13 The national government in Nanjing was little better, from the British point of view, though, being further away, it could do less to injure Hong Kong’s inter­ ests. In 1930 the Chinese Ministry of Railways denounced the agreement on the working of the Kowloon-Canton Railway and insisted on renegotiation, mainly in order to secure a larger proportion of the revenues. The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry made a long succession of protests to the British minister about the sufferings of the inhabitants of the Walled City under the oppressive actions of the Hong Kong government. In 1933 China succeeded in its long-standing attempt to station an official representative in Hong Kong. The Foreign Affairs Ministry had promulgated a regulation that all imported goods must be accompa­ nied by an invoice certified by a Chinese consular officer and at the same time proposed to Britain the establishment of a vice-consulate in Hong Kong.

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65

The Hong Kong government, which was consulted by the Foreign Office, counterproposed that invoices could be certified by the Chinese General Cham­ ber of Commerce in Hong Kong, or by the British commissioner of the Maritime Customs stationed at the terminus of the Canton-Kowloon Railway. These sug­ gestions were both rejected by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and the Colonial Office feared that the Foreign Office, following its accustomed policy of concili­ ation, would give way to China’s request. One official commented that the Foreign Office was always generous in giving away other people’s property.14 On this occasion, however, the British minister in China acted energetically on Hong Kong’s behalf and secured China’s agreement that the official appointed should be called “Chinese invoice officer” and not “consul,” that his duties should be confined solely to the certification of invoices, and that the official appointed should be subject to the approval of the Hong Kong government and would be withdrawn if ever he was declared to be “persona non grata.” Such were the precautions that Hong Kong thought essential to quarantine the danger­ ous presence of a minor representative of the Chinese government in Hong Kong.

Limits to Sino-Hong Kong Cooperation in Peace and War, 1936-41 In 1936 Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) overcame a planned revolt led by the leaders of the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi and visited Canton to re­ ceive their submission. While he was there he invited the Hong Kong governor, Sir Andrew Caldecott, to pay him a visit. Governor Caldecott was received with every formal courtesy, and in private conversation the generalissimo welcomed the participation of British capital in the development of South China and gave an assurance that a loop line to link the CKR with the Canton-Hankou Line would be built within months. He also broached the subject of Sino-British military cooperation in the event of a Japanese invasion of South China. Caldecott welcomed Jiang’s assurances of future economic cooperation but pointed out that as a colonial governor he did not have the authority to discuss defense or foreign policy, which were matters reserved for the British govern­ ment. Later, the chairman of the Guangdong provincial government and the mayor of Canton paid a return visit to Hong Kong, where the Chinese once again stressed the opportunities for British capital in South China and the need for joint defense action against Japan. As before, Caldecott replied evasively .15 Over the previous year, the Nanjing government had been advised on eco­ nomic policy and the measures necessary to stabilize the Chinese currency by an expert from the British Treasury, Sir Frederick Leith-Ross. When Leith-Ross returned to Britain he brought with him various plans for Sino-British economic cooperation in China’s development. Among these was a suggestion made to him by a Nanjing government minister that Hong Kong enter into a customs union with China. The proposal that Hong Kong manufacturers be allowed duty­ free access to China’s internal market had originally been proposed by Hong

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Kong in connection with the 1929 negotiations for a customs agreement but had then been rejected by China at an early stage in the discussions. Since then, the idea had been put forward again in 1934 by a committee set up by the governor to consider ways of ameliorating the current depression in the colony’s trade, but again China had shown no interest in assisting Hong Kong in this way. The suggestion put to Leith-Ross in 1936 went considerably further than the earlier proposals, since it implied an economic union between China and Hong Kong, which would mean the end of Hong Kong as a free port. The proposal was examined in detail by officials at the Colonial Office. They concluded that, although Hong Kong’s manufacturing industry might be stimulated by free ac­ cess to the China market, this economic advantage would be counterbalanced by the loss of the entrepot trade among Indochina, the Philippines, Japan, and North America if Hong Kong ceased to be a free port. There would also be an increase in the cost of living if Hong Kong was obliged to impose China’s high tariffs on imports for domestic consumption. The main objection to the scheme, though, was political: it would tend to assimilate Hong Kong’s status to that of a treaty port, whereas the British had always emphasized Hong Kong’s completely dif­ ferent status as a ceded colony, so that it should not be affected by the coming negotiations for the abolition of extraterritoriality.16 The proposal was referred to Governor Caldecott for comment, and he em­ phatically rejected it. In Caldecott’s view, Jiang Jieshi’s recent professions of friendship and his obvious desire to enlist British support against an expected attack from Japan had had little or no effect on the behavior of Chinese officials in Canton or Nanjing, who continued to be as obstructive and disobliging to Hong Kong as before. If a customs union was set up, there would be great difficulty in negotiating with the Chinese to obtain a fair share of the joint customs revenue for Hong Kong, and Caldecott had no wish to allow China to dictate Hong Kong’s taxation policies. In any case, Caldecott continued, the reconciliation between Nanjing and the southern provinces was only superficial and might break down at any time. He had been privately warned by Sir Freder­ ick Maze that if a new customs agreement with China was ever negotiated, Hong Kong should insist on including a clause allowing for its immediate renunciation if Canton should again throw off its allegiance to Nanjing.17 The Colonial Office and the Foreign Office were completely convinced by Caldecott’s arguments, and no attempt was made to press for the adoption of the customs union scheme. In July 1937 Japan attacked North China, and Hong Kong became a vital port of entry for military supplies to the Nationalist Chinese forces, especially after the Japanese had blockaded the Yangtze River and later seized all the coastal ports in East China. The authorities in Canton quickly completed the link be­ tween the Canton-Kowloon Railway and the Canton-Hankou Railway after years of prevarication, and a bridge over the Shenzhen River to provide a motorable road between Hong Kong and Canton was completed in record time. In Hong Kong itself, factories were set up to provide equipment for the Chinese

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army (for example, two factories made gas masks). The Hong Kong trade union movement revived, stimulated by the patriotic enthusiasm to organize help for China, but Canton officials assured the Hong Kong government that there was no possibility of labor troubles when relations between Canton and Hong Kong were so good.18 Hong Kong Governor Sir Geoffry Northcote saw China’s des­ perate situation as an opportunity to purchase the freehold of the New Territories for a large sum of money, or to arrange for a long extension of the lease, but the Foreign Office refused to put forward this proposal, as they considered it was certain to be rejected by the Chinese. British policy toward the Japanese invasion of China was at best equivocal. There was considerable sympathy for China’s plight, but the British government was faced with the danger of war against Germany in Europe, with no forces that could be spared for action in the East, and so was unwilling to countenance any overt action that might provoke Japanese hostility. Quantities of military supplies were allowed to pass through Hong Kong in transit to the Chinese army, and Governor Northcote was permitted to pay an official visit to Canton in June 1938 as a gesture of solidarity with China. Despite pressure from the Chinese members of the Legislative Council, however, the Hong Kong government declined to offer any financial aid to China for the relief of war victims; the Hong Kong Red Cross Society was not allowed to send a detachment to the war zone; and the Hong Kong authorities, on instructions from London, suppressed the report of a commission of enquiry, which produced evidence that the Japanese had attacked and sunk unarmed Hong Kong fishing vessels. After the Japanese capture of Canton in October 1938, Hong Kong quickly established communication with the Japanese occupation forces to arrange for the resumption of rail and river traffic. The British government did not ally itself with China in the war with Japan until December 1941, after the Pearl Harbor attack and the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong on the same day. One year later, in December 1942, Britain demon­ strated the sincerity of its commitment to the alliance by agreeing to the total abolition of its extraterritorial privileges in China. It also undertook to discuss the future of the New Territories with China after the war was over. The Nation­ alist government never held Britain to this pledge during its tenure of power on the mainland from 1945 to 1949. The Chinese Communists who took control in late 1949 did not take up the question and were happy to leave Hong Kong undisturbed until 1982.

Patterns of Sino-British-Hong Kong Interactions This necessarily brief and selective narrative of events and issues in the relation­ ship of China, Hong Kong, and Britain in the 1930s may have been rather confusing. Let me try to highlight the salient features. The settlement of many disputes and problems unavoidably involved all three parties because China had no official representative in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong itself, being a colonial dependency of Britain, had no independent foreign relations and was required to

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conform with the international policies dictated by the British Foreign Office. Despite this disadvantage, Hong Kong was in practice allowed considerable freedom to make bilateral arrangements with the authorities in Canton on such matters as transport links, the facilitation of trade, the extradition of criminals, and similar administrative matters. Hong Kong was also given great freedom in conducting commercial and trade negotiations with the Chinese government; the offices of the British legation were used as an intermediary, but Hong Kong was able to make its own decisions as to what best suited its commercial interests. Though the Chinese government had no permanent diplomatic representative in Hong Kong, the inspector general of the Chinese Maritime Customs was a not infrequent visitor to the colony, and the Hong Kong governor also had contact with Chinese ministers and officials when they landed at Hong Kong or when he (rarely) paid an official visit to Canton. So, though many issues involved the intervention of all three parties, Britain, China, and Hong Kong, there were also many matters that were settled in Britain’s absence, though the Colonial Office was always kept informed. During the 1930s the Chinese government at Nanjing was in a weak position in relation to the treaty powers and particularly in relation to Britain, since it did not exercise effective control over the whole of China. There were rebellions in various provinces, the Communists posed a permanent threat, and in the North the Japanese had seized Manchuria and were steadily extending their hold over the adjacent provinces. Jiang Jieshi’s government wished to assert its sovereign rights as an equal partner with the other powers and to do away with the humili­ ating evidence of past inferiority, the concessions, extraterritoriality, and the other foreign jurisdictions on Chinese soil. It also needed the help and support of the Western powers to counteract the menace of Japanese imperialism. There­ fore, it could not afford to antagonize them by unilaterally abolishing foreign privileges through state action or through the encouragement of mob violence. Instead, the Nanjing government pressed for renegotiation of the unequal treaties or their abrogation by agreement. Britain, for her part, was ready to reciprocate and to follow a policy of conciliation and appeasement of Chinese nationalism, but this meant that the pace of reform was set by Britain and not by China. The most that China could do was to press for changes by making difficulties for the treaty powers when and where an opportunity arose. One obvious point to exert pressure on was Hong Kong. The British liked to claim that the economy of Hong Kong was closely linked with that of Guangdong and that the prosperity of the port was bound up with the prosperity of its hinterland, so that both could flourish together. The Chinese in general took a different view. They viewed Hong Kong as a parasite on the Chinese economy, claiming that it had grown rich by diverting to its own harbor the trade that should have gone to Canton, the original entrepot for China’s foreign trade. Its free port provided a convenient base for smugglers, who de­ frauded the central government of much of the revenue needed to build up

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China’s national strength. Moreover, the factories that were springing up in Hong Kong, nurtured by cheap Chinese labor and tariff-free materials, would pose a threat to China’s own industries if they were ever allowed to compete freely in China’s internal market. It is hardly surprising that most Chinese on the mainland, and the Cantonese in particular, would have been quite happy to see Hong Kong mined. They nearly succeeded in achieving this in the 1925-26 General Strike-Boycott, and in the less bellicose atmosphere of the 1930s they saw no reason to do anything that might help the colony or advance its prosperity. It was only when China was under attack and Hong Kong’s port was needed as a vital conduit for military supplies that there was any genuine enthusiasm for cooperation with the colony of Hong Kong.

Contemporary Relevance Has this piece of past history any contemporary significance? The China scene has now changed completely from what it was in the 1930s. China is now strong, united under an effective central government with no danger of regional rebel­ lions or secessions. Britain is now the weaker party, and, in consequence, since the 1950s China has been able to interfere in and influence the internal affairs of Hong Kong, just as Hong Kong once sought to influence the outcome of the struggles for power in Guangdong Province with offers of money and support for one faction or the other. There has been a major change for the better in the China-Hong Kong rela­ tionship. Whereas in the 1930s it was believed that the richer Hong Kong be­ came, the worse it was for Canton, nowadays the Chinese leadership proclaims that the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong are a vital Chinese interest and a necessity for China’s modernization. There is, however, one constant feature: the attitudes and behavior of the British Foreign Office. The Colonial Office, which always fought valiantly in the corridors of Whitehall for the interests of the colonies, has now disap­ peared along with most of the former British Empire. Hong Kong is now a dependency of the Foreign Office, whose main aim is now (and was then) the cultivation of good relations with China, the appeasement of China’s every demand, and the fostering of British commercial interests in China without regard for the consequences for the British subjects living in what is still the British colony of Hong Kong.

Notes 1. Clementi to Colonial Office (CO), July 25, 1929, CO 129/517/7. 2. Wilson to Hankey, December 20, 1926, CO 129/494, p. 497. 3. Foreign Office (FO) 371/11664. See Fung, “The Sino-British Rapprochement, 1927-1931.” 4. For an example of dem enti’s advocacy of gunboat diplomacy, see his dispatch of May 23, 1927, CO 129/500/1.

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5. Clementi to Colonial Office, January 19, 1927, and reply by Lampson, CO 129/503/2. Various proposals by the Hong Kong government to obtain permanent possession of the New Territories between 1925 and 1938 are summarized in Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, 1898-1997, pp. 156-61. 6. Brenan to Lampson, December 8, 1927, CO 129/507/5. 7. CO 129/510/10; CO 129/508/1; CO 129/511/20; CO 129/504/13. 8. Peel makes this claim in his memoirs, Notes Concerning His Colonial Service, p. 140. 9. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , p. 256. 10. Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule , p. 96. 11. Details of the complex negotiations during 1929-30 for a customsagreement are in CO 129/517/1 and CO 129/521/12, 13, and 14. See also Peel, NotesConcerning His Colonial Service, p. 142. 12. On measures taken to prevent smuggling, see CO 129/531/15 and CO 129/542/12. A personal letter from Swire’s agent in Shanghai reported a conversation with Sir Freder­ ick Maze on the political background to the failure to ratify the Customs Agreement and its sequel: The Agreement is dead and buried for the following reasons: Canton will not hear of it, because they are getting revenue for the province from goods which, though smuggled so far as Customs are concerned, can for that reason bear heavier taxation locally. The Customs Agreement would give Nanking control of Kwangtung Customs revenue and would prevent the provincial government from getting this taxation. Hong Kong will not hear of it because it would hamper present good relations with Canton. They of course do not care a button about Nanking and Canton have apparently told Hong Kong pretty plainly that, if the Agreement is signed they may expect trouble. Nanking themselves do not want it because it would widen the rift between themselves and Canton, which they are trying to close. So the Customs and the unfortun­ ate Ministry of Finance can just whistle for the Agreement. But what Maze is after is to get the Hong Kong Government to take effec­ tive measures to enforce their new ordinance, which puts them in a position practically to stop the shipment of unmanifested cargo. In other words he wants to get the guts of the Agreement by a side wind. With further pressure from the Colonial Office it may be possible to get the Hong Kong Government to take action. (Swire to Cowell, February 6, 1933, CO 129/542/12) 13. Caldecott to Colonial Office, February 23, 1937, CO 852/124/6. 14. The negotiations over the Chinese invoice officer issue are in CO 129/540/13. The comment on the attitude of the Foreign Office is in a minute by the deputy undersecretary of state, Shuckburgh, who quoted the Latin proverb alieni profusus. 15. Caldecott to Colonial Office, September 24, 1936, and November 12, 1936, CO 129/559/13. 16. See CO 129/558/11, particularly the Colonial Office memorandum to the Cabinet Committee dated November 16, 1936. 17. Caldecott to Colonial Office, February 23, 1937, CO 852/124/6. 18. Blunt to Clark-Kerr, July 29, 1938, CO 129/569/11.

5 Hong Kong in Sino-British Diplomacy, 1926-45 Kit-ching Lau Chan

The years 1926-45 fell into three distinct periods in Hong Kong’s history. Dur­ ing the first and longest period, 1926-37, the drama of British-Chinese-Hong Kong relations was essentially played against the background of Chinese internal politics, especially in Guangdong. The second period, 1937-41, was dominated by events associated with the Sino-Japanese War. During the last period, 1941— 45, that of the Pacific War, Hong Kong was not even a player, leaving the other actors, whose ranks had now been expanded to include the United States, to act out scenes that could have drastically affected its future.

The Poststrike Period, 1926-37 The ending of the Canton-Hong Kong General Strike-Boycott in the autumn of 1926 did not spell immediate relief for Hong Kong and its government. Eco­ nomic normalcy was slow to return, and the governor, Sir Cecil Clementi, was disturbed by the signs of leftist influence and labor radicalism that tenaciously persisted in both Canton and Hong Kong.1 Clementi was even more distressed by the larger picture of British interest in China. Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) and the Nationalists, the troublemakers in Guangdong during the strike-boycott, had embarked on the Northern Expedition, which brought about a wave of at­ tacks on the British position, especially along the Yangtze. Clementi was particu­ larly enraged by the Hankou Incident of early January 1927, the Chinese dismissal of the British inspector general of the Chinese Maritime Customs, Sir Francis Aglen, at the end of February, and the Nanjing Incident shortly afterward.2 71

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Clementi was further consumed by frustration over the policy of conciliation adopted by the British government toward China. The policy was the brainchild of the foreign secretary, Austen Chamberlain, and was clearly embodied in the famous document the December Memorandum. It stemmed from what the For­ eign Office considered a realistic assessment of the political realities in East Asia and from Britain’s afterwar mentality, which absolutely rejected the idea of confrontation by force.3 Clementi firmly believed that the British stance was grossly erroneous. He refused to accept the situation without a fight. In Hong Kong he did his utmost to rid the labor scene of leftist influence and union radicalism. He initiated, through the revival of a publicity bureau, an active counterpropaganda program with regard to the Hankou and Nanjing incidents. The Hong Kong government tried to obstruct the brief visit of the famous literary figure Lu Xun, who had by then been perceived, at least by the Hong Kong authorities, as a leftist if not a full-fledged Communist. The governor also ordered a punitive expedition to Bias Bay against piratical activities, which he denounced as being deliberately con­ trived by the extremists who still remained in Canton.4 Clementi was so persistent with his line of arguments and actions that he successfully pressured the secretary of state for the colonies, L.S. Amery, into asking the Foreign Office for a reconsideration of policy. This caused a rift between Amery and Chamberlain, with the latter emerging as the winner. (The outcome was a foregone conclusion: the Foreign Office almost invariably had the final say in matters involving both offices.)5 In the midst of the gloom, the only light on the horizon to Clementi was the new British minister to China, Sir Miles Lampson. As it turned out afterward, Clementi was mistaken about the signals he was receiving from Lampson. Per­ haps fortunately for the governor, he did not realize his mistake until some time later. For the time being, Lampson appeared to be in favor of a stronger British policy. In reality, Lampson recognized from the start that concessions would have to be made. Unlike Chamberlain, however, Lampson objected to giving in to the Chinese even when they were behaving unreasonably. He believed that China should negotiate for Britain’s concessions rather than be presented with them on a silver platter. The approach he advocated was “reason backed by force,” for he believed that to deal with the Chinese successfully both elements were necessary. Consequently, at the beginning of 1927, Lampson requested that the China Squadron be strengthened and criticized his government’s submission over the Hankou Incident, as embodied in the agreement of February 19, 1927. There was thus, at this point, a strong semblance of like-mindedness on the part of Lampson and Clementi.6 Fortunately for Hong Kong and Britain, the struggle between Jiang Jieshi and the Chinese Communists surfaced and erupted in the antileftist purge (“partypurification movement” [qingdang yundong]) in mid-April 1927. In Guangdong the ruthless attack on the Communists and their sympathizers was carried out

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under the energetic leadership of General Li Jishen. Li had in fact assumed adminis­ tration of the province some time before the purge, but Clementi had doubted both his sincerity in bringing the extremists under control and his ability to do so, even if his intentions were honest. Li’s role in the purge persuaded the governor that he was worth the benefit of the doubt. His subsequent antilabor union and continued anticommunist maneuvers enabled him to rapidly gain the approval of Clementi and the mercantile communities in both Canton and Hong Kong.7 By the end of 1927 d e m e n ti’s attitude toward Li Jishen had changed radi­ cally, and the governor reached some surprising conclusions regarding Li’s position in Guangdong. Clementi now became convinced that Li’s paramount political objective was the consolidation of his personal power in Guangdong, and everything else, including his GMD affiliation, was secondary. Nothing pleased Clementi more than L i’s independent stance, because the governor trusted neither the leftists, who had mostly been purged, nor the Nationalists, who were equally anti-imperialist. This was the beginning of d em en ti’s vision of an independent and friendly Guangdong as Hong Kong’s neighbor. Consequently, Clementi urged the British government to concede to Li’s request for arms against the Communists. The Colonial Office was sympathetic, but the Foreign Office vetoed the proposal on the grounds that it ran counter to the international agreement on arms embargo on China, and that Britain could not possibly agree to Li’s request when it had earlier turned down that of Zhang Zuolin, the powerful warlord in North and Northeast China.8 The founding of the Nationalist government in Nanjing brought negligible political stability to China. Chinese politics until the outbreak of the SinoJapanese War in 1937 was such an entangled mess that it required tremendous skill and untiring patience to unravel. It suffices to say here that shortly after the establishment of the Nanjing government, Wang Jingwei had a falling out with Jiang Jieshi and set up a rival government at Wuhan. Soon, however, Nanjing and Wuhan were sufficiently conciliated to set up a special committee, to which Li Jishen formally professed loyalty. The special committee, however, was quickly abandoned by both Jiang and Wang. While these events were taking place, Li Jishen became apprehensive about his own political future. He ap­ proached Clementi with a plan that, while daring, was most appealing to the governor. Specifically, Li Jishen asked Britain to support his attempt to become the strongman in both Guang provinces: with Zhang Fakui in control in Guangdong, and Huang Shaohong in Guangxi. To Clementi this was the best situation Hong Kong could hope for. His hopes were quickly shattered, however, when Jiang Jieshi, Wang Jingwei, and Zhang Fakui acted jointly against Li Jishen and ousted him from Canton in December 1927. During his exile in Shanghai, Li secretly contacted Clementi for help. The governor was truly sympathetic but powerless to act.9

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The December 11-13 Communist Canton Commune Uprising unexpectedly turned out to be a blessing for Li Jishen and Clementi. The people in Guangdong were generally convinced that the uprising was given the opportunity to erupt by Li Jishen’s absence from the province. Li was therefore brought back to Canton by popular demand at the end of 1927.10 His return brought to Clementi the happiest and most fulfilling days of his governorship. In March 1928 the gover­ nor paid an official visit to Canton. In May Li Jishen returned the visit. This was the first official exchange of visits between the two cities since the founding of the republic.11 Clementi was greatly appreciative of Li’s achievement in sup­ pressing communism and piracy, in restoring the Guangdong economy, in im­ proving communication in the province, and in disciplining the provincial armies. The governor openly expressed his confidence that “Hong Kong was on its way to prosperity again.”12 On his trip to the South, which included Canton and Hong Kong, Sir Miles Lampson was duly impressed by the “joy feast” between Clementi and Li Jishen. In his report to the Foreign Office, Lampson mentioned the amicable relationship but added: “I only hope that Hong Kong does not try to force the pace too much.” Lampson’s comment was highly indicative of the governor’s initiative in bringing about the situation and of the minister’s uneasiness that such initiative might go out of Britain’s desired diplomatic bounds.13 Lampson’s apprehensions proved to be well founded. Thereafter, there was increasing disenchantment between Clementi and Lampson. By then the North­ ern Expedition had been completed, and the Nationalists had established a for­ mally unified government in Nanjing. The British minister believed that the time was ripe to implement his policy of conciliation with reason, which set off the long process of Anglo-Chinese negotiations on the return of British concessions, the tariff, and other issues. Such an approach was of course in direct contradic­ tion to d em en ti’s belief in nonconciliation and regional recognition.14 d em en ti’s frustration with and resentment toward the Nationalist government at Nanjing reached their peak in the spring of 1929, when Li Jishen was uncere­ moniously removed from power by Jiang Jieshi, who apparently resented Li’s affiliation to the Hankou-based Guangxi clique. The shock of Li’s removal was all the more unpalatable because of its unexpectedness. The severe economic downturn caused by the sudden political upheaval was further aggravated by the new threat of civil war from Guangxi now that Guangdong was no longer in friendly hands.15 Fortunately, the new Guangdong leadership, which had been the second level leadership under Li Jishen, was able to avert war with Guangxi. Relief from this area was insufficient, however, to relieve d e m e n ti’s frustration at being turned down in his requests for British intervention on behalf of Li Jishen, who was being forcibly detained in Nanjing. Lampson rejected d em en ti’s behavior as excessive interference, dem enti left Hong Kong a dejected man at the end of 1929. His Hong Kong experience was to deeply influence his subsequent gover­

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norship in Malaya, where he vigorously suppressed the activities of the Guomindang.16 Shortly before Clementi departed from Hong Kong, he confided to his men­ tor, an ex-governor of Hong Kong, Sir Matthew Nathan: “I sometimes think that the Colonial Office have transferred me to Malaya in order that they may appoint as governor of Hong Kong someone who will be more inclined to adopt the China policy of our Foreign Office than I have been. I do not envy my successor his job. I have found it one long heartbreak.” dem enti’s successor was Sir William Peel. Ironically, Peel had every reason for Clementi to envy him. This was one of the unexpected twists of events which were to repeatedly characterize the history of Hong Kong.17 Before Peel assumed his new post, he was made fully aware of the tension between the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office, between the British minister and the Hong Kong governor, between the governor and the British consul general in Canton, and between the British mercantile community and the gov­ ernment of Hong Kong over the question of Hong Kong interests versus British interests in China. While disagreeing with the idea that the British minister should have control over Hong Kong, and maintaining that the respective inter­ ests should be represented by different officials, Peel was prepared not to look at matters exclusively from Hong Kong’s point of view. He recognized from the beginning that the British minister and the governor of Hong Kong should work harmoniously in the spirit of compromise when such was called for. A balanced perception and a more objective assessment of the situation on the part of Peel were not enough to explain the diplomatic calm during his governor­ ship. He was fortunate in that his service in Hong Kong generally coincided with what Edmund S.K. Fung calls the “change of Chinese foreign policy”: after the Nationalists established their government in Nanjing, they harbored an increas­ ing obsessive preoccupation with the extermination of the Communists, and an unprecedented period of stability and even prosperity reigned in Guangdong since the 1911 Revolution. The situation in Guangdong was largely brought about by Chen Jitang, who was not only the strongman in Guangdong but indi­ rectly in Guangxi as well. The two provinces led a semiautonomous existence from the Nanjing government, which tolerated the situation because of its struggle against the Communists and its preoccupation with national reconstruc­ tion, and also because Chen Jitang was strongly anticommunist in his political leaning.18 Peel’s administration benefited greatly from this delicate balance of power. There were no major diplomatic crises, and the people in both Canton and Hong Kong remembered Chen Jitang and his regime with great fondness long after it ended in 1936. Peel and Chen Jitang were nowhere as close as Clementi and Li Jishen. In fact, Peel noted in his memoir that the officials in Canton “were never really very helpful and in their jealousy of the colony’s position were often obstructive.” Peel’s remark tallies with the general impression gleaned from a

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cursory study of the 1930s: the Chinese authorities in Guangdong were generally less well disposed toward British interests than the Nationalist government in Nanjing, which appeared to have expended much of its anti-imperialist ferocity, so prominent a decade before. The important point is that although Canton might have been “jealous” and “obstructive,” it nevertheless still took the trouble to maintain a friendly facade.19 Chen Jitang’s aspiration to full autonomy from Nanjing in the summer of 1936 could have caused considerable difficulty and embarrassment for Hong Kong. Fortunately, the crisis was averted with the defection of his senior army and air force commanders. Guangdong consequently returned to the orbit of Nanjing control.20 As expected, the Nanjing government, headed by Jiang Jieshi, and now tormented by the Communist threat on the one hand and Japanese aggression on the other, was anxious to court the friendship of British Hong Kong. Hong Kong naturally welcomed the Chinese stance. Consequently, an exchange of official visits between the governor, then Sir Geoffry Northcote, and senior Guangdong officials took place shortly after the establishment of the new provincial administration in Canton.21

The Early Years of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41 The honeymoon between Hong Kong and Canton was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in September 1937 and especially by the Japanese occupation of Canton in October 1938. The most outstanding immedi­ ate effects on Hong Kong were the large and sudden increase in population due to the influx of refugees and the diversion to the colony of Chinese trade nor­ mally conducted through other Chinese ports. As far as the diplomatic front was concerned, China’s main concern at the beginning was the use of Hong Kong, by virtue of her neutral status, as the venue where she could maximize her war effort, while taking care that such Chinese activities were not unduly offensive to Britain’s sense of propriety under the circumstances 22 For Britain, Hong Kong clearly illustrated her dilemmas with regard to the earlier part of the Sino-Japanese War, from 1937 to 1941. Britain’s concern with safeguarding her interests in China and Southeast Asia logically should have led her to favor a strong line against Japan. In practice, however, she adopted a benevolent neutrality that was forced on her, as it were, by her increas­ ingly challenged position in Europe, her military inadequacies in Asia, and the isolationist attitude of the United States. With the expansion of Japan’s milita­ rism in and beyond China, Britain encountered ever-more difficulty ir_ im­ plementing a neutrality that would favor China without displeasing Japan. In the end, both China and Japan—especially Japan— were offended.23 A large part of the diplomatic relations among Britain, China, Hong Kong, and Japan during this period revolved around the question of the transport of war matériel, including aircraft, trucks, and fuel, to China through Hong Kong. As

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soon as the Japanese realized that hostilities were likely to be prolonged, they were anxious to cut off China’s supply of arms, for which she was almost entirely dependent on imports. By the beginning of September 1937, Japan had effectively set up a blockade of Chinese shipping along the coast. Under the circumstances, Hong Kong remained perhaps the most substantive channel through which arms could be transported to China either by water in foreign steamers or by rail, first via the Canton-Kowloon Railway and then by way of the Canton-Hankou Railway to various parts of China. One other, but much less effective, alternative was Indochina, from where supplies were carried by rail either to the Guangxi border or to Yunnan.24 China naturally diverted most shipments of arms to Hong Kong immediately after the war broke out. Both the British and Hong Kong governments felt the tension of the situation as Japan intensified its demands on Hong Kong, and as Hong Kong began to experience a great congestion of arms destined for China. Meanwhile, Jardine, Matheson & Company wanted to be told the extent, if any, to which it could involve itself in the transport of arms to China.25 The British government was therefore anxious to formulate as early as possi­ ble a clear policy on the subject. It was difficult to come to a decision. Both Jardine, Matheson & Company and the acting governor of Hong Kong, N. L. Smith, were for acting in favor of China, although they were apprehensive that Japan might exercise a belligerent right of retaliation. The British government decided, at the end of a lengthy departmental meeting of the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Board of Trade, Admiralty, India Office, and Dominions Office on September 6, not to place an embargo on exports from Hong Kong.26 The United States, on the contrary, announced an embargo on arms, ammunition, and implements of war in general to both China and Japan.27 As a result of the British decision, Hong Kong steadily grew in importance as a source of military supplies to China. Japan warned both the Hong Kong gov­ ernment and the British ambassador in Tokyo, Sir Robert Craigie, that if such an aggravating situation persisted, Japan would have to destroy the CantonKowloon Railway at places outside the British leased territory. The acting gover­ nor was basically unmoved by the threat, and his attitude was supported by the Colonial Office. On October 14 the Chinese section of the Canton-Kowloon Railway was bombed; fortunately, the damage was slight and was repaired over­ night.28 At the same time, China’s channels of military supplies became further de­ pleted: both France and Portugal had prohibited the transport of arms to China via Indochina and Macau, respectively. The Chinese urgently needed to secure new means of importing military supplies in preparation for the eventuality of the Canton-Kowloon Railway becoming inoperable. At the end of October, China entered into negotiations with the London government and the British government in Burma for the construction of the famous Burma Road to connect Burma and Kunming in Yunnan Province.29 Until the completion of the road in

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the summer of 1938, Hong Kong (the Canton-Kowloon Railway, to be specific) at the constant risk of Japanese bombing, remained the main channel for China’s importation of war matériel. Meanwhile, strong anti-British sentiments were developing in Japan, and there can be little question that the arms traffic to China via Hong Kong was an important contributory factor to the situation. Sir Robert Craigie repeatedly urged that further consideration be given to the advisability of stopping the passage of arms from Hong Kong.30 On the other hand, the Hong Kong govern­ ment and the British minister to China, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, believed that Britain had not been doing enough for China. They felt, in fact, that China was additionally unsettled by Britain’s inconsistency toward the war, especially with regard to the transport of arms to China.31 The Foreign Office admitted that there were indeed inconsistencies, but that they were being forced on Britain by the circumstances of the time: “It all boils down to this: we are afraid of Japan and show now a bolder, now a less bold front dependent on the fluctuations of the European situation.. . . Our attitude towards the way Hong Kong should behave varied likewise.”32 This pattern of British behavior was to persist on into the Pacific War, when the question of the future status of Hong Kong was in the foreground. The fall of Canton and the closure of the Pearl River by Japanese authorities in October effectively reduced the importance of Hong Kong as a channel of arms supplies to China. However, the question was not to disappear entirely. First, there was continued shipment, either directly or indirectly to China, of materials other than arms that were necessary to maintain China’s war effort, such as trucks, chassis, and fuel. Second, the arms traffic from Hong Kong was maintained, albeit on a much reduced scale, largely through transshipment from Hong Kong to either Haiphong or Rangoon, from where the matériel was trans­ ported on land to China. This indirect arms traffic increased gradually from about the middle of February 1939, with the beginning of regular transport of munitions over the Burma Road. A considerable portion of the war matériel thus indirectly transported to China had in fact been accumulated in Hong Kong before the fall of Canton.33 At the end of June 1940, the question of arms traffic via Hong Kong again surfaced in connection with Japan’s demand for Britain to close the Burma Road. Simultaneously, Japan pressed that the frontier at Hong Kong be closed to the carriage not only of arms and ammunition but of such transportation supplies as fuel, fuel oil (especially gasoline), trucks, and railway material to China. Britain had little choice but to humor Japan. However, Britain tried to soften the blow to China by agreeing to the closure for a period of only three months, effective July 13, the date of the agreement.34 Afterward, the Japanese added that there should be no possibility for stocks of contraband commodities at Hong Kong to pass to Rangoon or adjacent ports, clearly attempting to prevent the accumulation of arms supplies at those places

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on the expiration of the agreement. Craigie urged his government to comply with this additional request, which, however, created a split between the Foreign Office and the British government at large. In the end, the decision was made based on the “unimpeachable” arguments of L.S. Amery, secretary of state for India and Burma, who urged that more consideration should be given to China and that there should be no more concessions to Japan.35 The British government decided not to renew the Burma Road agreement. The Hong Kong government, much to the relief of Craigie and with the approval of London, decided to voluntarily abide by the restrictions because of Hong Kong’s vulnerable position.36 Nevertheless, the problem remained. By then an active and extensive smuggling junk trade in truck parts and, more important, in fuel had developed. This led to a marked intensification of Japanese attacks on Hong Kong trading and fishing junks, which were suspected of smuggling. The Hong Kong government found itself in a most unenviable situation. If, on the one hand, matters were left as they were, they would reflect unfavorably on the character and reputation of the Hong Kong civil service and, more serious still, would be offering to the Japanese an ever-ready handle for interference and provocative action. Moreover, Japanese attacks on colonial junks gravely threat­ ened to disrupt Hong Kong’s food supply. On the other hand, if the prohibition on matériel transport was rendered really effective and watertight, the colonial government would have to incur considerable expenditure, and China’s resis­ tance would necessarily suffer.37 The situation had become so untenable by the spring of 1941 that, early in May, Governor Northcote recommended to the Colonial Office the lifting of the ban on the export of trucks and fuel to China as a way out of the difficulty. Despite the discouraging attitude of both the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office, the governor repeated his view with the support of Clark Kerr.38 It is significant that Craigie’s dissent at this stage of Anglo-Japanese relations was not because of any regard for Japanese susceptibilities but because of his “reluc­ tance to risk showdown with Japan at so exposed a point as Hong Kong.”39 The question was still unresolved when the Pacific War broke out at the end of the year.

The Pacific War, 1941-45 During the Pacific War there were little British-Chinese-Hong Kong relations to speak of. In fact, Hong Kong was in Japan’s hands. There were, however, BritishChinese-American relations regarding Hong Kong, especially the postwar status of Hong Kong. From the outset, China adopted an unfriendly attitude toward Britain. In the first place, China felt much more confident of herself now that she was accepted by the United States as an almost equal partner. Second, she was disdainful of Britain because of her colossal and rapid defeat by Japan in Southeast Asia,

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especially in Hong Kong. Third, the United States proved to be a much more generous ally in furnishing money, supplies, moral encouragement, and flattery.40 Hong Kong had been prominent on the British government’s agenda almost since the beginning of the war. This was largely because of the United States’ attitude toward Britain’s imperialist policy. There was a growing demand in the United States, starting with President Roosevelt, for a “Pacific Charter” (along the lines of the Atlantic Charter) that would guarantee freedom after the war to the nonself-governing countries in the Pacific, or, at least, for the Atlantic Char­ ter to be extended to cover the Pacific region. In short, the United States was looking for a new dispensation for colonial territories in East and Southeast Asia.41 Regarding Hong Kong in particular, there had been widespread speculation in the United States, stimulated by the speeches of such high officials as Secretary of State Cordell Hull and his assistant Sumner Welles. It seemed almost certain that in the event that China clamored for the return of Hong Kong, she would enjoy full sympathy and support from the United States, which, at the time, was much more emotionally attached to China than to Britain.42 Things generally went badly for Britain in 1942. She was in a tight situation in the war in Europe. Moreover, the United States reached the height of euphoria regarding China with Madame Jiang Jieshi’s visit to the country. In anticipation of the international conference to be called by the prestigious Institute of Pacific Relations, at which Britain hoped to improve her public image on the question of imperialism, and the upcoming simultaneous British-Chinese and AmericanChinese negotiations on extraterritoriality, at which China might raise the ques­ tion of Hong Kong, it became obvious to the British government that it could no longer postpone the formulation of an official stand on the future status of Hong Kong. Later, at the end of August, an additional reason emerged for a ready policy—the United States’ suggestion that a joint statement be issued by them­ selves, Britain, and possibly the Netherlands, in which they would assert in broad terms their views as to the mutual relations between themselves and their Pacific possessions.43 The question of Britain’s postwar colonial policy in East Asia was first con­ sidered in the Colonial Office and Foreign Office, respectively, and then at an interdepartmental meeting on September 10, attended by high-level officials from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, India Office, and Dominions Office. At every one of these meetings a great deal of discussion focused on Hong Kong, and the subject aroused strongly divergent views. In the end, the British govern­ ment felt that, under the circumstances, if Britain were pressed, she would have to agree to the rendition of Hong Kong on terms after the war. Only Sir Maurice Peterson, superintending undersecretary of the Far Eastern Department in the Foreign Office, and L.S. Amery were strongly against the majority opinion.44 The return of Hong Kong on terms after the war was a great concession on the

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part of the British government. However, even this modest aim seemed to be difficult to achieve toward the end of the Sino-British negotiations on the termi­ nation of British extraterritoriality in China at the end of 1942. In mid-Novem­ ber the Chinese presented Britain with a counterdraft of the agreement that contained three provisions highly objectionable to the British. One of the three Chinese demands was the termination of the Convention of the Kowloon Lease of 1898. The British government, with Anthony Eden as the foreign secretary, insisted that the Kowloon lease, which included the part of Hong Kong known as the New Territories, was outside the scope of extraterritoriality, but that Britain would be willing to discuss its future when victory was won. The British negoti­ ators had no confidence at all that their adamant attitude would bring them success in the end.45 By the end of the year, all the outstanding obstacles to the signature of the Sino-British agreement had been removed except the question of the Kowloon lease. The situation was all the more pressing in that the Sino-American treaty was ready for signature: Britain had hoped that the two treaties would be signed simultaneously so that she would not appear again as the less generous ally compared with the United States.46 It was indeed fortunate for Britain that Jiang Jieshi, persuaded by ambassador Wellington Koo and possibly Hang Liwu, even­ tually agreed to a compromise whereby China recognized that the New Territo­ ries were outside the purview of the agreement but registered her desire to raise the matter later at a more appropriate date.47 The two treaties were eventually signed on January 11, 1943. The outcome of the negotiations represented a step down by Britain from her original position regarding Hong Kong’s future. Britian no longer held the initiative to discuss the return of Hong Kong at a suitable time and on suitable terms; rather China was free, “when victory was won,” to ask Britain to reconsider the lease of the New Territories, at the very least. On the other hand, Britain had succeeded in staving off the issue for the time being.48 Unexpectedly, Hong Kong became much less of a burning question until almost the end of the war. Since the beginning of 1943 China had complained much less about the Hong Kong issue, partly because she felt that she now held the initiative to raise the matter after the war, and partly because of Chongqing’s growing concern with containing the influence of the Communists. The Ameri­ cans had by then expended some of their infatuation with China, although one of the pet conversation topics of President Roosevelt at the major allied conferences remained his desire to secure the return of Hong Kong to Jiang Jieshi, who would then be asked to turn it into an international port.49 Britain, on her part, stiffened her attitude toward Hong Kong’s future largely because her position in Europe was beginning to improve, and she felt consider­ ably less dependent on the United States. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, despite his colossal wartime responsibility, paid considerable attention to Hong Kong. He absolutely refused to talk about its return during the war. Wellington

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Koo had the following record of Churchill’s attitude: “He said that he had no objection to giving back Hong Kong but this was not the time. The time to do it was after the war. He said Britain would want to hand it over in an orderly way. In other words, Britain felt that practical arrangements had to be made, such as the continuation of the pension system; the assumption of the public obligations of the Hong Kong administration, the caring of certain public properties, and they stressed the necessity of doing it in a business way such as had been done in the case of Wei-hai-wei, when a provisional agreement was negotiated and agreed upon concerning all the practical items.”50 Even with his remarkable foresight, Churchill would have been completely astounded by the complexity of the British-Chinese negotiations regarding the eventual return of Hong Kong to China, which have been taking place since the mid-1980s. To date, the SinoBritish Joint Liaison Group, the body principally entrusted with the task of preparing the eventual British handover and Chinese takeover, is still left with a dauntingly lengthy and complex agenda. In September 1944 a clear understanding was reached between Britain and the United States that, in British territories in East Asia that were in the Ameri­ can Command, the policies to be followed on the liberation of those territories would be laid down by the British government and accepted by the American force commander.51 As far as Hong Kong was concerned, this meant the restora­ tion of British administration at least immediately upon the conclusion of hostili­ ties. Meanwhile, the British government was actively pursuing its preparation to return to Hong Kong after Japan’s defeat. For this purpose, the Hong Kong Planning Unit had been set up under D.M. MacDougall of the Colonial Office.52 Except for a recrudescence of American criticism of British imperialism with the approach of the end of war, events proceeded smoothly until the situation took a sudden turn in July 1945. The Colonial Office was suddenly awakened to the possibility that the Japanese might pull out without a fight, and that Hong Kong might be occupied by Chinese forces, Guomindang or Communist, operat­ ing in the neighborhood. The scenario again changed at the end of the month when for the first time the British government became aware that Hong Kong might be liberated by irregular Chinese forces under American command.53 The news that Japan would accept defeat in the near future again changed the picture. The British hastened to mobilize all available resources to race to Hong Kong to resume administration before the arrival of Chinese forces.54 Another difficulty arose when Jiang Jieshi insisted on his right to accept Japan’s surren­ der at Hong Kong as commander-in-chief of the Chinese theater, while the Colonial Office in particular insisted that Sir Cecil Harcourt, commander of the British Pacific Fleet assigned to Hong Kong, receive Japan’s surrender on behalf of Britain by virtue of her sovereignty over Hong Kong. Fortunately for Britain, Jiang Jieshi eventually agreed to the compromise that Harcourt accept Japan’s surrender on behalf of both Britain and Jiang as supreme commander of the Chinese theater.55 Britain then launched the program of rehabilitating her Crown

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Colony after the arrival of the Civil Affairs Unit in Hong Kong on September 7, 1945.

Conclusion The period under review here was short but disproportionately packed with exciting and fast-changing diplomatic events. Their themes were extremely var­ ied and were dictated by the broader contexts of Chinese politics and interna­ tional relations in East Asia at the time. This period was unique in the sense that it was in great contrast to the preceding periods of British-Chinese-Hong Kong relations since the Treaty of Nanjing, when diplomacy tended to be governed by repeated and recurrent issues. Likewise, relative homogeneity also generally characterized the period after 1945, until 1982, that is, when the question of the future status of Hong Kong again emerged. During this period, diplomacy had mostly been conducted within the framework of the birth, growth, upheaval, and change of the People’s Republic of China, although there were dramatic varia­ tions within that framework. In contrast to the periods before and after, the history of Hong Kong during 1926-45 offered little predictability. Li Jishen’s removal from Canton, which spelled misfortune for Hong Kong, was almost immediately followed by his reinstatement, which brought about an unprecedented period of friendship be­ tween Canton and Hong Kong. Clementi predicted gloom for his successor. Instead, Peel’s governorship was marked by stability, considerable prosperity, and stable, if not heart-warming, relations with Guangdong. At the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, British-Chinese-American relations and the war situ­ ation were such that had China been more insistent, the people in Hong Kong could have found themselves under Chinese rule when the war was over, or shortly thereafter. In fact, it was difficult to imagine during the war that the question of the return of Hong Kong to China “would be shelved for almost forty years.” The reason, as one scholar puts it, was that the “power that wanted it returned, the KMT, did not have the force to regain it, while the power that had (by 1949) the force, the CCP, would not claim it.”56 The historic triangle of China, Britain, and Hong Kong during the period in question was not a triangle of equal sides. The three parties concerned were clearly unequal partners. Hong Kong was obviously subordinate to Britain in the colonial context, and the Colonial Office in charge of the colony’s affairs was required to submit to the Foreign Office, where Britain’s relations with China were more important than her relations with Hong Kong. Inequality likewise governed the relationship between China and Britain with regard to Hong Kong. Despite its outward facade of great power in China, Britain increasingly dimin­ ished in stature in China’s eyes. This was so particularly during the war years, when she showed herself first barely able to withstand Japanese pressure to terminate Hong Kong’s role as a channel of war matériel to China and then

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hardly capable of resisting China’s demand, supported by the United States, for the return of Hong Kong. British Hong Kong as it exists today owes a great deal to the Chinese Com­ munists. During the period under discussion they repeatedly, albeit unintention­ ally and unconsciously, benefited Hong Kong. It has been seen that the Communist Canton Commune Uprising at the end of 1927 brought the fallen Li Jishen back to power in Canton, thus bringing about a period of entente between Canton and Hong Kong, during which the latter recuperated from the General Strike-Boycott of 1925-26. It was largely because of Jiang Jieshi’s preoccupa­ tion with the extermination of the Communists that he tolerated the semiautonomous stance of Chen Jitang, whose regime has since been credited as being the most peaceful and prosperous period in the Canton Delta region since the 1911 Revolution. There could be no prosperous Hong Kong without a stable Guangdong. During the early postwar years, the Chinese Communists helped divert the Nationalist government’s attention from the question of the return of Hong Kong. After the period under review, Hong Kong benefited significantly from the Communist takeover in 1949. The arrival in Hong Kong of the mainland refu­ gees, many of whom were enterprising, brought sophisticated entrepreneurial talent and skill and, in some cases, considerable capital. The late Y.K. Pao is an outstanding example of this category of people, and his contribution to the recent development in Hong Kong business is well known.57 Moreover, the essentially closed frontier between Hong Kong and China from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, with the exception of the worst years of the Cultural Revolution, spared Hong Kong from coping with the overspills of Chinese political crises, a stan­ dard occurrence before 1949. Hong Kong was thus left alone to concentrate on its postwar reconstruction and then on its spectacular development from what was essentially an entrepot to a vibrant international city and financial center of the world. This stable situation by and large held firm until the emergence of the question of the 1997 transfer in the early 1980s and the June 4 Incident of 1989. The greater part of the two decades under review was under the governorships of Sir Cecil Clementi and Sir William Peel. A comparison of the two men throws interesting light on the appointment of the governor of Hong Kong. Both Clementi and Peel were experienced colonial hands with excellent service re­ cords. If that had not been the case, they would not have been appointed to Hong Kong, which had traditionally been regarded in the Colonial Office as a first-class governorship, since the emoluments accompanying it were rela­ tively lucrative compared with those of most other governorships. As a rule, the governorship of Hong Kong was awarded to outstanding colonial officials toward the end of their careers.58 Consequently, by the time Clementi and then Peel became governor of Hong Kong, the colonial and Colonial Office mentali­ ties, generally characterized by parochialism, were considerably entrenched in them. Clementi, moreover, suffered the much greater misfortune of having to

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deal with political and diplomatic situations that required flexibility and the ability to grasp the broad picture, qualities the Foreign Office and British mer­ chants in China and Hong Kong increasingly found lacking in him, particularly toward the end of his Hong Kong governorship. Clementi and Peel had one significant difference between them. Clementi had a close association with Hong Kong, to which he was emotionally attached; Peel, on the other hand, had no prior Hong Kong experience whatsoever. Although intimate knowledge and experience breed such qualities as attachment, involve­ ment, and identification, they can also blunt one’s sense of objectivity and openmindedness. Conversely, Peel would have found his total lack of Hong Kong experience a great hindrance if he had had to deal with the diplomatic crises that confronted Clementi. The appointment of the governor of Hong Kong and the question of his qualities and qualifications are of special relevance at the time of this writing, early 1992, in that the British government has recently announced that the cur­ rent governor, Sir David Wilson, will be retiring from his post later in the year. The appointment of Governor Wilson in 1987, though he was wanting in seniority in the Foreign Office, was generally considered fitting and commend­ able. Wilson had had several years of experience serving in Hong Kong before he became governor. Hong Kong was then about to enter its last decade as a British colony, and it was inconceivable to appoint a transition-period governor with no prior direct experience of Hong Kong. Moreover, Wilson’s experience was by no means confined exclusively to Hong Kong. His Hong Kong experi­ ence was well balanced by service in China and in the Foreign Office. In short, at the time of their appointments, Peel was familiar with none of the three sides of the British-Chinese-Hong Kong triangle, Clementi with only one side, but Wil­ son with all three sides. The first half of Wilson’s term of office was uneventful compared with the second half, which rocked by the June 4 Incident in 1989 and the instability in the colony caused by China’s displeasure and suspicion over the new airport project in 1990-91. Wilson’s handling of these crises and related issues is said to have displeased the British government, the Chinese government, and, as with Clementi before him, the British business community in Hong Kong, spear­ headed by Henry Keswick, head of the controlling family of Jardines.59 The general consensus is that Wilson was dismissed by the British government and that his “elevation” to life peerage was in effect “a fall from grace.” The Guard­ ian of London is quoted as saying: “The sacking of Hong Kong’s governor is a shabby tale which does not promise well for the difficult years ahead to 1997.”60 The person to succeed Wilson will be the last British governor of Hong Kong. He will oversee the Hong Kong administration during the final years of the transitional era. Unless something extraordinary happens, the new governor cannot expect to serve, like Governor Peel, in peace and calm. Even before Wilson’s retirement was announced, there was considerable speculation with regard to the

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governorship. Only several days before the announcement, the South China Morning Post carried the following remarks by British journalist Denny Gittings: “They say that, in the final days of British rule, the last Governor must be a political figure, able to project a strong image of London’s presence right up until the mo­ ment the Union Jack is lowered on the night of June 30, 1997.” 61 Is this the right approach? Can a politician with no prior experience of the British-China-Hong Kong triangle cope with the task he is appointed to undertake? Should a strong British image be Britain’s primary concern during the run up to 1997? Apart from a strong British image, there are at least two important considera­ tions: the guarantee of Hong Kong’s interest after 1997 and the maintenance of operable, if not friendly, relations with China. Faced with this daunting task, it was small wonder that Wilson, in an interview a few days after his retirement was allegedly forced on him, remarked that the governor of Hong Kong required “a tremendous number of qualities.” He quickly added, perhaps from his own harrowing experience in the past five years: “No human being can have them all.” In fact, no governor could be, according to Wilson, a “paragon.”62 If Wilson is to be believed, that no human being can have all the qualities required for the last British governor of Hong Kong, the British government should prioritize its major concerns for the last five years of its rule in Hong Kong. It is hoped that the British government will come to realize that the top priority is to guarantee Hong Kong’s interest in all its important aspects after 1997. In the course of ensuring the welfare of Hong Kong after its return to Chinese rule, the question of a strong British image will largely be decided. Britain will be seen as strong and responsible in taking good care of its last colony. It is significant that in the Wilson interview, mentioned above, “Sir David— while stressing its importance— declined to identify relations with China as the most important issue facing his successor.”63

Notes 1. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 221-24. 2. Clementi to Amery, secretary of state for the colonies (dispatch [disp.], secret), January 14, 1927, CO 129/499; Clementi to Amery (disp., secret), February 27, 1927, CO 129/501; Amery to Clementi, (telegraph [tel.]), May 7, 1927, CO 129/502; and Clementi to Amery (disp., secret), May 13, 1927, CO 129/499. Also see Kane, “Sir Miles Lampson at the Peking Legation, 1926-1933,” p. 50. 3. For example, Chamberlain to Lampson, British minister to China (private and personal), April 11, 1927, Chamberlain Papers, FO 800/260. Also see Fung, The Diplo­ macy of Imperial Retreat, pp. 81-104. 4. For Lu Xun’s brief visit to Hong Kong, see, for example, Lung-kee Sun, “To Be or Not to Be Eaten,” 4:465; and Liao, “Shilun Lu Xun zai Guangzhou qijian de sixiang tezheng” (Lu Xun’s thought during his stay in Canton). For texts of Lu’s two speeches in Hong Kong, see Lu Xun, Lu Xun quanji (The complete works of Lu Xun), 4:22-28, 7:28-37. For a Chinese account of the naval expedition to Bias Bay, see Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Guangdongsheng Guangzhoushi weiyuanhui wenshi

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ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, ed., Guangzhou bainian dashiji (Chronology of Canton for a hundred years), 2:377. 5. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 226-27. 6. Lampson’s attitude can be seen in, for instance, Lampson to Chamberlain(pri­ vate), April 16, 1927, Chamberlain Papers, FO 800/260. Also see Steeds, “The British Approach to China during the Lampson Period, 1926-1933,” p. 34; and Kane, “Sir Miles Lampson at the Peking Legation, 1926-1933,” pp. 41-45, 50-57. 7. See Li Jishen’s telegraphic report on his accomplished mission to Zhang Jingjiang, trusted rightist henchman of Jiang Jieshi, in Zhongguo dier lishi danganguan, ed., Zhonghua minguo shi dangan ziliao huibian (Collection of archival materials on the Chinese republican period), ser. 4, vol. 1, 423. Also see Li Jishen, “Li Jishen xiangsheng lueli” (Brief biography of Li Jishen), p. 141. For dem enti’s approving attitude, see Clementi to Amery (disp., secret), April 22,1927, CO 129/499. 8. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain,and Hong Kong, pp. 235-38. 9. Details of Li’s request for Britishsupport and dem enti’s recommendation of recognition are found in Clementi to Amery (disp., secret), September 20, 1927, CO 129/500. For the complexity of Chinese political developments surrounding Li’s expul­ sion from Canton, see for example, Li Pinxian, Li Pinxian huiyilu (Memoir of Li Pinxian), pp. 94—95; Chen Gongbo, Chen Gongbo huiyilu (Memoir of Chen Gongbo), p. 81; and Huang, Wushi huiyi (Looking back fifty years), pp. 194—95. Also see W.T. Southom, officer administering the government in dem enti’s absence, to Amery (disp., secret), November 24, 1927, CO 129/500. 10. One of the more recent publications on the Guangzhou uprising is Zhonggong Guangdong shengwei dangshi yanjiu weiyuanhui et al., eds., Guangzhou qiyi yanjiu (Study of the Canton Commune Uprising). 11. For an interesting account of Guangzhou’s reception of Clementi, see Jay Calvin Huston, American consul, to Ferdinand L. Mayer, American chargé d’affaires in China, March 31, 1928, no. 679, package 2, part 2, folder 6a, Huston Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Huston reported as follows: “Rather elaborate preparations were made for the reception of Sir Cecil Clementi, Governor of Hong Kong, by the Chinese of Canton. Arches of welcome elaborately decorated with clusters of electric lights were erected on the main thoroughfares through which the Governor was to pass. Every shop­ keeper was ordered by the police to fly the British flag on the days during Sir Cecil dem enti’s stay in Canton. Those who failed to comply with this order were fmed $5---Memorial arches and pailes appropriately festooned were also created along the main thorough-fares.” 12. Clementi to Sir Matthew Nathan, former governor of Hong Kong (private), Janu­ ary 14, 1929, MS. Nathan 351-52, Nathan Papers, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, En­ gland. 13. Lampson to Chamberlain (private), April 8,1928, Chamberlain Papers, FO 800/262. 14. Steeds, “The British Approach to China during the Lampson Period, 1926-1933,” p. 33. 15. For Li’s removal, see, for example, Li Jiezhi, “Li Jishen xiangsheng renzhi Guangdong de shiji shulue” (A brief account of Li Jishen’s career in Guangdong), pp. 14—15. For details of the Guangdong-Guangxi conflict, see, for example, Zhao, “Wo ceng jingli de liangci Yue-Gui zhanzheng” (The two Guangdong-Guangxi wars which I experienced), pp. 65-70. 16. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 250-53. Also see Turnbull, “Sir Cecil Clementi and Malaya,” 1:30-60. 17. Clementi to Nathan (private), December 31, 1929, MS. Nathan pp. 351-52, Na­ than Papers, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, England.

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18. For an account of the change of Chinese foreign policy, see Fung, The Diplomacy o f Imperial Retreat, pp. 153-69. For details of Chen Jitang’s regime, see Guangzhoushi zhengxie wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, éd., Nantian suiyue. 19. For Peel’s administration in Hong Kong, see Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain , and Hong Kong, pp. 254-62. 20. For example, Qian, Qian Dajun shangjiang bashi zizhuan (General Qian Dajun’s autobiography written when he was eighty), pp. 29-30; and Zhong, “Guangdong kongjun fan Chen tou Jiang zhimo” (How the Guangdong airforce defected from Chen Jitang and went over to Jiang Jieshi), pp. 517-29. 21. Qian, Qian Dajun shangjiang bashi zizhuan , p. 30; and Zhang Yuannan et al., Xiangjiang chouzuo ji (Friendly intercourse in Hong Kong). 22. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong , pp. 268-69. 23. Bradford A. Lee, Britain and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1939, p. 18. 24. Extract from B.E.F. Gage, British representative at Nanjing, to Eden, secretary of state for foreign affairs (confidential), September 8, 1937, CO 129/560/53548, 1. Also see U.S. Department of State,“Memorandum on Military Supplies Entering China,” pp. 213-15. 25. Jardine, Matheson & Company, Limited, to Foreign Office, August 27, 1937, FO 371/20976; and N.L. Smith, acting governor of Hong Kong, to W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, secretary of state for the colonies (tel. 151, secret), August 24, 1937, CO 129/560/53548, 1. 26. See minute of G.G. Fitzmaurice, legal adviser to the Foreign Office, September 9, 1937, and memorandum by John Pratt, a veteran China hand in the Foreign Office, “Position of Hong Kong in Relation to the Present Sino-Japanese Dispute,” FO 371/20977. 27. V.A.L. Mallet, chargé d’affaires at Washington, to Eden (tel. 272), September 15, 1937, FO 371/20977. 28. Craigie to Eden (tel. 444), September 25, 1937, Smith to Ormsby-Gore (tel. 207), September 27, 1937, and Smith to Ormsby-Gore (tel. 222), repeated to Craigie (tel. 18), October 7, 1937, CO 129/560/53548, 1. 29. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong , pp. 275-76. 30. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong , pp. 276-77. 31. Clark Kerr to Viscount Halifax, foreign secretary succeeding Eden, annual report on China for 1937, no. 223, April 29, 1938, FO 371/22160. 32. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong , pp. 277-78. 33. See statement of arms and ammunition through Hong Kong to China during the first half of 1939 in Northcote to MacDonald, August 8, 1939, CO 129/575/53548; and statement of the same for the second half of 1939 in Colonial Office to Foreign Office, March 2, 1940, FO 371/24666. 34. Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, p. 99. Also see Kagoshima heiwa kenkyu-sho, ed., Nihon gaiko-shi (History of Japan’s Foreign rela­ tions), pp. 84-96. For Chinese official protests, see Kangzhan shiqi fengsuo yu jinyun shijian Zhong Ri waijiao shiliao zongbian (Collection of historical materials on SinoJapanese relations regarding incidents of blockade and embargo during the Sino-Japanese war, 1937-1945), pp. 129-36. 35. Burma Office to Foreign Office, July 29, 1940, and Foreign Office’s minutes on the same FO 371/24668. 36. Lord Lloyd, secretary of state for the colonies, to Smith (tel. 571, important), October 14, 1940, transmitted to the Foreign Office, and Craigie to Lord Halifax, secre­ tary of state for foreign affairs (tel. 2063, most immediate), October 18, 1940, FO 371/24671. 37. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong , pp. 288-89.

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38. Lord Moyne, secretary of state for the colonies, to Northcote (tel. 722, secret), July 22, 1941, Northcote to Lord Moyne (tel. 750), July 28, 1941, and Clark Kerr to Halifax (tel. 387), August 7, 1941, FO 371/37653. 39. Craigie to Halifax (tel. 1454), August 15, 1941, FO 371/37653. 40. Kit-ching Lau Chan, “The Abrogation of British Extraterritoriality in China, 1942^13,” 2:260-64. 41. For example, J.M. Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier o f Freedom, p. 149. 42. See report of Ashley Clarke, head of the Far Eastern Department in the British Foreign Office, on his visit to Washington, June 11, 1942, FO 371/31804. 43. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 297-305. 44. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 302-3. 45. Eden to Horace Seymour, British minister to China (tel. 1548), December 4, 1942, FO 371/31663. 46. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, p. 307. 47. Seymour to Eden (tel. 1653), December 31, 1942, and Eden to Seymour (tel. 1663), December 31, 1942, FO 371/31665. 48. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, p. 308. 49. China’s attitude is reflected in summaries of T.V. Soong’s interviews with leading British officials, including Winston Churchill, the prime minister, and Eden, during Soong’s visit to London in the summer of 1943, in schedule A, box 29, T.V. Soong Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Also see Roosevelt’s attitude in, for example, Roosevelt, As He Saw It, pp. 163-64, 203^1, 249-50; Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth, p. 349; Hull, The Memories o f Cordell Hull, 2:1956; and White, The Stilwell Papers, p. 252. 50. “Reminiscences of Wellington Koo,” in the Chinese Oral History Project of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University, pp. 29-30. 51. See materials on the Combined Civil Affairs Committee in Washington, FO 371/45251. 52. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 318-19. 53. War Office to the general officer commanding British troops in China (tel. 58502, MO 12, top secret), July 9, 1945, communicated to the Foreign Office, FO 371/46251. 54. Brigadier A.J.H. Dove of the War Office to C.H.M. Weldock of the Admiralty, August 12, 1945, communicated to the Foreign Office, FO 371/46251; and Admiralty to commander-in-chief, British Pacific Fleet (tel. 131957A, important), August 13, 1945, communicated to the Foreign Office, FO 371/46252. 55. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 321-22. 56. Cartron, “China and Hong Kong, 1945-1967,” p. 33. 57. See, for example, Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs, and Hutcheon, First Sea Lord. 58. See attraction of the Hong Kong post to Sir William Peel in Peel’s memoir, MSS. British Empire, sect. 208, p. 138, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, England. 59. See, for example, Xianggang jingji ribao (Hong Kong economic daily), January 6, 1992, and Ming Pao, January 9, 1992. 60. South China Morning Post, January 5, 1992. 61. South China Morning Post, December 29, 1991. 62. South China Morning Post, January 5, 1992. 63. South China Morning Post, January 5, 1992.

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Anti-Chinese Legislation in Hong Kong Peter Wesley-Smith

At various times in British Hong Kong there has been a considerable body of race-based discriminatory legislation. An account of such legislation reveals much about social attitudes during the colonial period and, by extension, politi­ cal attitudes affecting Anglo-Chinese relations.

European Anti-Chinese Sentiment There is no doubt that racism has had significant consequences for social life throughout Hong Kong’s history: European hotels and clubs have routinely re­ stricted entry by Chinese; the museum at one time limited the hours when Chi­ nese, though not non-Chinese, could visit; a Chinese was not appointed to the Executive Council until 1926. When a bill in 1856 proposed permitting aliens to practice law, a legislative councillor wrote: “Above all I object to the admission of Chinese as Attomies in our Courts of Law. They are a peculiar race of people, and in my opinion are generally crafty, corrupt, mendacious, and deficient in those qualifications which are needful in a trustworthy legal adviser. . . ”l The Colonial Office was sympathetic to this position: “Considering the character generally imputed to the lower class of legal agents of that country [China], and the kind of influence they are likely to acquire over their ignorant and litigious countrymen in Hong Kong, a measure which seems especially to invite them into the profession in an English colony is of a questionable character.”2 Only Euro­ pean children could attend the Kowloon School and the Victoria School, and in 1913 the governor, Sir Francis Henry May, who seemed more racist than most 91

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governors, sought permission to apply the same restriction to the Peak School; otherwise, the institution would not be a success, he said, “because the parents of European children have a strong aversion to sending their children to a mixed school.”3 James Pope-Hennessy has written that “beneath the rich Chinese mer­ chants with whom profitable business could be conducted, the rest of the large Chinese community were distrusted as dishonest, potentially dangerous, malevo­ lent, entangled in mysterious secret societies, foolish in their religious beliefs and only suitable to be clerks, shroffs, amahs, houseboys and coolies.”4 Before the Japanese occupation, wrote James Lethbridge, prominent Chinese in particular “were obviously aware of racial discrimination, of slights and hurts that damaged their self-respect and dignity as Chinese.. . . [T]he underlying antagonisms that existed between Chinese and British were more racialist in origin (consequently more difficult to exorcise) than economic or political ”5 The Japanese occupation was probably a turning point in the history of race relations. During the war a secret draft, prepared in the Colonial Office, of civil affairs policy directives stated that there should be no discrimination, statutory or otherwise, on racial grounds in postwar Hong Kong: every public servant should be required to qualify in Cantonese.6 In November 1945, Brigadier MacDougall, chief civil affairs officer, reported that Chinese were now occupying judicial and executive posts with responsibilities unknown before the war.7 John Braga, whose Portuguese father had served on the Legislative Council,8 in February 1946 sent to a member of Parliament, who passed it on to the Colonial Office, a memorandum entitled “Anti-British Feeling in China.” Deep-seated oriental an­ tagonism toward the British, Braga claimed, was the result o f British incivility: “rudeness, arrogance, discrimination, ‘East of Suez’ complex, snobbishness, call it what you will—has been the root-cause of loss o f friendship between the two peoples.” 9 He quoted a British office manager’s response to the suggestion that courtesy to his underlings might pay dividends: “Oh no, Braga, you’re wrong. Letting these yellow-skinned Chinese feel themselves on a level with us white men—not on your life! . . . They take kindness for weakness. Chinese are almost as bad as Indians With these people, no nonsense; a strong, firm policy is the only thing. Yes, rough handling is the only way to keep him in place and make him retain his respect for you.” A former Chinese ambassador to London was also quoted: “In this Colony, the policy of placing British young men in posi­ tions as minor ‘taipans’ simply because they are British and regardless o f their qualifications and ability to control men, has been most unwise. Little wonder that power goes to their heads and these young fellows become despots, who show by their behavior that they are not fitted to rule others and who cloak their incompetence with a show of racial superiority.” Braga proposed several reforms, including the establishment of a department for British propaganda in Hong Kong. He also suggested that the Hong Kong Club, “as a club exclusively for Europeans, become a club either exclusively for British people and the name suitably altered, or an international ‘Hong Kong

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Club.’ The Chinese in Hong Kong not being a ‘subject people’ of the British Commonwealth, it is inexpedient, in this era of international relations, that the club in the Colony should remain a Club exclusively for Europeans.” The gover­ nor, Sir Mark Young, was not greatly impressed with Braga’s views. He agreed that a pamphlet containing information on Anglo-Chinese relations and Chinese culture could usefully be prepared, and he reported that a public relations officer was to be appointed, though not with the task of rooting out British incivility to Chinese. He did not raise the question of racial exclusiveness with the Hong Kong Club.10 The governor also reported the decision to repeal the Peak District (Resi­ dence) Ordinance, a topic discussed in some detail later in this chapter. Most discriminatory legislation had not in fact survived up to the postwar era. A good deal of it existed in the nineteenth century, however, and residential segregation had been promoted in the twentieth. This in part reflected the legislature’s con­ currence with anti-Chinese sentiments among Britishers in Hong Kong.

Discriminatory Provisions in Legislation Prior to 1991 there was no constitutional prohibition on the enactment of racially discriminatory ordinances in Hong Kong.11 Clause 26 of the royal instructions provides that the governor shall not assent to “any Bill whereby persons not of European birth or descent may be subjected or made liable to any disabilities or restrictions to which persons of European birth or descent are not also subjected or made liable,” 12 and this enabled the Colonial Office (and enables its modern equivalent) to supervise discriminatory lawmaking. The queen may nevertheless assent to such a bill, and an ordinance passed in defiance of the instruction is still valid. On the other hand, colonial legislation that officials in England consider offensive to principle can be disallowed (in effect, repealed);13 this was the fate of a few such ordinances in the early years, but none was disallowed because of racial discrimination.14 The Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance of 1991 enacts the Hong Kong Bill of Rights.15 Article 1 of the bill declares that the rights it recognizes “shall be enjoyed without distinction of any kind, such as race. . . It then provides for a number of rights, such as the rights to life, freedom of thought, opinion, associa­ tion, movement, peaceful assembly, and so on, including “equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race. . . .” Preexisting legislation is repealed to the extent of any inconsistency with the ordinance,16 all subsequent legislation must where possible be construed in favor of the rights to be protected,17 and any subsequent legislation that restricts such rights is void.18 In public emergencies the Bill of Rights may be compromised, but not if the measure involves discrimination solely on the grounds of race, color, sex, and so forth.19 Had the Bill of Rights ordinance been in place from the beginning of the colony’s lifetime, the laws discussed in this essay would not have been

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passed, or, if passed, could have been struck down by the courts. Legislation that differentiated between Chinese and non-Chinese fell into four categories: (1) Legislation creating a dual system o f government and maintaining Chi­ nese customs. Chinese officials negotiating the Treaty of Nanjing insisted that

Hong Kong Chinese be subject to Chinese law administered by the government of China.20 Although there was some early British sympathy with this demand, it could not be implemented without compromising British claims to sovereignty over the island. Nevertheless, in 1844 the governor was empowered to appoint “so many native Chinese Peace Officers (superior and inferior, Paouchong and Paoukea) through the various towns, villages, and hamlets of the Colony of Hong Kong and its dependencies, as he may deem expedient,”21 with such power and authority as was customary within the dominions of the emperor of China. It appears that this experiment was not wholly successful.22 The officers were referred to as tepos in a new ordinance in 185 3,23 whose preamble stated: “Whereas disputes occasionally arise among the Chinese Population of this Col­ ony which might be more conveniently and amicably settled by the Tepo, aided by the respectable Chinese Inhabitants, than before an English Tribunal; and whereas with a view to make the Tepos of the several Districts of the Colony more efficient, and to extend their usefulness, it is desirable that the voluntary fees now paid by Chinese Householders for the support of the said Tepos be made rateable and compulsory. . . .” Four years later an equivalent scheme in relation to criminal complaints was attempted: all Chinese houses were to be divided into tithings or kap of ten houses each, every resident was to be answerable for the good conduct of the other nine, and in each tithing a tithingman or kapcheong was to be elected. Every resident was to report to the kapcheong , and hence to the registrar general, “all cases, or suspicions of crime, committed or to be committed”; tepos were permitted to act as arbitrators “in disputes of a civil nature only, arising between Chinamen.”24 Neither the kapcheong nor the tepo system survived for long. By the operation of common law, or rather the exclusion of the common law of England where it was unsuited to the circumstances of the inhabitants of the colony, the Chinese continued in the nineteenth century to be governed by Chi­ nese law relating to the family. Some legislation has assisted in the preservation of a status acquired, for example, under customary marriage,25 while other ordi­ nances have encouraged noncustomary practices such as the making of a will.26 Hong Kong legislation in this category has differentiated among racial groups but has not necessarily discriminated against the Chinese: it provided for sepa­ rate governance in some respects, a kind of benign partial apartheid. (2) Legislation fo r the promotion o f public health. There is no theoretical reason why laws promoting health and sanitation should distinguish among peo­ ple on racial grounds, but a pragmatic approach in early Hong Kong, where the ideas and practices of Chinese inhabitants were so at variance with European

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standards, dictated that such distinctions be drawn. In 1856 the governor in council was empowered to select sites wherein Chinese could bury their dead, provided the grave was not less than five feet deep.27 The European District Reservation Ordinance in 1888 prohibited the building of Chinese tenements within a certain area of the city28 because, according to the preamble, “the health and comfort of Europeans in a tropical climate demand conditions which are inconsistent with the neighborhood of houses crowded with occupants and other­ wise used after the manner customary with the Chinese inhabitants, and whereas the influx of Chinese into the colony tends constantly to narrow the area of the City of Victoria where such conditions are attainable, and it is desirable to reserve by law a district wherein such conditions may be secured. . . .” The ordinance did not, at least directly, discriminate against Chinese people, only the dwellings they were accustomed to building and inhabiting. This defense, if such it be, is of no assistance to the Immigration Restriction Ordinance,29 which by section 1 empowered the governor in council to prohibit the emigration of Chinese from any place where bubonic plague, cholera, small­ pox, or other such disease was prevalent. No doubt the major concern was the importation of disease from China, and no doubt most carriers were Chinese, but the health requirements of the colony did not distinguish between Chinese and non-Chinese, nor did the legislation distinguish between Chinese residents and non-residents of Hong Kong. The Immigration and Passports Ordinance of 193430 required persons enter­ ing Hong Kong to possess a valid passport or other suitable travel document— but the Chinese were exempt. The Immigration Control Ordinance of 1940,31 however, which came into effect on January 15, 1941, removed the exemption. The object was to carry out the recommendations of the Excess Population Reduction Committee; immigration control was considered a necessity in the interests of health, sanitation, and defense.32 This did not in theory discriminate against Chinese, but in practice it caused considerable confusion in China and greater hardship to Chinese than to anyone else, and the Chinese government protested.33 The Chinese ambassador was informed that it was a defense mea­ sure, not intended to be discriminatory.34 The Hong Kong government waived the necessity for a visa in Chinese passports,35 and in any event the restrictions did not last long; they were lifted on November 15, 1945, after discussion with the authorities in Canton. “In effect,” cabled Admiral Harcourt, “we can­ celled restrictions we could not enforce, and Canton offered food she did not possess.”36 (3) Legislation concerning law and order. In legislation regarding law and order appear some of the most notorious specimens of anti-Chinese statutes. The achievement and maintenance of law and order were major difficulties in early Hong Kong, and the immediate threat to life and property came largely from the Chinese; this fact prompted the enactment of legislation imposing restrictions and penalties from which non-Chinese were free.

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Such laws can be classified into three main groups. First were those concern­ ing punishment. Magistrates were authorized “to sentence any offender, being a native of China, or a native of Hong Kong of Chinese origin, to undergo such punishment, in conformity with the usages of China, as has hitherto been usually inflicted on natives of China, committing offences in this Colony.”37 This in­ cluded caning, wearing the cangue, and cutting the queue.38 Any person of Chinese origin who joined a secret society was liable to three years’ hard labor, being marked on the right cheek, and expulsion.39 A magistrate or justice of the peace, on the investigation of a criminal charge, could embellish any other punishment with a fine, imprisonment (including solitary confinement), and, in the case of Chinese only, one, two, or three public or private whippings.40 A court could require any Chinese person to find reasonable security for his ap­ pearance for any purpose, and such person not finding security was deemed dangerous to the peace of the colony and liable to deportation.41 The second group of laws includes those requiring the registration o f Chinese people. The registrar general was from 1846 the protector of Chinese inhabitants, empowered to enter any house wholly or partly inhabited by Chinese. All such houses had to be numbered, every Chinese householder was given a registration ticket and had to issue tickets to all residents of his house, and Chinese servants in European employ also had to be registered.42 In 1857 an ordinance was enacted that required every Chinese occupier to be held responsible as surety for the good conduct of every inmate of his house.43 A year later, however, most of the discriminatory provisions of the registration and census legislation were re­ moved.44 By the Victoria Registration Ordinance of 1866, the city of Victoria was divided into districts, and householders were required to furnish particulars to the registrar general and to register; servants (those employed as houseboy, cook, cook’s mate, amah, coolie, watchman, gardener, coachman, horse boy, or boatman) were also required to register.45 This measure appears nondiscriminatory until one consults the interpretation clause, for “servant” means any Chinese regularly employed in a capacity mentioned, and “householder” means tenant or occupant but “shall not include or extend to any Person, other than a Chinese, unless a portion of his House be rented by any Chinese. . . .”46 There was a Regulation of Chinese Ordinance,47 but none for the regulation, registration, and control of non-Chinese. A third succession of laws required Chinese to carry night passes:48 The first of these laws, an ordinance for better securing the peace of the colony, was enacted in 1857.49 In accordance with section 2, the superintendent of police was to issue passes certifying that the bearer was authorized to pass and repass during the “night season” from and to his employer’s house. The recipients were resi­ dents who the superintendent considered to be fit and proper persons—but no Chinese resident was to receive more than one. Section 5 read: “Any Chinaman found at large elsewhere than in his own Habitation between the hours of Eight in the Evening and Sunrise and not having a pass duly issued . .. shall be

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summarily punished” by fine, imprisonment, public whipping, or exposure in the stocks. Section 11, which fortunately was law for a very short time only,50 provided that “every Person lawfully acting as a Sentry or Patrol at any time between the hour of Eight in the Evening and Sunrise is hereby authorized whilst so acting, to fire upon, with intent or effect to kill, any Chinaman whom he shall meet with or discover abroad and whom he shall have reasonable ground to suspect of being so abroad for an improper purpose, and who being challenged by him shall neglect or refuse to make proper answer to his challenge.” In a consolidating ordinance in 187051 the night season was reduced by one hour and the governor in council was given power to direct that all Chinese in Victoria after dark carry a lighted lantern. Annual, special, and quarterly passes were available, not limited to travel to and from the house of one’s employer, and they were issued directly to the citizen, not to the resident of a house. These provis­ ions were repeated in the Regulation of Chinese Ordinance of 1888,52 with a new version of a section first enacted in 1858:53 “No Chinese shall hold or be present at any Chinese public meeting whatever, not being a meeting solely for religious worship, without a permit under the hand of the Governor. . . .”54 The obligation of Chinese to carry passes at night was not removed from the statute book until 1897,55 and even then the governor in council could reintroduce it. These were the enactments that Sir John Pope-Hennessy, governor from 1877 to 1882, called “a monstrous piece of class legislation.”56 Pope-Hennessy’s grandson has written, apropos of Hong Kong, that “racial prejudice is, as we are all aware, based on fear: a fear of the unfamiliar, the incomprehensible and the alien.”57 In such a context, and with the prevalence of violent crime, the govern­ ment of Hong Kong responded with legislation that was frankly and almost viciously anti-Chinese in content. (4) Legislation on miscellaneous matters. Other ordinances have differenti­ ated between Chinese and non-Chinese in various ways. A special provision ensured that Chinese could become lawyers;58 Chinese money-changers had to be licensed;59 Chinese chair bearers and rickshaw pullers were regulated.60 The Summoning of Chinese Ordinance of 189961 empowered the governor to direct the registrar general “to enquire into and report as to any matter which is con­ nected with the New Territories . . . if such matter exclusively concerns persons of Chinese race,” and the registrar general was given authority to summon any Chinese to appear before him to answer questions. The Chinese members of the Legislative Council did not oppose the bill, despite considering it class legisla­ tion and in some respects objectionable. Dr. Ho Kai was “quite prepared to sacrifice a certain amount of our liberty with the object of helping the Govern­ ment to carry out their policy for the good of the Chinese inhabitants of the New Territory,” and he insisted only that tact and discretion be exercised and that the bill’s operation be limited in time.62 But one member, T. H. Whitehead, absent from the council during the second and third readings, protested vigorously against the bill, asked the governor to refuse his assent, and petitioned the secre­

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tary of state to advise disallowance. “The Ordinance,” thundered Whitehead, “confers powers which no Court possesses; it gives unlimited powers to be exercised by an untrained man who may be a very junior officer, in secret and without appeal, and such officer may be, and almost necessarily must be, largely in the hands of the Chinese in his department. It invests him with summary power to inflict serious punishment. It is so extensive and unlimited in its pow­ ers, so unguarded in the exercise of these powers that it is capable of the gravest abuses.” 63 But Whitehead’s objections were broadly constitutional, not primarily based on the racial discrimination that the ordinance enacted. The power to summon suspicious peasants newly introduced to British rule was regarded as necessary if settlement of the land problem in the New Territories was to be achieved.64 This review of discriminatory legislation indicates that the government of Hong Kong in the nineteenth century was frequently prepared to impose special burdens on the Chinese community. Popular European attitudes and prejudices toward Chinese inhabitants were, quite naturally, shared by government officials and incorporated into legislation. The two racial groups were set apart by culture, language, medical practices, religious beliefs, and notions of sanitation; the law merely reinforced these social distinctions. Chinese and Europeans lived largely separate lives. As early as 1843 the governor was persuaded that “it would be very advisable for the interests of the community that the Chinese should be removed [from the Upper Bazaar], so as to prevent as much as possible their being mixed up with the Europeans.”65 It was not until the twentieth century that legislation was used to preserve residential exclusiveness for non-Chinese.

European Reserves In 1902 the Colonial Office permitted the reservation of an area in New Kow­ loon (the Peak District) for residence solely by persons approved by the gover­ nor. It was not to be confined to Europeans: health grounds justified it, and clean-living Chinese of good standing were not to be excluded.66 No ordinance was passed, as effect was to be given to it by a suitable clause in the lease of any land to be sold there. Two years later a majority of owners and occupiers of houses at the Peak petitioned the government for the creation of a Peak reserva­ tion, from which all Chinese would be prohibited as residents; it would cause no hardship to the Chinese, said the petitioners, since “they do not suffer from the oppressive heat of the lower levels during the summer months as Europeans do.”67 A bill was duly presented to the Legislative Council, its objects and reasons stating that “the reservation of this district is desirable in order that a healthy place of residence may be preserved for all those who are accustomed to a temperate climate and to whom life in the tropics presents the disadvantage of an unnatural environment.”68 The Chinese members, Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, having consulted leading lights of the Chinese community, did not oppose the

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bill, provided certain changes were made to the phraseology. H.E. Pollock, then a member of the Legislative Council, supported it on the grounds of public health, and, because Chinese had not bought houses at the Peak since the Peak Tramway was opened sixteen years earlier, they would not, he said, be adversely affected. The bill was passed and the Colonial Office approved it.69 The awkwardly worded section 3 of the ordinance provided that “it shall not be lawful (save in accordance with the provisions of this Ordinance) for any owner, lessee, tenant or occupier of any land or building within the Hill District [that is, above the 788 feet contour] to let such land or building or any part thereof for the purpose of residence by any but non-Chinese or to permit any but non-Chinese to reside on or in such land or building.”70 Section 4 enabled the governor in council to exempt any Chinese from the operation of the ordinance on such terms as he deemed fit. Section 5 excluded servants living on their employers’ premises, licensed chair and rickshaw coolies, contractors and labor­ ers employed in the district and temporarily residing there, inmates of hotels and hospitals, and visitors at the house of any resident. Two years later, Robert Ho Tung bought and lived in a house at the Peak. A minor constitutional row broke out in 1908 when the chief justice, Sir Francis Piggott, a tenant of the Eyrie, which overlooked the governor’s summer retreat, Mountain Lodge, proposed to let the house to Ho Tung. The governor in council, Sir Frederick Lugard, regarding Ho Tung as Chinese, refused to grant him exemption under section 4 and castigated him as “an illegitimate half-caste whose wives and Concubines numbered four.” Piggott objected vehemently but unsuccessfully.71 Apparently, approval was given in 1912 for the creation of a Portuguese reservation, and in the following year the governor, Sir Francis May, wanted to set apart Crown land at Tai Po “for occupation by persons only who are ap­ proved by the Governor and to permit the Governor to exercise a discretion in not allowing the enterprise of Europeans in developing the area to be taken advantage of by others to such an extent as to threaten the ultimate exclusion of Europeans.”72 It was pointed out in Downing Street that health was no longer the pretext, as Tai Po was a malaria district. The proposal was approved with the provision that it be reconsidered if protests against it were received. No ordi­ nance resulted, and it may be that the secret procedure of adapting the terms of Crown leases was employed, in which case protests were unlikely ever to be received. By 1917 Ho Tung— now Sir Robert—had three houses in the Peak District, and his brother, Ho Kam-tong, had bought another (though the government swiftly bought it from him).73 Governor May was alarmed: although the lack of Chinese interest in residing on the Peak had been urged as an argument in favor of the 1904 ordinance, slight indications of a change of view by a few wealthy Chinese now became an urgent reason for achieving a total exclusion of Chinese. May expressed surprise that section 3 did not prevent a Chinese from acquiring

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and living in his own house in the district, even though the original clause had been amended in accordance with Ho Kai’s proposals and the attorney general had conceded that “if the purpose of the Bill could be served there was no necessity to insist upon any particular form of words.”74 The governor wrote to the secretary of state: There are many more children now at the Peak than there were in 1904, and European parents are bitterly opposed to any contact between their children and Chinese children... . Chinese residents at the Peak will have with them their wives and concubines with numerous progeny, who must be thrown into daily contact with the European children in the children’s playground and the few other shady spots to which the European children are now taken by their nurses and amahs. There is also the vital question of health to be considered. Chinese families if resident in the Peak District would have much more fre­ quent and closer communication with the Chinese portion of Victoria than do Europeans and the chance of the carriage and dissemination of communicable disease would be much increased. . . . It would be little short of a calamity if an alien and, by European standards, a semi-civilized race were allowed to drive the white man from the one area in Hong Kong, in which he can live with his wife and children in a white man’s healthy surroundings.75 The Peak District (Residence) Bill was introduced into the legislative chamber and passed within a week.76 It was not opposed by the Chinese members, but there was strong and bitter agitation against it from the Chinese community, led by the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce.77 Governor May had previously reported to the Colonial Office: ‘The Chinese do not gainsay the justice and reasonableness of the proposed legislation. But the time honored fear of ‘loss of face’ is too strong for the modicum of moral courage with which the Chinaman is endowed.”78 Apart from excluding all Chinese (even owners of Peak property) unless with the consent of the governor in council, the ordinance also permitted an “undue invasion” of Japanese to be restricted. The only concern expressed in the Colonial Office was that the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, concluded in 1911, which allowed subjects of each nation to own and occupy houses in the territories of the other, might have been breached by the ordinance. The Peak District Reservation Ordinance of 1904 was not repealed; it had been superseded.79 Now no person whatsoever could lawfully reside on the Peak without the governor in council’s consent, though there were exemptions (not on the basis of race). The clear intention was that only Europeans would be permitted to live in the district. Presumably, Sir Robert Ho Tung was an exception. In the following year a reservation was created on similar terms on Cheung Chau80 for the benefit of vacationing British and American missionaries. This time the Chinese members objected and voted against the bill. Lau Chu-pak said he could not believe that, “of all people, they [the current residents] could have made such a request—preachers and teachers of equality and fraternity that they

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are. The bill was not a necessity and should be withdrawn.” His colleague, Ho Fook, another of Ho Tung’s brothers, stated: “In view of the fact that the war has been won by all races in the Empire I cannot be a party to the passing of this Bill which, in my opinion, is nothing more or less than racial legislation.”81 Two other speakers opined that it was not a racial issue but an economic one. Only Lau and Ho opposed the bill.82 Both the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance and the Cheung Chau (Resi­ dence) Ordinance were repealed in 1946. Sir Man-kam Lo said of the former that it had been “a source of resentment to the Chinese ever since its enact­ ment.”83 Two reasons were given by the attorney general in introducing the repeal bills: they might tend to encourage rebuilding, and retention of the reser­ vations would be “out of harmony with the spirit of the times.”84 It took a world war and the collapse of the Greater East Asian Coprosperity Sphere to produce a spirit inimical to flagrantly racist legislation.

Conclusion Concluding his account of racism in the self-governing colonies from 1830 to 1910, Huttenback writes: Race hatred was the vital driving force behind legislation that withheld educa­ tion from non-whites, submitted them to special forms of taxation, and denied them the use of liquor, employment on public works, access to goldfields, and even the right to run a business. In South Africa, Indians were required to carry passes, forbidden to use the sidewalks, and relegated to special loca­ tions. Everywhere non whites were deprived of equal treatment before the law, were harried and exposed to every manner of indignity. The white settlers were convinced . .. that men of color were “a great curse, . . . [i]ncapable of improvement,.. . [and] nothing better than filthy harbingers of disease.”85 Hong Kong was no exception to the general rule, and the Colonial Office provided no impediment: To a singularly law-abiding people used to what A P Thornton has called “the habit of authority,” the one force that might have inhibited legal sanctions against colored persons was Her Majesty’s Government. But, despite its roles of enunciator of the imperial philosophy of equality and fair play within the Empire and the whole British community’s spokesman to the outside world, Whitehall remained largely ineffective. On the basis of many of its pronounce­ ments, one might have assumed that the rights of British subjects, regardless of race, would have been rigorously preserved and affronts to friendly powers such as China and Japan avoided. From the first, however, the fight against white colonial sentiments was a losing battle. The Colonial Office knew that London could not really stand up against the determination of colonial govern­ ments if the Empire was to survive. And, given the essential homogeneity of the Anglo-Saxon world view, most of the officials in the corridors of power agreed with the racial attitudes of the colonists.86

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After 1945, however, belief in “the white man’s mission to rule”87 declined. “In fact,” wrote Endacott, “there was little racial segregation in Hong Kong and little anti-Chinese prejudice, possibly because so few of the old colonials re­ turned and so many new Europeans came to take their places. Racial prejudices and usages tended to be broken, for example buses were used equally by Chinese and foreigners, to the surprise of visitors from some other colonies.”88 Insularity and exclusiveness among British officials were not welcome.89 With moderniza­ tion, no doubt, Britishers’ fear and distrust of the Cantonese began to evaporate. The Hong Kong Club is now open to Chinese membership (the Chinese Recre­ ation Club, however, is strictly for Chinese only). In the Hong Kong Collection’s card index (University of Hong Kong Library) there is only one entry under “race discrimination”: it refers to a clipping from the South China Morning Post in 1977 reporting that the Hong Kong Research Project had been awarded a grant to study the topic in the colony. Everyone the Post interviewed said racial discrimination was nonexistent. A few examples of discriminatory legislation can still be found in the Hong Kong statute book. Most of these are unobjectionable.90 The worst is contained in the Immigration Ordinance, which grants permanent residence (and thus the right of abode) to “any person who is wholly or partly of Chinese race and has at any time been ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than 7 years.”91 Non-Chinese persons may be or become permanent resi­ dents by birth, adoption, descent, naturalization, registration, or marriage, but acquisition of the status is hedged with various qualifications and conditions that do not apply to Chinese.92 By contrast, the Basic Law, which is to be the constitution for the Hong Kong special administrative region from 1997 to 2047, favors Chinese citizens but makes no distinctions based on race.93 In pre-1987 Hong Kong law, my favorite anachronism, until its repeal in 1989, was regula­ tion 158 of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Regulations,94 which indemni­ fied members of the board, “chief general manager, general manager, inspector, manager, sub-manager, agent, sub-agent, chief accountant, accountant or other European officer of the bank. . . .” This, like the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance in 1946, was “out of harmony with the spirit of the times.”

Notes 1. J. F. Edger to W. T. Mercer, June 24, 1856, enclosure in Bowring to Labouchere, no. 111, July 7, 1856, CO 129/57, p. 50. 2. Labouchere to Bowring, October 20, 1856, CO 129/57, p. 170. 3. May to Harcourt (confidential [conf.]), August 20, 1913, CO 129/403, p. 254. The proposal was not approved. See also Chan Wai-kwan, The Making of Hong Kong Society, p. 119. 4. James Pope-Hennessy, Half-Crown Colony, p. 78. 5. Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” p. 95. 6. CO 129/591, p. 26ff. 7. “General Report on Hong Kong,” November 2, 1945, CO 129/591, para. 27.

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8. J. P. Braga, the father, also compiled The Rights o f Aliens in Hong Kong, a protest against anti-Portuguese sentiment in the colony. See also his contribution to the inaugural meeting of the League of Fellowship in 1921: Chan Wai-kwan, The Making o f Hong Kong Society , p. 135. 9. CO 129/595. See also notes by Major Duncan Smith, army education officer in Hong Kong, February-July 1946, enclosed in D. J. Sloss to Miss Ruston, October 15, 1946, CO 129/593/1. 10. Young to T. I. K. Lloyd, July 9, 1946, CO 129/595. 11. For a general survey of legislative power, see Wesley-Smith, “Legal Limitations upon the Legislative Competence of the Hong Kong Legislature,” 3 (see also “Extraterri­ toriality and Hong Kong” [1980], Public Law 150). 12. Unless the governor has been previously instructed from London, or he inserts a suspending clause, or there is an urgent necessity. The royal instructions are reproduced in Appendix 1 of the Laws of Hong Kong (LHK). The present document dates from 1917, but its predecessor contained the same clause. 13. Art. 8, Letters Patent (Appendix 1, LHK). 14. See Miners, “Disallowance and the Administration Reviewof Hong Kong Legis­ lation by the Colonial Office, 1844-1947,” 218. 15. Ordinance no. 59, 1991. 16. Ordinance no. 59, 1991, sec. 3(2). 17. Ordinance no. 59, 1991, sec. 4. 18. Art, 7(3), Letters Patent (Appendix 1, LHK), added in 1991. 19. Ordinance no. 59, 1991, sec. 5. 20. See Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong, pp. 27-38. 21. Ordinance no. 13, 1844, sec. 1. See also ordinance no. 7, 1846. On the pao-chia system in China, on which the Hong Kong ordinance was apparently modeled, see van der Sprenkel, Legal Institutions in Manchu China, pp. 46-48; and Chu, Local Govern­ ment in China under the C h’ing , pp. 150-54; Ting, “Native Chinese Peace Officers in British Hong Kong, 1841-1861,” pp. 147-58. 22. See Sinn, Power and Charity, pp. 11-12. 23. Ordinance no. 3, 1853. 24. Ordinance no. 6, 1857. This was repealed by ordinance no. 8, 1858, which main­ tained the tepo system (until repealed by ordinance no. 13, 1888) but did not refer to the appointment of kapcheong. 25. Marriage Reform Ordinance (chapter [cap.] 178, LHK, 1981 ed.) 26. See the Chinese Wills (Validation) Ordinance (no. 4, 1856), though section 1 deems a will made by a Chinese testator to be valid if “made or acknowledged and authenticated according to the Chinese laws or usages.” 27. Ordinance no. 12, 1856, sec. 2. 28. Ordinance no. 16, 1888, sec. 3. See also the Public Health and Buildings Ordi­ nance (no. 1, 1903), sec. 200. 29. Ordinance no. 5, 1895. 30. Ordinance no. 8, 1934. 31. Ordinance no. 32, 1940. 32. See OAG to Lord Lloyd, December 3, 1940, and enclosures, CO 129/590, p. 60ff. 33. CO 129/590, p. 83. 34. CO 129/590, p. 96. 35. CO 129/590, p. 50. 36. Harcourt to War Office (cypher no. 494, conf.), November 15, 1945, CO 129/592/24. 37. Ordinance no. 10, 1844, sec. 25.

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38. See Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong , pp. 36-37. 39. Ordinance no. 1, 1845, sec. 1 (though the authority to mark on the cheek was removed by ordinance no. 12, 1845). 40. Ordinance no. 6, 1847, sec. 1. 41. The Deportation and Conditional Pardons Consolidation Ordinance (no. 8, 1876), sec. 4. See also sec. 9: a Chinese person convicted of a crime and imprisoned could petition for release on condition that he be branded and quit the colony. Compare ordi­ nances no. 4, 1881, sec. 13; no. 7, 1846, sec. 33; no. 6, 1857, sec. 21; and no. 8, 1858. 42. Ordinance no. 7, 1846; see also ordinance no. 6, 1857. 43. Ordinance no. 6, 1857, sec. 10. 44. Ordinance no. 8, 1858. 45. Ordinance no. 7, 1866. See also the Regulation of Chinese Ordinance (no. 13,1888). 46. Victoria Registration Ordinance, 1866, sec. 2. 47. Ordinance no. 13, 1888. 48. See Sinn, Power and Charity, pp. 92-93, 193-95. 49. Ordinance no. 2, 1857. This was at a time of great nervousnessin HongKong because of threats against Europeans by Canton officials, but the system “continued into the 1890s without query”; James Hayes, “East and West in Hong Kong,” p. 15. 50. It did not appear in the replacement ordinance, no. 9, 1857. 51. Ordinance no. 14, 1870. 52. Ordinance no. 13, 1888. 53. Ordinance no. 8, 1858, sec. 22. 54. Ordinance no. 13, 1888, sec. 48. 55. Ordinance no. 6, 1897. 56. Pope-Hennessy, Verandah, p. 198. 57. Pope-Hennessy, Half-Crown Colony , p. 85. 58. Ordinance no. 13, 1856, sec. 7. 59. Ordinance no. 9,1867, sec. 7. 60. Private Coolie Ordinance (no. 2, 1902). 61. Ordinance no. 40, 1989. 62. Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1990, pp. 126-27. 63. Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1990, p. 110. 64. The power to summon, originally to endure for two years only, became in due course indispensable to administration in the New Territories and was incorporated with­ out time limit in the New Territories Regulation Ordinance (no. 34, 1910). 65. See Evans, “Chinatown in Hong Kong,” pp. 69, 72. 66. See May to Harcourt (conf.), April 17, 1913, CO 129/440, p. 375; Endacott, A History o f Hong Kong , p. 284. 67. May to Lyttleton (no. 189, enclosure 3), May 4, 1904, CO 129/322, p. 632. 68. Hong Kong Hansard 1904 , pp. 17-18. Contrary to the impression given in En­ dacott, A History o f Hong Kong, and Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupa­ tion,” malaria was not expressly mentioned in support of the ordinance. 69. Ordinance no. 4, 1904. One clerk objected that the purpose was “to cheapen rents by excluding the competition of a large and wealthy section of the community” and complained that the acting governor should have awaited the arrival of the new governor or obtained the previous sanction of the secretary of state. But the other officials dis­ agreed; CO 129/322. A former governor, Sir Henry Blake, privately opposed the bill; Blake to Lucas, April 17, 1904, CO 129/327, p. 39. 70. The marginal note alleges that this means “lands or houses in Hill District not to be let for purposes of residence by Chinese,” and the acting governor claimed that the wording was less distasteful to Chinese sentiment than the original clause.

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71. See Wesley-Smith, “Sir Francis Piggott,” pp. 260, 268-70. 72. May to Harcourt (conf.), April 17, 1913, CO 129/443, p. 396. 73. May to Long (conf.), September 5, 1917, CO 129/443, p. 396. 74. Hong Kong Hansard 1904 , p. 20. 75. May to Long (conf.), September 5, 1917, CO 129/443, p. 384ff. (This is a separate dispatch from the one referred to in n. 73 above.) May added that Eurasians should be regarded as Chinese for the purpose of the reservation. 76. See Hong Kong Hansard 1918, pp. 21, 29. The ordinance was no. 8, 1918. 77. See Sir Man-kam Lo’s comments on the occasion of its repeal; Hong Kong Hansard 1946 , p. 77. 78. May to Long (conf.), January 24, 1918, CO 129/447, p. 70. 79. Eventually repealed by the Law RevisionOrdinance (no. 25, 1930). 80. The Cheung Chau (Residence) Ordinance (no.14,1919). 81. Hong Kong Hansard 1919, pp. 63-64. 82. Severn to Milner (conf.), September 12, 1919, CO 129/445, p. 342. 83. Hong Kong Hansard 1946, p. 77. 84. Hong Kong Hansard 1946, pp. 73-74. 85. Huttenback, Racism and Empire , p. 323. 86. Huttenback, Racism and Empire , pp. 316-17. 87. Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,”p. 124;Cartron, “China and Hong Kong,” p. 50. 88. Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse , p. 313. 89. See Belcher to Creech Jones, November 30, 1946, enclosing notes onHong Kong by a friend, CO 129/593. 90. See, for example, the Tung Wah Hospital Ordinance (cap. 1051, LHK, 1985 ed.) and the Chinese Permanent Cemeteries Ordinance (cap. 1112, LHK, 1985 ed.). Chinese testators preparing wills wholly or substantially in Chinese need not comply with the rules laid down for other testators (Wills Ordinance, sec. 5[2] [cap. 30, LHK, 1970 ed.]). Indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories, or rather their male descendants, are the beneficiaries of special government policy and of a clause in the Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong signed in 1984, though this is not incorporated in legislation; it is an example of discrimination among Chinese. See also arts. 40 and 122 of the Basic Law. 91. Immigration Control Ordinance, sec. 2(1) (cap. 115, LHK, 1989 ed.). 92. The Immigration Control Ordinance is one of the six statutes that override the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance for one year from June 8, 1991, and this exception can be continued for a further year by resolution of the Legislative Council (sec. 14). 93. See art. 24 of the Basic Law. 94. Cap. 70, LHK, 1983 ed. I am grateful to Michael Olesnicky for drawing this regulation to my attention.

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7 World War to Cold War: Hong Kong's Future and Anglo-Chinese Interactions, 1941-55 James T. H. Tang

Rear Admiral Harcourt is lying outside Hong Kong with a very strong Fleet. The Naval Dockyard is to be readyfor his arrival by noon today.. .. — Hong Kong government’s communiqué to the people o f Hong Kong, August 30, 1945 When Admiral Harcourt’s fleet o f liberation arrived itfound itselfgreeted only by multitudes o f Chinese flags, with hardly a Union Jack to be seen on junk or housetop. —J. Morris, Hong Kong: Epilogue to Empire The occupation of Hong Kong by Japanese forces in December 1941 ended in a single stroke both British administration in the colony and Britain’s predominance in East Asia. Although Japan’s victory was short-lived and British forces reentered the colony after an interlude of three years and eight months, the war ushered in a new era for Britain’s postwar position in East Asia. The British Empire’s failure to defend the Crown Colony of Hong Kong and, more generally, to protect its Far Eastern territories against Japanese aggression, had greatly weakened Britain’s prestige and undermined its influence in the region. As a result of the war, Britain’s position as a major world power suffered a serious setback, and the continuation of British rule in Hong Kong was by no means certain. Once the war was over, as policymakers in London attempted to arrest the decline of British global influence, Hong Kong emerged as a major problem in postwar Anglo-Chinese relations. British political leaders’ determination to 107

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maintain Hong Kong as part of the British Empire came into conflict with the Chinese leaders’ desire to reclaim Hong Kong in a postwar world that saw the rise of Asian nationalism and growing anticolonialism. Anglo-Chinese differ­ ences over the political status of Hong Kong were further complicated by the rise of communism in China when international politics were increasingly dominated by cold war considerations. As early as 1942, Winston Churchill had made clear his intention to defend the British Empire in the postwar world. Churchill’s intention, however, proved to be unrealistic. The process of decolonization began almost as soon as the war was over under the new Labour government led by Clement Attlee. The Labour leadership, which came into power after the electoral victory in July 1945, faced a very different set of policy considerations in the postwar world. While the Labour leaders shared their predecessors’ hope that Britain could continue to play an important role in world politics, the disbandment of the British Empire had begun and the limit of British power was evident. “The world,” as one British diplomat stated, was becoming one “that rotates in two orbits of power.”1 Handicapped by limited resources and preoccupied with the Soviet threat in Europe, policymakers in London realized that it would be impossible for Britain to safeguard its economic and political interests without U.S. support. Though still aspiring to lead a “Third Force” in world politics, Britain had to side with the United States in the postwar East-W est confrontation.2 The prospect of Communist victory in China presented a particularly difficult situation for British policymakers: they had to support U.S. efforts in confronting the Soviet-led Communist bloc and protect British interests in China at the same time. Similarly, Chinese Communist leaders faced a dilemma: they had commit­ ted to a close alliance with the Soviet Union, but a peaceful international envi­ ronment was crucial for their domestic economic reconstruction. The Chinese Communists were also ardent nationalists committed to the removal of all forms of Western imperialist presence in China. In formulating their policies toward each other, British and Chinese policymakers were caught in the web of an ideologically divided world. As London’s imperial ambition transformed into a determination to maintain Britain’s great power status, its stance toward Hong Kong’s political status was increasingly shaped by international politics. For the Chinese, the nationalistic call for the retention of Hong Kong had to be balanced against the benefits a British Hong Kong could bring. This chapter examines the question of Hong Kong in Anglo-Chinese relations during the critical period between the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 and the consolidation of communist rule in China in 1955.

The Pacific War and Hong Kong’s Future Hong Kong entered its centenary as a British colony in 1941, but there was no official celebration in the colony. The reason was best put by an editorial in a

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joint supplement of the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Tele­ graph: “Conditions in a war-torn world prevent fitting celebration of a great historic event in the colony’s history.”3 Before the end of the year, the Union Jack hoisted in the governor’s house was replaced by the flag of the rising sun. According to Japanese military plans, Hong Kong had to be taken because it was an important support base for the Chinese government as well as a British bridgehead in the Far East. For the Japanese, occupying Hong Kong would therefore cut off Western support to Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek).4 The Chinese Nationalist government would have been pleased to see the end of British rule in Hong Kong, if the colony did not fall into Japanese hands. Whereas the British considered the colony an important commercial outpost in the Far East, the Chinese saw it as a symbol of Western imperial domination and national humiliation. The question of the colony’s political status was therefore considered by the Chinese Nationalist government not simply in geographic and economic terms but as a matter of prestige and national dignity. Prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Chinese government had not attempted to challenge British rule in Hong Kong directly, even though one of the objectives of the Nationalist leaders had been the recovery of Chinese territories ceded to foreign powers. The perpetual state of civil war, which prevailed until the 1920s, the Chinese Communist threat, and the Japanese aggression during the 1930s had dominated the political agenda in Nanjing. Nevertheless, as L. A. Mills put it, “the Government of China was not reconciled to the existence of British rule in Hong Kong, and if the threat from Japan had been removed it would sooner or later have demanded its rendition.”5 Early in the Pacific War, the British government had considered the possibil­ ity of returning the colony to China, as a result of political pressure from both the Nationalist Chinese government and the United States. Senior officials from the Colonial Office suggested in m id-1942 that Britain might have to return Hong Kong to Chinese rule as part of a general postwar settlement in the Far East, but the British attitude changed toward the end of the war. As British leaders turned their attention to the question of Britain’s place in the postwar international order, the maintenance of British Far Eastern territories was seen as a matter of prestige crucial to the British Empire.6 The British government’s determination to hold on to British Far Eastern territories after the war was clearly demonstrated during a meeting between Winston Churchill and Stanley Hombeck, special adviser to the U.S. Department of State, in November 1943. Churchill told Hombeck of Britain’s intention to maintain political and administrative control of Hong Kong using his famous 1942 Mansion House Speech, in which he declared that he was not His Majesty’s prime minister “to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”7 London’s concern for British possessions in the Far East was consistently shown in its discussions with other Allied powers on postwar arrangements at the Cairo Conference, which opened on November 23, 1943, and, again, at Teheran, when

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Churchill met President Roosevelt and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Accord­ ing to Churchill, the British did not desire to acquire any new territory or bases, but they intended “to hold on to what they had.” The British prime minister stated that “nothing would be taken away from Britain without a war,” and mentioned “specially Singapore and Hong Kong.”8 After a trip to Moscow in 1944, during which the question of direct participa­ tion of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan in the Far East was discussed, Churchill suggested that any claim by Russia for indemnity at the expense of China “would be favorable to our resolve about Hong Kong.” 9 The Yalta Con­ ference, convened in February 1945, did not alter Britain’s status regarding its colonial territories in East Asia, even though Roosevelt and Stalin generally agreed that Western colonial powers should withdraw from Southeast Asia at a later stage.10 The next month, when the U.S. special envoy to China, Patrick Hurley, took up the issue of British colonial possessions with the British prime minister, Churchill “took him up with violence about Hong Kong and said that never would we yield an inch of the territory that was under the British flag.” 11 The case for the retention of Hong Kong, however, was not made entirely as a matter of prestige for the sake of the empire. Claiming Hong Kong back from Japan after the war was crucial to the British, partly because they had been deeply humiliated by their defeat at Japanese hands.12 The British also took pride in transforming the colony from a “fever-stricken rock” to one of the greatest seaports in the world. There were a number of other wider economic, political, and strategic considerations as well. As a free port and trading center, the colony was an important center for British commercial activities in the Far East. It provided the only shipbuilding and repair facilities between Singapore and Japan. Following the British government’s decision to give up extraterritoriality in China, Hong Kong’s status as a free port was expected to be more important in the postwar world. The retention of Hong Kong also served British strategic interests because the colony formed “part of the forward defensive system cover­ ing the main British strategic areas in the Far East.” 13 If the Chinese leaders’ desire to recover Hong Kong was equally strong, it was not always matched by official rhetoric. The attitude of the Chinese Nation­ alist leadership was, using Hong Kong historian Kit-ching Lau Chan’s word, “subdued,” and the Chinese government’s official statements on Hong Kong were “half-hearted and sporadic.”14 Hong Kong’s political status therefore did not create any direct confrontation between London and the wartime Chinese government in Chonqing. However, given the official Chinese position and the sympathetic American attitude toward Jiang Jieshi, Hong Kong’s postwar status remained uncertain at the end of the war.

The Liberation of Hong Kong Once the war was over, both British troops and Chinese Nationalist troops were poised to accept the surrender of Hong Kong. While Jiang Jieshi insisted that he

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accept Japan’s surrender at Hong Kong as commander in chief of the China theater, the British insisted that Sir Cecil Harcourt, rear admiral of the British Pacific Fleet, should accept the Japanese surrender on behalf of the British government. The head of the British military mission to China, Major General Hayes, warned London on July 20, 1945, that the British would not be able to prevent the Chinese from taking over Hong Kong by military means. He therefore advised that a diplomatic approach to secure American support was important.15 Consequently, the permanent undersecretary at the Colonial Office, Sir G. Gater, wrote a top secret note to his counterpart at the Foreign Office, Sir A. Cadogan, telling him that “a most embarrassing situation may arise in the event of Hong Kong being liberated by Chinese forces unless there is clear agreement with Jiang Jieshi in advance as to our role in the administration of Hong Kong.”16 Although the Nationalist government instructed General Zhang Fakui to deploy troops to Hong Kong, after President Truman’s intervention, Jiang agreed that Harcourt could accept Japan’s surrender on behalf of both Britain and Jiang as supreme commander of the China theater.17 China under Jiang’s leadership was keen to regain Hong Kong, but occupying the British colony by force was not politically feasible. The Nationalist govern­ ment was preoccupied by the country’s own internal economic problems and the Communist challenge. It could hardly afford to antagonize Britain, the closest ally of the Nationalist government’s most important backer, the United States. Although Washington, suspicious of British imperial ambition, supported Jiang’s claim to Hong Kong, a unilateral move by China to regain Hong Kong was obviously out of the question. In spite of the U.S. denunciation of colonialism, as a Hong Kong historian observes, “American wartime policy, if one can at all speak of a conscious and consistent policy regarding the post-war status of Hong Kong, had been characterized by much talk and little action.” 18 The Chinese Nationalist leaders, therefore, had to act cautiously as far as Hong Kong was concerned. In an address to the joint session of the Supreme National Defense Council and the Nationalist party Central Executive Committee in August 1945, Jiang made it clear that he expected all leased territories to be returned to China, but he announced that the problem should be settled by diplomatic means.19 The change of government in Britain in 1945 did not fundamentally alter British colonial policy or the British position toward Hong Kong. The new British Labour government, which “inherited a sprawling and complex colonial Empire,” envisaged equal status of the colonies with other Commonwealth mem­ bers and the establishment of democratic forms of government for these colo­ nies. The party’s specialists on colonial affairs did not foresee an immediate end to British colonial rule all over the world.20 Thus, the status of the British colony of Hong Kong remained a sensitive problem in Sino-British relations. In the British embassy’s annual report in 1946, Ambassador Ralph Stevenson sug­ gested that Hong Kong was the only major potential source of friction between Britain and China.21

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The 1946 Sino-British dispute over the jurisdiction of the Kowloon Walled City, an area inside the colony that has been described as “an anachronism, a contradiction, an absurdity,” was a good illustration of Hong Kong’s sensitive position in Sino-British relations. The Walled City is a densely populated area on the Kowloon side of the colony, which used to be a small Chinese garrison and administrative compound before Britain acquired the peninsula in 1862. The two sides’ different interpretations of the Walled City’s status had always been a source of friction between Britain and China. The Chinese imperial government reserved the area under Chinese administration in the 1898 Convention of Bei­ jing, but the British government unilaterally amended the treaty in 1899 and incorporated the Kowloon Walled City into the colony. During the 1930s the two governments disputed each other’s claim to jurisdiction, but the Chinese Nation­ alist government made no attempt to station official representatives in the Walled City.22 In 1946 both the British and Chinese governments issued official statements claiming the jurisdiction of the Walled City, but neither side pursued the matter further, and their different positions did not lead to serious difficulties in SinoBritish relations.23 The same pattern of Sino-British differences and compromise over the question of the Walled City recurred in 1948. Attempts by the British authorities to demolish the huts in the Walled City area and resettle the residents there were met with strong resistance. The colonial authorities’ action led to violent response not just in Hong Kong but also in China. In Canton the British consulate and the offices of the British firms Butterfield & Swire and Jardine were attacked. In Shanghai students staged a two-day protest strike. The Nation­ alist government made a formal protest but did not take the issue further when the British government refused to recognize Chinese jurisdiction over the area. After 1949 the Chinese Communists, who declared that the new Chinese govern­ ment would not recognize the “unequal treaties” signed between Britain and imperial China, continued to claim jurisdiction over the Walled City. Like their Nationalist predecessor, they also insisted that the British authorities had no right to evict squatters from the area. In the end it was after the conclusion of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong in 1984 that the Hong Kong gov­ ernment managed to acquire Chinese acquiescence to demolish the buildings inside the Kowloon Walled City.24 Although London had not anticipated the Walled City Incident, discussions about the Hong Kong question had already taken place in Whitehall toward the end of 1945. In the context of China’s new status as one of the postwar “great powers” and the fact that to a large extent Hong Kong’s stability depended on its economic and political relationship with the mainland, the Foreign Office be­ lieved that the time had come to think about Hong Kong’s political future. Some officials felt that London should take the initiative to secure a clear status for Hong Kong. They were worried that the Chinese government might be forced by public opinion to take steps toward reclaiming Hong Kong, and, as the head of

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the Foreign Office’s China Department, G. V. Kitson, pointed out, the Chinese government had “formidable means at their disposal for doing so.” Apart from Hong Kong’s economic dependence on China, the Chinese government could also pursue “an obstructive policy in matters affecting the recovery and develop­ ment of British interests and activities in China.”25 Kitson suggested, in the form of a memorandum, a number of possible solu­ tions to the Hong Kong problem, including returning the colony to Chinese sovereignty in return for British administration and introducing democratic changes in the colony, as well as renaming it as the free port and municipality of Hong Kong. Kitson also proposed that London take the initiative to open negoti­ ations with the Chinese government by declaring that the British government would be prepared to discuss the question of the New Territories.26 Meanwhile, the Colonial Office was also planning to introduce constitutional changes in the colony. The 1947 Young plan, proposed by the governor of Hong Kong, Mark Young, envisaged the establishment of a municipal council comprising both elected and appointed members as well as more direct representation of unoffi­ cial members of the Legislative Council.27 As the discussions on Hong Kong’s future went on in London, the political situation in China was taking a dramatic turn. Although London intended to maintain British rule in the colony after the end of the Second World War, its attitude toward whether or not Britain should seek to revive its former role in China was more ambivalent. Toward the end of the war, Whitehall’s position was that Britain did not have the resources to assert its former role as the predominant Western power in China. Some old China hands argued that China was a major British interest and therefore the government should pursue a more active policy to revive its former position, but this view was regarded as unrealistic by other senior officials. The sentiment among senior Foreign Office officials was best summed up by J. E. Coulson, acting head of the Economic Relations Department, when he warned: “If we make any sort of splash about our endeavor to help China, we may look as if we are assuming a responsibility which we cannot fulfill, and our position may be made worse than it is now.” China was simply not seen to be central to British interest. Supporting Coulson’s views, Assistant Under Secretary Victor Cavendish-Bentinck re­ marked, “China is not vital to the maintenance of our empire and we can do without our China trade. So long as we maintain control of seaways, a direct threat from the direction of China is not serious.”28 Thus, paradoxical it may seem, as far as British imperial interests were con­ cerned, China was less important than Hong Kong in the immediate postwar world. This attitude had to be seen in the context of the general decline of British power and prestige in postwar East Asia. Three developments were particularly unfavorable to Britain’s position in East Asia: first, it had been defeated by Japan during the war; second, the United States had assumed the leading role in the war against Japan; and third, the tide of Asian nationalism was rising quickly. British

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officials responsible for Far Eastern affairs therefore had the unenviable task of trying to redefine Britain’s diminished postwar role in the Far East. The postwar British attitude toward China and Hong Kong was spelled out in some detail in a stock-taking memorandum in early 1947 by Esler Dening, the Foreign Office’s assistant under secretary responsible for Far Eastern affairs. In Dening’s view, “Britain’s chief assets in China are her physical properties, experience, good-will and the possession of Hong Kong.” He believed, however, that Britain would not be able to exploit these assets to the full and compete actively in the China market until the British economy was revived. The replacement of Britain as the predominant power in China by the United States, to Dening, could relieve Britain of the political and economic burden as the dominant Western power in China. The policy he recommended was to keep “a commercial foothold in China until better days come.”29 The British government’s attitude toward China and Hong Kong was consis­ tent with this line of thinking: Britain could not afford to reassert its prewar position in China, but the retention of Hong Kong was important to the empire, to Britain’s role as a major world power, and to the future British economic interest in East Asia.

Britain, Chinese Communism, and Hong Kong The situation in China changed rapidly toward the end of 1948 with the dramatic collapse of the Nationalist regime. As policymakers in London began to ponder the problems in East Asia, the situation looked exceedingly gloomy. Not only would British commercial interests in China be directly affected by the Commu­ nist victory, but the retention of Hong Kong as a British colony now appeared to be doubtful. In the wider context of international politics, the animosity between the Soviet Union and the West further complicated political developments in East Asia. In December 1948 the Foreign Office completed a detailed assessment of the implications of the Communist victory for British interests in China and Hong Kong. This was presented in the form of an annex to Cabinet Paper CP 48/299. The Foreign Office suggested that if the Communists came to power in China, the retention of Hong Kong as a British colony would depend on “whether the Communists found the existence of a well-run British port conve­ nient for their trade with the outside world.” It further warned that even if the Communists were to use a British Hong Kong for trading purposes, the colony would face a vast refugee problem. The Foreign Office warned that Hong Kong would be “living on the edge of a volcano.”30 Thus, Hong Kong’s future would depend very much on Britain’s relations with the Chinese Communists. Many Chinese Communists, escaping from Na­ tionalist persecution, had sought refuge in the British colony and also used it as a base for anti-Nationalist political activity. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese

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War, the Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army set up a liaison office headed by Liao Zhengzhi in the colony in 1938, and Hong Kong became an important base for coordinating Communist activities in Southeast Asia. The Chinese Com­ munists were careful not to upset the British administration, however. When some local activists suggested in their publicity materials that Hong Kong should be returned to Chinese rule, they were reprimanded by the party.31 As long as the Chinese Communists did not create trouble for the colony, the Hong Kong government tolerated their activities. In fact, many British officials in China were rather sympathetic to the Chinese Communists. The British ambassador to China between 1942 and 1946, Sir Horace Seymour, for example, was impressed by the effectiveness of the Communist administration in Yenan and its efforts in handling economic problems in areas under Communist control. Seymour estab­ lished contact with Communist leaders such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and became a personal friend of Zhou.32 During the Second World War, Communist guerrilla forces under the com­ mand of the Guangdong-based East River Column operated in Hong Kong. The Communist guerilla forces in Hong Kong organized armed resistance against the Japanese under the name of the Hong Kong-Kowloon Independent Brigade. Toward the end of 1941, as the Japanese were preparing an assault on the colony, British authorities in Hong Kong agreed to supply arms and ammunition to the East River Column. After the Japanese occupied Hong Kong, the Commu­ nist guerrilla forces were involved in the rescue of a number of British officers and were able to provide useful intelligence to the British Army Aid Group, a prisoner of war assistance organization operating against the Japanese in south­ ern China.33 The close working relationship between the “Red guerrilla” forces and the British Army Aid Group has been described as a “remarkable associa­ tion.”34 A leading Chinese Communist in Hong Kong, Huang Zuomei, who became the head of the New China News Agency’s Hong Kong Branch in 1949, was awarded a British MBE order in 1946 for his assistance to the British during the war.35 After the Japanese surrender, the Communist guerrilla forces assisted the British authorities in keeping law and order in the colony. In an official state­ ment declaring their departure from Hong Kong, the Communist guerrilla forces announced that they hoped the people of Hong Kong could rebuild their homes and improve their living conditions under the Hong Kong government. It was clear that Chinese Communist authorities were not prepared to instigate trouble for the British authorities in Hong Kong at that time.36 The Chinese Communists, however, did not cease operating in the colony. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party set up the Hong Kong Central Branch Bureau in 1947. The New China News Agency’s Hong Kong branch also began operating in the same year under Qiao Mu (also known as Qiao Guanhua, later foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China). The party’s Hong Kong bureau was a central-level branch bureau under the opera­

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tional control of the Shanghai Central Bureau. The bureau was not set up to organize anti-Hong Kong government activities but to supervise and coordinat­ ing the Communist effort in their struggle against the Nationalists in South China and the South China Sea area. It was an important communications center for Communist forces as they advanced southward to overcome Nationalist resis­ tance. The bureau also became heavily involved in the Chinese Communist occupation of Canton. The bureau’s Secretary Fang Fang was appointed third secretary in the party’s South China branch in August 1949. He provided im­ portant assistance to Marshall Ye Jianying in the early days of Canton’s take­ over. The head of the bureau’s Hong Kong Work Committee, Zhang Hanfu, was to become vice-foreign minister in charge of the Sino-British negotiations on the establishment of diplomatic relations.37 In fact, the most serious incident affecting relations between the British and the Chinese Communists did not arise from Hong Kong. It took place earlier in April 1949, when HMS Amethyst, en route from Shanghai to Nanjing, was shelled by Communist batteries on the north bank of the Yangtze River. Move­ ments of British warships along the Yangtze River between the ports in Shanghai and Nanjing took place regularly with the consent of the Nationalist government. However, when the British frigate set sail, Chinese Communist forces had been gathered along the riverbank for some time, and there were reports that they were preparing to cross the river. On April 20, as HMS Amethyst was some sixty miles from Nanjing, it came under heavy fire and suffered serious damage and casualties and was grounded. A Chinese-speaking third secretary at the Nanjing embassy, Edward Youde (later, as governor of Hong Kong, he was deeply in­ volved in the negotiations of Hong Kong’s future in the mid-1980s), volunteered to contact the Communist forces to stop the firing. The Communists, however, would only stop firing if the British warship could assist the People’s Liberation Army to cross the Yangtze, a condition obviously not acceptable to the British government, which had declared neutrality in the Chinese civil war. Although HMS Amethyst later escaped to safety, the incident came as a shock to the British public, and the Attlee government was severely criticized in Parliament.38 Following the Amethyst incident, the British government reinforced the Brit­ ish garrison in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government also adopted a tougher stance against Communist activities. The authorities searched Fang Fang’s house, detained several left-wing journalists, and took action to disband Communistorganized groups in the colony. The British policy toward the Communist threat was a combination of “military buildup” and “limitation and regulation of local Communist activities.”39 Hong Kong, however, was never a target in the Communist plan to control South China. As early as November 1948, the Chinese Communists had indi­ cated to British authorities that they would not attack Hong Kong. The head of the New China News Agency, Qiao Mu, told the Reuter correspondent in Hong Kong that the Communists had no intention of changing the status quo of the

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colony.40 After the People’s Liberation Army took over Canton, Marshall Ye Jianying decided that the circulation of Hong Kong currencies in Canton should be allowed to continue for some time, partly because the Communist authorities did not want to make the Canton-Hong Kong relationship too tense. The colony did not suffer economically after the Chinese Communists seized Canton. The new Communist government clearly believed that China’s interests would be better served by allowing the continuation of British rule in Hong Kong. After the formal establishment of the new Chinese government in Beijing, Communist activists in the colony were instructed not to challenge the authority of the British administration and to keep a low profile. According to a former Xinhua News Agency employee in Hong Kong, a few days after October 1, 1949, Qiao Mu relayed the following message from Zhou to the agency’s staff members in the colony: “We are not taking Hong Kong back, but it does not mean that we are abandoning or retreating from Hong Kong.” Quoting Mao, Zhou pointed out that Hong Kong was an issue created by the legacy of interna­ tional relations history, and that the timing and conditions for its liberation would be determined by future history. He made clear to the activists that “the eventual recovery of Hong Kong remains a long-term mission, but you need not worry about it now.”41 The colony remained politically stable when the People’s Liber­ ation Army reached the Hong Kong border and in many ways benefited econom­ ically from the inflow of capital, entrepreneurial skills, and labor from the mainland.42

Britain, China, and Hong Kong in the Cold War Meanwhile, the British government had abandoned any hopes of reviving Britain’s former role in postwar China; its primary interests in China were largely commercial. London was therefore not prepared to antagonize the Chi­ nese Communist leadership. After a careful assessment of the situation and the limited options available, the Foreign Office recommended a policy of “keeping a foot in the door” in China (CP 48/299). The cabinet was advised that the government should seek de facto relations with the Communist authorities be­ cause of the extensive British trading interests and assets in China.43 Cold war politics, however, complicated Britain’s attempt to adopt a prag­ matic China policy. In the context of the growing suspicion between the Soviet Union and the West, any accommodation with a Communist regime would be interpreted as the weakening of Western resolve against global Communist ex­ pansionism. By early 1946, U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union had hardened. Washington’s stand, as the cold war historian John Lewis Gaddis has noted, was that “expansionist moves by the Kremlin would be resisted, even at the risk of war.”44 On March 12, 1947, in a speech to Congress seeking approval for U.S. assistance to Turkey and Greece, President Truman committed the United States openly to confronting the advance of communism in all parts of the world.45

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As the animosity of the United States and the Soviet Union became more intense, British leaders had to reassess Britain’s foreign policy. Since London saw the Soviet-led Communist bloc as the most serious security threat to Britain, U.S. support against Soviet expansionism was seen as vital to British security in Europe. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin warned the cabinet in January 1948 that the Soviet Union and its allies were posing a direct threat to the West. For British policymakers hoping that Britain could recover economically and maintain its global influence, persuading the United States to provide necessary backing to a close Anglo-American alliance seemed the only viable policy option. The diffi­ cult process of decolonization had already begun, but London still harbored the hope that, with U.S. support, and its influence with the Commonwealth, Britain’s aspiration to remain a first-rate power could be fulfilled. Although there was no place for a colonial British Empire in the postwar international order, the reincar­ nation of the empire in a different form was still on the minds of British political leaders. Bevin told his colleagues that Britain could be a major power equal to the United States and the Soviet Union, “provided we can organize a Western Europe system, . . . backed by the power and resources of the Commonwealth and of the Americas.” This paper, “The First Aim of British Foreign Policy,” was a key document that formed the basis of Britain’s grand strategy for main­ taining its status as a major power in the postwar world.46 By allying itself closely with the United States, Britain was drawn into direct confrontation with the Soviet-led Communist bloc and had to play a full part in the cold war. The British government thus faced a dilemma as the Chinese Communists rapidly took control of northern China at the end of 1948. A proper friendly working relationship with the Communist authorities was crucial to immediate British commercial interests and the protection of British citizens in China as well as to the future return of an economically recovered Britain to the China market. Yet such a policy might not be politically acceptable in a cold war climate. While London could avoid making the more difficult decision of diplo­ matic recognition as long as the Chinese Communists had not taken effective control of the whole of China, unfortunately British leaders could not delay making up their minds for too long when the People’s Republic of China was formally established on October 1, 1949.47 London could not go ahead and recognize the Beijing government without taking into account sentiments in Washington. As a result of the deteriorating relationship between Washington and the Chinese Communists, the Truman ad­ ministration had publicly announced that it did not support London’s decision to recognize the Beijing government. In private, however, Washington’s position was not totally rigid. It rejected “premature” recognition of the new Chinese government but not the principle of according it. The Truman administration had to be cautious about the recognition of a Communist regime when the American domestic political atmosphere was very much anticommunist. The secretary of state, Dean Acheson, who adopted the position that the United States should

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“wait until the dust settles,” accepted that Britain would have to pursue a differ­ ent China policy because of its more extensive commercial interests there. The British government eventually accorded diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic on January 6, 1950, after lengthy and extensive consultations with the United States, other Western European allies, and newly independent members of the Commonwealth. The Beijing government’s response, however, was far from favorable. The Chinese Communists insisted that the establishment of proper diplomatic relations had to be negotiated. Therefore, while British diplo­ mats maintained their presence in China, they were regarded merely as represen­ tatives for the negotiation of the establishment of diplomatic relations until 1954, when the two governments formally exchanged chargés d’affaires.48 One key problem in Sino-British relations was the U.S. attitude toward the Chinese Communists. Since Anglo-American solidarity was the cornerstone of Britain’s postwar foreign policy, as Washington’s position toward the Commu­ nist government in Beijing hardened, London was under strong pressure to toe the American line. Toward the end of 1949, London’s imperial ambition had turned into a sober realization that Britain’s status as a great power in the post­ war world could not be taken for granted. To secure U.S. assistance, Hong Kong was increasingly used as a political symbol and referred to as “Berlin of the East” by British officials and politicians. The British were themselves engaged in a bitter war with the Communists in Malaya and Singapore; failure to meet a Communist challenge in the colony would deal a severe blow to British morale and prestige in Southeast Asia. The defense of Hong Kong thus became a vital link in the common front against communism in Asia as well as a crucial part in the defense of British Southeast Asian territory against Communist insurgency.49 British arguments for the retention of Hong Kong were shifted from defending the British Empire to defending Western interests in the face of global Commu­ nist encroachment. Although Hong Kong became embroiled in cold war politics in 1949 as the Communists took power in China, British policy toward Hong Kong was not simply shaped by political and strategic considerations. Another crucial factor was the colony’s commercial value. The Colonial Office estimated in 1949 that the total amount of British capital in Hong Kong was about £156 million. The colony was also a good operating base for British businessmen to prevent Japan from acquiring a dominant position in the commerce of the Far East in the future. The Colonial Office maintained that the loss of all British capital, and the possi­ bility of trade that would disappear if Britain lost the colony, would be “a serious blow” to the British economy.50 While there were a number of political, strategic, and economic advantages to keeping Hong Kong British, London could not ignore the colony’s vulnerable position if the Chinese government was determined to take it back. Although the Hong Kong garrison was reinforced in 1949, British policymakers were well aware of the fact that without China’s acquiescence, it would be impossible to

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maintain Hong Kong as a trading port under British rule. At the same time, if keeping the colony was important to British interests, London had to make a firm stand in Hong Kong. This balancing act, however, was not always possible in the context of the cold war. At the beginning of 1950, Washington’s stance toward the Beijing govern­ ment had toughened, reflecting growing anticommunist sentiments in the United States. Britain also encountered difficulties in its efforts to develop a working relationship with the People’s Republic. London’s recognition of the Beijing government had not led to the establishment of official Sino-British diplomatic relations. The Chinese insisted that before the establishment of Sino-British diplomatic relations, the British attitude toward the Nationalist government had to be clari­ fied first. More specifically, Beijing raised the question of Britain’s voting policy toward Chinese representation in the United Nations and its policy toward Na­ tionalist organizations and Chinese national properties and assets in Britain, Hong Kong, and other British dependent territories. The British had abstained from voting when the Chinese representation question was raised in the United Nations. Their explanation that the question required a majority decision in the United Nations was rejected by the Chinese as unsatisfactory. The other ques­ tion, on Chinese national properties and assets, was actually a reference to sev­ enty aircraft in Hong Kong that belonged to two Nationalist agencies, the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) and the Central Air Transport Corpora­ tion (CATC).51 The CNAC and CATC affair proved to be a serious issue that affected London’s relations with the new Beijing government. CNAC was a company based in Hong Kong and incorporated under Chinese law. The Nationalist gov­ ernment held 80 percent of its shares, and Pan American Airways held the remaining 20 percent. CATC was an official agency directly under the National­ ist government’s control. In 1949 eighty civil aircraft purchased by CNAC and CATC under American lend-lease were based in Hong Kong. In November, one month after the establishment of the People’s Republic, the managing directors of the two agencies defected to Beijing with eleven aircraft. This set off a round of claims and counterclaims over the ownership of the remaining aircraft, which involved not only the Communist and Nationalist governments but also the U.S. government.52 On December 1, U.S. officials approached the British embassy in Washington and inquired whether the Hong Kong authorities could prevent the aircraft from “falling into the hands of the Communists.” After the chief justice of Hong Kong ruled in April 1950 that the planes belonged to the central government of the People’s Republic of China, the State Department warned the British ambassa­ dor in Washington that if the British government failed to keep the aircraft in the colony, the continuance of Marshall Aid and the Military Assistance Program might be seriously endangered. To put more pressure on London, the State

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Department also indicated that a decision favorable to Beijing would have a serious effect not only on Anglo-American relations but also on the personal position of the secretary of state because of U.S. internal politics.53 The British government’s attempt to develop a working relationship with the Chinese Communist authorities and to steer Hong Kong away from trouble with China was once again complicated by cold war politics. For policymakers in London, the strength of the British position in Hong Kong depended “largely on [their] not becoming involved in Chinese political issues, the maintenance of an impartial administration and on insisting that the rule of law must prevail.” British officials feared that turning the aircraft over to American hands might provoke the Chinese government “to organise strikes, disturbance and sabotage” or to impose an economic embargo on the colony as well as affect the SinoBritish negotiations on the establishment of diplomatic relations.54 The Ameri­ can pressure, however, was too strong to be resisted. As the governor of Hong Kong did not have any statutory powers to keep the planes in the colony, he was instructed by London “to hold up the aircraft by any means which did not involve the formal use of statutory powers.” Later, the attorney general, Hartley Shawcross, proposed that the government solve the legal problem by obtaining an order in council from London that “would not only provide for the detention of the aircraft, but would also set up machinery for the trial of the issue.” On April 24, 1950, a British cabinet meeting accepted Shawcross’s advice, and an order in council was issued on May 10 to keep the aircraft in the colony. The aircraft were later handed over to the Americans in 1952.55 London decided to interfere with the legal process in Hong Kong because of its concern over Washington’s reaction; Anglo-American solidarity was obvi­ ously more important than Sino-British relations. The governor of Hong Kong was not happy about London’s action, but there was little he could do; the colony was dragged into the wider cold war confrontation in East Asia. Fortunately, Beijing only made an official protest when the British government announced that the aircraft were to be detained in Hong Kong; it did not attempt to under­ mine the political stability of the colony. The aircraft affair, however, demon­ strated fully that London was quite prepared to overlook the colony’s interests when they came into conflict with the British government’s other priorities.

The Korean War and Its Aftermath Britain’s policy toward China and Hong Kong took another turn with the out­ break of the Korean War in June 1950. The cold war became a hot war when North Korean troops marched across the thirty-eighth parallel, which divided the Korean peninsula in half. The United States responded swiftly by committing militarily to resist the North Korean troops from taking over the whole of Korea. To American leaders, the North Korean invasion of the South confirmed their fear of the worldwide expansionist intent of communism. When President Tru­

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man was on his way back to Washington from a weekend in Independence, Missouri, he reflected on the plane that “if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores.” The president therefore publicly condemned the North Koreans. He also deployed the Seventh Fleet to “neutralize” the Taiwan Strait.56 In a meeting on June 27, the British cabinet decided to give full support to the American position, but not all cabinet members shared the American interpreta­ tion that the invasion was “centrally directed Communist imperialism.” They were also concerned that the deployment of the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait would make Britain’s relations with China more difficult and provoke the Beijing government to foment disorder in Hong Kong. Eventually, Washington used only “communism” instead of “centrally directed communism” in its pub­ lic condemnation of the North Korean action.57 As the military situation in Korea became critical, American pressure on Britain to take part in the Korean conflict also increased. London’s military advisers, however, held the view that the Korean conflict did not directly threaten Europe and that the Soviet Union might “stage a diversion elsewhere and we must continually guard against this eventuality.” They were concerned that resources vital to the security of Europe would be diverted to Korea, an area considered to be of less strategic importance. The British government yielded to pressure from Washington again, however, and deployed ground troops to Korea in July.58 The Korean conflict escalated when Chinese Communist “volunteers” crossed the Yalu River and entered Korea in October. China’s military involvement in Korea further widened the gap between the Communist Chinese leadership and the West. While Britain’s diplomatic representatives who were in Beijing for the negotiations of the establishment of diplomatic relations still remained there, the two sides became enemies on the Korean battlefield. In January 1951, Britain, somewhat reluctantly, supported a UN resolution introduced by the United States in condemning the People’s Republic of China as an aggressor in Korea. In May the UN Assembly adopted a resolution on a strategic embargo. In June the British government imposed license controls on all exports to China and Hong Kong. The colony, together with Macau, was blacklisted, because China could break the embargo by obtaining Western goods through its traditional trading connections with both places.59 The outbreak of the Korean War had far-reaching consequences for Britain’s China policy and Hong Kong’s position. With the hostility in Korea, hopes that Britain could establish official diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic were completely shattered. It was in fact rather surprising that British diplomats were allowed to remain in China. The Chinese government condemned the UN embargo resolution as “a malevolent attempt to extend aggressive war” and a violation of the UN Charter. Apart from the United States, Britain was the only country singled out for criticism. By agreeing to the embargo, the Chinese gov­

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ernment said, the British government had “closed the door for possible negotia­ tions and revealed its determination to be the enemy of China.”60 Sino-British relations entered a most difficult period, even though their informal diplomatic links were not severed. The Korean War had a much more significant and immediate impact on Hong Kong. Since British troops from the colony were deployed to Korea, the British government was worried that the Chinese Communists would attack Hong Kong. In July British military advisers estimated that there were 200,000 to 270,000 Chinese soldiers stationed in neighboring Guangdong and the surrounding area. While British military intelligence suggested that these forces were earmarked for an attack on Taiwan and believed that the Chinese would not attack the colony, British military advisers remained apprehensive of the threat posed by the Communist forces stationed just across the border. Another major concern was that the presence of such a concentration of Chinese forces so close to Hong Kong would “bolster up the morale of the Fifth Column in Hong Kong.”61 In fact, when China became involved militarily in the Korean War at the end of 1950, Chinese Communist forces directly confronted British troops sent from Hong Kong. In fact, Beijing made no attempt to destabilize the political situation in the colony, but Hong Kong still suffered considerably following the UN embargo on China and the imposition of export license control on Hong Kong by London. For years Hong Kong had been an entrepot; over two-thirds of the colony’s trade was with China. The embargo was thus extremely serious for the colony. China trade, in the words of Governor Grantham, was the colony’s “life-blood,” and, with the imposition of the embargo, it was cut down to a “mere trickle.” In addition to the economic difficulties, the colony was burdened by a massive inflow of refugees from China. As Grantham recalled, many visiting journalists sent home gloomy dispatches that predicted “the early demise of the Colony.”62 Hong Kong’s economy gradually recovered, however, and the colony was able to shift from an entrepot to a thriving manufacturing and industrial center be­ cause the influx of refugees brought capital and labor as well. The Korean truce in 1953 brought about a more relaxed international climate, but Sino-British relations did not improve significantly. The attitudes of both sides had been hardened by the Korean conflict. The Conservative party under Churchill’s leadership had returned to power in 1951, and the Anglo-American alliance remained the cornerstone of Britain’s foreign policy. Since the British commercial empire in China had virtually collapsed by 1953, London was no longer as enthusiastic about the establishment of official diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic as it had been in 1949 and early 1950. Britain’s China policy shifted from attempting to “keep a foot in the door” to “keeping a toe in the door.”63 The two sides moved gingerly toward a better relationship only in 1954, when the Geneva Conference provided the opportunity for meetings between British

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Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Subse­ quently, the two governments agreed to exchange chargés d’affaires, thus estab­ lishing formal diplomatic relations. By this time the Chinese Communists had firmly established their political control over China. In the mid-1950s, Chinese leaders were mounting a diplomatic offensive to improve China’s international image and to assure its neighbors that China did not have any aggressive procliv­ ities in Asia. The postwar Labour leadership was unable to prevent the continuation of Britain’s decline as a global power. In East Asia, British influence diminished further. Britain was denied inclusion in the ANZUS Treaty, a defense pact con­ cluded in September 1951 among the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Later attempts by Churchill, who returned to office in November, to join ANZUS were also unsuccessful. Although the British government was unhappy about Britain’s exclusion from ANZUS, there was little it could do to change what Anthony Eden referred to as an “anomaly” in the Pacific’s collective de­ fense. For British leaders, who still sought a world role for Britain, the defense against communism in East Asia was not just a matter in superpower cold war conflict; it was a matter of Commonwealth responsibility. When Britain became part of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, a collective security arrangement created by the United States in 1954, British colonies in the region— Hong Kong, Malaya, and Borneo—were excluded from SEATO’s care.64 The British position in Hong Kong looked secure in 1955 as international tension in the Asia-Pacific region eased following Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s visit to Bandung, where he announced China’s five principles of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence with its Asian neighbors. By the mid-1950s, when the nationalization of the private sector in the Chinese economy reached the final stage, senior Chinese leaders displayed critical awareness of the nationalization policy’s possible adverse effects on business confidence in Hong Kong. The Xinhua News Agency’s Hong Kong branch and other pro-Beijing newspapers in the colony were advised by Liao Zhengzhi that in reporting China’s nationaliza­ tion policies they should be cautious not to alarm people in Hong Kong.65 The new Chinese government rejected the legality of the Sino-British treaties that led to the establishment of the colony of Hong Kong, but effective British rule over the colony remained unchallenged by Beijing until September 1982, when direct negotiations over Hong Kong’s future began. After two years of protracted nego­ tiations, Britain and China finally agreed in September 1984 that Hong Kong was to be returned to China in 1997, when the lease of the New Territories expired under the Convention of Beijing.66

Conclusion In an ironic way, Hong Kong’s continuation as a British Crown Colony in the postwar world was made possible by the Communist victory in China. A stable

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and politically strong Nationalist government probably would have exerted more pressure on the British for the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong, or at least for more involvement in the administration of some parts of the territory. Confronting the mammoth task of rebuilding China’s economy and restructuring its political and social life according to a socialist vision, the Chi­ nese Communists shelved any plans for the immediate recovery of Hong Kong from British hands. Despite British apprehension, the Beijing government made no attempt to challenge the British administration of Hong Kong until the mid1980s. In fact, during the early years after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, when the new government was isolated diplomatically by the West, Hong Kong was an important window to the outside world for Beijing. Hong Kong remained important to British trading interests in East Asia and in cold war politics from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1950s. The retention of Hong Kong after the Second World War was justified first in the name of empire and later in the struggle against Communist aggression. The shift in Britain’s stance, however, should not obscure its long-term foreign policy objective in the postwar world—to remain a leading global power. London’s determination to keep Hong Kong in the late 1940s and early 1950s was consis­ tent with its ambition to maintain Britain’s great power status. The extent of the decline of British power, however, became fully evident after the Korean War. In other British territories in East Asia, the process of decolonization had already begun; Malaya was to become independent in 1957. Britain’s ambition to play a leading role in international politics was completely shattered in 1956 when Britain was humiliated in the Suez Crisis—after which the final stage of Britain’s painful process of gradual retreat from Asia began. The transition from imperial glory to the decline of the empire and decoloniza­ tion was completed in one decade after the Second World War. As long as Britain had an empire to defend, or an ambition to remain in East Asia as a world power, Hong Kong would be kept British. When decolonization con­ verged with the realization that Britain could no longer play a leading world role, Hong Kong was no longer crucial in the eyes of policymakers in London. Economic reasons alone are not sufficient for a medium power to maintain an outpost thou­ sands of miles away without adequate military backing, in a region of little strategic and political interest to Britain. The remnants of the empire, as Christopher Hill suggests, were little more than “high-level nuisances,” and Britain could gladly get rid of them if “it could be done without political embarrassment.”67 While there seemed to be no compelling reasons on political, strategic and economic grounds why the British government should retain Hong Kong, the moral question still had to be answered. Should the British government transfer six million people, among them a large number of British subjects, to a regime not known for its tolerance of individual liberty and political dissent? The an­ swer is provided by a cabinet paper that still remains closed in the Public Record Office. In 1949, on the eve of the Communist takeover in China, the British

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cabinet discussed the question of Hong Kong. The cabinet agreed that the British government should not discuss the future of Hong Kong with a central Chinese government unless that government was friendly, democratic, stable, and in con­ trol of a unified China. The word democratic was later deleted.68 Britain’s will­ ingness to compromise democratic principles because of diplomatic and political considerations was demonstrated again almost forty years later: under pressure from the Beijing government and the conservative business lobby in Hong Kong, the British administration in Hong Kong slowed down the democratization pro­ cess in the colony in 1988 by delaying the plan to introduce a limited number of directly elected members to the Legislative Council.69

Notes The author thanks Dr. Ming K. Chan and Dr. Steve Tsang for directing his attention to important documentary sources for the preparation of this work. 1. Balfour to Bevin, August 9, 1945, No. 1038, AN 2560/22/45, 17, Documents of British Policy Overseas (DBPO), ser. I, Vol. 3, 1945. 2. For a recent analysis of Britain’s aspiration to create a “Third Force” in world politics, see Young and Kent, “British Policy Overseas,” pp. 41-61. General accounts of Britain’s postwar foreign policy include Frankel, British Foreign Policy; Northedge, De­ scent from Power. 3. Joint supplement, South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Telegraph, January 25, 1941, quoted in Luff, The Hidden Years. 4. Riben fangweiting fangwei yanjiushi zianshishi Xiangguang Zhangsha zuozhan (National Defense Agency, Japan: Defense Research Institute, War History Department) {The battle o f Hong Kong, Zhangsha), pp. 4, 6, 10-12. 5. Mills, British Rule in Eastern Asia, p. 376. 6. See Tsang, Democracy Shelved, p. 13; Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 293-309. 7. Eade, ed., Winston Churchill War Speeches, ii, p. 344. Louis, Imperialism at Bay 1941-1945, p. 433. Churchill’s meeting with Hornbeck, box 24, Hornbeck Papers, quoted in Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, p. 312. 8. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations o f the United States: The Conferen­ ces at Cairo and Teheran, p. 554; see also Louis, Imperialism at Bay, 1941-1945, p. 285. 9. Prime minister’s personal minute, M. 1025/4 (most secret), October 23, 1944, Churchill papers, 20/153; Gilbert, Winston Churchill, p. 1039. 10. For an account of the Yalta Conference and the agreements for postwar Asia, see Iriye, The Cold War in Asia, pp. 94-97. 11. Note by Churchill, April 11, 1945, FO 371/46325, quoted in Louis, Imperialism at Bay, 1941-1945, p. 548; see also Callahan, Churchill, p. 210. 12. Morris, Hong Kong, p. 242. 13. Memorandum on the future of Hong Kong by G.V. Kitson, esp. the part on the retention of Hong Kong, April 3, 1946, Public Record Office (PRO), London, FO 371/ 53633/66245. 14. Kit-ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, p. 314. See also Lane, Sovereignty and the Status Quo, chap. 3. 15. Major General Hayes (Chonqing) to Sir J. Grigg, July 20, 1945, 9 a .m . (telegraph

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[tel.] no. 0/0114) F 4449/1147/10, DBPO, ser. 1, vol. 1, 1945. 16. Sir G. Gater to Sir A. Cadogan, no. 54144/38/45, 1184, FO 934/3/12, 18, DBPO, ser. 1, vol. 1, 1945. 17. Kit-Ching Lau Chan, China, Britain, and Hong Kong, pp. 321-22; Tsang, Democ­ racy Shelved, pp. 19-20; Shai, Britain and China, 1941-47, pp. 120-22. A Chinese account of the Nationalist and British rivalry in accepting the Japanese surrender is in Zhu, Yang, and Dou, Cong Xianggang gerang dao nuwang fanghua (From the cession of Hong Kong to the visit of the queen), pp. 170-174. 18. See Shai, Britain and China, 1941^47, pp. 124-25; Kit-ching Lau Chan, “The United States and the Question of Hong Kong, 1941-1945,“ p. 16. 19. Jiang Jieshi, The Collected Wartime Messages of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, 1937-1945, p. 859. See also Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, 1898-1997, p. 162. 20. Goldsworthy, Colonial Issues in British Politics, 1945-1961, pp. 9, 13-14. 21. PRO, FO 371/63440, F 4491/4491/10. 22. For a brief account of the Walled City’s background, see Wesley-Smith, Unequal Treaty, 1898-1997, and “Forlorn, Forbidden and Forgotten.“ Another account is Sinn, “Kowloon Walled City.” A version from a Chinese perspective is Lu Jin, Jiulung chengzhai shihua (A history of the Kowloon walled city). 23. Tsang, Democracy Shelved, pp. 81-84. See also Ho Fung-shen, Waijiao shengya sishi nian (Forty years as a diplomat), pp. 201-3; and Grantham, Via Ports, pp. 130-33. 24. For a discussion of the different positions of the Nationalists and Communists, see Miners, “A Tale of Two Walled Cities.” 25. Kitson memorandum, April 3, 1946, PRO, FO 371/53633/66245, F 5107/G. 26. Kitson memorandum; see PRO, FO 371/53632, F3237/113/G10; FO 371/53633/ 66245, F 5107/G; FO 371/53635, F 5107. 27. Tsang, Democracy Shelved, provides the most comprehensive study of the Young plan and Britain’s attempts at constitutional reform for postwar Hong Kong. 28. Minute by Coulson, March 6, 1945; minute by Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, March 13, 1945, PRO, FO 371/46232, F 1331/409/10. 29. PRO, FO 371/63549, F 2612/2612/10; also see Shai, Britain and China, 1941^47, pp. 150-51. 30. PRO, CAB 129/31, CP 48/299. 31. Liang, Zhonggong zai Xianggang (Chinese communists in Hong Kong), pp. 63-64. 32. See Li Shian, “Britain’s China Policy and the Communists, 1942 to 1946,“ pp. 49-63. 33. Recent Chinese publications on the East River Column include East River Col­ umn History Writing Group, Dongjiang xiongdui shi (History of the East River Column). Reminiscences of the East River Column’s activities in Hong Kong during the war by the column’s former members can be found in Zheng et al., Dongjiang xinghuo (The life of the East River Column); the column’s negotiations with British authorities can be found in Hong Kong-Kowloon Independent Brigade Writing Group, Gangjiu duli dadui (Hong Kong-Kowloon independent brigade), p. 8; the British request for Communist assistance in keeping law and order is on pp. 188-89. 34. Ride, British Army Aid Group, pp. 39-40. 35. For an account of Huang’s involvement in Communist activities and as head of the New China News Agency, see Guangjiaojing (Wide angle magazine), June 1986, pp. 19-21. 36. Guangjiaojing, no. 164, June 1986, pp. 16-18; Hong Kong-Kowloon Indepen­ dent Brigade Writing Group, Gangjiu duli dadui, pp. 190-91. 37. For an account of the Hong Kong branch’s activities and Fang Fang’s work, see Chen Liping, “Fang Fang yu Guangzhou jiefang” (Fang Fang and the liberation of Guangzhou), pp. 161-75. Another account is in Deng Feng, “Gangau gongwei de yange”

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(Evolution of the Hong Kong and Macau work committee), also quoted in John P. Bums, “The Structure of Communist Party Control in Hong Kong,” p. 749. An account of Zhang Hanfu’s role in the Sino-British negotiations establishing diplomatic relations is in Tang, Britain’s Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949-54, chap. 3. 38. A detailed account of the incident is in Earl, Yangtze Incident; a more recent account is Murfett, Hostages on the Yangtze. A Chinese version of the event is provided by Kang, “Yingjian zishui jinghao shijian” (The British warship Amethyst Incident). Ed­ ward Youde’s efforts to negotiate with the Chinese Communists about HMS Amethyst reached cabinet-level attention; see PRO, CP 49/93, Annex A. 39. Catron, “China and Hong Kong, 1945-1967,” p. 101. 40. H. C. Bough (confidential [conf.] memorandum), PRO, FO 371/75779, F 124/1016/10, quoted in Tsang, Democracy Shelved, pp. 86-87. 41. Jin, “Zhou zongli guangyu Xianggang zhengce de tanhua—wode huiyilu,” (Pre­ mier Zhou’s Hong Kong policy talks—Memoirs), p. 47. 42. Yang, “Ye Jianying dui jiefang Guangzhou de lishi congxian” (Ye Jianying’s historic contribution in the liberation of Guangzhou), p. 147. One interesting study of the inflow of capital and entrepreneurial skills to Hong Kong from China after 1949 is Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs. 43. PRO, CAB 129/31, CP 48/299. 44. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins o f the Cold War, 1941-1947, p. 356. 45. For more details on the Truman doctrine, see Gaddis, The United States and the Origins o f the Cold War, 1941-1947, chap. 10; LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War: 1945-1980, chap. 3; Hall, The Cold War as History, chap. 12. 46. Cabinet Paper, January 4, 1948, PRO, CAB 129/23, CP 48/6. For a discussion of the link between Britain’s postwar imperial ambition and the cold war, see Kent, “The British Empire and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944-49,” pp. 165-83. 47. Two detailed accounts of Britain’s decision to accord recognition to the People’s Republic of China are Ovendale, “Britain, the United States, and the Recognition of Communist China”; and Wolf, ”‘To Secure a Convenience’: Britain Recognizes China— 1950.” Also see Tang, Britain’s Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949-54, chap. 2. 48. For a comprehensive discussion of the U.S. attitude toward the recognition ques­ tion, see Tucker, Pattern in the Dust. The Anglo-American differences were clearly shown in the exchanges between Bevin and Acheson during a meeting in December 1949; “Memorandum of Conversation by the Secretary of State,” December 8, 1949, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949 9: pp. 219-20; Washington to Foreign Office, De­ cember 8, 1949, PRO, FO 371/75826, F 18418/1023/10. Two more general discussions are MacFarquhar, “The China Problem in Anglo-American Relations”; and Tang, “Alli­ ance under Stress.” 49. Note of meeting between the foreign secretary and Commonwealth ambassadors in Washington, September 16,1949, PRO, FO 371/76024, F 14305/1024/61G. 50. PRO, CAB 129/35, CP/49/120. 51. Dangdai Zhongguo congshu bianjibu, Dangdai Zhongguo waijiao (Contemporary Chinese diplomacy), pp. 12-23. An English edition is available: Diplomacy of Contem­ porary China, pp. 17-18. The original Chinese version of the Sino-British exchanges can be found in Shijie zhizhi chubanshe, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo duiwai guanxi wenjianji (Collected documents on the external relations of the PRC), p. 123. The En­ glish version can be found in PRO, FO 371/83295, FC 1022/518. 52. An official British account can be found in Annex A to Cabinet Paper, April 3, 1950, PRO, CAB 129/39, CP 50/61. See also Wide Angle Press, Xianggang yu Zhongguo (Hong Kong and China), pp. 14-22. 53. Memorandum by the colonial secretary and the minister of state at the Foreign

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Office, April 3, 1950, PRO, CAB 129/39, CP 50/61. 54. Memorandum by the colonial secretary and the minister of state at the Foreign Office, April 3, 1950, PRO, CAB 129/39, CP 50/61. 55. Cabinet meeting, April 6, 1950, PRO, CM 50, nineteenth meeting; Cabinet Paper, April 21, 1950, PRO, CAB 129/39, CP 50/74; Cabinet meeting, April 24, 1950, PRO, CM 50, twenty-fourth meeting. 56. Truman, The Memoirs o f Harry S. Truman, p. 351. 57. Cabinet meeting, June 27, 1950, PRO, CAB 128/17, CM 39/50. The full text of Truman’s statement is in Department o f State Bulletin, July 3, 1950. 58. Chief of staff meeting, June 30, 1950, DEFE, COS 50, 100th meeting, item #1. See also Ovendale, “Britain and the Cold War in Asia,’’ pp. 131-32. 59. UN General Asembly, fifth session, UN doc. A/1799, item 76, pp. 20-21; UN General Assembly, fifth session, supp. 20A R. 500(v), p. 2; Parliamentary Debates (Com­ mons), 5th ser., vol. 489 (1950), cols. 245-52. 60. Shijie zhizhi chubanshe, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo duiwai guanxi wenjianji, 1951-53, p. 27. 61. July 5, 1950, PRO, DEFE 6/13, JP 50/82 (revised final). See also Tsang, Democ­ racy Shelved, p. 117. 62. Grantham, Via Ports, p. 167. 63. Cabinet Paper, “Policy in the Far East,’’ November 24, 1953, PRO, CAB 129/64, C 53/330. 64. Eden, The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden, p. 93. A brief discussion of Britain’s exclusion from ANZUS and the Commonwealth responsibilities in Southeast Asia is in Miller, “The ‘Special Relationship’ in the Pacific,’’ pp. 382-84. One useful book on SEATO is Buszynski, SEATO. 65. Jin, “Zhou zongli guangyu Xianggang zhengce de tanhua—wode huiyilu.’’ 66. For a full account of the Sino-British negotiations on Hong Kong’s future in the 1980s and postwar political developments in Hong Kong, see Scott, Political Change and the Crisis o f Legitimacy in Hong Kong. 67. Christopher Hill, ‘The Historical Background Past and Present in British Foreign Policy.’’ 68. Memorandum by the foreign and colonial secretaries, August 19, 1949, CP 49/177, closed in the PRO, but available in box 57, file 1, Arthur Creech-Jones Papers, Hong Kong, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. 69. See White Paper: The Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong and White Paper: The Further Development of Representative Government: The Way Forward. An account of the debates about introducing direct elections in the Legislative Council in 1988 is in Scott, Political Change and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Hong Kong, pp. 284-98.

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8 The Building Years: Maintaining a China-Hong Kong-Britain Equilibrium, 1950-71 John D. Young

Great disputes took place between him [Sir John Davis] and the community in respect to a registration ordinance passed on 21st August, 1844, under which a charge was fixed for registering all Chinese residents on the Island. The Chi­ nese showed their dislike to the ordinance by leaving in a body for the main­ land. No food nor boats nor anything else could be obtainedfrom them, until after the expiration o f three days and the presentation o f three memorials from the Colonists, Sir Davis cancelled the obnoxious ordinance.. . . In July, 1848, a Chinese cook attempted to poison twenty-five soldiers o f the Royal Artillery.. . . —The Hong Kong Guide, 1893 The Achievements The Communist takeover of China in October 1949 started a new era in the history of modem China. It also helped, albeit indirectly, to determine the direc­ tion and form o f Hong Kong’s postwar development. In the first six months of 1950, more than 700,000 refugees poured into Hong Kong from the mainland. Hong Kong’s population grew from 1.6 million in 1946 to 2.36 million by the end o f 1950; at the end o f 1956, a conservative count put the total figure at 2.5 million. In May 1950 the Hong Kong government had to adopt a quota system at the border, but it quickly proved to be totally ineffective. The newcom­ ers continued to strain Hong Kong society. On Christmas Day 1953, some 53,000 people fell victim to a terrible squatter fire, and the government soon 131

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thereafter embarked on rather ambitious resettlement schemes. Most of the new “migrants” were unskilled laborers whose only assets were a willingness to work and a determination to make their new homes in Hong Kong. Some of them did not even have any idea of where Hong Kong was before their arrival. There were, however, a few who brought with them not just money but a background in industrial-technological know-how. According to one estimate, several billion HK dollars came with the immigrants to Hong Kong during this period; between 1947 and 1949, some 228 Shanghai enterprises transferred their registration to the British Crown Colony. It is certainly not an exaggeration to observe that Hong Kong’s textiles industry basically originated with the newly arrived settlers.1 For the next two decades, between 1950 and 1970, “something of a miracle” emerged, and Hong Kong’s modern infrastructure was completed.2 Stability was more or less guaranteed, and Hong Kong prepared itself for some sort of mega­ status. Prosperity was at hand. To a large extent, the Hong Kong government was responsible for securing the necessary preconditions that helped to turn Hong Kong into one of the world’s leading financial centers. The government’s first target was housing. From 1954, efforts were taken to control the spread of squatters, and massive resettlement estates were built. Thus, by the end of 1970, more than a million people were living in low-cost housing estates, and close to 50 percent of Hong Kong’s total population was housed in government or government-subsidized dwellings. Public health, social, and medical services were quickly developed, although the continuous influx of refugees rendered the improvements inadequate. Free clinics for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases were set up; missionary bodies became heavily involved in the provision of other health and vaccination services. In 1970 there were four hospital beds available for one thousand peo­ ple, as compared with less than two in 1957. The control of drug-related prob­ lems, however, continued to be an uphill battle for the larger community. In education, there were significant accomplishments, especially in terms of offering formal schooling to those who desired it. Compulsory primary education was initiated in 1971; the year before, 983,495 was the total enrollment in all types of schools. In 1970 the University of Hong Kong increased its intake from the prewar figure of 400 to 2,293. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, founded in 1963, reached an enrollment of 1,928 seven years later. There was also a technical institute (now Hong Kong Polytechnic), three colleges of educa­ tion, and other private postsecondary institutions. The government also undertook colossal public projects during this same period. In 1953 the Causeway Bay Reclamation project was completed; 1954 saw the completion of the Central Reclamation; and in 1955 the Hung Horn reclamation began. Reservoirs were built, and the Kai Tak runway was extended. Everywhere there were construction projects. Development was a conscious ef­ fort on the part of the government as well as the populace.

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Perhaps the most spectacular achievements were reached in the nongovern­ ment sectors of economic pursuits. The surplus labor and new industrial opportu­ nities, coupled with an entrepreneurial spirit (and other equally important factors, discussed later), transformed Hong Kong from an entrepot into a manufacturing and export center of the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1950s, 28,000 workers were employed in the textiles industry. In 1960 there were 62,000. In the garment industry during the same period, the number of workers increased from 2,000 to 42,000. Registered factories increased from 2,384 in 1954 to 4,689 in 1959. Despite a world economic slump between 1957 and 1958, Hong Kong’s exports continued to increase significantly.3 Beginning in the 1960s, the government began to help promote more actively Hong Kong’s industrial-manufacturing enterprises. Official trade bodies were organized, and laissez-faire was perhaps a kind of positive support that helped to streamline the process of production and to make doing business easier. Trade unionism was not encouraged. Perhaps this is why foreign investments also grew phenomenally during these two decades. In 1955 there were 328 foreign compa­ nies registered; by 1970, the total stood at 655, with 172 American, 94 British, and 66 Japanese firms. In 1961 almost all the major electronic companies had foreign shares. The major “technology” industries, however, were plastics and toys. In 1960 there were 557 plastic and toy factories, and by 1972 the total had grown to 3,359. By the mid-1960s, minor-electronics production began to pick up speed, and the manufacturing of transistors, televisions, calculators, and watches in­ creased in importance. In the 1960s, the number of Hong Kong’s manufacturing factories rose from 5,346 to 10,478, and the total number of workers increased from 224,400 to 524,400. The per capita GNP increased from HK$1,917 to HK$4,853. At least from an economic viewpoint, Hong Kong could only be considered a successful developing society.4

The Diagnosis Hong Kong’s phenomenal growth is a success story. Indeed, explanations are necessary to help explain a “developmental pattern which has no counterpart in the world.”5 The general consensus among scholars (who give more weight to either the economic or noneconomic factors) is that Hong Kong’s achievements were created fundamentally by its political stability. According to the diagnosis of Lau Siu-kai, Hong Kong’s peculiarity is that “despite rapid economic growth and urbanization, Hong Kong is singularly immune from socio-cultural breakdown or political instability.”6 Such spectacular stability, the golden axiom underlying economic pursuit for any developing society, is probably the result of both design and default. Before we dwell on this point, however, it is important to note that the most generally accepted interpretation seems to be

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this: Hong Kong is politically stable because it is a “depoliticized” society. By now, it is almost a cliché to state that the people of Hong Kong are not politically minded. Political scientist Norman Miners has written that the “apathy of the people of Hong Kong and their passive acceptance of the decisions of the administration is more appropriate to a rural backwater than a thriving industrial metropolis.”7 After all, there is no reason for the Hong Kong government to encourage or arouse public interest or participation, as “China’s benevolent attitude to Hong Kong would be unlikely to continue if the colony made any move toward internal self-government.”8 Furthermore, Miners believes that Hong Kong’s stable situation could be changed by the inclusion of an elected element in the legislature. The elected members would make requests for their supporters, and “the fear of being outbid at the next election would motivate them to go to extremes.”9 Besides, Miners observes, the efficient colonial gov­ ernment machine does keep the system running smoothly.10 What Miners does not explicitly argue, although he implies this, is that due to the lack of political interest on the part of the natives, as well as consideration of the China factor, Hong K ong’s political stability is really the result of the Hong Kong government’s administrative style. Such a view has been endorsed by the research of local sociologists Ambrose King and Lau Siu-kai. In fact, King and Lau, through their careful fieldwork, have reached conclusions that support many of the observations made by Peter Harris, Wong Siu-lun, and others. King identifies a kind of ruling process that he terms “administrative absorption of politics” to explain Hong Kong’s “unique brand of politics.” He defines this administrative technique as “a process by which the government co-opts the political forces, often represented by elite groups, into an administrative decision-making body, thus achieving some level of elite integration; as a consequence, the governing authority is made legitimate, a loosely integrated political community is established.”11 To further elaborate on this concept, King borrows John Fairbank’s “synarchy” approach,12 which the latter used to explain the treaty port system.13 King notes that “the British have, consciously or unconsciously, governed the colony on the synarchical principle by allowing, though limiting, non-British participation in the ruling group.” In­ deed, he concludes that “we are of the opinion that Hong Kong’s political stabil­ ity in the last hundred years could be accounted for primarily by the successful process of the administrative absorption of politics.”14 In his Society and Politics in Hong Kong, Lau Siu-kai states that many of the interpretations outlined above and “currently in vogue” have their own merits, but they suffer from “oversimplicity and weakness in explanatory power.” 15 He also deals with the questions of the China factor, local political apathy, and Hong Kong as a bureaucratic polity— and he does not disagree with any of these “folk theories,” but he advocates a more comprehensive and systematic frame­ work, which he entitles “Hong Kong as a minimally integrated social-political system.”16

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All in all, there are seven particular core features within this minimally inte­ grated social-political system. At the risk of over-simplifying Lau’s findings, I summarize the salient aspects as follows: 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

A bureaucratic polity and a Chinese society coexist with limited linkages and exchanges between them. The bureaucratic polity is dominant in the political sector and defines the basic configuration of the political arena. Hong Kong as a Chinese society is made up of familial groups that function as networks for the exchange of resources among members and are therefore nonpolitical in nature. Both the bureaucratic polity and the Chinese society are “boundary-conscious.” The system can be maintained when society is normatively inclined to be apolitical and the bureaucracy does not pursue “state activism.” Mutual adjustment between polity and society is satisfactory to both sides. The minimally integrated social-political system can contain conflicts because “it is extremely difficult to mobilize the Chinese people in Hong Kong to embark upon a sustained, high-cost political movement.” 17

Lau does not dismiss the presence of a certain degree of social frustration in Hong Kong. He argues, however, that “the normative and structural patterns of Hong Kong’s social-political system are capable of maintaining political stability even if the level of social frustration is higher than what it is now.” This is because of the lack of the “necessary conversion mechanism,” “dominant ideol­ ogy,” and “experience in intense political struggles” and because the Hong Kong Chinese’s decision to come to Hong Kong rather than joining the revolution suggests that “they are a group with particularly strong anti-political feelings.”18 Lau’s approach may be more comprehensive and systematic, but, as he himself acknowledges, he is more concerned with the problem of political stability within Hong Kong itself.19 As it is only too clear that the colony’s ups and downs have often been the work of external factors, it is most difficult to accept Lau’s thesis in its entirety. Most of the explanations offered by Lau and others are convincing arguments, but as those causes for political stability owe their origins to external forces in the first place, they can only be considered as half of the story. Even more important, what is most worrying about the diagnoses of Miners, King, Lau, and some others is that they tend to gloss over the fact that there have been manifestations of political instability in Hong Kong’s postwar development and that many of these problems did compel the government to introduce re­ forms and legislation on a rather grand scale. As a result of the ruling elite’s “willingness” to do something about the popular demands, the 1970s and 1980s enjoyed much more stability than the earlier periods. The thesis of this chapter is therefore twofold: first, the common view that

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Hong Kong has always enjoyed political stability is a historical myth, and sec­ ond, at the same time, the checks and balances created by the presence of a British colonial government, a Communist Chinese regime next door, and a group of people conscious of the political game have generated a historical process that eventually helped to sustain political stability within Hong Kong.

The Problems Writing on proposals for constitutional change in early Hong Kong, such as for the formation of a municipal government, G.B. Endacott argued that the obsta­ cles to change all came from vested interests within the colony;20 there was no China factor. In his latest study on plans for political reform during the Mark Young years, N.J. Miners could not identify any Chinese influence on the final abortiveness of those democratic schemes, although he remarked that “Commu­ nist China could live with a colony ruled by British administrators but would not long have tolerated one which offered opportunities for its political opponents to attain power.”21 Perhaps ironically, the same conclusion was probably reached by the early rulers of postwar Hong Kong, who were convinced that more control of Hong Kong society was necessary in order to contain the possible influence of Chinese politics in Hong Kong. The China factor was at work, but only as a perception insisted on by the colonial administration. Even before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, measures were taken by the government to take steps for self-defense, which included the build­ ing of air-raid shelters, storage of valuables, and strengthening of the police force. The armed forces were increased to more than 30,000 men. In August 1949, the Legislative Council adopted a whole series of special legislation re­ lated to public security. All residents, except for those under twelve years of age, were required to acquire an identity card. The police were given special powers to search domestic premises that might be housing criminals, and any person deemed undesirable could be arrested and deported if the authorities so wished. Registration of societies also became a police responsibility. Such “benevolent paternalism” obviously also spread to other areas of soci­ etal activities. Harold Ingrams, a civil servant, recalls: Early in 1950 I was told that a large proportion of the working classes had insufficient means. Really this means that they could make just sufficient to live.. . . It is sometimes argued that Hong Kong must limit the standard of its social services, first because it cannot pay for them, and secondly because, if they were too good, more population would be attracted from China. Some people reinforce this argument by saying that China would object if Hong Kong’s services were too markedly in advance of those available in China.. . . There seems to me an element of immorality in these arguments.22

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It is virtually impossible to pinpoint a direct correlation between the politi­ cal setup and developments on the socioeconomic front. It cannot be denied, however, that political stability based on benevolent paternalism (Ingrams noted that most unofficial members of the Legislative Council had big business inter­ ests) was invariably coupled with social instability. At the same time, it cannot, and should not, be overlooked that hard statistics show clearly that real growth was achieved throughout the 1960s; in the 1950s the government had had its hands full dealing with the great influx of refugees and other modernization problems. Good progress and real efforts aside, however, Hong Kong society of the 1950s and 1960s did have plenty of grounds for complaint. In studying the problem of tuberculosis, Portia Ho observes: The colony has an average density of 8,000 people per square mile, and in its more thickly populated areas, the average density is 3,000 people per acre___ But mere figures do not tell much. It has to be realized what it really means when “home” for a family of eight means no more than a single bed-space, sandwiched between two others, one above and one below; or when one bedspace has to be shared by three families in rota every twenty-four hours; or when one has to live in the midst of rubbish heaps and permanent stench in the squatter areas; or in a flat where sunlight and fresh air are unknown and which is in danger of collapsing beneath the weight of some twenty families of under-nourished, sallow-faced tenants.23 In his study of urban housing problems between 1945 and 1963, Leo Goodstadt made the following observation: “If the general standards of housing were better, there would be less inducement for people to become squatters. When the difference between conditions in conventional housing and those of squatter huts is so small, it is no wonder that people are willing to flee from high rents to wooden shacks. I am only surprised that the number of squatters is not increasing at a faster rate.”24 On top of the pressures of urban overcrowding, growing disparity between rich and poor, and a sense of frustration caused by rising expectations, the average Hong Kong worker during this period was working more than ten hours per day, seven days per week. Joe England and John Rear have argued that “even by Asian standards Hong Kong workers in the late 1960s spent inordi­ nately long hours at work.”25 Ample studies on the labor situation in Hong Kong have demonstrated that conditions were perhaps even worse, as often times the government chose not to prosecute employers who ignored the existing labor regulations.26 Social instability was more than ready to spill over into the political sphere. With the benefit of hindsight, the commission on the Kowloon disturbances (1966) made the following assessment in early 1967, before the outbreak of another major riot:

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It is obvious that the pressures due to overcrowding in the twin cities of Victoria and Kowloon, combined with the hard struggle for a living, which is increased by the need for many of the population to assist families in China in addition to their own dependents in Hong Kong, the lack of homogeneity in the population and the underlying insecurity of life in the Colony, resulting from international political and economic conditions, create tensions which elsewhere would be more than sufficient cause for frequent disturbances.27 Without any direct political power or influence, the workers had few opportu­ nities to make their own choices. With further deteriorating conditions and enough external stimulus, however, sooner or later, some of the people of Hong Kong would be ready for political action. The irony is that even after the mani­ festations of internal instability, the workers were faced with reactions such as this one, allegedly made by Dr. (now Sir) S.Y. Chung: “If we have too many holidays a year, our workers will start having heart diseases.”28

The Manifestations Riots and disturbances are essentially political actions, with little or no organiza­ tion. In the case of Hong Kong, almost all the postmortems stress that they were of a nonpolitical nature, in the sense that no organized, systematic efforts were involved, except perhaps for certain aspects of the 1967 riot. Even this m iniCultural Revolution exercise was related to “outside political matters.”29 One fallacy of this argument is obvious enough: the people involved in these illegal activities were, by and large, Hong Kong residents. The March 1 Incident of 1952 is a case in point. A huge crowd gathered around the Tsimshatsui-Jordan Road area to meet with a delegation from Canton that had been sent to meet with victims of a fire disaster. The delegates were stopped at Fanling and sent back to China. On hearing this news, the crowd started a confrontation with the police. More than a hundred people were ar­ rested, and one textile worker was shot to death. Eighteen people were sen­ tenced, and twelve were deported. This was a small-scale disturbance to say the least, but the matter became “political” when Ta Kung Pao picked up the story and reprinted an editorial from the People's Daily denouncing the Hong Kong government’s actions. The left-wing newspaper was ordered to stop publication for six months. By comparison, the 1956 riot in Kowloon was much more serious in scale and destruction. At this time, the authorities were not concerned so much with politi­ cal apathy as with too much or too little support for either the Communist or Nationalist government locally. Fires and lootings started on the afternoon of October 9, and fights soon transformed into wanton killings. Allegedly, the confrontation started because of a question of Nationalist flags being tom down by other factions, but, in the end, casualties were in the hundreds. The Swiss

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vice-council and his wife were attacked in their car around the Taipo area; the latter died from her bums three days later. The driver was killed at the scene. These earlier riots can be attributed to external influences in the sense that the loyalties of the people involved lay outside Hong Kong. The people involved either were still committed to a high degree of nationalism or were still part of the struggle between Chinese Communists and Nationalists. The 1966 riot, however, was clearly of Hong Kong origin, initiated by young men who were brought up in Hong Kong and who were clearly unhappy with the Star Ferry Company’s decision to raise fares by five cents. At a microlevel, specific reasons can be offered to help explain the riot’s appearance in a suppos­ edly “depoliticized” situation. For example, one theory was that the rioters were paid by the Communists; another theory was that the police had organized the riots in order to embarrass some liberals in Hong Kong; another theory argued that an urban council member had “incited” the riot in order to discredit the police. The government chose to believe that the problem was created by a lack of communication between the people and the Star Ferry Company. As far as can be ascertained, the 1966 riot has never been fully studied (one of the youth leaders ended up in a mental hospital and another one committed suicide), and some scholars believe it was basically a social problem that did not involve the government.30 Such an open defiance of authority, though, as dem­ onstrated by the youths who marched in the streets without police permission, was nothing less than a political challenge—perhaps not against the five-cent increase, but rather against a system that was perceived as increasingly oppres­ sive and unjust (as some of the slogans seem to verify). The commission set up to study the 1966 riot did see some possible remedies, but, before any specific recommendations could be made, Hong Kong witnessed the largest riot in its modem history. Ironically, the 1967 riot eventually removed some of the heat generated by the riot the year before, and, as it became more and more Communist controlled, the Hong Kong population lent its support to the British-Hong Kong government (as it was called by the rioters). From the very beginning, workers’ demands and frustrations were genuinely caused by real grievances. In January 1967, the Hong Kong Seamen’s Union, the vanguard of the 1922 strike, demanded compensation from the Dutch Royal Interocean Lines on behalf of a Chinese sailor shot and wounded by his Euro­ pean captain. Even before this confrontation was resolved, factory brawls broke out in Tsuen Wan, at the Nam Fung Textile Mill, between management and workers. Soon disputes over wages and working hours led to fistfights at the Hung Horn works of the Green Island Cement Company. At the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works at San Po Kong, workers became very agitated when the owners imposed new rules and regulations—a two-shift system on a twentyfour-hour basis, deduction of pay when machines broke down, and no absence during working hours regardless of reasons. On May 11, police were called in to the factories to stop the strikes and demonstrations; by summer, bombings began

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to occur. In August, bombs were planted on ferries and public vehicles, in tram and railway stations, and randomly at busy street corners. The terror culminated in the assassination of an antileft-wing radio announcer, who was burned to death in his car on August 24. As my own research has indicated, the demise of the rioters and the end of the disturbances have more to do with events in China than with any other single factor.31 It is also true, however, that while the bombings and violence began to take on other meanings (that had nothing to do with labor disputes), Hong Kong’s population gave its support to the government and, at the same time, denounced the left-wing groups—but not the workers who had started the trou­ bles in early 1967. Paradoxically, as the riots continued, the Hong Kong government seemed to become aware of its role as the “father and mother” of the Hong Kong people and attempted a massive campaign to seek support from various sectors of the society. Loyalty bonuses and overtime pay were authorized for government em­ ployees. Government Information Services announced notices to dispel rumors. Interestingly enough, the story of a well-known leftist leader arriving at a mass rally in his Mercedes was given wide publicity throughout the territory. The abrupt end of the 1967 riot has been analyzed in great length; studies of the Chinese Cultural Revolution have given us many answers.32 What requires some explanation is how the riots could begin with such momentum and inten­ sity. Even with the best organizational abilities, without real grievances and dissatisfactions it is difficult to imagine that the Hong Kong workers would be unduly influenced by higher causes. Their political actions were designed for practical gains rather than higher ideals, which had little to do with their daily existence. In other words, labor conditions must have become extremely unbear­ able by the late 1960s, so much so that the workers were ready to seize any “political behavior” available to express their discontent. What is revealing about the 1967 riot is the simple truth it has helped to manifest: in this encounter, there were clearly three parties involved. The people of Hong Kong saw themselves as a community, separate from their BritishHong Kong government, but also separate from their Chinese motherland. The people of Hong Kong might not have any institutionalized political power, but they knew their actions could have some impact (however small) on the treat­ ment they received from either China or the British-Hong Kong government.

The Relationships Despite criticisms of some of the emergency regulations33 enforced during the riots, the majority of the Hong Kong people were clearly alienated by the Communists’ “cause.” Perhaps for the first time in Hong Kong’s recent history, the inhabitants believed that the British-Hong Kong government was “their” government; their passive resistance to the Red menace contributed signifi­ cantly to Hong Kong’s stability.

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Before 1967, however, the relationship between Britain and China over Hong Kong was conditioned by British national interests, which, ironically, reacted more to Chinese national interests than to the needs of the colony. Paradoxically, because of the Chinese government’s inability (for various reasons) to recover sovereignty during this postwar era, it decided to keep a keen eye on Hong Kong affairs, sometimes issuing official statements related to domestic matters. Thus, in so many ways, the Hong Kong government was receiving pressures from the British government as well as from the socialist government next door. In m id-1949, Hong Kong was referred to as the “Gibraltar of the East” and the “Berlin of the East” by British officials. The minister of defense also took precautions to strengthen Hong Kong’s internal and external defenses. The Brit­ ish Parliament, nonetheless, was for diplomatic recognition, as indicated by Churchill’s remark, “The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience.”34 Clearly, Britain had its own national interests in mind, but Hong Kong was also part of the overall consideration.35 The first Sino-British impasse that involved Hong Kong was over previously Nationalist-owned aircraft grounded in Hong Kong since November 1949. The Nationalists claimed that those aircraft had already been sold to an American company, whereas Zhou Enlai reportedly insisted that “such a sacred property right of the Central People’s government should be respected by the Hong Kong government.”36 What is relevant for discussion here is not so much the outcome of the dispute but the fact that workers and unionists who supported the Chinese claim entered into a skirmish with the Hong Kong police when they heard that the American firm had won the case. The historical occasion deemed that Hong Kong could not help but be involved in the Sino-British encounter. On April 11, 1955, an Indian airliner carrying Chinese and North Vietnamese officials heading toward Djakarta exploded in mid air; the plane had taken off from Kai Tak Airport. The People's Daily (May 28, 1955) accused Nationalist agents of the crime and expressed its satisfaction that the Hong Kong govern­ ment was doing everything possible to capture the responsible party. After Grantham visited Beijing in October of the same year, he told reporters that Zhou Enlai had asked about the progress of the Hong Kong government’s inves­ tigation.37 The Taiwan problem, however, continued to affect Chinese-Hong Kong relations. In 1956 and 1958, two Taiwan jet fighters landed in Hong Kong after being engaged in dogfights with Communist planes. In both cases, the Chinese Foreign Ministry lodged complaints when it was discovered that the planes and personnel involved were returned to Taiwan. From the end of the 1956 riots to the outbreak of the 1967 disturbance, when the domestic situations in both China and Hong Kong became gradually more stabilized, relations between the two regions generally improved. Beginning in 1959, Hong Kong exports to China scaled up considerably; Hong Kong was to be of some economic use to China (see Table 8.1). In 1963, in response to criticisms made by American Communists, the

142

HONG KONG BETWEEN CHINA AND BRITAIN

Table 8.1

Visible Trade between Hong Kong and China (HK $million) Hong Kong exports to China

Year 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970

Domestic exports Reexports

__ __ __ __ ___ __

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

9 13 8 8 8 13 18 15 6 9 7 30

105 107 91 77 62 47 54 54 42 36 30 34

__

Hong Kong imports from China

Total

Goods

1,260 1,604 520 540 391 182 136 123 156 114 120 99 85 70 60 72 69 48 45 37 64

782 863 830 857 692 898 1,038 1,131 1,397 1,034 1,185 1,028 1,213 1,487 1,970 2,322 2,769 2,282 2,429 2,700 2,830

Water

___ __ __ __ ___ ___ __ __ ___ 1 2 1 1 10 14 17 17 17 16

Total

Hong Kong trade balano

782 863 830 857 692 898 1,038 1,131 1,397 1,034 1,185 1,029 1,215 1,488 1,971 2,322 2,783 2,299 2,446 2,717 2,846

+478 +741 -310 -