Hong Kong in The Cold War

Hong Kong
in the
Cold War
Edited by
Priscilla Roberts and John M. Carroll
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Hong Kong in the Cold War
Edited by Priscilla Roberts and John M. Carroll
Hong Kong University Press
he University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
www.hkupress.org
© 2016 Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 978-988-8208-00-5 (Hardback)
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any infor-
mation storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound by Paramount Printing Co., Ltd. in Hong Kong, China
In Memory of
Tracy Lee Steele
(1960–2015)
Beloved Daughter and Sister
Inspiring Teacher
Passionate Scholar
Wonderful Friend
Contents
List of Images ix
List of Figures x
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xii
Hong Kong’s Twentieth Century: he Global Setting 1

Wang Gungwu
Prologue
Cold War Hong Kong: he Foundations 15
Priscilla Roberts
Chapter 1
Cold War Hong Kong: Juggling Opposing Forces and Identities 26
Priscilla Roberts
Chapter 2
Hong Kong’s Enduring Global Business Relations 60
David R. Meyer
Chapter 3
Hong Kong and the Cold War in the 1950s 92
Tracy Steele
Chapter 4
he American Cold War in Hong Kong, 1949–1960: Intelligence and
Propaganda 117
Lu Xun
Chapter 5
Crisis and Opportunity: he Work of Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals
(ARCI) in Hong Kong and Beyond 141
Glen Peterson
viii Contents
Chapter 6
Hong Kong as an International Tourism Space: he Politics of American
Tourism in the 1960s 160
Chi-Kwan Mark
Chapter 7
“Reel Sisters” and Other Diplomacy: Cathay Studios and Cold War Cultural
Production 183
Stacilee Ford
Chapter 8
Hong Kong as a Global Frontier: Interface of China, Asia, and the World 211
Prasenjit Duara
Aterword
Cold War Hong Kong: A Path to the Future? 231
Priscilla Roberts
List of Contributors 239

Index 243
Images
0.1 Lok Ma Chau border crossing, 1966 22

1.1 USS Hornet and escort, 1960s 27
1.2 Refugee family, early 1960s 33
1.3 Struggle between letists and police, 1967 34
1.4 Governor Sir Alexander Grantham, Sir Lindsay Ride, Lady Maurine
Grantham, and Lady Violet May Ride 37
1.5 Publicity still, he World of Suzie Wong (1960) 50
1.6 Lo Wu border crossing, c. 1960 53
2.1 Victoria Harbour, c. 1965 72
3.1 US consulate general, Hong Kong, early 1960s 98
4.1 Newspaper vendor, Tsim Sha Tsui, 1970 133
5.1 Young refugee and CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to
Everywhere) packages, 1958 144
6.1 USS Hornet, Victoria Harbour, 1960s 161
6.2 Lockhart Road, Wanchai, 1960s 167
6.3 Lockhart Road, Wanchai, 1960s 171
6.4 US serviceman in rickshaw, 1960s 173
6.5 Star House, Tsim Sha Tsui, 1974 177
7.1 Scenes from Mambo Girl (1957) 185
7.2 For Better, For Worse (1959) 199
7.3 Between Tears and Laughter (1960) 201
7.4 Father Takes a Bride (1963) 203
8.1 Tourists at Lok Ma Chau border crossing, 1968 212
8.2 Star House, Tsim Sha Tsui, 1968 216
8.3 Protesters outside Government House, 1967 218
9.1 Women stringing barbed wire along the border to deter refugees, 1962 232
Figures
2.1 Manufacturing in Hong Kong, 1950–85 68

2.2 Number of employees in selected manufactures in Hong Kong, 1950–85 69
2.3 Real GDP of Hong Kong, 1948–67 70
2.4 Real deposits and real assets of Hong Kong banks, 1954–72 71
Tables
2.1 Regional headquarters by region and country/territory of parent

company, 2010 and 2014 74
2.2 Exports, imports, and net exports of all services by region, 2003
and 2013 76
4.1 USIS Hong Kong distribution of air shipments, 1949–52 137
Acknowledgments
Most of the chapters in this volume are based on papers originally delivered at an
international workshop entitled “Hong Kong in the Global Setting,” held at the
University of Hong Kong in January 2011. his was one of the earliest events organ-
ized to mark the university’s centenary. We are grateful for the inancial support that
meeting received from the Louis Cha Fund for East-West Studies of the Faculty of
Arts of the University of Hong Kong, and from the Lee Hysan Foundation. Without
the dedication and hard work of several administrative staf in the university, notably
Mr. Andy Leung of the Department of History and Ms. Karen Leung and Mrs. Iris Ng
of the School of Humanities, it would have been impossible to run the workshop.
We are equally grateful for the support this volume has received from Hong Kong
University Press, and especially for the helpful comments of two unidentiied
outside readers. Tim Ko has been extremely generous in allowing us to use some of
his large collection of historical photographs of Hong Kong. To all, our thanks and
appreciation.
Hong Kong’s Twentieth Century
he Global Setting
Wang Gungwu
Viewing Hong Kong from the perspective of its global setting is an exceptionally
fruitful exercise. Hong Kong is one of the few places in world history that came into
being on the edge of an irresistible globalization process that is still continuing. It is
a story of growth and change shaped by a modern empire. he British Empire, at its
height for most of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth
century, was the most physically global entity in the world. his volume recognizes
that, while taking the long view to bring the story beyond the era of empires down
to the present when dramatic changes are taking place in Asia, especially in China.
It is a good moment to look back and outline some of the ways that Hong Kong has
responded to those changes.
he premise from which I begin is that globalization is not new. Hong Kong in the
nineteenth century was at a stage when many adventurous people sought to travel
long distances for livelihood or proit, or just out of curiosity. Earlier stages of glo-
balization saw diferent forces at work when diferent peoples dominated each stage
of growth. Globalization was not neutral. It was never faceless. What was global
changed direction and shape over time. hus what was global for Hong Kong during
the nineteenth century was the British imperium. hat setting was reengineered by
the superpowers of the second half of the twentieth century when, for Hong Kong, the
global became American. hat condition is on the verge of changing again, but what
it will become is yet to be determined. And as Prasenjit Duara suggests, Hong Kong
may have its own contributions to make to that process.
I will also suggest that lesser or peripheral global settings existed on another level
and that, during the twentieth century, Hong Kong served as the center of an informal
global framework for Chinese who moved in from China and out to diferent parts
of the world as well as those who returned through Hong Kong. his framework was
itself global. It was thin but resilient and adjusted to many factors of global change,
including the winding down of the British Empire and the rise of new superpowers.1
It consisted of networks that adapted to the economic and technological advances
1. David R. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
2 Wang Gungwu
channeled by overseas Chinese and others through Hong Kong. I will focus on those
of twentieth-century Hong Kong, especially on eforts to extend their reach and link
China with the outside world. heir activities can be seen in how the Chinese passed
from an earlier British globalism to one characterized by Cold War constraints. he
global processes that afected them are now producing a more Chinese setting.
Hong Kong Chinese were quick to use Anglo-imperial globalization for their
own purposes. While some Chinese settled in Hong Kong, most of their compatriots
sojourned there for short periods on their way out to other lands or on their way from
stays abroad to return to their respective towns and villages in China. All of them
knew that the world was large and the opportunities outside China were better than
those at home. For most of them, the idea of globalization was not new or strange. But
how they operated in that setting was largely unfocused, consisting of long, dreary
voyages in pursuit of gold, trade, and backbreaking livelihoods mixed with the urge
for new adventures.2
Here, I will look closely at three periods of twentieth-century globalization. he
irst decades began for China with eight foreign expeditionary armies marching from
Tianjin to teach the imperial Qing court a lesson for supporting the Boxer rebels. he
second period came ater 1949, when the great drama of the Communist revolution
was enacted in China and caused far-reaching changes to the Hong Kong environ-
ment. he third period is the inal two decades when Hong Kong was given a time-
table to prepare for its return to China in 1997. his essay will examine how the
three periods mark steps along the road toward a Chinese global setting.
Following the Qing court’s decision to support the Boxer rebels in their xenopho-
bic outburst, the Chinese in Hong Kong could sense that something ominous was
under way, and they watched as global opinion turned decisively against the Chinese
state. he news of the siege of Beijing (Peking) was reported daily in every newspaper,
and the established Chinese families of Hong Kong would have agreed with the poet
William Wordsworth when he said, “he world was too much with us.” Suddenly the
great Qing Empire looked weak, and the idea that China had “laid waste its powers”
was likely to have passed through their minds. All this was hurtful, but the hard times
ahead also indicated that opportunities for change were available.
Let me now turn to the irst two decades when the Chinese state was falling
apart. Hong Kong Chinese experienced a sense of despair as well as hopes for regime
2. Elizabeth Sinn, “Hong Kong as an In-between Place in the Chinese Diaspora, 1849–1939,” in Connecting
Seas and Connected Ocean Rims: Indian, Atlantic, and Paciic Oceans and China Seas Migrations from the
1830s to the 1930s, ed. Donna R. Gabaccia and Dirk Hoerder (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2011), 225–47;
and Elizabeth Sinn, Paciic Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013).
change.3 But they were far from much of the action, and theirs was largely a transient
society. Many were merchants who made their fortunes through the British port and
the extensive commercial networks that connected it to large parts of the empire.4 he
majority, however, were working men and women who sought opportunities to earn
a more secure living outside China. Some had enjoyed for decades the freedom to
go through Hong Kong to cross the oceans in every direction. For them, it was time
for the Manchu aristocrats to go and time for the mandarin class to agonize over the
future of its outworn system of government. he Chinese people had to struggle to
get on with their lives. But the feeble government in Beijing had greatly weakened
their trading and working positions. To give one example, Chinese enterprises that
tried to modernize by investing in industry and manufacturing, both in Hong Kong
and in its nearest metropolis, Guangzhou (Canton), fared badly in the face of cheap
imports from abroad. Equally, those Chinese bound to go overseas to work discov-
ered that the weak Chinese government was unable to prevail on foreign powers to
remove the racially discriminatory barriers that were erected against them.
he prevailing feeling of the Hong Kong Chinese, therefore, was frustration and
anger. Traditional channels of protest no longer suiced to convey their demands, and
many sought new kinds of organizations to harness the rising fury. In came political
parties that began to gain wide attention. Kang Youwei’s Baohuang Hui (Society for
the Protection of the Emperor), for example, founded ater the failure of the Hundred
Days’ Reform in 1898, ofered to take up the cause of Chinese industrial irms
through acts of economic nationalism. Another was Sun Yat-sen’s Tongmeng Hui
(Revolutionary League) that concentrated on political nationalism and the increasingly
more attractive cause of jettisoning the Manchu dynasty altogether. Understandably,
the established merchant groups tended to support the former while the younger and
poorer working classes found the latter more appealing. What was remarkable was
that these parties were actively linked across international boundaries.
Both groups were stimulated by global connections, notably with students and
merchants in Japan. China’s sad condition awakened a new generation of activists
among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, North America, Australasia, and
South Africa. heir organizations remind us that, beneath the large global canvas of
the British Empire, a small Chinese version of global linkages was taking shape. hey
made use of Hong Kong as a location, but they did not depend on the British. hus,
the causes of opposing unfair competition and labor discrimination received support
from students and associations not only in Asia but also among those on three other
continents. Of these, the cause of racial discrimination received most attention in the
3. Stephanie Po-yin Chung, Chinese Business Groups in Hong Kong and Political Change in South China,
1900–25 (London: Macmillan, 1998).
4. Takeshi Hamashita, “China and Hong Kong in the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries,” in China, East Asia and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives, ed. Linda Grove
and Mark Selden (London: Routledge, 2008), 145–66.
4 Wang Gungwu
United States, but a similar awareness encouraged communities far apart to share
their feelings and led them to act in concert.5 here were even signs that Chinese
sailors working on European ships were learning about the international brother-
hood of labor. hese various examples did not imply any great unity of purpose. he
links were still fragile. But they represented a development of group actions that were
tied to the global links of Hong Kong. Insofar as the phenomenon afected all classes
of Chinese, Hong Kong at the mouth of the Pearl River delta had begun to shape a
Chinese global setting as no other port could.6
he events leading to the 1911 revolution, the collapse of the traditional Chinese
polity, and the confusing state of the new republic all had an impact on Hong Kong.7
But the British globalism that sheltered Hong Kong also provided a secure base
for a lesser Chinese globalism to play its role. hroughout the decades before the
Sino-Japanese War of 1937, Hong Kong was the place to which Chinese could turn
if and when they wished to reach out or return home. And this was not true only
in the realm of capital, labor, and markets. In the ield of education, the University
of Hong Kong provides a itting example. I will not consider here whether that uni-
versity was established primarily in response to a changing China or to meet the
needs of Britain or Hong Kong. he new university established on the eve of the fall
of the dynastic system of China was a clear symbol of the British global presence.
It ofered an outreach facility at a time not just of Chinese nationalist awakening but
also of extended links among the Chinese merchants and working classes outside
China. In its early decades, the university was justiied not merely as an institution
that served local needs. It set out to provide modern education to select groups of
students from China, and it also attracted a sizable number of young Chinese from
overseas, especially from British territories in Southeast Asia. hus, the university’s
British global outlook did not shape the lives of Hong Kong Chinese so much as
enhance the linkages between and among China and overseas Chinese that added
another dimension to the Chinese global consciousness that was emerging.8
he second period began in 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took
power. his was only four years ater the Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist government
in Nanjing had tried to claim its share of the fruits of the Allied military victory at
5. Jung-fang Tsai, Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842–1913
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
6. Michael Williams, “Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta Qiaoxiang,” Modern Asian Studies 38 (2) (May
2004): 257–82.
7. Chan Lau Kit-ching, China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895–1945 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press,
1990).
8. Chan Lau Kit-ching and Peter Cunich, eds., An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from Foundation to
Re-establishment, 1910–1950 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2002); and Peter Cunich, A History of
the University of Hong Kong: Volume 1, 1911–1945 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012).
the end of the Second World War. As a partner in the new postwar global dispensa-
tion that hinged on the Cold War struggle for dominance, China had stepped up
onto an unexpectedly high platform from which to inluence world afairs.9 From
the point of view of Hong Kong, this globalization was primarily based on wealth
that came readily from the United States across the Paciic Ocean. For at least three
decades ater 1945, massive lows of money and arms arrived in East and Southeast
Asia to support a variety of causes. hey included contributions to revive the defeated
Japanese Empire and preserve the Nationalist regime, irst in Nanjing and then in
Taipei, as well as development funds to help nation building in the former colonies of
the region. By this time, hundreds of thousands of refugees from China were pouring
into Hong Kong, an inlux that was to continue of and on for decades.10 he Chinese
who came set out to ind new paths to survival and prosperity not only in the colony
but also well beyond.11 heir push past the usual immigrant countries to the edges
of the globe was remarkable. Within a couple of decades, that generation of Chinese
could be found in countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that had not in the
past been destinations for Chinese. hose who chose to remain found that their fates
were closely linked to the Cold War and that Hong Kong had become a frontline city
in terms of the West’s interest in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It was both a
window through which the West could monitor what was happening and a conduit
that China could use to reach out and keep in touch with the outside world. Under
the circumstances, Chinese people learned to function under the radar screen, and
Hong Kong provided a convenient meeting place for all those who wanted to be more
actively engaged with one another.
he developments that led to two world wars have received great attention from
historians. Ater the end of the Second World War, Hong Kong survived not only the
Japanese occupation but also the interest of both Nationalists and Communists in
regaining territory the two parties alike concurred had been wrongfully taken from
China. his brief essay will not seek to deal with all the ramiications of these territo-
rial conlicts for postwar Hong Kong. First, let us focus on Hong Kong’s role in medi-
ating between China and the overseas Chinese. For decades before 1949, in the face
of other global developments, the Chinese abroad had been asked to be patriotic and
actively support political and economic progress in China. Such appeals were sharply
intensiied when they were called upon to become engaged in the salvation of the
9. Gary Catron, “Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955–60,” China Quarterly 51 (July–September
1972): 405–24.
10. Chi-Kwan Mark, “he ‘Problem of People’: British Colonials, Cold War Powers, and the Chinese Refugees in
Hong Kong, 1949–62,” Modern Asian Studies 41 (6) (November 2007): 1145–81; and Glen Peterson, “To Be
or Not to Be a Refugee: he International Politics of the Hong Kong Refugee Crisis, 1949–55,” Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 (2) (June 2006): 171–95.
11. Siu-lun Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University
Press, 1988).
6 Wang Gungwu
motherland in the face of the Japanese invasions between 1937 and 1945. Diferent
groups of activists worked hard to draw together the widely dispersed Chinese com-
munities on all continents to commit themselves to the national cause. he records of
KMT branches around the world illustrate very well the close relationships between
party and state representatives within each community and their respective links
with a wide range of overseas Chinese institutions, especially ater 1928 when the
Nationalists seized power in Nanjing.
Hong Kong Chinese were thus directly involved in the struggles by all rival politi-
cal parties, but, as the revolution and other developments moved north and into the
interior of China, their inluence became smaller compared to their counterparts
in such cities as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing. But they were never free from the
cause of nationalism or that of internationalism. Ater 1945, an extraordinary series
of shrewd decisions kept Hong Kong in British hands.12 For a while, the uncertainties
concerning Hong Kong’s future let all on tenterhooks. he mass of refugees aggra-
vated the problems of governance facing the Hong Kong authorities. he strategic
importance of the city along what became a Cold War fault line has also received much
attention.13 he intelligence agencies of the Anglo-American nexus operated there
throughout the decades, within shouting distance of innumerable mainland and
Taiwan underground units. With unfaltering determination, the Hong Kong govern-
ment irmly insisted that they all acted with discretion and, except for the Cultural
Revolution spillover in the late 1960s, Hong Kong as a commercial hub seemed to
function much as before.14
But changes were occurring. In this new global setting, issues of refugee intake,
antidiscrimination legislation, and ultimately the assurance of political and demo-
cratic rights were added to the basic needs of commerce and livelihood. here thus
grew a diferent awareness of the Chinese global outlook. his time, it involved a
larger number of long-term residents who had settled and saw themselves as a new
kind of Hong Kong people.15 With a new consciousness of home, they sought to
ind their own distinctive place among those who were locked in battle between the
slogans of Communist social justice and the attractions of capitalist freedoms.
12. Wm. Roger Louis, “Hong Kong: he Critical Phase, 1945–1949,” American Historical Review 102 (4)
(October 1997): 1052–84.
13. For example, Chi-Kwan Mark, “Lack of Means or Loss of Will? he United Kingdom and the Decolonization
of Hong Kong, 1957–1967,” International History Review 31 (1) (March 2009): 45–71; and James T. H. Tang,
“From Empire Defence to Imperial Retreat: Britain’s Postwar China Policy and the Decolonization of
Hong Kong,” Modern Asian Studies 28 (2) (May 1994): 317–37.
14. Catherine R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Emergence and Development 1945–65
(London: Routledge, 2001).
15. Gordon Mathews, “Heunggongyahn: On the Past, Present, and Future of Hong Kong Identity,” Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars 29 (3) (1997): 3–13; and Hugh D. Baker, “Social Change in Hong Kong: Hong Kong
Man in Search of Majority,” in Greater China: he Next Superpower, ed. David Shambaugh (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995): 212–25.
he perspectives of people who identiied strongly with Hong Kong added novel
dimensions to the outlook and thinking of Chinese outside China. hese gained cred-
ibility when most Chinese reacted against what happened in China during the Great
Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Large numbers crossed into Hong Kong,
and political views became more diverse. Many openly rejected the internationalist
global vision that the CCP had ofered. In fact, during the 1960s, it became obvious that
what the PRC stood for was a more isolationist China rather than a progressive step
toward global integration.16 In the face of that, many Hong Kong Chinese held irm to
what survived of an older British global presence, while others shited toward the
American side of the global Cold War. At the same time, among the Chinese overseas,
the pressure to adopt new nationalities in their respective countries of residence was
strong. hose with new identities tended to accept the global setting the way their
adopted nations did. he vast majority had made their homes in countries on the
American side of the Cold War. It was signiicant that Chinese were not welcome in
those states under Communist or socialist rule so that, almost by deinition, overseas
Chinese who did not return to China were likely to see the global setting in liberal
capitalist terms. And more of them turned to global commerce and professions that
were tied closely to what might be seen as an American global outlook.
he actions of the Beijing and Taipei parties and governments were still relevant.
heir respective senior oicials sought out these Chinese and wooed them in the
name of a single legitimate China. hese actions had many dimensions, meaning that
they also inluenced the direction and volume of remittances and investments, the
social links with religious and cultural festivals, and the rival expressions of cultural
authenticity and identiication. One important feature in this rivalry was that the
more open Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan was able to ofer accessible educa-
tion in schools and colleges providing qualiications that enjoyed the advantage of
accreditation in some parts of the anti-Communist world. In addition, the two waged
battles in such areas as publications, art exhibitions, ilms, and stage performances,
for example, where Taiwan could compete efectively. For around three decades fol-
lowing 1949, most of these manifestations of rivalry and outreach were channeled
through Hong Kong.
Hong Kong nonetheless retained its unique position for Chinese both inside and
outside China. he city was not under Chinese rule. Its people were not, unlike the
Chinese overseas everywhere else, subject to sovereign states or new nations emerg-
ing out of colonialism expecting loyalty. And they enjoyed the unusual advantage
of living under a British view of global linkages that was deliberately liberal and
undemanding. In addition, despite the limitations imposed by the Cold War, many of
16. Gary Ka-wai Cheung, Hong Kong’s Watershed: he 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2009); and William Heaton, “Maoist Revolutionary Strategy and Modern Colonialism: he Cultural
Revolution in Hong Kong,” Asian Survey 10 (9) (September 1970): 35–49.
8 Wang Gungwu
them could, if they wished, still choose to be active in either the American spheres of
a global market economy or in the Soviet Russian orbit under professed internation-
alists who were largely controlled by various Communist Parties.
As this exceptional position developed, Hong Kong became, more by default than
by any speciic efort, the heart of a Chinese global outlook that was only just below
the surface of Cold War concerns. As suggested earlier, this was not a new phenom-
enon. he colony had long served as a center for a range of people and products with
the potential to deine how a new Chinese global consciousness might take shape.
When British interests shited in the late nineteenth century to Shanghai and Chinese
interests blossomed along the Yangzi valley, Hong Kong had been let on the periph-
ery of one of the most dynamic of global economic developments. From the 1950s
onward, however, it had become the only place where the pull of global ties could be
exercised openly on all Chinese who had any dealings with eastern Asia.
Hong Kong was the locale where competition for support by the Republic of China
in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China could occur at several levels. Both sides
could freely disseminate information and disinformation and seek to reach out to
as many Chinese as possible. It was where Chinese from diferent continents could
openly share their views and distribute their largesse into China with little constraint.
Hong Kong played this role with increasing subtlety and sophistication.17 Its many
kinds of Chinese were able to dispense products that were commercial and indus-
trial, political and ideological, and also communal and spiritual, cultural, artistic, and
intellectual. In so doing, the city was actually encouraging a strong sense of common-
ality of being Chinese without identifying with the Chinese nation. One hesitates to
term this a manifestation of “cultural China,” but the sense of ethnic consciousness
unburdened by national loyalties, either to the governments of China or to the coun-
tries of which they were nationals, enabled a global persona that attracted attention
among Chinese everywhere, including those on the mainland.18 It was in this context
that Hong Kong could become an international city unlike any other. It was a city
that ultimately could not be conined to following criteria set by others elsewhere and
a city that, through the vast networks of the Chinese overseas that depended on it,
could deine a secondary level of globalization that was peculiar to the city and at the
same time recognizably Chinese.
he role of the University of Hong Kong during this period deserves at least brief
mention. When it was decided to revive the university ater the Second World War, the
17. John M. Carroll, “Contested Colony: Hong Kong, the 1949 Revolution, and the ‘Taiwan Problem,’” in Critical
Zone 3, ed. Douglas Kerr, Q. S. Tong, and Wang Shouren (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press; Nanjing:
Nanjing University Press, 2008), 75–93; Cindy Yik-yi Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists:
1937–1997 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); and Christine Loh, Underground Front: he Chinese
Communist Party in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010).
18. Bernard Hung-kay Luk, “Chinese Culture in the Hong Kong Curriculum: Heritage and Colonialism,”
Comparative Education Review 35 (4) (November 1991): 650–68.
University of Hong Kong came to be identiied at last as Hong Kong’s own university,
one that gave priority to the needs of the people of Hong Kong. It could not satisfy all
the Chinese who had crossed into Hong Kong when the Second World War ended.
Even ater the Communist takeover in 1949, there were still those in Hong Kong who
looked to China to send their children for study. But as events unfolded, that desire
was diminished, and calls for a local university that could better serve the Chinese
became stronger. his was not a narrow nationalist call. It was one that showed aware-
ness that a British global outlook was no longer preeminent. It was therefore not
surprising that those Chinese who had long been connected with institutions on
the mainland and Taiwan and with universities in the United States would turn to
American models. hat the Chinese University of Hong Kong sought in the 1960s to
do this relected an increasingly conident sense of the global opportunities available
at that time. he Hong Kong government’s acceptance in the 1960s of that difer-
ence in the two universities suggests that it recognized the legitimate concerns of its
Chinese people to ind their place in a new global setting. In addition, the University
of Hong Kong now had a partner in producing the graduates who began to shape a
distinctive self-consciousness of new generations of Hong Kong people.
he third period focused upon here is the inal two decades of the twentieth
century when Hong Kong was given a timetable to prepare for its return to China in
1997. his was when other shits in the global setting were taking place, not least on
the Chinese mainland. For the irst time since Hong Kong became a British colony, its
people faced a modern united China. China was, in addition, moving from a closed
command economy to some capitalist experimentations that astonished the world.
China had looked to Hong Kong for help in the 1970s, but it had now transformed
itself to become conident and more assertive.19 During the same period, the global
system was also readjusting as a consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the end of the Cold War. here gradually emerged a considerable interest in China’s
growth model, something quite unknown in the past. A new mix of political, busi-
ness, cultural, and environmental demands in China became the focus of attention.
Hong Kong Chinese living on the edge of this China faced new global realities and
are still learning to do so.20
19. Yun-wing Sun, he China-Hong Kong Connection: he Key to China’s Open-Door Policy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991); and A. J. Youngson, ed., China and Hong Kong: he Economic Nexus
(Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983).
20. Gary G. Hamilton, ed., Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the End of the 20th
Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999); Gordon Mathews, Tai-lok Lui, and Eric Kit-wai Ma,
Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation (London: Routledge, 2008); and Helen F. Siu and
Agnes S. Ku, eds., Hong Kong Mobile: Making a Global Population (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2008).
10 Wang Gungwu
For this period, let me largely pass over the remarkable transformations in China
since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms ater 1978, a subject on which the torrent of writing
over the past decade is already overwhelming. Let me simply trace some of the features
of what quietly changed sub rosa for an emerging Chinese global presence, features
that many now sense to be surfacing rapidly. he years leading to the Tiananmen
tragedy and the end of the Cold War, the time immediately prior to Hong Kong’s
return to the motherland, demonstrated a number of signiicant changes. he Sino-
British Joint Declaration signed in 1984 was a turning point that marked the closing
of the Anglo-American global setting for Hong Kong. A shit in trajectory followed.
Everything pertaining to Hong Kong’s future would have to take account of the city’s
return to China in 1997. Once Hong Kong became part of China, the global linkages
that informally placed Hong Kong as the center would come to an end, replaced by a
new setting in which a Chinese notion of globalization would seek to be recognized.
he question was, How much could Hong Kong retain from its past that would it the
emerging new order, and how long would Hong Kong have to determine its own role
in that order?
I recall the many voices that prepared the people for the impending change. hey
ranged from voices of alarm that illed, in particular, the pages of the Western press,
while more defensive and optimistic views could be found in the Chinese media.21
At one extreme, the fear was that Hong Kong as a distinct entity would come to an
end as it was drawn into the Chinese orbit. hat would take Hong Kong away from
the kind of global role it could perform for a rising China. At the other extreme,
Hong Kong’s role would be diferent but no less important than before: it would
continue to help China become genuinely global within the current international
framework. It could enable China to change toward the kind of economy and society
that Hong Kong had gradually become.
China changed faster than anyone expected. But, in the eyes of others, it has been
unable or unwilling to accept totally the global setting that has developed since the
Second World War. For many Hong Kong Chinese, Tiananmen in 1989 was an omen
of worse things to come. It was seen as a rejection of the norms that China’s economic
reforms were launched to achieve. Although briefer and less destructive than the
Cultural Revolution of 1966–76, it was a painful reminder of how Chinese authorities
were willing to use armed power against their own people. And the way the govern-
ments of the West turned against China was also illuminating. hat reminded all
Chinese that globalization did not just mean opening China’s economy to the West;
it also meant that China could be punished by the United States and its allies when-
ever China behaved in ways that they found unacceptable.
21. Frank Ching, “Misreading Hong Kong,” Foreign Afairs 73 (3) (May–June 1997): 53–66.
he Soviet Union collapsed within two years of Tiananmen. By bringing to an end

the forty-year-old “central balance” of two world powers, the path was open to yet
another perspective of the global setting. hus, any notion that there was still some
kind of front line from which Hong Kong could play a special role was removed. he
sole superpower era had arrived, and an extended period of American global domi-
nance seemed inevitable. Given these changes, what kind of role does Hong Kong
have in the new global setting where China is a strong player? Can Hong Kong still
be the center where China and the Chinese overseas can with proit engage? Or have
the old global linkages become obsolete with Hong Kong edging toward integration
with China?
here has been one wholly new factor since the 1970s. At least two generations of
vocal Hong Kong Chinese who see Hong Kong as their home have changed the equa-
tion. hey regularly demonstrate their loyalty to the city, they have a greater sense
of place, and their attitudes toward the future of Hong Kong are quite diferent from
those of the Chinese in China as well as from the Chinese outside.22 hese indigenous
Hong Kong people have their own political culture and expect the Beijing authorities
to understand their potential role in a global setting that will be centered in Asia.
hey need to remain cosmopolitan and outward looking, and they cannot aford to
be overly focused on the rights of Hong Kong alone. hey are joined in increasing
numbers by Chinese from postrevolutionary China who are neither refugees nor
afraid of Communism. he community that will emerge would need to be more inte-
grated than it is at present. For such a community to share a common global outlook,
those Chinese who identify with Hong Kong will have to provide leadership to forge
a kind of social cohesion that is not navel gazing but reaches out to China as well as to
the Chinese overseas now located in every corner of the globe.23
Where commercial and inancial links with the Chinese overseas are concerned,
many vital links remain. No longer, however, does Hong Kong serve as it once did as
a second base for China connections. Other ports and investment centers in China
are now available.24 Today, overseas Chinese communities have also become far more
complex. hose of the second or third generations are mostly comfortable in adopted
countries that support current globalization trends. he newer migrants from the
mainland or Taiwan do not need Hong Kong for their China dealings. Only the
families of emigrants originating from Hong Kong are still attached to the city as
overseas Chinese were in the past, and their numbers are relatively small. In short,
as the global setting shits toward a stronger Chinese presence in most spheres of life,
22. Agnes S. Ku, “Policies, Discourses, and the Politics of Local Belonging in Hong Kong (1950–1980),” Modern
China 30 (3) (July 2004): 326–60.
23. Stephen Chiu and Tai-Lok Lui, Hong Kong: Becoming a Chinese Global City (London: Routledge, 2009).
24. Reginald Yin-Wang Kwok and Alvin Y. So, eds., he Hong Kong-Guangdong Link: Partnership in Flux
(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995).
12 Wang Gungwu
the people of Hong Kong will be challenged to ind a new role in their relationships
with Chinese overseas. To remain indispensable in that setting will require concerted
eforts to introduce new ideas of globalization that both the new Asia and its allies
in the West can accept. his may be the toughest assignment that the Chinese of
Hong Kong have ever faced.
In outlining the issues above, I have suggested that playing a role in moving the
Chinese toward a new kind of global setting was nothing new for Hong Kong. What
was remarkable was how that role helped the Chinese in Hong Kong ind their place
in the larger setting while remaining connected with changing Chinese aspirations
and demands in China and among the Chinese overseas. In that way, various groups
of Hong Kong Chinese made room for an underlying Chinese network to evolve,
under irst a British global outlook and then a Cold War global vision that was
primarily American. hey have, especially during the second half of the twentieth
century, actively inluenced the way those Chinese outside could bring their global
awareness back to China and, perhaps even more, inluenced the quality of global
consciousness sought by those Chinese inside China.
It is therefore interesting to speculate what lies ahead now that there has been a
further shit in the global setting that will increasingly center on developments in
Asia, perhaps even more on the areas close to and within China itself. his is not to
suggest that the new global setting will necessarily become more Chinese, but it is
now less likely that the end of history will be American. A better balance of global
expectations and goals might be the next stage. Where might Hong Kong feature in
such a development? Here one must suggest that Hong Kong, as an extraordinary
part of China, can continue to build on the experiences of the past century. For more
than 150 years, it has been in the mainstream of global change. During that time,
it nurtured the unobtrusive extension of a lesser layer of global adaptation, one that
is peculiar to Chinese needs in and outside of China; this is also one that is now
surfacing because of the transformative changes in Asia at the turn of the twenty-irst
century. It is unlikely that analyzing the former geopolitics of the region, and using
the older ways that served Hong Kong well in the past, will suice. Hong Kong people
will have to think hard and imaginatively to devise new institutions and mechanisms
to deal with the rapid changes now taking place. In the context of the University
of Hong Kong’s recent centenary celebrations, as the institution moves forward into
its second century, one may conidently expect the alumni, students, and academics
of the University of Hong Kong to take up the challenge and be at the heart of the
changes that are about to come.
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Chan Lau, Kit-ching. China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895–1945. Hong Kong: Chinese
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Chan Lau, Kit-ching, and Peter Cunich, eds. An Impossible Dream: Hong Kong University from
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Chiu, Stephen, and Tai-Lok Lui. Hong Kong: Becoming a Chinese Global City. London:
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Chu, Cindy Yik-yi. Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists: 1937–1997. New York:
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Chung, Stephanie Po-yin. Chinese Business Groups in Hong Kong and Political Change in South
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Cunich, Peter. A History of the University of Hong Kong: Volume 1, 1911–1945. Hong Kong:
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Hamashita, Takeshi. “China and Hong Kong in the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth
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Hamilton, Gary G., ed. Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the
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Heaton, William. “Maoist Revolutionary Strategy and Modern Colonialism: he Cultural
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Kwok, Reginald Yin-Wang, and Alvin Y. So, eds. he Hong Kong-Guangdong Link: Partnership
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Prologue
Cold War Hong Kong
he Foundations
Priscilla Roberts
For Hong Kong, the Cold War was a distinct and crucial period in its own evolution
and in its relations with China and the rest of the world. Without the global clash
of ideologies, the city might well have failed to win and keep the key nodal posi-
tion it attained in those years. Economically, intellectually, socially, and culturally,
the Cold War years were crucial in ensuring that Hong Kong became a unique and
cosmopolitan metropolis. Hong Kong, whatever its limitations—and it could at times
be parochial, inward looking, and self-obsessed—was set on the path to become one
of the world’s greatest and most vibrant cities, a city that would play a key role in
the modernization of Greater China, especially the mainland, even as it developed
a sense of speciically Hong Kong identity. From its outset, Hong Kong has been
unique. During the Cold War and in many ways thanks to the demands, challenges,
and opportunities arising from that conlict, already established social, economic,
political, and administrative patterns of behavior within Hong Kong were intensiied
and adapted, transforming the territory. Run initially by British oicials but increas-
ingly by local Hong Kong recruits to the civil service, a hub not just for economic
networks of capital and governmental exchanges of every variety but also for trans-
national intellectual, political, and social interchanges at every level, Hong Kong was
one of a kind, its essence almost undeinable. Hong Kong developed its own voice,
one that, perhaps muted in the immediate atermath of the 1997 handover and the
Asian economic crisis, is once more becoming ever more discernible. Its greatest con-
tribution to China’s modernization may yet lie in the future.
Cold War Hong Kong is still something of a neglected subject, with much of the
most stimulating writing on the subject to be found in illuminating articles and
chapters scattered across journals and edited collections. In terms of diplomacy,
Chi-Kwan Mark’s study of the Cold War in Hong Kong from 1949 to 1957 is the most
thorough work on the early period, astute and beautifully researched, supplemented
by his articles on later Cold War policy.1 he one-volume histories of Hong Kong
1. Chi-Kwan Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations, 1949–1957 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2004), 30; Chi-Kwan Mark, “Defence or Decolonisation? Britain, the United States, and the Hong Kong
Question in 1957,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33 (1) (January 2005): 51–72; Chi-Kwan
16 Priscilla Roberts
by Steve Tsang, John M. Carroll, and Frank Welsh all ofer important insights.2
Michael Share has produced a signiicant study of Hong Kong’s dealings with both
tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union.3 Perhaps the best synthesis is still that of the late
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, in her volume on Taiwan and Hong Kong in US foreign
policy from 1949 to the early 1990s, a beautiful and elegantly researched chapter on
Hong Kong it would be hard to surpass.4 Several unpublished doctoral and master’s
dissertations focus on how the Cold War afected Hong Kong both internally and
in terms of international politics.5 No study to date, however, has attempted to put
high-level international politics and diplomacy in the context of popular attitudes
within Hong Kong, not to mention broader cultural and social trends. his collection
of essays is one attempt to begin to address this task. Some were irst delivered at a
conference held in part to mark the centenary of the University of Hong Kong. his
volume seeks to go beyond that occasion to ask, What was special about Cold War
Hong Kong, how was it that the system established in 1949 continued against all
the odds to work for so long, and what are its legacies and lessons for present-day
Hong Kong?
Cold War globalization of the territory was far from unprecedented. As Wang
Gungwu points out when opening this volume, Hong Kong had never been isolated
from broader global trends. From the time the British took Hong Kong island in
1841, the new British colony was ipso facto a conduit both to broader British imperial
networks of various kinds, many of them nongovernmental, and to the (still-expand-
ing) overseas Chinese community around Asia and the capital it could provide, as well
as Western inancial markets and economic linkages. Hong Kong ofered traders of
every nationality an alternative to the restricted conditions that characterized neigh-
boring Guangzhou (Canton), as a locale where wives and children were not prohibited
Mark, “Lack of Means or Loss of Will? he United Kingdom and the Decolonization of Hong Kong, 1957–
1967,” International History Review 31 (1) (March 2009): 45–71; Chi-Kwan Mark, “Hostage Diplomacy:
Britain, China, and the Politics of Negotiation, 1967–1969,” Diplomacy and Statecrat 20 (3) (November
2009): 473–93; and Chi-Kwan Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists: US Naval Visits to Hong Kong and British-
American-Chinese Relations, 1965–1968,” Cold War History 10 (1) (February 2010): 1–28.
2. Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004); John M. Carroll,
A Concise History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007); and Frank Welsh,
A History of Hong Kong (London: HarperCollins, 1993).
3. Michael Share, Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao
(Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007).
4. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992: Uncertain Friendships
(New York: Twayne, 1994), 197–233.
5. Law Yuk-fun, “Delayed Accommodation: United States Policies towards Hong Kong, 1949–60” (PhD dis-
sertation, University of Hong Kong, 2001); Johannes Richard Lombardo, “United States’ Policy towards the
British Crown Colony of Hong Kong during the Early Cold War Period” (PhD dissertation, University of
Hong Kong, 1997); Ng Chak-Nam, “Making heir Voices Heard: Embargoes and the Hong Kong Public”
(MPhil dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2010); and Chan Man-Lok, “Between Red and White:
Chinese Communist and Nationalist Movements in Hong Kong 1945–1958” (MPhil dissertation, University
of Hong Kong, 2011).
and British administrative practices prevailed. Hong Kong was, as Elizabeth Sinn has
recently described in detail, the gateway port through which Chinese workers went
to North America to provide the labor force needed to develop California and the
transcontinental railroads, and likewise passed through in transit to destinations in
Australia, Canada, South Africa, and much of Asia.6 Goods as well as people circu-
lated through Hong Kong. Possessing one of the world’s premier harbors, the city was
a major entrepôt, through which goods destined for China—opium igured largely
in the early years—arrived and products from China were dispatched to the outside
world. It was a regular port of call for the major shipping lines that held the Western
colonial enterprises together. hough less glamorous than the wicked, sophisticated
rival Shanghai up the coast, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Hong Kong became a standard tourist destination, one of the gateways to China. And
it developed into an important inancial center, the home to branches of prominent
banks from around Asia and beyond. As David R. Meyer and Frank H. H. King have
demonstrated, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), the col-
ony’s leading inancial institution, established branches and connections across Asia
and beyond that provided the funding for business ventures across South, Southeast,
and East Asia, many of which underpinned Western colonial projects in the region.7
From the mid-nineteenth century onward, Hong Kong’s commercial and inancial
facilities were signiicant factors in the extension of Western colonialism in Asia.
Hong Kong was of course a British naval base. On occasion its port also ofered
convenient and helpful shelter to the colonial ventures of other nations, especially
the United States. While theoretically neutral in such enterprises, in winter 1853–54
the Hong Kong government allowed the naval squadron commanded by US com-
modore Matthew Perry to stay in its hospitable harbor, shortly before he embarked
on his voyage to force Japan to open itself to Western trade and inluence, an enter-
prise that echoed the reasons for the founding of Hong Kong itself. Before leaving
for Manila Bay in 1898 to battle the Spanish leet, Admiral George Dewey’s naval
forces also gathered in Mirs Bay, just of Hong Kong, where ostensibly neutral British
authorities in practice facilitated US moves to drive what remained of Spain’s once
formidable power in the Paciic out of the Philippines and Guam.8
Yet Hong Kong was not merely a platform and economic powerhouse for Western
colonialism. Liberal British laissez-faire policies meant that Hong Kong also became
a haven for dissidents from around Asia, both individuals who—like Sun Yat-sen—
sought to overthrow China’s Manchu Qing dynasty, and those from other countries,
6. Elizabeth Sinn, Paciic Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong
7. David R. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and
Frank H. H. King, he History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, 4 vols. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987–91).
8. Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 198.
the Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh and others, for example, who wished to end Western
imperialist rule in Indochina. Both Sun and Ho spent time in Hong Kong in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. So too did the Philippine nationalist writer
and revolutionary politician José Rizal, who met his future wife during the months he
spent practicing ophthalmology in Hong Kong from late 1891 to June 1892. Rashly,
he then let to promote his cause in the Philippines, where in 1896, at the age of thirty-
ive, he was eventually executed by the Spanish government.9 he British authorities in
Hong Kong felt no great regard for Spain but were relatively unsympathetic to eforts
to destabilize colonial rule elsewhere in Asia. Eventually, in 1931, they arrested Ho—
though not before he had managed to found the Vietnamese Communist Party—and
sought to deport him, ultimately, it seems, transferring him to a ship that took him
to China, whence the Vietnamese revolutionary moved on to Soviet Russia.10 he
British proved equally unwelcoming to Soviet operatives of the Comintern or hird
Communist International, the international organization established in 1919 by the
infant Soviet Union, the world’s irst Communist state, with the objective of promot-
ing revolution beyond Russia’s own borders. Between the wars, eforts by Chinese
nationalists or others to destabilize Hong Kong, through labor unrest, boycotts, and
strikes, generally met with a harsh response.11
Britain did, however, allow Hong Kong to provide medical training and then
sanctuary for Sun Yat-sen in the 1880s and 1890s, and before 1911 the colony efec-
tively functioned as a base for anti-Manchu revolutionaries.12 Similar tolerance was
extended to Soong Qingling, Sun’s widow, during the 1930s, when the British Foreign
Oice allowed Hong Kong to serve as a conduit for supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s
Nationalist government as it sought to resist the Japanese. In the late 1930s Hong Kong
also housed representatives of the Chinese Communist Party’s Eighth Route Army,
providing a base where they were able to regroup, consolidate, and support anti-
Japanese guerrilla activities in Guangdong Province.13 Steve Tsang points out that in
addition, for Chinese would-be reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
9. On Rizal’s career, see Leon Guerrero, he First Filipino, 3rd ed. (Manila: Guerrero, 2010); and Gregorio F.
Zaide, José Rizal: Life, Work, and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist, and National Hero (Manila: National
Bookstore, 2003).
10. For details of how Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese revolutionaries tried to use Hong Kong as a base,
see Sophie Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh: he Missing Years 1919–1941 (London: Hurst, 2003), 150–95; also
Christine Loh, Underground Front: he Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 2010), 56.
11. Share, Where Empires Collided, 51–68, 79–80, 90–96; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 369–78; Chan Lau Kit-
ching, China, Britain and Hong Kong 1895–1945 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990), 169–224;
Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 96–105; and Loh, Underground Front, 55–56.
12. Chan Lau, China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895–1945, 19–105.
13. Chan Lau, China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895–1945, 265–79; Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 117;
Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 114; Loh, Underground Front, 57–59; and Cindy Yik-yi Chu, Chinese
Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists: 1937–1997 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 26–35.
centuries, Hong Kong was something of an inspiration, ofering a working model of

Western government, society, and administration, as well as a safe haven.14 In its irst
century of existence, Hong Kong had deservedly won itself a reputation as a refuge
for Asian rebels against their own governments, including that of China, at least pro-
vided such individuals were relatively discreet.
his was only one facet of the many ways in which Hong Kong itself served as
a forcing ground for ideas—many of them originally taken from international
sources—that could be developed and adapted to Asian needs. Transnational enter-
prises were well represented in Hong Kong. his was not just a matter of business.
Ater the overthrow of the tsarist government in early 1917, assorted radical Russian
revolutionaries made their way back to Russia via Hong Kong. he following year,
White Russian émigrés transited through Hong Kong on their way home, seeking to
do battle there against Communist revolution. When their cause proved unsuccessful,
some resettled in Hong Kong itself. he numbers of such refugees were, however, rel-
atively small, and most were primarily concerned not with anti-Soviet enterprises but
with the more basic need to earn a living.15 Other migrants to Hong Kong were more
directly concerned with winning hearts and minds, especially those of the Chinese
population, both locally and across the border. In the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies, Christian missionaries of every stripe and nationality established churches,
schools, and oices in Hong Kong, ventures that oten served as springboards for
religious and educational undertakings in China itself. Many of Hong Kong’s most
prestigious schools, their pupils drawn from Hong Kong elites, had missionary or
religious roots.16
In its early years the University of Hong Kong, founded in 1911 by Sir Frederick
Lugard, then governor of Hong Kong, and incorporating an existing medical college,
drew students not just within Hong Kong but from across Southeast Asia, especially
the overseas Chinese communities in the region, as well as China itself. he university
formed part of broader intellectual networks, some of them linking academics across
the British Empire, others tied to the interwar Institute of Paciic Relations, a sprawling
transnational group of think tanks founded by the Americans in the mid-1920s, that
encompassed most of the states with any interests in the Paciic—Britain, China,
and Japan included. Between the world wars, the University of Hong Kong attracted
substantial inancial support from the US-based Rockefeller Foundation, which
took a particular interest in promoting the development of China, not least through
its backing for the Institute of Paciic Relations.17 While very far from inclined to
14. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 73–84.

15. Share, Where Empires Collided, 39–41, 93–95.
16. Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 219–20, 246.
17. On the early history of the University of Hong Kong, see Peter Cunich, A History of the University of
Hong Kong: Volume 1, 1911–1945 (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 2012). On the Rockefeller
Foundation’s lengthy involvement in Asia, see Mary Brown Bullock, he Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller
promote radical revolution across Asia, in general the colonial authorities viewed
the university as a force for progress within China and Southeast Asia. Lobbying in
1929 for a share of the Boxer indemnity funds to be directed to the University of
Hong Kong, Leo Amery, a former colonial secretary, told the British foreign secretary
that the university was “in some ways the best thing we have done for China in all our
connexion with it.” He highlighted how it attracted Chinese not just from Hong Kong
but also from mainland China and especially from Southeast Asia. He also compared
the university with American educational institutions in China, viewing these as dan-
gerous rivals that sought to promote US rather than British inluences in that coun-
try.18 From the late 1930s until the mid-1940s, a signiicant number of University of
Hong Kong students would become prominent in the resistance against Japan, as did
Lindsay Ride, an Australian professor of physiology who became vice-chancellor of
the University of Hong Kong in the 1950s.19 hey worked closely with anti-Japanese
Chinese Communist guerrilla forces, notably the East River Column, who helped
Ride and other foreigners escape Hong Kong.20
As the Second World War ended, Hong Kong therefore had a century’s experi-
ence of serving as an intermediary between China and the outside world, both
Western nations and the overseas Chinese across Asia. Two key decisions of the 1940s
meant that Hong Kong would continue to play a key role in such encounters and
to carve out for itself a special and unique international position during the Cold
War. he irst was the determination of the British, defeated in Hong Kong by Japan
on Christmas Day 1941 ater less than three weeks of ighting, to regain control of
Hong Kong and continue to rule the territory. By early 1943, British foreign secretary
Anthony Eden, colonial secretary Oliver Stanley, and their subordinates “were quietly
determined that Britain should recover Hong Kong ater the War.”21 his outcome was
by no means a foregone conclusion. hroughout the Second World War, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, a strong opponent of Western colonialism,
had been near adamant that Hong Kong should be restored to China, as part of his
vision of a new world order in which the old European empires would no longer be
tolerated. Chiang Kai-shek, China’s Nationalist president, had been equally eager to
end all Western special privileges in China and take back all those territories lost to
China in the previous century or more of humiliation at the hands of Japan and the
Philanthropy in China (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2011).
18. Leo W. Amery to Arthur Henderson, November 12, 1929, AMEL 2/1/18 (Folder 1), Leopold Stennett Amery
Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge University.
19. Cunich, History of the University of Hong Kong, 388–93, 412–26; Tsang, Modern History of Hong Kong,
129–30; Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 126–29; and Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 422–33.
20. Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 37.
21. Gavin Ure, Governors, Politics and the Colonial Oice: Public Policy in Hong Kong, 1918–58 (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 71–77, quotation from 71.
West. For several years, British chances of winning back Hong Kong from Japan and
resuming its former position in the colony seemed poor. Yet, when the war ended,
Roosevelt was dead, and Chiang threatened by civil war. British military leaders
moved quickly to deploy naval forces and troops to Hong Kong, accept the Japanese
surrender on behalf of the Allies, and take over the administration of Hong Kong,
a decision to which Chiang, however reluctantly, acquiesced. One reason may have
been that he feared that if Nationalist forces tried to take Hong Kong, they would
ind themselves in conlict with the wartime Communist East River brigade that had
resisted the Japanese occupiers. For the next four years Chiang, preoccupied with the
continuing civil war in China and his own ever more precarious hold on the Chinese
mainland, had no attention to spare for Hong Kong.22 While American diplomats,
notably John Leighton Stuart, the US ambassador to China, occasionally suggested
that Britain might renounce colonialism and hand the territory back to China, such
advice fell on deaf ears, even within the American government, where top oicials in
the administration of Harry Truman, including the president and Dean Acheson, his
secretary of state, much preferred leaving Hong Kong in British hands to seeing it fall
victim to an ever more likely Communist takeover.23
he second important decision governing Hong Kong’s future was that by
Mao Zedong, the top Chinese Communist leader, to allow British rule in Hong Kong
to continue undisturbed should the Communists win power in China. In 1946 Mao
reportedly told a group of British journalists:
China has enough trouble in her hands to try and clean up the mess in her own
country, leave alone trying to rule Formosa, for us to clamour for the return of
Hong Kong. I am not interested in Hong Kong, the Communist Party is not inter-
ested in Hong Kong; it has never been the subject of any discussion amongst us.
Perhaps ten, twenty or thirty years hence we may ask for a discussion regarding
its return, but my attitude is that so long as your oicials do not maltreat Chinese
subjects in Hong Kong, and so long as Chinese are not treated as inferior to others
in the matter of taxation and a voice in the Government, I am not interested in
Hong Kong, and will certainly not allow it to be a bone of contention between
your country and mine.
By late December 1946, Mao’s attitude was known to the British Foreign Oice.24
While in no sense a binding pledge on Mao’s part, in practice this pragmatic attitude
prevailed for almost half a century. he reasons for it were primarily self-interested.
22. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 130–52; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 30; Chan Lau, China,
Britain and Hong Kong, 1895–1945, 297–323; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 422–30; Carroll, A Concise
History of Hong Kong, 128–29; and Loh, Underground Front, 63–65.
23. Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 200; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War,
31–32.
24. Quotation from FO371/63318, Boyce (Peking) to Chancery (Nanking), December 30, 1946, as cited in Tsang,
A Modern History of Hong Kong, 153; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 26; and Loh, Underground Front.
Image 0.1
Lok Ma Chau border crossing, 1966. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
In previous decades, Hong Kong had at times provided a useful refuge for members
of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when Nationalist eforts to suppress them
made their position in South China itself precarious. he CCP quietly kept an oice
in Hong Kong, where party members carefully refrained from subversive activities
that might provoke a retaliatory response from the British. Economically, in terms of
trade with the outside world and foreign exchange, Hong Kong had the potential to
be extremely valuable to a Communist-ruled state. In 1948 Qiao Guanhua, the party’s
efective representative in Hong Kong and a future Chinese foreign minister, reas-
sured the British government that, when they took power, the CCP would not seek
to retake Hong Kong by force or to destabilize the colony by agitating for its return.
Had the Nationalists regained Hong Kong in 1945, even had Chiang Kai-shek—
as Roosevelt and other American oicials suggested during the war—made it into an
international free port, the Chinese Communists, as they took over South China in
1949, would almost certainly have insisted on taking Hong Kong, as they did Shanghai
and other treaty ports. Undoubtedly, the history of Hong Kong, and perhaps too
that of China as a whole, would have been very diferent. As it was, in October 1949
Communist Chinese troops stopped when they reached the border with Hong Kong.
And there, despite occasional clashes over the years, they would remain until July 1,
1997, watched by and watching their British counterparts.25
25. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 26–28; Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 153–56; Carroll,
A Concise History of Hong Kong, 135–38; David Clayton, Imperialism Revisited: Political and Economic
Relations between Britain and China, 1950–54 (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1997), 100, 118, 120; Loh,
Underground Front, 65–66, 69–80; and Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 37–39.
Because the arrangement worked, it is perhaps easy to forget just how extraordi-
nary this situation really was. One major impetus driving the establishment of the
CCP had been deep Chinese resentment of the concessions at Chinese expense that
Western powers had made to Japan at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. he May
Fourth movement radicalized a generation of young students. Opposition to the
special privileges and territorial enclaves that Western powers had won in China since
1841 was one factor fueling both Nationalist and Communist policies. On taking
power, Mao would proudly proclaim that China had “stood up” and reclaimed its
rightful place in world afairs. Equally, the CCP, far from being simply a collection
of peaceable agrarian reformers, was a group of rather hard-line, battle-tempered
Communists, who deliberately and consciously aligned their country with the causes
of international revolution, decolonization, and the Soviet Cold War with the Western
powers that had developed ater the Second World War. Within a decade or less,
by the late 1950s Chinese diferences with the Soviet Union over the policies of
“peaceful coexistence” that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev embraced would play a
major role in precipitating the Sino-Soviet split that divided the Communist world
from then until the end of the Cold War. Yet from 1949 onward—as Soviet leaders
occasionally and rather unkindly observed ater the Chinese split with them—where
Hong Kong (and Macau) were concerned, Communist China followed its own poli-
cies of peaceful coexistence, totally at variance with Chinese claims to represent the
vanguard of revolution.26 (Taiwan was for various reasons a diferent matter.)
In late 1949, it was far from certain that the tentative understanding the British
and Communist China had reached would hold. he British undoubtedly hoped to
keep Hong Kong, but they recognized that—even with US assistance—Hong Kong
was fundamentally indefensible against a determined mainland assault. From Britain
and China alike, maintaining the status quo demanded rather impressive juggling
talents, diplomatic, intellectual, and practical. Hong Kong’s position as a special
enclave, simultaneously deeply afected by the global Cold War and a place where
that game was played by diferent rules, probably should not have endured for long.
But somehow it did, surviving the challenges of the Korean War, the Vietnam War,
the Cultural Revolution, and even the special position the United States—for at least
two decades mainland China’s greatest international enemy—enjoyed in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong exempliied the saying that the true mark of high intelligence is the
ability to hold two conlicting beliefs at the same time. Nothing was ever quite what
it seemed. As with a hologram or the uncertainty principle in physics, in Cold War
Hong Kong, two or more opposed and seemingly incompatible realities could simul-
taneously be true and oten were.
26. Share, Where Empires Collided, 246; Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Natali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: he
Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: Norton, 2006), 415; and Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists,”
10, 14.
References
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England.
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Bullock, Mary Brown. he Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China. Washington,
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Carroll, John M. A Concise History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2007.
Chan, Man-Lok. “Between Red and White: Chinese Communist and Nationalist Movements
in Hong Kong 1945–1958.” MPhil dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2011.
Chan Lau, Kit-ching. China, Britain and Hong Kong 1895–1945. Hong Kong: Chinese
Clayton, David. Imperialism Revisited: Political and Economic Relations between Britain and
China, 1950–54. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1997.
Cunich, Peter. A History of the University of Hong Kong: Volume 1, 1911–1945. Hong Kong:
University of Hong Kong Press, 2012.
Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Natali. Khrushchev’s Cold War: he Inside Story of an
American Adversary. New York: Norton, 2006.
Guerrero, Leon. he First Filipino. 3rd ed. Manila: Guerrero, 2010.
King, Frank H. H. he History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. 4 vols.
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Law, Yuk-fun. “Delayed Accommodation: United States Policies towards Hong Kong, 1949–
60.” PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2001.
Lombardo, Johannes Richard. “United States’ Policy towards the British Crown Colony
of Hong Kong during the Early Cold War Period.” PhD dissertation, University of
Hong Kong, 1997.
Mark, Chi-Kwan. Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations, 1949–1957. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2004.
———. “Defence or Decolonisation? Britain, the United States, and the Hong Kong Question
in 1957.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33 (1) (January 2005): 51–72.
———. “Lack of Means or Loss of Will? he United Kingdom and the Decolonization of
———. “Hostage Diplomacy: Britain, China, and the Politics of Negotiation, 1967–1969.”
Diplomacy and Statecrat 20 (3) (November 2009): 473–93.
———. “Vietnam War Tourists: US Naval Visits to Hong Kong and British-American-Chinese
Relations, 1965–1968.” Cold War History 10 (1) (February 2010): 1–28.
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Ng, Chak-Nam. “Making heir Voices Heard: Embargoes and the Hong Kong Public.” MPhil
dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2010.
Quinn-Judge, Sophie. Ho Chi Minh: he Missing Years 1919–1941. London: Hurst, 2003.
Share, Michael. Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and Macao. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007.
Sinn, Elizabeth. Paciic Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of
Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013.
Tsang, Steve. A Modern History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004.
Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1949–1952: Uncertain
Friendships. New York: Twayne, 1994.
Ure, Gavin. Governors, Politics and the Colonial Oice: Public Policy in Hong Kong, 1918–58.
Welsh, Frank. A History of Hong Kong. London: HarperCollins, 1993.
Zaide, Gregorio F. José Rizal: Life, Work, and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist, and National
Hero. Manila: National Bookstore, 2003.
1
Cold War Hong Kong
Juggling Opposing Forces and Identities
Priscilla Roberts
In Hong Kong the rules of the global Cold War were oten suspended. Or perhaps
it is fairer to say that the territory epitomized to the ultimate degree many of the
ambiguities and contradictions of the Cold War, a confrontation that, however ierce
its rhetoric, was usually characterized by pragmatic caution, at least where the major
powers were concerned. Hong Kong would survive two major Asian wars, lengthy
conlicts that constituted the most signiicant of all Cold War military engagements,
at least in terms of US involvement. In the irst of these, the Korean War, British
troops together with their US counterparts actually fought Chinese soldiers in Korea
from late 1950 to mid-1953. In the second, the Vietnam War, the British declined
any formal involvement, but just as during the Korean War, they allowed American
military personnel to use Hong Kong for R & R (rest and recreation), hosted visits
by the US leet, and furnished signiicant supplies and matériel to the US war efort,
worth US$50 to US$52 million in 1966, for example.1 At the time, Chinese support
personnel were assisting the North Vietnamese in their eforts to resist US bombing
and attacks. It would be interesting to know just how many of the US dollars pumped
into the Hong Kong economy during these port visits ended up in People’s Republic
of China (PRC) cofers. Likewise, one may speculate whether mainland-backed irms
provided some of the goods and services that kept the American forces in Korea and
Vietnam operational. During both wars, mainland China made occasional protests
against British policies but let British control of Hong Kong undisturbed.
he story of Hong Kong during the Cold War reinforces a growing body of schol-
arship on the period that suggests that, while situating the history of post-1945 Asia
in “a globalized Cold War context,” one must also remember that Asia “had its own
internal dynamics and trajectories, and it evolved in ways that were not entirely the
making of the big powers.” In the words of Michael Szonyi and Hong Liu, “Cold War
political struggles were intertwined with other processes that cannot be neatly tied
to the second half of the twentieth century, processes such as the global and local
1. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992: Uncertain Friendships
(New York: Twayne, 1994), 215.
Image 1.1
USS Hornet and escort, 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
struggles for women’s liberation, revolution, nationalism, decolonization and post-

colonial experience, new regional groupings and the deterritorialization of ethnic
populations.” he Asian experience, moreover, challenges Cold War periodization
that focuses primarily upon Soviet-Western relations.2 Bruce Cumings has even gone
so far as to argue that in Asia the Cold War ended during the 1970s, thanks to the
North’s victory in Vietnam and the developing US rapprochement with China.3 Other
Asian scholars agree in perceiving that decade as a hinge, the beginning of persistent
long-term attempts to reintegrate China into the global economy, with massive infu-
sions of capital from international institutions, Western countries, Japan, and ethnic
Chinese overseas all directed to China from then onward. Here, too, Hong Kong
would have a crucial role to play.4 In words that might well have been designed to
characterize Hong Kong, Tuong Vu likewise suggests that “the plays on Asian stages
embedded both Cold War and local plots, both global and local actors, who inter-
played in various ways depending on particular contexts.”5
2. Michael Szonyi and Hong Liu, “New Approaches to the Study of the Cold War in Asia,” in he Cold War
in Asia: he Battle for Hearts and Minds, ed. Zheng Yangwen, Hong Liu, and Michael Szonyi (Leiden,
Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 1–11, quotations from 7.
3. Bruce Cumings, review of he Cold War in East Asia, 1945–1991, ed. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (Washington, DC:
Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), H-Diplo Roundtable Review
13 (30) (June 25, 2012): 16.
4. Takashi Shiraishi and Caroline Sy Hau, “China, Japan and the Transformation of East Asia,” in Zheng, Hong,
and Szonyi, he Cold War in Asia, 28–38.
5. Tuong Vu, “Cold War Studies and the Cold War in Asia,” in Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia: Ideology,
Identity, and Culture, ed. Tuong Vu and Wasana Wongsurawat (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009), 1–13,
quotation from 12.
Cold War Hong Kong was not, it should be emphasized, Cold War Berlin,
to which it has been compared. Even the British themselves at times drew that
analogy.6 Certainly, as one historian has remarked, Hong Kong resembled Berlin in
that it “became a sort of free city in which all parties could operate within limits.”7
Both were undoubtedly special enclaves where diferent actors in the Cold War had
opportunities to meet, assess, and negotiate with each other that were unavailable
elsewhere. But there were important diferences. West Berlin was part of a divided
city and in 1948 became a symbol of the West’s determination to block the further
extension of Soviet power. When the Soviet Union attempted to cut of all supply
routes by land to Berlin, for many months the Americans and British mounted an
airlit that assured Berlin suicient necessities to survive. In the second Berlin crisis of
the late 1950s and early 1960s, triggered when defections from East to West Germany
became so large in number that they embarrassed the Soviet bloc, Western powers
resolutely opposed Soviet and East German demands that would have efectively
brought West Berlin into the Communist zone. Ultimately, the Soviet bloc responded
by building a wall to separate the divided city. he same was never true of Hong Kong.
he great bulk of Hong Kong’s population was originally sojourners or refugees from
China, driven by economic or political reasons. Yet people came and went between
Hong Kong and China. Despite British reluctance to countenance an oicial main-
land presence in Hong Kong, in reality it was never absent. From 1947 onward the
oice of the Communist-backed Xinhua News Agency functioned as the de facto rep-
resentative of the Chinese Communists in Hong Kong.8 Chi-Kwan Mark has indeed
compared Hong Kong’s situation to that of Finland during the Cold War.9 Unlike
Berlin, Hong Kong itself was never physically divided; it merely had numerous frac-
tured and conlicting loyalties and identities.
Despite the conciliatory Communist attitude in 1949, prospects for the continu-
ance of the colonial regime were decidedly precarious. For almost ity years, it would
survive on what was ultimately the grace and favor of the Chinese Communists. he
latter did not even need to use military force to take Hong Kong. At any time they had
the option of cutting of supplies of food and—by the early 1960s—water, or looding
6. Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), 155;
Alexander Grantham, Via Ports: From Hong Kong to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
1965), 171; and John M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2007), 142.
7. Francis Pike, Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia since World War II (London: I. B. Tauris,
2010), 247.
8. Lu Yan, “Limits to Propaganda: Hong Kong’s Letist Media in the Cold War and Beyond,” in Zheng, Hong,
and Szonyi, he Cold War in Asia, 102; Frank Welsh, A History of Hong Kong (London: HarperCollins, 1993),
445; and Christine Loh, Underground Front: he Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 72–73, 81–82.
9. Chi-Kwan Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations, 1949–1957 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2004), 224–25.
the territory with would-be migrants, to make the British position there untenable.
his never happened. he British deliberately attempted to suggest or imply that any
Chinese attack on Hong Kong would provoke a response not just from their own
forces but also from the United States, initiating a conlict with China that conceivably
might trigger World War III. But did the leaders of Communist China really credit
this scenario? Did even the British themselves believe it? Or was it a clever conjuring
act, a sleight-of-hand heavily reliant upon blue smoke and mirrors? he United States
never made any irm commitment to defend Hong Kong. When the British position
in Hong Kong became problematic during the 1967 riots, the United States—admit-
tedly embroiled in the Vietnam War—was sedulously noncommittal as to just what
actions it might take, should the situation escalate to the point where British rule in
Hong Kong was in jeopardy. “Understandings” between allies were one thing, but their
actual implementation another. As the riots continued, the US State Department con-
templated the possibility that Britain would lose Hong Kong, an outcome American
oicials might have regretted but most likely would have accepted.10
hroughout the 1950s and 1960s, as Mark has demonstrated, American leaders
noted that the British were reluctant to discuss the details of Hong Kong’s defense with
them, and they suspected that, faced with a genuine Chinese challenge, the British
would decline to ight for Hong Kong. Would American airpower really have been
used against invading Chinese forces? It seemed more likely that in any such crisis the
Americans would have restricted their actions to assistance to the British in evacuat-
ing Western nationals and others who sought to lee Hong Kong, something top US
military oicials feared the British might be unable to accomplish without American
help. In 1957, British prime minister Harold Macmillan assiduously kept secret even
from his cabinet an arrangement whereby the United States had agreed to consider
Hong Kong a “joint defense problem” and also to acquiesce in Britain’s relaxation
of the existing Cold War regime of export controls on China, in exchange for a
British pledge not to push for mainland China’s membership in the United Nations.11
Budgetary pressures brought substantial British defense cuts in the 1950s and 1960s.
hese included reductions in the Hong Kong garrison to a level only adequate to
maintain internal security in the colony. Eventually, in 1968, economic diiculties
in Britain led Harold Wilson’s Labour government to decide to withdraw all British
10. Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 213–14; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War,
229–31; Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 156–57; Chi-Kwan Mark, “Lack of Means or Loss of Will?
he United Kingdom and the Decolonization of Hong Kong, 1957–1967,” International History Review
31 (1) (March 2009): 45–71; and Chi-Kwan Mark, “Hostage Diplomacy: Britain, China, and the Politics of
Negotiation, 1967–1969,” Diplomacy and Statecrat 20 (3) (November 2009): 473–93.
11. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 72–79, 169–73; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 449–50; Tucker, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 208–9; and David Clayton, Imperialism Revisited: Political
and Economic Relations between Britain and China, 1950–54 (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1997), 99–100,
114–15.
forces deployed east of Suez by 1971.12 Until the 1980s Hong Kong’s exact future
remained unclear, but most British and Chinese oicials assumed that it would
ultimately revert to China, probably when the lease on the New Territories expired
in 1997.13
hat reversion did not occur until then was because Hong Kong’s greatest value
to the People’s Republic of China was economic. Although the Chinese Communists
gradually nationalized most important sectors of the Chinese economy, China was
not an autarky. In 1949, China was recovering from close to three decades of war,
internal and external. New China’s leaders sought to modernize their impoverished
country, to ensure at least a basic standard of living for all. In the 1950s, the Soviet
Union initiated a substantial aid program, with several thousand Soviet “experts”
spending time in China on projects designed to encourage China’s modernization.14
But China nonetheless desired access to foreign goods and foreign exchange, and it
also sought to sell for proit in outside markets commodities and goods originating
in China. With virtually all foreign irms forced to cease operations in China in the
early 1950s, Hong Kong still served as a conduit for some such transactions. Much
of Hong Kong’s own food came from over the border with China. Goods from
China were on sale in the local mainland-run China Products Stores, not to mention
many smaller shops. Hong Kong was also usually the route whereby external remit-
tances sent to the mainland by Chinese overseas reached their destination. When
the United States resumed trade with China in the early 1970s, Hong Kong handled
most of the shipments involved.15 John Darwin has gone so far as to suggest that
post-1949 Hong Kong efectively served as mainland China’s treaty port, through
which the bulk of transactions with the West were conducted, taking on the role that
Guangzhou (Canton) had played during the Qing dynasty.16
As Lu Xun and Tracy Steele describe later in this volume, on the economic front, the
Cold War was initially seriously disadvantageous to Hong Kong. Drastic cutbacks in
trade with China occurred during the Korean War, which were highly detrimental to
12. Mark, “Lack of Means or Loss of Will?” 45–71; Mark, “Hostage Diplomacy,” 473–93; Welsh, A History of
Hong Kong, 452–53; and Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 70–75.
13. Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 471–72; Grantham, Via Ports, 172, 183; and Tsang, A Modern History of
Hong Kong, 154–56.
14. Deborah A. Kaple, “Soviet Advisors in China in the 1950s,” and Shu Guang Zhang, “Sino-Soviet Economic
Cooperation,” in Brothers in Arms: he Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963, ed. Odd Arne
Westad (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998),
117–40, 189–225.
15. Mei Renyi and Chen Juebin, “Hong Kong’s Role in US-China Trade Relations during the 1970s,” in Bridging the
Sino-American Divide: American Studies with Chinese Characteristics, ed. Priscilla Roberts (Newcastle, UK:
Cambridge Scholars, 2007), 412–30; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 130–32, 169; Clayton, Imperialism
Revisited, 120–21, 199–200; Loh, Underground Front, 84; and Richard Roberts and David Kynaston, he Lion
Wakes: A Modern History of HSBC (London: Proile Books, 2015), 15–18.
16. John Darwin, “Hong Kong in British Decolonisation,” in Hong Kong’s Transitions, 1842–1997, ed. Judith M.
Brown and Rosemary Foot (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1997), 29–31.
Hong Kong. he United States broke of all commercial relations with China, freezing
Chinese assets in the United States, embargoing all imports originating in China from
entering the United States, and forbidding the export of either American raw materi-
als or manufactured products that might ultimately be destined for the mainland.
Soon ater the Korean War began, the administration of President Harry S. Truman
was also instrumental in persuading the United Nations to impose severe economic
sanctions upon China that banned trade in a numerous commodities deined as stra-
tegic. Despite protests from the British government and Hong Kong businesses, these
controls, which brought major economic hardships to Hong Kong and its population
at all social levels, were not relaxed until 1957, by which time the Hong Kong economy
had been substantially reoriented.17 Within a few years of the Korean War, the colony
became a major manufacturing center, producing inexpensive goods such as textiles,
shoes, toys, and plastic lowers for international markets around the world.18 In a later
chapter in this volume, Lu Xun goes so far as to argue that, by forcing Hong Kong to
reinvent itself economically, ultimately the tight export controls on Hong Kong were
beneicial in terms of its long-term development. At the time, however, they were a
remarkably well-disguised blessing, causing severe distress to the entire community,
to the point that at least some Hong Kong people felt lasting resentment toward the
United States. Somewhat ironically, moreover, as Nancy Bernkopf Tucker points out,
faced with growing competition from Hong Kong goods, American manufacturers
and labor unions then sought to impose import controls on such products.19
Hong Kong always performed a range of economic functions for China. Despite
the imposition of trade controls on China, and especially ater the United States
acquiesced in the reduction by its Cold War allies of the international regime of
sanctions, Hong Kong continued to serve as a transshipment center for a signiicant
portion of China’s trade with other countries, especially those outside the Soviet bloc,
providing China with much of its badly needed foreign exchange. Hong Kong–based
shipping lines carried most of this trade, and leading Hong Kong business igures
maintained close relations with China.20 As David Meyer describes in his chapter in
this volume, during the Cold War banks and businesses from Europe, North America,
17. On these controls, see Shu Guang Zhang, Economic Cold War: America’s Embargo against China and the
Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2001); Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 132–73; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 450–51;
Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 158; and Clayton, Imperialism Revisited, 109–11, 131–32, 173–76,
191–93.
18. Grantham, Via Ports, 172; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 450–52; Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong,
162–67; and Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 143–44.
19. Tucker, Hong Kong, China, and the United States, 1945–1992, 205–6.
20. See esp. Cindy Yik-yi Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists: 1937–1997 (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010), 46; and Shu Guang Zhang, Beijing’s Economic Statecrat during the Cold War 1949–1991
(Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 26–27,
33–34, 46–47, 50, 54–55.
and across Asia established branches and regional headquarters in Hong Kong.
Mainland Chinese institutions likewise set up oices in the territory. Since the mid-
nineteenth century, Hong Kong had been part of global networks of capital. During
the Cold War years this pattern was intensiied, as—thanks in part to the absence of
any other such center in mainland China—the territory became a key hub where top-
level economic decision makers encountered and worked with each other. In the late
1970s and early 1980s, when mainland China began to modernize in earnest, it was
able to utilize these networks to mobilize funding and expertise for that purpose.
And when China launched its modernization program, mainland economic oicials
seeking pointers for their own country’s development toured Hong Kong, together
with Macau, Japan, Singapore, and various European countries, to determine what
lessons China might draw from the experiences of those locations.21 One major pre-
occupation of Xu Jiatun, director of Xinhua’s Hong Kong oice from 1983 to 1989,
was indeed to ensure that local and overseas Chinese capital did not lee Hong Kong
before the handover.22 His concern was justiied, since by 1986 Hong Kong ranked
irst among all sources of foreign investment capital in China.
Mainland China also, however, valued Hong Kong as its own “window to
Southeast Asia, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Western world,” a “watch tower,
weather station, and beachhead” for China that would act as “a frontline . . . to
break the embargo by [the] US-led Western camp” on China. Communist oicials
clearly perceived this embargo as embracing not just the economic but also the
intellectual and informational sphere.23 Hong Kong provided a convenient base for
Chinese Communist intelligence and espionage eforts.24 As British Joint Intelligence
Committee reports repeatedly recognized, from 1949 on, “the Chinese government
relied on Hong Kong as a base for its espionage operations against the West just as
much as the West relied on Hong Kong for its operations against China.” Taking over
Cold War Hong Kong would have made no strategic sense for China.25 Hong Kong was
also home to two major letist and Communist-backed newspapers, the Wen Wei Po
and Ta Kung Pao. In 1952 these publications’ highly critical reporting of what were
perceived to be the shortcomings of the colonial government, particularly in provid-
ing adequate and safe housing and social welfare, led the Hong Kong government to
suspend their licenses to publish and to impose substantial ines on their owners and
21. See Mei and Chen, “Hong Kong’s Role in US-China Trade Relations during the 1970s,” 422–30; Tsang,
A Modern History of Hong Kong, 159, 175–79; Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 136–37, 142; Roberts
and Kynaston, he Lion Wakes, 167–71; and Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 68.
22. Shiraishi and Hau, “China, Japan and the Transformation of East Asia,” in Zheng, Hong, and Szonyi, he
Cold War in Asia, 33; and Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 54–47, 69–76, 78.
23. Xinhua documents, as quoted in Lu, “Limits to Propaganda,” in Zheng, Hong, and Szonyi, he Cold War in
Asia, 101–2; also Clayton, Imperialism Revisited, 120.
24. Loh, Underground Front, 84, 94–95.
25. Calder Walton, Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire (London:
William Collins, 2013), 332.
editors. Pressure from London soon caused the colonial government to reduce or
reverse these penalties, while Beijing reined in the journalists responsible for produc-
ing these newspapers. heir coverage of events in Hong Kong quickly became far
less confrontational, belligerent, and ideologically slanted, with greater emphasis on
entertainment and local news. Circulation of the letist media increased, in large part
because the papers adjusted themselves to appeal to the local Hong Kong market.26
A tacit understanding existed that Beijing would not destabilize Hong Kong, so long
as the Hong Kong government maintained order within the colony and did not
permit it to become too serious or efective a base for challenging and subverting the
People’s Republic.27
Hong Kong was scarcely a workers’ paradise. Especially ater the massive refugee
inlux of the 1950s, many of its inhabitants lived and worked in the most primitive of
conditions, oten crowded into dangerous hillside squatter villages, lacking running
water or electricity, with access to little or nothing in the way of social services or
labor regulations. (he outbreak of massive ires in the refugee squatter settlements at
Shek Kip Mei on Christmas Day 1953, killing two and leaving 58,000 people home-
less, did inally propel the Hong Kong authorities into rehousing squatters in what
were admittedly spartan government-built multistory apartment blocks.)28 Indeed,
Image 1.2
Refugee family, early 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
26. Lu, “Limits to Propaganda,” in Zheng, Hong, and Szonyi, he Cold War in Asia, 103–12; also Loh,
Underground Front, 91–94.
27. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 26–30; and Clayton, Imperialism Revisited, 116–22.
Hong Kong University Press, 2012), chs. 8–9.
Hong Kong generally prided itself on being a free-market society. As with so much
else in Hong Kong, the labor movement was politically fragmented, with pro-Com-
munist, pro-Kuomintang, and independent trade unions. he ethos of self-reliance
was—and even today still remains—strong in Hong Kong.
But social tensions and frustrations could have signiicant implications for British
rule. From 1950 until the mid-1960s, labor relations in Hong Kong were fundamen-
tally peaceful. his changed dramatically with the Star Ferry riots of 1966, outbursts
that, like the far more extensive and politically freighted disturbances of 1967, were
rooted in the grievances of working class Hong Kong people, even though the 1967
riots also became heavily politicized and took up Cultural Revolution themes of class
warfare and anticolonialism. Mainland oicials were quite cold blooded in taking no
real part in these battles, showing little compunction in distancing themselves from
their pro-Communist allies within Hong Kong’s labor movement.29 Essentially, they
let it to the Hong Kong government to address these problems and maintain order
within the territory. Ater repressing the riots rather eiciently, the British authori-
ties moved to address some of the underlying discontent that had prompted them.
he implementation of a massive array of social reforms—the provision of basic
but adequate public housing, far broader popular access to education at every level,
a crackdown on corruption, the expansion of medical facilities, and even some social
security and other welfare beneits, however limited—was the major accomplish-
ment of Sir Murray MacLehose, governor of Hong Kong from 1971 to 1982. It also
Image 1.3
Struggle between letists and police, 1967.
Courtesy of Tim Ko.
29. On the attitude of the central Beijing government to the Hong Kong riots, see, e.g., Chu, Chinese Communists
and Hong Kong Capitalists, 48–50; Loh, Underground Front, 103–22; and Carroll, A Concise History of
Hong Kong, 150–57.
owed something to the fact that the lagrant absence of any genuine welfare state in
Hong Kong, by that time one of Britain’s few surviving colonies, together with exten-
sive oicial corruption among police and civil servants, had become something of an
international embarrassment to the British government back in London.30
he Acrobatics of Multiple Balancing
hroughout the Cold War, both internally and internationally, maintaining the
status quo required that the British in Hong Kong perform a delicate balancing act.
Britain, a leading ally of the United States in the Cold War with the Soviet Union,
was heavily dependent on the United States in terms of both its economy and its own
defense. Both were partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western
security alliance established in 1949, in part at British instigation. From 1950 onward,
for twenty years the United States was apparently locked into policies of relentless
antagonism toward the Communist People’s Republic on the mainland, refusing to
accord the PRC diplomatic recognition and blocking mainland membership in the
United Nations, while maintaining that the Republic of China on Taiwan, led by
Chiang Kai-shek, was the only legitimate government of all China. As Communist
forces won control of ever-larger portions of China in the late 1940s, hundreds
of thousands of refugees locked into Hong Kong. Many of these were defeated
Nationalists and their families, some at least of them vehement anti-Communists
who were determined to reverse the outcome of the Chinese Civil War. Lu Xun and
Tracy Steele build in this volume on earlier work by Chi-Kwan Mark and Steve Tsang
to describe in detail various aspects of just how the British government attempted to
maneuver and negotiate among these opposing forces, clamping down on Nationalist
operations and Communist excesses in Hong Kong, while allowing the United States
a carefully circumscribed sphere of action within the territory, one that would in
practice be acceptable to the mainland authorities.31
he operational guidelines of these arrangements took some time to develop. he
British government in London, concerned primarily with broader Cold War strategy,
oten proved readier to conciliate the United States at mainland expense than the
Hong Kong administration would have wished. his was particularly apparent in
30. Joe England and John Rear, Chinese Labour under British Rule: A Critical Study of Labour Relations and
Law in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1975), 4–22, 278–310; on the labor movement
in Hong Kong, see also chs. 4–5. On the post-1967 reforms, see Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong,
157–64; Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 203–5; and Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 475–93.
31. On Hong Kong’s policies toward Communist and Nationalist activities in Hong Kong, see Steve Tsang,
“Strategy for Survival: he Cold War and Hong Kong’s Policy towards Kuomintang and Chinese Communist
Activities in the 1950s,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 25 (2) (May 1997): 294–317;
also Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 158–59; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 444–46; Clayton,
Imperialism Revisited, 99–107; and Loh, Underground Front, 75–76, 80–82, 95.
the early Cold War years, when both the Communist and Nationalist regimes laid
claim to the assets and aircrat of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC),
most of which had been moved to Hong Kong ater the Communist takeover.
In lengthy legal proceedings that dragged on for three years, the Hong Kong and
British courts upheld the claims of the PRC as the de facto government of China. he
Hong Kong and British governments then came under heavy pressure from the US
government, as well as the Nationalists’ legal representatives, who included General
William J. Donovan, former head of the wartime US intelligence agency, the Oice
of Strategic Services, to surrender the airplanes to the Nationalists. Ultimately, the
British government bowed to American demands and—somewhat to the dismay of
Sir Alexander Grantham, Hong Kong’s governor—passed an order-in-council direct-
ing that the aircrat be handed over to Nationalist ownership. In this case, in the
eyes of London, the need to conciliate the Americans took priority over maintaining
reasonable relations with China.32 On other occasions, however, when Chinese artil-
lery opened ire on British naval vessels or civilian aircrat, British reactions were rela-
tively restrained.33 he British nonetheless took a fairly tough line toward aggressively
Communist elements in Hong Kong, with the most incendiary on occasion arrested
and jailed and others expelled back to the mainland.34 One such deportee, a Chinese
university graduate blessed with “charm and intelligence above the average,” had
spent several years as a personal bodyguard to Grantham himself, no doubt reporting
regularly on the governor to his superiors in Beijing.35
he information this young man sent back may have been enlightening. Governor
of Hong Kong for a crucial decade, from July 1947 to December 1957, Grantham was
probably the single British oicial most responsible for setting the territory’s Cold
War guidelines. As oten as not, from the 1950s onward, governors of Hong Kong
and their top civil servants tended—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—to
speak for their colony’s interests rather than those of metropolitan government in
London. During the 1950s, the Hong Kong government won itself increasing inan-
cial autonomy from London, in terms of setting budgets and managing its own afairs.
Grantham also demonstrated considerable skill in limiting the amount of funds the
Hong Kong government handed over to the British Treasury as a contribution to
the expenses of maintaining British military forces in Hong Kong.36 As Tracy Steele
describes in a subsequent chapter, in 1957 Grantham successfully blocked an attempt
32. Grantham, Via Ports, 161–64; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 446–48; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War,
94–100; Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 142–43; Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States,
1945–1992, 207–8; and Clayton, Imperialism Revisited, 112–13.
33. Grantham, Via Ports, 164.
34. Grantham, Via Ports, 147–49; Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 137–38; and Clayton, Imperialism
Revisited, 103–7.
35. Grantham, Via Ports, 179.
36. Ure, Governors, Politics and the Colonial Oice, ch. 10.
Image 1.4
Governor Sir Alexander Grantham (center), Sir Lindsay Ride (right), Lady Maurine Grantham
(far let), Lady Violet May Ride (second let). Courtesy of Tim Ko.
by the budget-conscious Department of Defence to close all British naval facilities in

Hong Kong, something he believed would be highly detrimental to local morale.37
he British authorities in Hong Kong were generally less efective in ighting the
territory’s corner when Hong Kong–related issues featured in some way in broader
Anglo-American negotiations. Yet Grantham—who had an American wife—also
proved himself an eloquent exponent of Hong Kong’s special position and its value
to the Western world before inluential audiences in the United States. Speaking to
the elite Council on Foreign Relations in New York in September 1954, Grantham
explained that Hong Kong was one of the few places where Communist China and
the “free world” encountered each other. It was not just a China watching station
and listening post but also “a living example for the Chinese of a free life,” a lesson
disseminated throughout South China and beyond. Five thousand people entered
and let Hong Kong every day, he said, many of them Chinese. Speaking at a time
when Britain was hoping to win a US defense commitment to Hong Kong, Grantham
warned that, though some considered Hong Kong “expendable,” abandoning the ter-
ritory and its 2.5 million people would send the message throughout Southeast Asia
37. See also Chi-Kwan Mark, “Defense or Decolonisation? Britain, the United States, and the Hong Kong
Question in 1957,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33 (1) (January 2005): 60–62, 65, 67.
that the West would not stand up to Communism in Asia. Although the attitude of
the PRC to Hong Kong was one of “cold hostility,” Britain had been able to crack down
on Communist agitators in the colony. But given that China could at any time cut of
food supplies to Hong Kong, Britain sought neither to “appease” nor to “provoke”
China unnecessarily in the territory. Asked what value British control of Hong Kong
had for China, Grantham replied that it provided “a peephole and a place in which
to do business with foreign irms.” To an inquiry as to what might induce Britain to
return Hong Kong to China, Grantham replied that, should “a reasonably responsible
government” come to power in China, he believed “the force of world opinion” would
impel Britain to give up the colony.38
Returning to the council two years later, in September 1956, rather late in his
term of oice, Grantham took up these themes again. He unsentimentally described
Hong Kong as “a benevolent autocracy or even a police state,” whose people were
generally “apathetic toward politics.” he Soviets had been largely excluded from
undertaking any activities in Hong Kong. here was also no “recognized Red Chinese
diplomat” in the territory, in part because 85 percent of Hong Kong people were still
Chinese citizens, prompting fears that any such representative might try to “estab-
lish himself as king of the Chinese citizenry.” Grantham anticipated that Hong Kong
would revert to Chinese rule in 1997, not least because its water supply, airield, and
other essential facilities were in the leased portion of the territory. He believed the
Chinese had no great wish to take Hong Kong by force, in part because the British and
perhaps the Americans would probably ight for it and destroy most of its infrastruc-
ture before they let. In Grantham’s view, Hong Kong was “of no use to Communist
China except in times of peace when it serves as a peephole on the world and provides
trading, insurance, banking and other facilities for her.” One major problem was that
around 80 percent of mainland visitors to Hong Kong refused to return to China.
Grantham stated that most Chinese in Hong Kong were “anti-Communist but . . .
not pro-Nationalist,” with many “undecided” in sympathy. China therefore sought to
win over inluential local Hong Kong people and was currently conducting a “cultural
ofensive” targeted at professionals such as lawyers, teachers, and doctors.39
While such mainland eforts clearly let the British authorities uneasy, Nationalist
eforts to transform the territory into a redoubt for anti-Communist activities were
a greater source of alarm. he arrival in 1949–50 of several thousand mostly desti-
tute and starving former Nationalist soldiers, probably close to 10,000 by mid-1950,
proved particularly problematic. Initially, the colonial authorities funded supposedly
38. Digest of Meeting, Sir Alexander Grantham, “China as Seen from Hong Kong,” September 29, 1954, Folder 1,
Box 446, Council on Foreign Relations Papers, Mudd Manuscripts Library, Princeton University, Princeton,
NJ, United States.
39. Digest of Meeting, Sir Alexander Grantham, “A British Estimate of Communist China,” September 16, 1956,
Folder 5, Box 447, Council on Foreign Relations Papers.
private philanthropic eforts to feed them, while hoping to deport them all to Taiwan
in the near future. CCP oicials declined to readmit them to the Chinese mainland,
while the Nationalist government on Taiwan, although they eventually took several
thousand from this group, was reluctant to admit the remainder. In their irst few
months in Hong Kong, members of this particular Nationalist cohort were held in
an old fort on Mount Davis on western Hong Kong Island, where in June 1950 they
became a target for demonstrations by pro-Communist Chinese in Hong Kong,
which led to violent clashes. he British government had already been planning to
remove this Nationalist cluster to a more remote location in the New Territories,
Tiu Keng Leng or Rennie’s Mill; it did so one week later, shipping 6,000 refugees
there. he Nationalist settlement quickly became a magnet for other likeminded refu-
gees, and numbers soon swelled, with probably an additional 10,000 to 20,000 set-
tling nearby. With the colonial government’s encouragement, philanthropic groups
established a Hong Kong Rennie’s Mill Refugee Camp Relief Committee (HKRMRC),
supported by wealthy Chinese business leaders, an organization that soon became
a conduit for Nationalist funds from Taiwan, provided by the Free China Relief
Association (FCRA). Until 1953, however, the colonial government continued to
provide the bulk of inancial support for the community. Although Nationalist oi-
cials promised that all would eventually move on to Taiwan, in practice the FCRA
set about constructing a permanent community in Hong Kong that would serve its
international propaganda goals of maintaining a pro-KMT anti-Communist redoubt
in Hong Kong itself. Pro-Nationalist agents iniltrated the community and—as in
some of the Chinese prisoner-of-war camps in Korea—enforced discipline, demand-
ing that all members ostentatiously demonstrate their enthusiastic support for
Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT. Although several thousand of these refugees did
move to Taiwan, those suspected of being only lukewarm in their enthusiasm for
this cause or lacking the right political connections or friends were unlikely to be
chosen for repatriation to the island. Some were even expelled from Rennie’s Mill,
while ater the cessation of subsidies from the British authorities numerous others
departed voluntarily in 1952 and 1953, incurring ierce criticism and ostracism from
Nationalist representatives. hose who were let, around 7,500 in late 1958, developed
a strong sense of community and camaraderie, even as they maintained educational
and cultural links with the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. Rennie’s Mill, still
low rise and undeveloped, remained an increasingly anachronistic pro-Nationalist
enclave, tolerated until the early 1990s, shortly before the handover, when the inhab-
itants were dispersed and the site bulldozed to accommodate a new Mass Transit
Railway station.40
40. Dominic Meng-Hsuang Yang, “Humanitarian Assistance and Propaganda War: Repatriation and Relief of
the Nationalist Refugees in Hong Kong’s Rennie’s Mill Camp, 1950–1955,” Journal of Chinese Overseas 10 (2)
(November 2014): 165–96.
For several decades, from the mid-1950s until the 1990s, the Hong Kong gov-
ernment efectively attained a modus vivendi with those surviving Rennie’s Mill
residents who never reached Taiwan, allowing them limited scope to continue their
ROC leanings and identiication, so long as they created no major disturbances or
public embarrassments. he British authorities were, however, exceedingly eager to
rid the territory of Nationalist-backed agitators and intelligence operatives, some of
whom sought to attack and assassinate pro-Communist oicials and business igures
in Hong Kong. In a particularly egregious episode, in 1955 Nationalist agents at
Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong placed a bomb on the Kashmir Princess, an Air India
light carrying a party of journalists to the Bandung Conference. he aircrat blew
up in midlight, killing all on board. he perpetrators had apparently believed that
Premier Zhou Enlai of China would be traveling on that particular plane. In this case,
the British government made strenuous eforts to locate and arrest those responsi-
ble, eventually identifying a probable suspect, who led to Taiwan before he could
be arrested. he Taiwan authorities ignored British requests that the Nationalists
extradite him to Hong Kong. Other agents of a Nationalist intelligence organiza-
tion in Hong Kong who were implicated in planning this operation were deported.
he British had no intention of allowing Hong Kong to become the venue for open
warfare between Chinese Nationalists and Communists, with the Chinese Civil War
efectively still in progress on Hong Kong’s streets.41
Nor did the British wish US activities in the colony to be unduly provocative
toward China. With all remaining US diplomatic missions in China closed ater
1949, Hong Kong became the closest vantage point from which the United States and
other nations that declined to recognize the new PRC could observe developments
in China. he same was true for foreign journalists, whose access to New China
was usually sharply restricted by the mainland authorities. In this volume Lu and
Steele follow other historians in describing how the number of diplomats attached
to the American consulate general in Hong Kong in a variety of nominal capacities
mushroomed dramatically in the early 1950s, making it the largest consulate in the
world. Some of these were, as Lu describes, collecting verbal and written informa-
tion on China, interviewing refugees and recent visitors to China, amassing data
from mainland publications of every kind, and vacuuming up the output of Chinese
radio broadcasts. hey also gathered information on Communist elements within
Hong Kong itself. NSC 6007/1, a US National Security Council (NSC) policy paper of
June 1960, described the American consulate in Hong Kong as “the most important
source of hard economic, political and military information on Communist China.”42
41. Grantham, Via Ports, 180–81; Steve Tsang, “Target Zhou Enlai: he ‘Kashmir Princess’ Incident of 1955,”
China Quarterly 139 (September 1994): 766–82; and Richard J. Aldrich, he Hidden Hand: Britain, America
and Cold War Secret Intelligence (New York: Overlook Press, 2002), 311–13.
42. NSC 6007/1, “US Policy on Hong Kong,” June 11, 1960, quoted in Johannes R. Lombardo, “A Mission of
Espionage, Intelligence and Psychological Operations: he American Consulate in Hong Kong, 1949–64,”
From 1949 onward, the Hong Kong government was quietly cooperating with
the United States in providing electronic information on both China and Indochina,
from a British Government Communication Headquarters listening post established
at Little Sai Wan in the remote eastern part of Hong Kong Island, well away from
public view. During the Korean War, this facility proved particularly helpful in terms
of providing information on China; in the Vietnam War, it was valuable in inter-
cepting North Vietnamese military and diplomatic radio traic, information that
the Americans used when planning bombing strikes on targets in North Vietnam.
By the later 1970s, the station was also monitoring Soviet naval movements in the
western Paciic Ocean, both up around the Vladivostok naval headquarters and also
in Vietnam, where the Soviets obtained special naval base rights at Camranh Bay
soon ater North Vietnam conquered the South in 1975.43 It is possible that during
the 1970s and early 1980s mainland Chinese agents in Hong Kong successfully
penetrated the Little Sai Wan Station and the nearby Stanley Fort Satellite Station,
removing various documents, including information that would have enabled them
to counter Anglo-American surveillance of PRC communications and satellites. If so,
all involved chose not to publicize the matter.44
Far more problematic for the British was US backing of Nationalist terrorist activi-
ties within Hong Kong and American attempts to use Hong Kong as a launching
pad for Nationalist operations intended to topple or at least weaken the Communist
government of China. US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives were appar-
ently implicated in at least some of these activities, which were a chronic feature
throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. he CIA maintained a massive facility
in Hong Kong, and its oicers sometimes acted unilaterally, omitting to consult or
inform the Hong Kong authorities. At the very least, the CIA almost certainly pro-
vided much of the funding that supported Nationalist anti-Communist enterprises
for which Hong Kong was a venue or platform. In October 1956, full-scale street
battles in which Nationalists attacked Communist sympathizers erupted; eventu-
ally, the British garrison assisted the local police in putting these down. Governor
Grantham suspected the American consulate general bore at least some responsibility
in he Clandestine Cold War in Asia, 1945–65: Western Intelligence, Propaganda and Special Operations,
ed. Richard J. Aldrich, Gary D. Rawnsley, and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 75. On the
role of the American Consulate, see also Aldrich, he Hidden Hand, 306–11; and Mark, Hong Kong and the
Cold War, 178–85. For a personal account of the experience of China-watching in early 1960s Hong Kong,
see Nicholas Platt, China Boys: How U.S. Relations with the PRC Began and Grew; A Personal Memoir
(Washington, DC: New Academia / Vellum Books, 2009), 31–50.
43. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fity Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), 719–20; Aldrich,
he Hidden Hand, 308, 400–401; Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage,” 66; and Jefrey T. Richelson and
Desmond Ball, he Ties hat Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA Countries—United Kingdom,
the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, 2nd ed. (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman,
1990), 40, 190, 206.
44. Richelson and Ball, he Ties hat Bind, 22.
for these events. British oicials feared these campaigns might bring Chinese retali-
ation against Hong Kong, not least because Premier Zhou Enlai warned the British
government that the PRC “could not permit further Hong Kong disorders on the
doorstep of China” and had “a duty to protect the Chinese nationals there.” he
British not unnaturally resented this cavalier American behavior within Hong Kong,
a territory under British, not American, rule. Hong Kong–based Nationalist sabotage
and operations and against China became particularly intense in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, bringing forceful requests, formal and informal, to the Americans from
the governments in both Hong Kong and London to rein in their Nationalist associ-
ates. he Hong Kong authorities also began prosecuting Nationalist saboteurs and
sentencing them to lengthy jail terms, rather than as in the past simply deporting
them to Taiwan.45
Hong Kong’s Cultural Cold War
Within Hong Kong, the Chinese Civil War also continued in the cultural sphere.
Pro-Nationalist and pro-Communist Chinese writers and ilmmakers competed with
each other to win the loyalties of Hong Kong and overseas Chinese and to interpret
developments in China to the rest of Asia and beyond. From the American consu-
late general, American personnel attached to the US Information Service (USIS)
used the talents of such individuals in assorted initiatives that disseminated a wide
range of anti-Communist propaganda of every kind throughout Hong Kong, with
the intention of countering Communist eforts, and also produced publications
and radio broadcasts targeted at overseas Chinese throughout East and Southeast
Asia. Hong Kong was indeed the leading Asian center for preparing and distribut-
ing such materials. Radio Free Asia also transmitted broadcasts to mainland China
itself, though assessments vary as to just how efective such eforts were, given how
few Chinese had access to radios and the extent of formal and informal surveil-
lance within Communist China. At times, indeed, in 1953 for example, the British
in Hong Kong considered them excessive, forcing USIS to cut back its programs of
publishing anti-Communist material.46
45. Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage,” 66–67, 72–74, 76–78; Welsh, A History of Hong Kong,455–56; Aldrich,
he Hidden Hand, 307–8, 311–13; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 182–83, 185–94; Mark, “Defense or
Decolonisation?” 57–58; Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 206–7; Grantham,
Via Ports, 169–70; and Clayton, Imperialism Revisited, 114–16. he quotation from Zhou Enlai is taken
from Chi-Kwan Mark, “he ‘Problem of People’: British Colonials, Cold War Powers, and the Chinese
Refugees in Hong Kong, 1949–62,” Modern Asian Studies 41 (6) (November 2007): 1164. For a Chinese view
of US Cold War propaganda against China and its efectiveness, see Guo Yonghu, “Sot Containment: US
Psychological Warfare against China in the 1950s and 1960s,” in Going Sot? he US and China Go Global,
ed. Priscilla Roberts (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2014), 141–56.
46. Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage,” 71; Aldrich, he Hidden Hand, 309–11; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold
War, 191, 194–204; and Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 206–7.
More oten, however, the British government simply maintained what a 1957 US
National Security Council paper described as “the careful iction of Hong Kong’s
neutrality with regard to Communist China.”47 his meant, for example, that in the
1950s US government funding for anti-Communist publications and ilmmakers
within Hong Kong, notably the Asia Press and Asia Pictures, was funneled through
the supposedly nongovernmental though in reality largely CIA-funded Committee
for Free Asia (subsequently the Asia Foundation). It was not simply pressure from the
Hong Kong authorities that led the US government to conceal its role in funding anti-
Communist cultural activities in Hong Kong. Chang Kuo Sin, the pro-Nationalist
journalist who founded and ran the Asia Press and Asia Pictures throughout the
1950s, was equally insistent that the inancial backing his enterprises received from
the Committee for Free Asia must be kept secret. He feared that, should this become
known, his ilms and publications would lose all credibility. Some anti-Communist
propaganda, especially the ilms, was extremely subtle and conveyed ambivalent
messages, though print publications were oten more blatant in their overtly pro-
Nationalist and anti-Communist bias.48
he mainland Chinese government was undoubtedly aware of many of these
activities. In 1958, the PRC authorities even published a lengthy press story describ-
ing in detail US propaganda activities, front organizations, and recruiting of Chinese
agents in Hong Kong.49 For the most part, however, it seems to have tolerated and
largely ignored them, leaving it to Britain to keep American eforts to win hearts and
minds within bounds. Some Sino-US direct rivalry certainly existed. In his memoirs,
Governor Grantham wryly recalled how, ater every Hong Kong disaster, such as
the Shek Kip Mei ire, the mainland and the United States competed in ofering
humanitarian aid to Hong Kong.50 he British perennially tried to impose a certain
restraint on their American ally. For example, when the Universities Service Centre
(USC), a research facility funded by American foundations, was established in 1963
to collect materials of every kind on mainland China and provide a base for American
scholars and policy experts studying China, the “rather skittish” British authori-
ties in Hong Kong were not hostile but warned US oicials to keep a low proile.51
Initially, the British wanted no publicity whatsoever even for plans to establish the
47. NSC 5717, “US Policy on Hong Kong,” July 17, 1957, quoted in Charles Leary, “he Most Careful
Arrangements for a Careful Fiction: A Short History of Asia Pictures,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 13 (4)
(December 2012): 548.
48. Leary, “he Most Careful Arrangements for a Careful Fiction,” 548–58.
49. Aldrich, he Hidden Hand, 310–11; also Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage,” 74.
50. Grantham, Via Ports, 155–56.
51. A. Doak Barnett to William W. Marvel, November 13, 1961, Chronological File October–November 1961,
Box 147, A. Doak Barnett Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Butler Library, Columbia University,
New York, NY, United States; also Barnett to Marvel, August 22, 1962, Chronological File January–March
1961, Box 147, Barnett Papers.
USC or that the Carnegie Corporation was providing the necessary inancial back-
ing.52 American scholars and others temporarily attached to the new USC, including
A. Doak Barnett of Columbia University and Jerome Cohen and Ezra Vogel of Harvard,
who were publishing research-based books on Communist China, soon began using
the center to interview émigrés from the Chinese mainland. he British govern-
ment tacitly “tolerate[d]” these activities, just so long as interviews were conducted
discreetly in a USC “neutral sub-oice” rather than at the center’s main premises in
Kowloon.53
A certain competitive element always characterized Britain’s dealings with the
United States in Hong Kong. When reestablishing the University of Hong Kong ater
the Second World War, British oicials saw this move as necessary to enable Britain
to maintain its position in China and Asia in the face of American rivalry.54 As Tracy
Steele points out in this volume, the British were decidedly wary of involving US
forces directly in Hong Kong’s defense, preparing to leave the precise nature if any
of American military commitments to Hong Kong veiled in convenient ambiguity
and obscurity. Law Yuk-fun suggests that, ater October 1949, not only did American
oicials initially doubt Britain’s ability to hold Hong Kong against a determined
Communist assault, but they also felt real misgivings over publicly endorsing the
continued existence of a bastion of Western colonialism in Asia. (Even when sup-
porting the French in Vietnam, one should note, the United States sought the cover
of a suitable indigenous but non-Communist igure as the nominal head of govern-
ment.) Hong Kong’s eforts to keep up its trade with Communist China ater Chinese
intervention in the Korean War also angered many inluential American congres-
sional igures. Only gradually did the American government come to appreciate the
international propaganda value of Hong Kong as a lourishing capitalist redoubt,
an oasis of economic prosperity and development that ofered ever-greater contrasts
and an implicit rebuke to the bleak situation on the Communist mainland. American
oicials also came to perceive the inlux of refugees to Hong Kong, Chinese who had
literally voted with their feet in leeing Communist rule, as representing a signiicant
Western advantage in the Cold War. In the mid-1950s, therefore, Americans switched
to considering Hong Kong far more in terms of its appreciable value as a Cold War
asset, psychological as much as strategic. In Law’s view, these increasingly sympa-
thetic US perceptions of Hong Kong had much to do with the Eisenhower admin-
istration’s growing readiness, in 1957 and 1960, to make some kind of indication,
52. Barnett to “Professors Wilbur, Ho, Dallin, deBary, Hazard, Fried, Morley, Passin, and Howard Boorman and
Mrs. Roberts,” April 19, 1963, Chronological File April 1963, Box 147, Barnett Papers.
53. Stanley Lubman to Preston Schoyer, n.d. [mid-1960s], File Preston B. Schoyer, Box 146, Barnett Papers.
54. Duncan J. Sloss, “he British Position in Hong Kong in Relation to China,” November 14, 1945, talk at
Chatham House, RIIA/8/1168, RIIA Papers, Chatham House, London, United Kingdom.
however equivocal, that maintaining the status quo of British rule in Hong Kong was
in the interests of the United States.55
he inlux of refugees to Hong Kong—667,000 were there by 1954, almost 30 percent
of the colony’s population—strained the city’s existing infrastructure and resources
to the limit.56 Glen Peterson’s chapter documents how by late 1951 the United States
government had come to perceive the Chinese refugees in Hong Kong as a potential
asset. American politicians and diplomats, especially those with an interest in China
and ties to the Nationalists, wished to assist at least some of the refugees, the relatively
small number—under 5 percent of the total—who had received suicient education
to be considered “intellectuals.” In November 1951 Congressional Representative
Walter H. Judd, a former missionary to China and key member of the China Lobby
in the United States, founded the Committee to Secure Aid for Refugee Chinese
Intellectuals (ARCI), a nominally private organization whose members included top
business leaders, media igures, and educators, and former missionaries, diplomats,
and military personnel with an interest in China. As was also true of the National
Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), founded slightly earlier, while ARCI made
well-publicized appeals for private donations, much of its funding came—largely cov-
ertly—from the State Department and CIA sources. he British government, eager
not to antagonize mainland China by sanctioning overtly anti-Communist US opera-
tions in Hong Kong, speciically asked the American consul general in Hong Kong
to ensure that the State Department did not publicize the fact that ARCI was at least
partially inanced by US government sources. Nor were the British willing to allow
ARCI to set up mass relief stations throughout Hong Kong to highlight the sufering
and diiculties of the mainland refugees.57
ARCI oicials hoped to resettle educated refugees in locales where they might
become leaders in anti-Communist eforts, including the overseas Chinese commu-
nities across Southeast Asia, as well as Taiwan. In practice, despite the iercely pro-
Nationalist leanings of most top ARCI oicials, Southeast Asian governments were
generally reluctant to increase the numbers of their overseas Chinese populations,
55. Law Yuk-fun, “Delayed Accommodation: United States Policies towards Hong Kong, 1949–60” (PhD dis-
sertation, University of Hong Kong, 2001).
56. Perceptive overviews of Hong Kong refugee policies during the 1950s and the complex international ramii-
cations of these include Meredith Oyen, he Diplomacy of Migration: Transnational Lives and the Making of
U.S.-Chinese Relations in the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015), 154–84; and Mark, “he
‘Problem of People,’” 1145–81.
57. On US support for ARCI and other refugee programs in Hong Kong, see Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War,
204–9; Oyen, he Diplomacy of Migration, 163–70; and Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States,
1945–1992, 209–10. On allegations that the CIA—not just the US State Department—was heavily involved
in providing inance for ARCI, see Hsu, “Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc. and the Political Uses of
Humanitarian Relief, 1952–1962,” Journal of Chinese Overseas 10 (2) (November 2014): 142, 145–46; and
Hugh Wilford, he Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2008), 295–96, note 36.
and the Nationalists in Taiwan were somewhat suspicious of these refugees, fearing
some might be Communist spies. Ultimately, ARCI resettled around 14,000 Chinese
intellectuals and their families in Taiwan, a few in Southeast Asia, and around 2,500
in the United States. Another 15,000 individuals and their families remained in
Hong Kong. Predictably, some of them found employment helping to implement
various US-backed propaganda eforts aimed at China, as translators, editors, and
broadcasters.58 Other refugees worked on the distribution side, proiting by selling
on the open market in Hong Kong attractive USIS propaganda magazines they them-
selves had received gratis from the American consulate.59
he constraints the Hong Kong government placed on ARCI and other politi-
cally motivated humanitarian eforts in Hong Kong were one further example
of how in practice the British sought to allow the United States some latitude for
activities within the colony yet keep these within limits that would not antagonize
the mainland authorities. Peterson describes how in 1952, the Hong Kong govern-
ment also opposed a proposal by ARCI to establish a Free Chinese University in
Hong Kong, a venture the British feared would become a focus for Nationalist-backed
anti-Communist eforts. he Hong Kong authorities were equally concerned, however,
by what Sir Lindsay Ride, vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, described
in 1956 as the Communist “iniltration problem in educational circles.”60 his led
to a gradual rethinking of British policies on the creation of a new university, with
refugee Chinese personnel at its core. he British government funded the English-
language University of Hong Kong, established in 1912, but both within Hong Kong
and around Southeast Asia, which had a large overseas Chinese population, many
young Chinese sought higher education in the Chinese language. Regionally, this was
available only in Taiwan, where the Nationalist government rigidly controlled the
educational system, or on the Communist mainland. In both American and British
eyes, Hong Kong ofered a more neutral platform for Chinese-medium education,
one that would help to counter the attractions of Communist-run mainland universi-
ties among young people in Hong Kong and beyond while avoiding the ideological
rigidities of Nationalist-administered Taiwan institutions.
With the local Hong Kong British administration’s acquiescence, from the
early 1950s onward, several American private or quasi-private organizations—the
university-based Yale-China and Harvard-Yenching groups, plus the wealthy Ford
Foundation, and the CIA-funded Asia Foundation—helped to inance and steer
58. On ARCI’s operational dealings with Taiwan in particular, see Madeline Y. Hsu, “Aid Refugee Chinese
Intellectuals, Inc.,” 137–64; on its American programs, see Madeline Y. Hsu, he Good Immigrants: How the
Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), ch. 6.
59. Oyen, he Diplomacy of Migration, 176.
60. Alan Watt to Richard Casey, April 1956, Correspondence File Alan Watt, Series M1129 Richard Gardiner
Casey Papers, National Archives of Australia, Victoria Branch, Melbourne, Australia (Digitized on NAA
RecordSearch catalog).
the establishment in Hong Kong of Chinese-language colleges that would provide

postsecondary education irst to local and eventually to overseas Chinese students.
Founded by eminent Chinese refugee scholars, these institutions, of which New Asia
College was the most prestigious, eventually merged to become the Chinese University
of Hong Kong, an institution whose establishment owed much to pressure and
backing from the CIA-funded Asia Foundation, working quietly under the cover of
the quasi-independent Mencius Educational Foundation, set up in the early 1950s to
fund Chinese-language educational ventures in Hong Kong. he Americans believed
that the existence of a relatively free and neutral intellectual space in Hong Kong,
in which letist ideas could at least be discussed, ofered a more propitious locale
than authoritarian Taiwan for academic institutions that would in practice counter
Communism’s attractions. By the late 1950s the British government, alarmed by the
growing numbers of Hong Kong young people who were seeking higher education
outside the territory, with many emigrating permanently, had come to realize that
expanding Chinese-medium higher education within Hong Kong by merging the
Chinese-language colleges, led by the prestigious New Asia College, into a second
university had genuine practical advantages. Both the Americans backing this initia-
tive and the British government deliberately downplayed the extent to which the US
government and philanthropic organizations with close American oicial links were
involved in setting up the Chinese University of Hong Kong, an institution that—
like their propaganda activities in the territory—Americans involved perceived as
an integral part of US eforts to contain the spread of Chinese Communist inlu-
ences in Asia.61 While still wary of potential Communist iniltration into the new
university’s power structure, British government oicials were at least as keen to limit
Kuomintang and Taiwan involvement in New Asia College and the projected Chinese
University. hey insisted that inancial subsidies from Chiang Kai-shek to New Asia
should cease, queried the pro-Taiwan backgrounds of several individuals proposed
for senior administrative and academic appointments, and objected to displays of
Nationalist lags on October 10 national days. Continuing such practices would, they
warned, jeopardize New Asia’s inclusion in the new university, a message that the
organization’s Yale-China American sponsors reinforced.62
British functionaries took an equally jaundiced view of unduly lamboyant main-
land activities. In mid-1956, Sir Alexander Grantham sought to fend of mainland
demands that Chinese dancing teams be allowed to visit Hong Kong, a “cultural ofen-
sive” that the government’s political adviser believed indicated “that the Communists
61. See Grace Ai-Ling Chou, Confucianism, Colonialism, and the Cold War: Chinese Cultural Education at
Hong Kong’s New Asia College, 1949–63 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2012), esp. chs. 2–4; and Zhang Yang,
“Cultural Cold War: he American Role in Establishing the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK),”
in he Power of Culture: Encounters between China and the United States, ed. Priscilla Roberts (Newcastle,
UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2016), 148–69.
62. Chou, Confucianism, Colonialism, and the Cold War, 132–48.
wish to use Hong Kong as a show window for the New China.” A group of mainland
dancers had already visited Macau, monopolizing a local hotel, which was guarded
by Macau-based Communists toting machine guns. Grantham thought Hong Kong
would be unable to sanction similar arrangements for the safety of mainland artistes.63
Such mainland-sponsored cultural events were nonetheless staged in Hong Kong
and sometimes indeed carefully choreographed in multiple ways. A few years later,
in 1961, the Shanghai Yue Opera Company came to Hong Kong and gave sixteen
extremely successful performances of the Dream of the Red Chamber. Appearing in
Hong Kong at the height of the Great Famine, the cast spent the fortnight before their
visit immured in a Guangzhou resort hotel being plied with nutritious food, with the
objective of dispelling rumors that starvation was rife in China.64
Other visitors could pose diferent dilemmas. Since at least the late nineteenth
century, Hong Kong had been a standard port of call for passenger liners carrying
well-heeled tourists. he playwright Noel Coward, having written the irst drat of
his classic comedy Private Lives in the Cathay Hotel in Shanghai, revised it in the
Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. By the early 1960s, tourism was a major Hong Kong
industry, second only to textile manufacturing in earnings. Many of these visitors were
civilians, particularly Americans. Others, however, were US military personnel, some
lown in from Vietnam or Japan, others in Hong Kong for port visits by their ships.
Such stopovers by US naval vessels began in the nineteenth century and continued for
the irst decades of the twentieth but became far more signiicant to the local economy
in the atermath of the Second World War. Chi-Kwan Mark’s chapter describes how,
during the Vietnam War, visits by US military tourists on R & R from a war that
mainland China oicially condemned as an instance of American imperialism had
the potential to become extremely controversial politically. he British government
simultaneously sought to placate the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson,
who deeply resented the failure of Labour prime minister Harold Wilson to dispatch
any British troops to assist the Americans in Vietnam, while not pushing mainland
Chinese sensitivities to the point of an outright breach. he PRC government did
indeed issue four oicial protests, prompting the Hong Kong and US authorities to
develop guidelines for these visits that would, they hoped, keep them within bounds
that the mainland would tolerate. Limits were set to the numbers of ships and US
military in Hong Kong at any one time; port visits did not coincide with particularly
sensitive occasions, such as the Communist and Nationalist national days in early
October; and US shore police maintained tight control over the behavior of young
American service personnel in Hong Kong. hese negotiations paralleled quiet
63. Watt to Casey, April 1956, Correspondence File Alan Watt, Series M1129 Casey Papers.
64. Xiaojue Wang, “Eileen Chang, Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Cold War,” in Eileen Chang: Romancing
Languages, Cultures and Genres, ed. Kam Louie (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 115–16.
signaling between the United States and China, facilitated at times by the British
Foreign Oice, over the limits of US involvement in Vietnam that China would be
prepared to accept without intervening militarily in that conlict.65
A recent article by Peter Hamilton describes how local mainland-backed news-
papers continued to report at length all instances of bad behavior by American mili-
tary visitors and excoriate the presence of US warships in Hong Kong’s harbor. But
American military personnel—many of them quite literally spending like proverbial
drunken sailors—also made a major contribution to local prosperity, leading many in
Hong Kong to welcome or at least tolerate their presence.66 While local sex workers,
businesses, and taxis may sometimes have overcharged or cheated them, Americans
enjoying themselves on R & R in Hong Kong never became targets for Communist
violence. Letist objections to their presence were conined to the realm of rhetoric,
not direct action. Nor did American naval vessels in Hong Kong harbor attract the
attentions of Communist saboteurs. As Mark describes, maintaining Hong Kong’s
attractiveness as a prominent American tourist destination was indeed a major pre-
occupation for government oicials and local businesses. he protracted 1967 riots in
Hong Kong, widely reported in the international press, brought a massive downturn
in tourism, especially by nonmilitary personnel. While no American military tour-
ists or ships were attacked, mobs stoned hotels on Nathan Road much patronized
by visiting US armed forces, as well as the Bank of America, while two bombs were
placed in US Information Service oices. Yet, as the British authorities noted with
relief, even during the riots individual Americans, including military men and
women on leave, were exempt from attack. US warships were likewise ignored and
let unscathed.67 In response, the Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA), local
businesses, airlines, hotels, travel agents, the media, and the Hong Kong govern-
ment cooperated in mounting a major international campaign designed to restore
the image of Hong Kong as a safe and secure tourist destination, a glamorous and
exciting locale and combination of East and West, ofering inexpensive shopping,
delicious food, exotic and picturesque sights, and abundant local color. By late 1968,
their eforts had succeeded, and Hong Kong was once again attracting tourists from
around the world, including 158,915 nonmilitary Americans.
65. See also Chi-Kwan Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists: US Naval Visits to Hong Kong and British-American-
Chinese Relations, 1965–1968,” Cold War History 10 (1) (February 2010): 1–28; and Tucker, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 211. On Sino-American signaling on Vietnam, see also
James G. Hershberg and Chen Jian, “Informing the Enemy: Sino-American ‘Signaling’ and the Vietnam
War, 1965,” in Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the War beyond Asia, ed. Priscilla Roberts
(Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 193–258.
66. Peter E. Hamilton, “‘A Haven for Tortured Souls’: Hong Kong in the Vietnam War,” International History
Review 37 (3) (September 2015): 565–81.
67. Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 213; and Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists,” 14.
Cold War Hong Kong: Images and Identities
Hong Kong’s image and Hong Kong realities were oten at considerable variance
with each other. his was readily apparent in depictions of Hong Kong in Cold
War popular culture. Several James Bond movies used Hong Kong as a photogenic
backdrop and setting for assorted scenes. Earlier, the colony was the setting for two
extremely popular Hollywood movies, Love Is a Many-Splendored hing (1955) and
he World of Suzie Wong (1960). Each was an adaptation of a novel. Han Suyin’s semi-
autobiographical bestseller, A Many-Splendoured hing (1952), was the story of the
doomed Hong Kong love afair between a widowed Eurasian (half Chinese and half
Belgian) doctor and a married Australian war correspondent who was killed in the
Korean War. Richard Mason’s he World of Suzie Wong (1957) was the story of a
British artist and a Wanchai bargirl who fall in love and, ater various complications,
ultimately marry. In the ilm versions, the British and Australian male protagonists
were transformed into Americans, both coincidentally played by William Holden,
a characterization that lends itself to interpretation as a Cold War analogy of the
strong, masculine United States saving a weaker, feminized Hong Kong, a protective
role that could be extended to all China or even Asia as a whole.68
Image 1.5
Publicity still, he World of Suzie Wong (1960). Courtesy of Tim Ko.
68. Gina Marchetti, Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 109–24.
he World of Suzie Wong soon came to symbolize the seedier tourist attractions of
Hong Kong, the well-known brothels and bars that were magnets for Western—and
Asian—men intent on having a good time in the city in districts where commer-
cial sex was readily available and almost anything was for sale. During the Vietnam
War, free-spending US servicemen undoubtedly did much to enrich Hong Kong and
power the local economy, especially in times of recession. Publicity for the tourist
industry deliberately capitalized on the fame of Suzie Wong, associating her with the
Wanchai area where the ictional Suzie had plied her trade.69 he image of rather
dubious glamor and excitement pervaded many other Cold War era ilms and novels
by Western authors set at least in part in Hong Kong, including thrillers, detective
and spy stories, and melodramatic historical blockbusters clearly based on promi-
nent Hong Kong business houses and families. John le Carré’s massive Cold War
espionage novel he Honourable Schoolboy (1977) contained recognizable portraits of
some of the colony’s journalists, with scenes set in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club,
a Hong Kong institution.70 University of Hong Kong academics produced several
notable examples of this genre. he philosopher Christopher New wrote a series of
thrillers, several set at crucial moments in Hong Kong’s and China’s history, including
the Cultural Revolution, the 1967 riots, the fall of top Chinese Communist politician
Lin Biao, and the handover negotiations.71 he well-known detective writer Jonathan
Gash, who spent several years in the 1960s teaching in the university’s Department
of Pathology, used Hong Kong as the setting for Jade Woman (1989), one in his series
of novels featuring Lovejoy, a rather shady British antique dealer. Beside a university
professor who cheerfully forges Chinese documents to authenticate a fake Chinese
impressionist painting, its characters included an assortment of Chinese gangsters
and beautiful women, most notably the eponymous Jade Woman, an almost impos-
sibly beautiful, talented, and intelligent paragon of high-class femininity, a triad
goddess and director. he Year of the Woman (2005), set in prehandover Hong Kong,
features a penniless young woman who lives in a squatter shack near the university
but possesses supernatural powers, which likewise make her a valuable triad asset,
so that she not only survives but prospers.72
Chinese portrayals of Hong Kong were more nuanced and ambivalent. Han Suyin
was in fact one of the more interesting personalities who spent time in Hong Kong
69. Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists,” 4–5.

70. C. Mary Turnbull, “Hong Kong: Fragrant Harbour, City of Sin and Death,” in Asia in Western Fiction,
ed. Robin W. Winks and James R. Rush (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990), 117–36; and Tucker,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 229–30.
71. See esp. Christopher New, he Chinese Box (London: W. H. Allen, 1975); Christopher New, Goodbye Chairman
Mao (London: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1979); Christopher New, Shanghai (London: Summit
Books, 1985); Christopher New, A Change of Flag (London: Bantam Books, 1990); and Christopher New,
he Gage Street Courtesan (Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 2013).
72. Jonathan Gash, Jade Woman (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989); and Jonathan Gash, he Year of the Woman
(London: Allison and Busby, 2005).
and in her own life and career exempliied many of its Cold War contradictions. he
Eurasian daughter of a Chinese railway engineer and a Belgian mother, she deined
herself primarily through her Chinese heritage. he widow of a Chinese Nationalist
general, a marriage she later characterized as extremely unhappy, she let China in
the 1940s to pursue medical studies in London. Ater the Communist revolution, she
moved to Hong Kong, but not back to China, though she traveled frequently to the
mainland from the mid-1950s onward and was on good terms with many of China’s
Communist leaders. Her subsequent defenses of Mao Zedong’s policies and admiring
biographies of Mao and Zhou Enlai led many to attack her as an apologist for Chinese
Communist excesses. Despite Han Suyin’s decision to remain based outside China
itself, A Many-Splendoured hing was sharply critical of the hypocrisy and narrow-
mindedness of postwar colonial and expatriate Hong Kong society and largely sup-
portive of the Communist revolution just across the border. In the 1960s she identiied
strongly with Asian struggles against Western imperialism and staunchly condemned
American policies in Vietnam. She was, however, openly critical of the June 1989
Tiananmen massacre of Chinese students in Beijing. At the time the movie based
on her book appeared, much of this still lay in the future. But the American-made
ilm undoubtedly romanticized and sentimentalized a decidedly complicated woman
and a reasonably complex novel, one that highlighted many of the ambiguities and
contradictions of Hong Kong and its residents, temporary or permanent.73
Chinese literary igures could indeed be profoundly ambivalent toward or alien-
ated from Hong Kong. As Prasenjit Duara points out, many of those who led the
mainland for Hong Kong in the late 1940s and early 1950s believed the city lacked
any kind of genuine Chinese culture and considered themselves deracinated exiles.
he well-known Chinese writer Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing), a former University of
Hong Kong student, initially remained in Shanghai ater October 1949, producing
a letist novel and story, Eighteen Springs (1951) and “Xiao’ai” (1952), before leaving
Shanghai in 1952. She then spent three years based in Hong Kong, where she beneited
from the US government’s Cold War largesse, doing translation work for USIS that
supported her as she produced two English-language novels, he Rice-Sprout Song
(1955) and Naked Earth (1956), each with an anti-Communist subtext.74 She even
dedicated the English-language version of Lust, Caution (1979), her spy novella set
in Second World War Hong Kong and Shanghai, to R. M. McCarthy of Hong Kong’s
73. On Han Suyin, as well as A Many-Splendoured hing (London: Jonathan Cape, 1952), see her various
volumes of autobiography: he Crippled Tree: China: Autobiography, History (London: Jonathan Cape, 1965);
A Mortal Flower: China: Autobiography, History (London: Jonathan Cape, 1966); Birdless Summer: China:
Autobiography, History (London: Jonathan Cape, 1968); My House Has Two Doors: China: Autobiography,
History (London: Triad, Graton Books, 1980); and Wind in My Sleeve: China, Autobiography, History
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1992); also G. M. Glaskin, A Many-Splendoured Woman: A Memoir of Han Suyin
(Singapore: Graham Brash, 1995).
74. Wang, “Eileen Chang, Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Cold War,” in Louie, Eileen Chang, 113; and Hsu,
he Good Immigrants, 163.
US Information Agency.75 Yet Chang’s feelings about the Cold War and the various
competing incarnations of China—Nationalist Taiwan, British-run Hong Kong, and
the Communist mainland—remained deeply conlicted, as she found herself able to
identify fully with none of them. Chang moved to the United States in 1955, but much
of what she wrote there in English failed to ind its way into print, because main-
stream American publishers thought her iction too sympathetic or at least insuf-
iciently antagonistic to Communist China and therefore liable to draw McCarthyite
censure.76
Multiple identities were increasingly common in Hong Kong. For some, this could
be deeply problematic. Chang’s 1963 travel essay “A Return to the Frontier,” an account
of a trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan, published in the anti-Communist US journal the
Reporter, described her sense of alienation in Taiwan, which she had never visited
before. Chang also highlighted problems on the mainland, including shortages of
food and poor conditions in the communes, arbitrary harassment of those consid-
ered politically suspect, and the eagerness of many Chinese to escape to Hong Kong
or Macau. Hong Kong was depicted as part of “the free world,” to which the Lo Wu
border crossing served as the bridge.77 For the next twenty years, Chang continued
to rewrite much longer versions of this essay in Chinese, conjuring up memories of
Image 1.6
Lo Wu border crossing, c. 1960. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
75. Shuang Shen, “Betrayal, Impersonation, and Bilingualism: Eileen Chang’s Self-Translation,” in Louie,
Eileen Chang, 106.
76. Wang, “Eileen Chang, Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Cold War,” in Louie, Eileen Chang, 126–29.
77. Eileen Chang, “A Return to the Frontier,” 1963, http://www.t77.com/book/mingjia/zhangailing/%E6%95%A3
%E6%96%87/063.htm, accessed on September 27, 2014.
her earlier times in Hong Kong, with the piece culminating in her departure once
more for the United States. Shuang Shen plausibly suggests that her constant revision
and translation of many of her writings, both iction and noniction, switching from
one language to another, were symptomatic of the diiculties Chinese in Hong Kong
and beyond experienced in adjusting to the Cold War framework while maintaining
their identity.78 One of Chang’s most famous and controversial stories, Lust, Caution,
set partly in Hong Kong, focused upon the diiculties of impersonating a character
without losing one’s own identity in the process, a juggling act the heroine of that story
inds beyond her skills, thereby bringing about her own death. Others were more suc-
cessful in reconciling diferent identities. Recently, Stacilee Ford, an American who
has lived in Hong Kong for more than two decades, has perceptively explored how the
experience of navigating and adjusting to multiple overlapping national and ethnic
communities has afected American and Chinese American women within Hong Kong
and the ways that they perceive themselves, others, their own country, and the society
around them.79
Over time, too, Hong Kong began to create its own identity, a process in which
the Cold War experience and the particular openings it ofered undoubtedly featured
signiicantly. Some of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who entered Hong Kong
following the Second World War were indeed merely sojourners, passing through.
he Hong Kong government initially assumed that, as had oten been the case in the
past, many would return to China once the situation there had stabilized. By the mid-
1950s, it was increasingly clear that this would not be the case; the inlux from across
the PRC border was indeed continuing, albeit more slowly though steadily than in
1949–50, and very few sought to return. Only a limited number of these migrants
went on to other countries; many were there to stay. Particularly ater the October
1956 clashes between Nationalist and Communist supporters in Hong Kong, which
let more than ity people dead, Hong Kong authorities began to focus upon integrat-
ing the recent arrivals into broader Hong Kong society, building more multistory
apartment blocks in which to resettle them and ofering at least limited educational
and community facilities, as well as jobs in private industry. While a range of inter-
national political considerations ensured that the precise status of the newcomers—
whether they were refugees or merely economic migrants—remained ambivalent
and carefully undeined, when the United Nations declared 1959–60 World Refugee
Year, Hong Kong received around US$4.5 million from a range of governments and
private sources. hese funds helped to inance such long-term facilities as primary
schools, community centers, and public health clinics.80 Meanwhile, the imposition
78. Shen, “Betrayal, Impersonation, and Bilingualism,” in Louie, Eileen Chang, 93–111.
79. Stacilee Ford, Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2011).
80. Mark, “he ‘Problem of People,’” 1163–73; and Oyen, he Diplomacy of Migration, 178–80.
of stricter controls on migration from China, especially ater the mid-1950s, and the
increasing militarization of the border separating Hong Kong from the PRC brought
a greater sense of demarcation, not just physically and spatially but also psychologi-
cally, between Hong Kong and the mainland.81
he new migrants provided the labor force that fueled Hong Kong’s industrial
boom. Gradually, too, they forged a sense of a speciically Hong Kong identity by
regarding the territory itself as their chosen community and home. Prasenjit Duara
highlights here the degree to which the Hong Kong ilm industry helped to create a
new sense of identity in Hong Kong, one that had a distinct moral ethos that helped
to fuel demands upon the colonial government for public accountability and social
equity. And, as Stacilee Ford points out in this volume, movies aimed primarily at
local and overseas Chinese and Asian audiences oten conveyed messages far more
complicated than those in Hollywood ilms. Just as the tourist industry made oppor-
tunistic use of the trope of the world of Suzie Wong, when dealing with Westerners
female Hong Kong movie stars oten presented themselves in traditional Asian
costumes, epitomizing Cold War visions of Asian women as graceful, gentle, docile
ladies who recognized they had much to learn from more worldly-wise and assertive
Western female role models. Yet, in at least some movies produced by Hong Kong
studios for predominantly Asian audiences, the roles these Hong Kong ilm actresses
played challenged many existing attitudes and expectations about women, in terms
of marriage, careers, and family relationships. In this respect, they were far more
innovative than American Cold War movies and television shows of the 1950s, which
largely reinforced social messages that women could and should ind true satisfaction
and happiness only in domesticity and family life. American women who had other
ambitions or questioned established gender expectations were liable not simply to be
criticized as selish, unfeminine, and quite possibly psychologically unbalanced but
accused of being unpatriotic. In the early Cold War, American women who refused to
accept conventional female roles were depicted as undermining the American family,
which would in turn weaken American society and thereby detract from US eforts
to win the Cold War.82 On occasion, Hong Kong ilmmakers also critiqued Western
mores and values.
he rejection by Cold War Hong Kong ilmmakers and writers of exclusively
Western norms in favor of a more nuanced adaptation or appropriation was perhaps
one sign of the degree to which Hong Kong, despite being in many respects a Cold
War symbol, also escaped from Cold War constraints. It was a place where ideologies
81. Laura Madokoro, “Borders Transformed: Sovereign Concerns, Population Movements and the Making of
Territorial Frontiers in Hong Kong, 1949–1967,” Journal of Refugee Studies 25 (3) (September 2012): 410–25.
82. On expectations of American women in the 1950s, see William H. Chafe, he Paradox of Change: American
Women in the 20th Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 175–82; and Elaine Tyler May,
Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, rev. and updated ed. (New York: Basic Books,
2008).
and interests supposedly in total conlict with each other managed to coexist, if not
always entirely peacefully or harmoniously, at least with antagonisms suiciently
muted that Hong Kong was able to survive as a separate and functioning entity. he
British authorities running Hong Kong managed to work out a de facto relation-
ship with the People’s Republic of China. At times, indeed, their interests coincided,
as when Britain repeatedly declined to allow Soviet organizations of various kinds
to establish a foothold in Hong Kong. In so doing, the Hong Kong government was
driven in part by its own Cold War hostility to Soviet Russia. Once the Sino-Soviet
split became apparent, however, another reinforcing factor was the British desire not
to antagonize China by giving the Soviet Union a base from which it might be able to
gather intelligence on mainland China.83
Hong Kong was also a locale where mainland Chinese and US interests encountered
each other on a daily basis. Had the PRC been suiciently forceful in its objections
to American activities in the colony, in terms of intelligence gathering, anti-Com-
munist propaganda, covert operations, and, during both the Korean and Vietnam
conlicts, procurement of war supplies, servicing US warships, and hosting American
military personnel on leave, Britain would have had few alternatives but to ask the
Americans to leave. his did not happen. In practice, China and the United States
reached a tacit understanding as to just how much China might tolerate American
usage of Hong Kong as a Cold War base and symbol. At some level, both sides knew
that they could work together and recognized that in practice, even in times of out-
right war in Korea or Vietnam or great political turmoil in China, accommodation
between them was feasible, a lesson that must have played some part in setting the
scene for the eventual resumption of formal Sino-American relations from the early
1970s onward.
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2
Hong Kong’s Enduring Global Business
Relations
David R. Meyer
By the late twentieth century, Hong Kong had entered the public and private con-
sciousness as one of the world’s greatest business centers. In the background looms
its mysterious past as a port in the “Orient,” a place of intrigue, trade, shipping, and
smuggling of drugs and gold. Its status as a British colony, yet a city whose population
was overwhelmingly Chinese, only enhanced its allure.1 he return of Hong Kong to
Chinese sovereignty in 1997 catapulted the city to its current high visibility as China’s
global business center. he handover festivities called attention to Hong Kong’s
spectacular urban landscape of soaring skyscrapers, green mountains, and harbor.
Yet this seemingly secure future, bonded politically and economically to one of the
world’s largest, most rapidly growing countries, may be uncertain. In 2047 its status
as a Special Administrative Region, with local control over its economy, politics, and
society, will end. he extent to which it retains the freedom to function economically
remains an open question. Even the continued support of Hong Kong by the leaders
of China’s government never seems to allay fears about its future.2
he rapid industrialization of the 1950s through the 1970s received extensive
attention as Hong Kong supplied manufactures to global markets, primarily North
America and Europe.3 Most observers identify the city’s growing global signiicance
with the start of rapid expansion of international banks in Hong Kong ater 1970.4
Now its inancial sector receives widespread notice, in part, because some of China’s
major state-owned enterprises are listed on the Hong Kong Exchanges. Large state
1. Frank Welsh, A Borrowed Place: he History of Hong Kong (New York: Kodansha International, 1993).
2. Robert Ash, Peter Ferdinand, Brian Hook, and Robin Porter, eds., Hong Kong in Transition: he Handover
Years (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 2000); Edmund R. hompson, “he Political Economy of National
Competitiveness: ‘One Country, Two Systems’ and Hong Kong’s Diminished International Business
Reputation,” Review of International Political Economy 11 (1) (February 2004): 62–97; and Yue-man Yeung,
ed., he First Decade: he Hong Kong SAR in Retrospective and Introspective Perspectives (Hong Kong:
Chinese University Press, 2007).
3. Shou-Eng Koo, “he Role of Export Expansion in Hong Kong’s Economic Growth,” Asian Survey 8 (6) (June
1968): 499–515; and James Riedel, he Industrialization of Hong Kong (Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr,
1974).
4. Y. C. Jao, “he Rise of Hong Kong as a Financial Centre,” Asian Survey 19 (7) (July 1979): 674–94.
banks sold sizable amounts of stock in initial public oferings ater 2000.5 At the same
time, many pundits claim that Hong Kong faces ierce competition from Singapore
and Shanghai for the ranking of Asia’s leading business center.6
hese views of Hong Kong’s past, present, and future fail to deal adequately with
the quintessential feature of the city’s business economy. From its founding in the
1840s to the present, the city has been the meeting place of two great social networks
of capital, the foreign and the Chinese. hese networks and the individuals and irms
that locate in Hong Kong make it the leading decision-making management center
of the Asia-Paciic. hat role is what counts in understanding Hong Kong. It never
has been a large city relative to many other Asian cities, but it has always housed a
signiicant share of the headquarters of the leading decision makers of capital in the
Asia-Paciic.7
his chapter develops the argument about the social networks of capital, and
it is integrated with an interpretation of Hong Kong’s rise as the decision-making
management center of Asia from the 1840s to the early twentieth century. hen, the
city’s transformation during the Cold War era is examined, and this sets the base for
interpreting Hong Kong’s current position as corporate management and business
services center of the Asia-Paciic. he discussion of several recent examples of the
city’s enhanced integration with mainland China points to possible trends that may
impact the city’s future. Finally, an examination of threats to Hong Kong since 1950
highlight how the city’s political economy has maintained resilience under uncertain
conditions.
Decision-Making, Management Center
Hong Kong’s signiicance as the leading business center of the Asia-Paciic rests on the
irms that base their senior decision makers in the city for the purpose of strategically
managing their Asian business. hese include both locally headquartered irms and
those who use the city as a regional headquarters for Asia. he agglomeration of these
senior decision makers means that Hong Kong is the pivot of the social networks of
capital for Asia.8 hese businesspeople work in key sectors that manage the exchange
of capital within Asia and globally. hey include inancial irms such as corporate
and investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, fund managers, venture capital,
and private wealth management; real estate investment irms; global and regional
5. Becky Chiu and Mervyn K. Lewis, Reforming China’s State-Owned Enterprises and Banks (Cheltenham, UK:
Edward Elgar, 2006).
6. Lim Wei Sheng, “Singapore Has Edge as Asian Metals Trade Hub,” Business Times Singapore, Top Stories
(May 28, 2012); and Enoch Yiu, “Hong Kong Must Be Ready for Competition from Shanghai Free-Trade
Zone: Chan,” South China Morning Post Economy (July 3, 2014).
7. David R. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
8. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 5–27.
62 David R. Meyer
headquarters of noninancial irms (the senior management); and corporate services

such as senior lawyers, accountants, and management consultants who interface with
inancial irms and corporations.
hese senior decision makers engage with each other locally through social
networks in which face-to-face communication comprises the core mechanism of
exchange of sophisticated information and knowledge. his is how they build trust
in each other, which they rely on for valuing the social exchanges, negotiating deals,
and cooperating on the exchange of capital. Equally important, these senior deci-
sion makers operate in networks that reach throughout Asia (or parts of it). Because
they are the most senior, they possess superb access to information and knowledge
about the Asian economy, business opportunities, and the like, through their regional
networks.
hey also have the most efective networks that reach globally. heir intraorgani-
zational networks are channels for exchanges of knowledge and expertise among
the global oices of irms. Job mobility among these oices constitutes one of the
most salient means for these exchanges. Interorganizational networks tie the global
headquarters in Hong Kong or the regional headquarters of a nonlocally headquar-
tered irm to economic actors inside and outside Asia. hese networks have diverse
content, including cooperation on deals, inancing relationships, opportunities for
investment, and the like.9
he puzzle that needs explaining is why Hong Kong has endured as a global
network hub since the late nineteenth century. he explanation focuses on the
location decisions of the key decision makers who control the exchange of capital.
Wherever they agglomerate, and they will locate together because they operate in
social networks to make their decisions, that site will be the most important decision-
making center. Once a particular location emerges, then other decision makers who
likewise control large exchanges of capital, as well as those who have lesser control of
exchanges of capital, will agglomerate at the same site because that is the pivot of the
social networks of capital. hey optimize their performance through that strategy.
he decision makers who control the exchange of capital over smaller territories and
at lesser scales of exchange may locate their operations in lesser business centers if
those places have good access to business opportunities. his agglomeration can con-
tinue so long as economic decision makers perceive it ofers pivotal advantages for
managing the exchange of capital. To the extent political entities support and protect
the agglomeration, business irms can continue to operate from there.
9. Jonathan V. Beaverstock, “World City Networks ‘from Below’: International Mobility and Inter-City
Relations in the Global Investment Banking Industry,” in Cities in Globalization: Practices, Policies and
heories, ed. Peter J. Taylor, Ben Derudder, Pieter Saey, and Frank Witlox (London: Routledge, 2007), 52–71;
and David R. Meyer, “Small-World Job Mobility Integrates Hong Kong with Global Financial Centres,” Asian
Geographer 28 (1) (2011): 51–63.
Great Britain took the “barren rock” as a colonial prize from the Chinese gov-
ernment through the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. he British navy provided overall
military security, and behind that shield, albeit modest in size, leading businesspeople
who controlled the exchange of capital made their decisions. Ater major British
trading houses established headquarters and facilities in the new port beginning in
the mid-1840s, merchant traders from other nations, especially from Europe and
North America, were convinced to move their operations to Hong Kong, and Chinese
merchants soon followed. By the late 1850s the port’s agglomeration of merchants
had solidiied its status as the leading mercantile center in Asia.10 From that point
on, Hong Kong was the most prominent meeting place in Asia of the foreign and the
Chinese social networks of capital—the great networks that dominate business. Firms
from other Asian countries also arrived, such as from India, the Philippines, hailand,
and so on, and they added to the signiicance of the Hong Kong agglomeration.
Merchant traders of Hong Kong, both the foreign and the Chinese, provided
inancial services across Asia as an adjunct to their mercantile activities from the
1850s onward. Even more signiicantly, British and other European banks started
establishing branch oices in Hong Kong during the 1860s and 1870s. Because these
banks typically had branches in other cities in Asia, including Shanghai, Singapore,
and Bombay, Hong Kong had banking relations reaching throughout Asia and to
Europe, as well as to Africa, the Middle East, and North America, where some of
these banks also operated.11
he founding of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in 1864–65, with its global
headquarters in Hong Kong, constituted the inal ratiication of the city’s network
hub role.12 he bank established three major branch oices: London (1865), Shanghai
(1865), and Yokohama (1866). It was incorporated in 1866 as the Hongkong and
Shanghai Bank. Because leading British, German, American, and Indian (Parsee)
merchant irms founded the bank, it immediately possessed a worldwide set of agent
oices for handling inancial transactions. Not surprisingly, the Hongkong and
Shanghai Bank quickly moved into the ranks of the top ten global banks. During
the subsequent ity years, the bank enlarged its branch oice and agency network
throughout Asia (including multiple oices in China), the United States, and Europe.13
he bank made Hong Kong the pivotal inancial center of Asia.

11. Geofrey Jones, British Multinational Banking, 1830–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); and
Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 98–107.
13. Frank H. H. King, he Hongkong Bank in Late Imperial China, 1864–1902: On an Even Keel, he History of
the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987);
Frank H. H. King, he Hongkong Bank in the Period of Imperialism and War, 1895–1918, he History of the
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and
Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 107–12.
64 David R. Meyer
Alone, however, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank could not dominate inance
in Asia. By the 1850s many prominent Chinese merchants established oices in
Hong Kong, and they continued to expand there over the next century. heir trading
areas in Asia and globally coincided closely with the “foreign” merchants headquar-
tered in Hong Kong. he latter provided inancial services, along with banks with
local oices, to Chinese irms in Asia.14 By the early twentieth century, Chinese mer-
chants, especially the leaders in the rice trade, the greatest trade of Asia, began to
found banks. he Bank of East Asia, still important today, had been started by several
merchants in Hong Kong.15
Shanghai became a major inancial center from the late nineteenth century
through the 1930s as foreign banks set up branches, primarily to service their home-
country irms and, secondarily, to gain some Chinese business. hey also collabo-
rated with Chinese banks headquartered there.16 Hong Kong, however, served as the
management center of inance in Asia through the operations of the Hongkong and
Shanghai Bank, of the foreign banks that ran their inancial business from there for
Southeast Asia as well as for South China, and of the Chinese banks. hese latter
banks, including Hang Seng (founded in 1933), Wing Lung (1933), and Kwong On
(1938), increased in number just prior to the Second World War. Chinese native
banks, along with foreign banks that expanded in Hong Kong ater 1950, became
the dynamic inancial sector of the city during the next two decades. his inancial
growth and specialization, which has been underappreciated, became the foundation
for the subsequent large-scale growth of inance ater 1970.17
he Transformation of Hong Kong during the Cold War
he Cold War typically is dated from around 1946, when former British prime min-
ister Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech, to around 1989–91, with
the demolition of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union. As the leading
inancial trade center of Asia and China’s window to global capital, Hong Kong could
not avoid impact from the political-economic conlict between the United States and
China during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Nonetheless, the British government
14. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 119–25; and Jung-fang Tsai, Hong Kong in Chinese History:
Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842–1913 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
15. Elizabeth Sinn, Growing with Hong Kong: he Bank of East Asia, 1919–1994 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 1994).
16. Linsun Cheng, Banking in Modern China: Entrepreneurs, Professional Managers, and the Development of
Chinese Banks, 1897–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Zhaojin Ji, A History of
Modern Shanghai Banking (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003).
17. Catherine R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Emergence and Development, 1945–65
(London: Routledge, 2001); and Catherine R. Schenk, “Banks and the Emergence of Hong Kong as an
International Financial Centre,” Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money 12 (4–5)
(October/December 2002): 321–40.
ultimately recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1950. Hong Kong
traders possessed expertise in avoiding trade embargoes and other restrictions. At the
same time, the British colonial government did not want to undermine the economy
of Hong Kong. It was more impacted by economic problems in Asia than by direct
conlict between the United States and China.18
Banking in Hong Kong
he inancial sector of Hong Kong recovered quickly ater the end of the Second
World War. he business of the Chinese native banks, led by Hang Seng, Wing Lung,
and Kwong On, rested on their Chinese customer base during the decades ater 1945.
heir activities included money changing, gold dealing, transferring remittances, and
inancing trade of Chinese merchants. he leading native banks acted as correspond-
ents for smaller ones. Hang Seng’s correspondent ties with foreign banks positioned
it as a network hub. he native banks handled international fund transfers through
the oices of the British exchange banks in Hong Kong, including the Hongkong and
Shanghai Bank, Chartered Bank, and Mercantile Bank.19 his international integra-
tion of the Chinese banks built on the long-standing inancial role of Hong Kong’s
banks in Asia and between Asia and the global economy that had developed since the
late nineteenth century.
Foreign banks reentered Hong Kong ater 1950 to participate once more in the city’s
inancial networks that reached throughout Asia. he British exchange banks pos-
sessed the greatest networks, led by the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank with its Asian
oice structure. At the same time, foreign banks were attracted by the Chinese native
banks in the city because they provided access to business opportunities. he free
foreign exchange market in Hong Kong, coupled with its participation in the British
sterling area, allowed the banking sector to operate globally. Chinese native banks
dominated the gold market. It operated in conjunction with the free exchange market,
and both provided lucrative inancial opportunities.20
Hong Kong surpassed Tokyo and Singapore in the number of foreign banks present,
and they placed the city around fourth globally. As of 1955 Hong Kong had nineteen
oices of foreign banks, and the number climbed to forty-three by 1965.21 At the latter
date, the six banks of the United States made it the leader among the foreign group;
Japan had three banks, Europe had six, South Asia had four, and Southeast Asia had
18. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre, 18–43.

19. Catherine R. Schenk, “Banking Groups in Hong Kong, 1945–65,” Asia Paciic Business Review 7 (2) (Winter
2000): 131–54; and Schenk, “Banks and the Emergence of Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre.”
20. King, he Hongkong Bank in the Period of Imperialism and War, 1895–1918; and Schenk, “Banks and the
Emergence of Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre.”
21. Schenk, “Banks and the Emergence of Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre,” 330, Table 1.
66 David R. Meyer
ten. he Southeast Asian banks primarily consisted of Chinese banks headquartered

in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and hailand. China also had a substantial
banking presence in Hong Kong. Beijing-registered state banks numbered ten, and
two state banks, Nanyang Commercial Bank and Po Sang Bank, possessed Hong Kong
registries. Bank of China, one of the top state banks, dominated China’s presence in
the city. It operated as the government’s premier international bank and served as its
primary foreign exchange agent and conduit to global capital markets.22
As of the mid-1960s, therefore, Hong Kong’s inancial sector possessed core fea-
tures that continued over the next ity years. he Hongkong and Shanghai Bank
dominated as the greatest bank of Asia, and other British exchange banks added
their het. he Bank of East Asia, a local modern Chinese bank, also had a branch
in Singapore, the Southeast Asian banking center.23 he three sizable native banks—
Hang Seng, Wing Lung, and Kwong On—provided links to smaller Chinese native
banks and integrated them with foreign banks who supplied the global connections.
he foreign banks’ home-country distribution relected the long-standing integration
of Hong Kong’s inance and trade with Asia, North America, and Europe. his trian-
gle of integration had emerged in the late nineteenth century, persisted through the
1930s, and was reconstituted fully during the 1950s and early 1960s. hat broad
network of inancial integration continues into the early twenty-irst century.
he year 1965 witnessed an event that would provide another symbol of
Hong Kong’s centrality in Asian inance. he Hongkong and Shanghai Bank acquired
control of Hang Seng Bank, the largest of the native banks, thus strengthening that
global bank in the Chinese banking networks of the city. Hang Seng’s networks
reached across Asia, and it had correspondent banking ties to leading US banks,
including Bank of America, which gave Hang Seng connections to Europe.24
he other prominent native banks, Kwong On and Wing Lung, would not
be acquired until the end of the twentieth century and start of the twenty-irst
century; their acquisition, likewise, symbolized Hong Kong’s Asian centrality. he
Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), the city’s greatest locally controlled bank,
took over Kwong On Bank in 1999.25 his acquisition relected the organization of
Asian inance around Hong Kong as the Asia-Paciic center and Singapore as the
Southeast Asian center.26 Although these three large native banks successfully transi-
tioned through the inancial changes in Hong Kong, the failure of the British colonial
22. Schenk, “Banking Groups in Hong Kong, 1945–65,” 133, Table 1, and 133–34.
23. Sinn, Growing with Hong Kong, 105.
24. HSBC, http://www.hsbc.com.hk/1/2/about/home/hsbc/hsbc-s-history; and Schenk, Hong Kong as an
International Financial Centre, 57.
25. DBS, http://www.dbs.com/newsroom/1999/Pages/press990716d.aspx.
26. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis.
government to efectively regulate banking and manage monetary policy led to the
demise of many of the other native banks.27
Finally, China Merchants Bank acquired Wing Lung Bank in 2008.28 Although China
Merchants is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, it is part of the China Merchants
Group, headquartered in Beijing. One of China’s most important state-owned enter-
prises, this group led the development of Shenzhen, the irst special economic zone
in China. he zone formalized the opening of China to the global economy follow-
ing the reforms of Deng Xiaoping in 1978.29 he venerable China Merchants Group’s
roots trace back to 1872 when the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company
was founded in Shanghai and had a branch in Hong Kong by the late nineteenth cen-
tury.30 China Merchants Bank’s acquisition of Wing Lung Bank, therefore, symbolizes
Hong Kong’s pivotal inancial ties to China, which have been deep since the mid-
nineteenth century and were formalized when the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank was
founded in 1864–65. From that bank’s purchase of Hang Seng Bank in 1965 through
DBS’s acquisition of Kwong On Bank in 1999 to China Merchants Bank’s takeover of
Wing Lung Bank in 2008, we witness the enduring character of Hong Kong inance.
he Industrial Grat and Its Financing
Hong Kong always housed the manufactures typically found in a major trade center,
including resource processing and local market manufactures. hat changed in the
decades between the end of the First World War and the start of the Second World
War. Industrialists from Guangdong Province began to set up textile and apparel
manufacturing in the city. Although the scale of this manufacturing would be quickly
eclipsed ater 1950, these irms provided an important base for the future industrial
expansion.31
hat manufacturing growth was truly extraordinary. While Asia initially supplied
the market, the Guangdong and Shanghai industrialists who locked to Hong Kong
during the late 1940s and early 1950s, joining the prewar group from Guangdong
Province, soon had to ind markets elsewhere. By the late 1950s the pattern of
27. Leo F. Goodstadt, Proits, Politics and Panics: Hong Kong’s Banks and the Making of a Miracle Economy,
1935–1985 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007).
28. Luo Jun and Cathy Chan, “Merchants Bank Pays $2.5 Billion for Wing Lung Stake,” Bloomberg (June 13,
2008).
29. Ezra R. Vogel, One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1989).
30. Kwang-ching Liu, Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China, 1862–1874 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
31. Frank Leeming, “he Earlier Industrialization of Hong Kong,” Modern Asian Studies 9 (3) (July 1975):
337–42; Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 150–54; and Siu-lun Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs:
Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
68 David R. Meyer
manufacturing markets became set, and it would continue for the remainder of the
twentieth century: Hong Kong manufactures lowed to North America and Europe.32
he scale of the expansion through most of the Cold War years from 1950 to
the mid-1980s was breathtaking (Figure 2.1). Over the three and a half decades the
number of workers employed in manufacturing rose more than tenfold, from about
80,000 to more than 850,000. he share of the labor force in manufacturing grew from
30 percent to a peak of around 45 percent by 1980. Still, the resilience of the inance-
trade sector of the economy would be the long-term driver of growth as the share of
manufacturing in GDP (gross domestic product) actually peaked by the late 1960s.
Figure 2.1
Manufacturing in Hong Kong, 1950–85. Source: Industry Department, Hong Kong’s
Manufacturing Industries, various years.

Initially, the capital-intensive textile sector of spinning and weaving powered the
1950s industrial expansion, but by the start of the 1960s most of the major labor-
intensive manufactures that would epitomize Hong Kong’s industrial signiicance
in global markets had commenced production (Figure 2.2). As of 1960 clothing
manufacturing had reached parity with textiles in numbers employed, when each
accounted for about one-quarter of employment. Ater that time, clothing irms
became the dominant employers, with about one-third of the industrial workforce.
he lattening and even decline of employment in some sectors that commenced in
the 1980s signaled the restructuring of Hong Kong’s manufacturing; its industrialists
were expanding in Guangdong Province. his became an option with the reforms of
Deng Xiaoping and the opening of China to the global economy.
Figure 2.2
Number of employees in selected manufactures in Hong Kong, 1950–85. Source: Industry
Department, Hong Kong’s Manufacturing Industries, various years.
70 David R. Meyer
he industrial grat on the economy of Hong Kong during the Cold War era con-
tributed signiicantly to its economic growth. his impact was especially important
from 1950 to the late 1960s, when manufacturing’s share of GDP rose from just under
10 percent to about 30 percent (Figure 2.1). he real GDP of Hong Kong increased at
a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent from the end of the Korean War (1953)
until the late 1960s, a fourfold rise over that period (Figure 2.3).
his strong economic growth generated a sizable accumulation of capital as indus-
trial workers and other employees acquired savings, factory owners earned proits,
and the trade sector that handled the exports of manufactures to North America
and Europe likewise gained earnings. Part of this capital accumulation showed up as
deposits and assets in Hong Kong’s banks. Between 1954 and 1972 real deposits
soared sixteenfold, at a compound annual growth rate of 15 percent (Figure 2.4).
hese deposits would fuel lending to consumers and eventually to industrial irms
for working capital and expansion of their businesses, but the initial funding for
Figure 2.3
Real GDP of Hong Kong, 1948–67. Source: Catherine R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International
Financial Centre (London: Routledge, 2001), Appendix Table A, 16.
Figure 2.4
Real deposits and real assets of Hong Kong banks, 1954–72. Source: Y. C. Jao, Banking and
Currency in Hong Kong (London: Macmillan, 1974), Table 2.3, 23, Table 2.4, 26.
manufacturing came from other sources. Large inlows of capital to Hong Kong from
around Asia and from China between 1947 and 1955 were tapped by Shanghai textile
industrialists who relocated their business to Hong Kong. his capital was not just for
ixed investment. Many Shanghai trading irms also relocated to Hong Kong, and they
made their inancing networks available to provide working capital and trade inance
for irms. hese sources of capital probably comprised the majority of capital needed
to underwrite the early industrial expansion, even as the Hongkong and Shanghai
Bank accounted for much of the capital from the banking sector.33 he enormous
growth of deposits ater the mid-1950s, which were gathered by the major native
banks (Hang Seng, Wing Lung, Kwong On), the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and
33. Y. C. Jao, Banking and Currency in Hong Kong: A Study of Postwar Financial Development (London: Macmillan,
1974), 17–18; Y. C. Jao, “Financing Hong Kong’s Early Postwar Industrialization: he Role of the Hongkong
and Shanghai Banking Corporation,” in Eastern Banking: Essays in the History of the Hongkong and Shanghai
Banking Corporation, ed. Frank H. H. King (London: Athlone Press, 1983), 545–74; Edward Szczepanik, he
Economic Growth of Hong Kong (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958); and Wong, Emigrant Entrepreneurs.
72 David R. Meyer
the other British exchange banks, and the growing numbers of foreign banks, supplied
working capital and trade inancing for the expanding manufacturers (Figure 2.4).34
he Cold War era, therefore, possessed two signiicant features. First, Hong Kong’s
status as the inance and trade pivot of Asia-Paciic, which dated from the late nine-
teenth century, was reconstituted quickly ater the chaos of the Second World War,
the turmoil of the early years of the People’s Republic of China, and the Korean
War. he growing numbers of foreign banks entering Hong Kong, along with the
continued expansion of local banks (British exchange banks, Chinese native banks),
set Hong Kong on the path of ever-enlarging global inancial prominence.
Image 2.1
Victoria Harbour, c. 1965. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
Second, the manufacturing grat on the economy, which the inancial sector helped
fund, led to a large accumulation of wealth. he industrial sector transformed rapidly
during the latter years of the Cold War and continued to do so aterward. From the
mid-1980s to the end of the century, the total number employed in manufacturing in
Hong Kong plunged, while the number of people employed in China by Hong Kong
industrialists soared into the millions.35 By the beginning of the second decade of the
34. Jao, Banking and Currency in Hong Kong, 46–52; and Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial
Centre, 147–51.
35. Suzanne Berger and Richard K. Lester, eds., Made by Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press,
1997); Michael J. Enright, Edith E. Scott, and David Dodwell, he Hong Kong Advantage (Hong Kong:
Oxford University Press, 1997); and Alicia Garcia-Herrero, “Hong Kong as an International Banking Centre:
Present and Future,” Journal of the Asia Paciic Economy 16 (3) (August 2011): 361–71.
twenty-irst century, the number employed in manufacturing had fallen to 103,683

(as of 2013), and manufacturing’s contribution to GDP comprised a minuscule
1.5 percent (as of 2012).36 Hong Kong’s industrial phase was a Cold War–era grat on
its economy. Henceforth, its manufacturing activity would be located outside the city
in China and elsewhere in Asia, and Hong Kong would serve as corporate headquar-
ters for industrial irms.
Hong Kong’s Contemporary Status
Current assessments of Hong Kong’s importance as a global inancial center rank it

in the top ive in the world and among the top three in Asia, along with Singapore
and Tokyo. Hong Kong consistently ranks irst in Asia, thus making it the third most
signiicant global inancial center ater London and New York.37 Most of the world’s
leading commercial and investment banks base their Asia-Paciic headquarters in
Hong Kong and their Southeast Asian headquarters in Singapore.38 he contempo-
rary status of Hong Kong as the leading business center of the Asia-Paciic is vividly
revealed in its role as corporate management center and its business services integra-
tion with the global economy.39
Hong Kong serves as the premier corporate management center for the Asia-
Paciic.40 Companies across the full range of inancial and noninancial sectors whose
global headquarters are outside Hong Kong choose it for their regional headquarters,
that is, oices that supervise one or more oices outside Hong Kong in the region.41
Firms that establish regional headquarters in Hong Kong overwhelmingly come from
Asia, North America, and Western Europe, a pattern of representation that dates back
to the late nineteenth century (Table 2.1). With some notable exceptions (discussed
below), most of the economies’ shares of regional headquarters remained relatively
stable between 2010 and 2014.
36. Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics, 2014 Edition (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, November 2014).
37. Research Republic, he Future of Asian Financial Centres: Challenges and Opportunities for the City of
London (Manchester, UK: Research Republic, 2008); and Z/Yen, Global Financial Centre Index, 2007–14,
http//:www.zyen.com.
38. See websites of leading banks such as Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and others.
39. David R. Meyer, “Hong Kong’s Transformation as a Financial Centre,” in Hong Kong SAR’s Monetary and
Exchange Rate Challenges, ed. Catherine R. Schenk (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 161–88.
40. Michael J. Enright, Edith E. Scott, and Ka-mun Chang, Regional Powerhouse: he Greater Pearl River Delta
and the Rise of China (Singapore: John Wiley and Sons, 2005), 22–23.
41. Census and Statistics Department, Report on 2014 Annual Survey of Companies in Hong Kong Representing
Parent Companies Located outside Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Government, October 2014), 5.
74 David R. Meyer
Table 2.1
Regional headquarters by region and country/territory of parent company, 2010 and 2014
% of Total Surveyed
World Region/Country/Territory
2010 2014
Asia (Total) 32.5 33.8
Japan 17.4 17.3
Mainland China 7.7 8.6
Singapore 3.2 3.1
Australia 1.9 2.7
Taiwan 2.3 2.2
North America (Total) 23.6 23.5
United States 22.4 22.3
Canada 1.2 1.2
Western Europe (Total) 34.5 33.5
United Kingdom 8.8 8.6
Germany 5.6 6.6
France 4.8 4.9
Switzerland 3.7 3.2
Netherlands 4.0 3.1
Italy 3.3 3.1
Sweden 2.0 2.0
Denmark 1.2 1.0
Belgium 0.9 1.0
Selected Total (%) 90.6 90.9
Total Number Surveyed 1,285 1,389
Source: Census and Statistics Department, Report on 2014 Annual Survey of Companies in
Hong Kong Representing Parent Companies Located outside Hong Kong, Table 1.1, 27 and
Table 2.1, 34.
Within Asia, the global headquarters of irms are in the major economies linked
to Hong Kong: Japan, mainland China, Singapore, and Taiwan (Table 2.1). Japan’s
share of more than half of the Asian headquarters nonetheless seems puzzling, given
that irms in Tokyo and other Japanese cities can readily supervise Asian operations
from their global headquarters; however, these cities have one key negative feature.
hey are outside of the Chinese business networks; this places their executives at a
disadvantage in accessing the sophisticated networks of Asia. Singapore irms like-
wise have ready transportation access to Asia, but their networks remain concen-
trated in Southeast Asia.42 Mainland China irms can access Asia-Paciic networks
more efectively through Hong Kong than they can through domestic bridges to Asia
such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.43 Signiicantly, the mainland’s share of

43. Simon X. B. Zhao, Zhang Li, and Christopher J. Smith, “China’s Emerging Financial Centers: Shanghai,
Beijing and Hong Kong,” in Gateways to Globalisation: Asia’s International Trading and Finance Centers, ed.
François Gipouloux (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011), 200–216.
regional headquarters has risen between 2010 and 2014, suggesting that Chinese
irms increasingly look to Hong Kong as a management base for their Asian business.
Likewise, Australian irms boosted their relative presence in Hong Kong, coinciding
with the country’s greater commitment to Asia.44
Consistent with the dominant role of the United States in the global economy,
accounting for 22.8 percent of global GDP as of 2014, its irms comprise the largest
share (22.3 percent) of regional headquarters (Table 2.1). Western Europe has an even
larger share as a group, making up one-third (33.5 percent) of the regional head-
quarters. Using the iteen core countries of the European Union as the base, which
comprised 21.5 percent of global GDP in 2014, Europe is signiicantly overrepresent-
ed.45 Unsurprisingly, companies from the longtime colonial manager of Hong Kong,
the United Kingdom, have the greatest share of all. Still, other large economies of
Western Europe are also well represented, especially Germany, France, Switzerland,
the Netherlands, and Italy. Western Europe’s long engagement with Asia through
Hong Kong, dating from the late nineteenth century, remains a key feature of the
city’s integration with the global economy.
Hong Kong’s economy overwhelmingly focuses on services; that sector accounted
for 92 percent of total GDP of HK$2.04 trillion in 2012.46 Exports and imports of
services provide partial indicators of business activity that involve decision making
about the exchange of capital. Based on these indicators, the service economy’s inter-
actions outside of Hong Kong constitute a major share of the economy.
he exchanges of Hong Kong’s services with the global economy in the early
twenty-irst century remain broadly similar to economic patterns established in
the second half of the nineteenth century (Table 2.2). he nominal values of both
exports and imports of services more than doubled over the ten-year period from
2003 to 2013. Hong Kong’s services trade overwhelmingly focuses on Asia. More than
60 percent of exports and imports of services are with Asian economies, and these
increased substantially over the time span. he share of exports of services rose about
seven percentage points, and imports of services jumped almost ten points.
his increasing turn to Asia coincided with a signiicant decline in share of exports
of services to North America and in imports of services from that region (Table 2.2).
he share of exports fell more than six percentage points, and the share of imports
dropped almost seven points. In contrast, Western Europe’s ties to Hong Kong in
the services trade stayed stable. Less than ten percent of the services trade is with
the rest of the world outside of Asia, North America, and Western Europe. From
Hong Kong’s perspective, therefore, little evidence exists of substantial engagement
44. For example, see http://www.australianbusinessasia.org/home; http://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/asialink_

business/business_resources/engaging_asia_challenges_for_australian_businesses.
45. Computed from the historical data iles, real GDP (2010 dollars) available from USDA, http://www.ers.usda.
gov/data-products/international-macroeconomic-data-set.aspx.
46. Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics, 2014 Edition, 104, Table 4.6.
76 David R. Meyer
Table 2.2
Exports, imports, and net exports of all services by region, 2003 and 2013
Exports to Imports from Net Exports
Region (% of Total) (% of Total) (HK$ billions)
2003 2013 2003 2013 2003 2013
Asia 55.3 62.2 56.4 66.2 82.6 102.2
Australia and Oceania 1.7 3.0 7.0 4.2 –7.9 –1.1
Central and South America 1.4 1.1 1.0 0.5 2.9 6.2
North America 22.7 16.1 19.7 12.8 40.8 51.2
Western Europe 16.6 15.8 13.3 14.6 32.2 39.1
Others 2.3 1.8 2.6 1.7 2.8 4.4
Total (%) 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Amount in HK$ (billions) 355.2 781.8 201.8 579.7 153.4 202.1
Source: Census and Statistics Department, Report on Hong Kong Trade in Services Statistics for
2005, Table 3, 32; Census and Statistics Department, Report on Hong Kong Trade in Services
Statistics in 2013, Table 3.1, 16.
of Asia with Central and South America, the Middle East, and Australia. In sum,
Hong Kong’s contemporary status as the leading Asia-Paciic business center remains
broadly similar to the patterns of global business in which it has participated since the
late nineteenth century. Bonds with Asia stand as the core of its business and the basis
for its irms to intermediate that region with the other economically powerful regions
of the global economy—North America and Western Europe.
Enhanced Integration with Mainland China
he government of China granted Hong Kong the status of a special administra-

tive region, with its own constitution, the Basic Law.47 It provides the framework for
the governance of Hong Kong and establishes its relation to China. Sustained, and
expanding, economic integration between the mainland and Hong Kong undergirds
the relationship. Financial and trade integration between China and Hong Kong
dates from the late nineteenth century. he industrial integration, which had roots
in that century, grew dramatically ater the reforms of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, when
Hong Kong industrialists commenced their expansion in Guangdong Province and,
subsequently, elsewhere in China. More recently, enhanced integration between
Hong Kong and China has followed new avenues, including the development of the
Qianhai special zone, the leadership of Hong Kong inancial institutions in renminbi
payments, and the connections of the stock exchanges of Shanghai and Shenzhen
with the Hong Kong Exchanges.
47. he Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China
(Hong Kong, 1992).
Qianhai Special Zone
he Shenzhen government proposed the development of the Shenzhen–Hong Kong

Modern Service Sector Cooperation Zone in Qianhai, just north of the border with
Hong Kong. his proposal to Beijing was initiated in 2007, and China’s State Council
gave inal approval for implementation ive years later; full operation was projected
for 2020.48 Qianhai was to be an experimental venue for China to reform its services
sector, to open the capital account somewhat, and to support internationalization of
the renminbi.49 Prominence, therefore, was given to inancial services, even as logis-
tics, information technology, and technology services and other professional services
also were touted as important. he attraction of inancial services was premised on
the idea that irms in the zone could experiment with renminbi inancing, as well
as provide funding for development of the zone. he aim was to attract a variety
of inancial irms, including commercial and investment banks, investment funds,
trading irms, and fund management.50
Progress in Qianhai remains limited. Attention focuses on the number of regis-
tered companies in the zone, which as of early 2015 reached more than 20,000; about
5 percent came from Hong Kong. Nonetheless, few companies actually have opera-
tions in the zone; most of the land remains undeveloped or stands as construction
sites.51 Financial institutions accounted for about 60 percent of the invested capital,
but most of this came from the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
(HSBC—acronym name of the bank started in the 1980s) and Standard Chartered
Bank.52 Large state-owned enterprises of mainland China have won most of the land
auctions, and they bid up the price of land beyond what small and medium-size
enterprises can aford.53 Hong Kong developers, the key to the future success of the
zone, remain uninterested in investment.54 Because they retain tight connections to
the Hong Kong business community, this suggests that the city’s irms continue to be
skeptical about the future of the zone. he developers of the zone have resorted to
48. “Qianhai, New Spotlight of Hong Kong–Guangdong Co-operation,” Hong Kong Industrialist (September
2012): 12–18.
49. Li Xiang and Felix Gao, “Qianhai Touts Tax, Land Incentives to Attract More Investment,” China Daily
(December 5, 2014).
50. Deloitte, “Tax Analysis: State Council Approves Preferential Policies for Qianhai Shenzhen–Hong Kong
Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone,” Issue P169/2012 (July 16, 2012).
51. Jeanny Yu, “Qianhai Ofers 1.2b Yuan in Sweeteners to Draw Firms,” South China Morning Post Business
(January 19, 2015), 6.
52. Enoch Yiu, “Qianhai Falls Short in Luring Foreigners,” South China Morning Post Business (December 8,
2014), 4.
53. Jeanny Yu and Ray Chan, “Hopes Dim for Qianhai Success,” South China Morning Post Business (September 1,
2014), 8.
54. Zhou Mo, “Qianhai Land for Sale to HK Firms,” China Daily (December 5, 2014).
78 David R. Meyer
a variety of subsidies to attract irms, which conirms that Qianhai has had limited
success creating a self-sustaining enterprise zone.55
While irms in the Qianhai zone have lexibility in conducting cross-border ren-
minbi loans, the limited opening of China’s capital account prevents inancial irms
from operating as lexibly as they can in Hong Kong.56 Ultimately, when China opens
its capital account, there is little probability that Qianhai would retain any special
advantages compared to other special zones in China. Powerful Communist Party
leaders in other provinces would demand that zones in their provinces have the same
advantages. Furthermore, Hong Kong most likely will be the leader in the opening of
the capital account. Qianhai, therefore, represents a greater integration of Hong Kong
with mainland China, but this integration has other avenues that are more direct.
Hong Kong’s Leadership in Renminbi Trading
In 2004, China’s government chose Hong Kong to take the leadership in ofshore
renminbi trading, a testament to Beijing leaders’ view that the city was its window
to global capital.57 China waited until 2012 to extend renminbi trading to other
inancial centers; it chose Taiwan and Singapore as the next additions. he following
year Beijing enlarged the group to other global inancial centers, including London,
Tokyo, and Sydney.58 Hong Kong’s head start provided the opportunity for its inan-
cial institutions to become the leaders in ofshore renminbi trading. As of the end of
2014, Hong Kong’s banks held more than 1.1 trillion renminbi on deposit, the largest
amount of renminbi funds outside of mainland China. hat same year, banks in the
city handled about 6.3 trillion renminbi (about US$1 trillion) in trade settlement.
he full panoply of inancial products are now available in renminbi in Hong Kong.59
he city’s inancial institutions handle more than half of global cross-border renminbi
payments.60 hus Hong Kong’s inancial institutions occupy the pivotal position as
China’s conduit to global capital through the use of its currency.
55. Chai Hua, “Qianhai Woos Hong Kong Talent with Special Fund,” China Daily (January 22, 2015); and Li and
Gao, “Qianhai Touts Tax, Land Incentives to Attract More Investment.”
56. Chai Hua, “Major Forex Settlement Lit for Qianhai,” China Daily (September 17, 2014).
57. Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong: he Premier Ofshore Renminbi Business Centre (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, 2015).
58. Siow L. Sen, “Yuan Clearing Of to a Fast Start in Singapore,” Business Times Singapore (May 28, 2013);
“Taiwan Banks’ RMB Deposits Top 60b Yuan,” Xinhua (May 17, 2013); and Enoch Yiu, “Yuan Milestone
Belies Challenges Ahead,” South China Morning Post Business (February 25, 2014), 2.
59. Norman T. L. Chan, “Development of Ofshore Renminbi Business in Hong Kong: Review and Outlook,”
Insight (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government,
2013).
60. Paolo Danese, “RMB Payments Share Leaps, Says Bank of China,” Global Capital Euroweek (January 19,
2015).
Stock Exchange Connections
A new avenue opened for the integration of Hong Kong’s inancial sector with
mainland China when the Hong Kong–Shanghai Connect commenced trading in
November 2014. his link allows investors with brokerage accounts in Hong Kong
and on the mainland to trade on both the Hong Kong Exchanges and the Shanghai
Stock Exchange.61 Restrictions remain on the total amount of purchases that can be
made in each direction, but it is expected that these limits will eventually be adjusted
upward.62 Within months of opening up the Hong Kong–Shanghai Connect, China’s
government liberalized the rules, allowing investors to have multiple accounts among
diferent brokerages, rather than just one account. he government also permitted
mainland mutual funds to invest in Hong Kong stocks.63 A Shenzhen–Hong Kong
Connect, linking the Shenzhen Stock Exchange with the Hong Kong Exchanges,
is expected to open by the end of 2015.64 Both “Connects” will expand the role of
Hong Kong’s inancial institutions in renminbi settlement, further enhancing the
city’s role as a global renminbi center.65
hreats to Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s business status in Asia, nevertheless, oten is threatened, raising ques-
tions about its long-term viability. hese threats emerged in every decade of the Cold
War era, and they continued subsequently.
he Cold War Years
he hostility of the US government to China during the early Cold War years became
manifested as an embargo on trade and inance that covered, in varying degrees, the
period from 1949 to 1971. Consequently, as the leading entrepôt for China, Hong Kong
became swept up in these restrictions. On the surface, the embargo appeared to be
a devastating threat to Hong Kong’s trade and inance; it continued for more than
two decades. While declines or stagnation in trade and inancial relations with China
covering various years can be identiied in data sources, the overall trajectory of the
city’s economy never was seriously disrupted.66
61. Shuli Ren, “Hong Kong-Shanghai-Just Barely-Connect,” Barron’s Online (November 21, 2014).
62. Enoch Yiu and Jeanny Yu, “Shenzhen Stock Link to Focus on Small-Caps, ETF’s,” South China Morning Post
Business (March 17, 2015), 1.
63. Li Xiang, “Multiple Stock Accounts Allowed,” China Daily (April 14, 2015); and Zhou Wa, “Stock Price Gap
Drives Mainland Funds to HK,” China Daily (April 15, 2015).
64. Daniel Ren, “Approval Soon for Shenzhen Stock Link,” South China Morning Post Business (March 9, 2015), 1.
65. Denise Deveau, “he ‘Super-Connector’: Hong Kong Plays Host to the Largest Of-Shore Renminbi Trade in
the World,” National Post (Canada) News (April 23, 2015), 6.
66. See Figures 2.3 and 2.4. See also Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 143–218.
80 David R. Meyer
he resilience and even lourishing of Hong Kong during the embargo years are
rooted in the very reason the United States wanted Hong Kong irms to obey the
controls. Its traders and inanciers possessed almost a century of experience build-
ing and managing complex, sophisticated mechanisms to exchange goods and capital
involving China in Asia and between that country and the global economy, espe-
cially with North America and Europe. he trade restrictions certainly caused harm
to Hong Kong’s businesses, but they ameliorated the full efects through leveraging
their trade ties to circumvent the restrictions, such as employing Macau as an inter-
mediary node.67
Both China and the United Kingdom undermined the inancial restrictions. China
needed Hong Kong as a source of foreign exchange, which it obtained by running a
trade surplus with the colony. Because Hong Kong was a source of British sterling
for China, the United States could not control the currency lows. Furthermore, the
colonial government of Hong Kong remained a reluctant enforcer of trade and inan-
cial restrictions on the city’s irms in order to maintain the viability of the economy.
Leo Goodstadt goes so far as to argue that, “paradoxically, the Cold War restrictions
on China business helped Hong Kong to emerge as a regional inancial centre.” he
city’s inanciers enlarged their role as intermediaries for the sterling exchanges of
China’s government and state-owned irms.68
he banking crises of the 1960s had roots in the failure of the British colonial
administration to encourage local Chinese-owned banks to adapt to changes in
Hong Kong’s economy as it commenced rapid expansion of manufacturing in
the 1950s. Chinese bankers were allowed to continue to operate as they had done
previously—namely, to view the bank as part of their personal inancial portfolio.
As deposits rapidly grew with industrialization, these funds were seen as additions
to the owners’ equity. While the mainland economy became of limits, the colonial
administration permitted the banks to participate in the gold market, currency
dealing, and the property market. he latter became a tempting venue for investment
and speculation as rapid economic growth fueled demand for housing, factories,
retail stores, and so on.69
he run on the Liu Chong Hing Bank precipitated the banking crisis of 1961.
Rapid deposit growth and a rising share price propelled Liu Chong Hing’s expan-
sion. It leveraged these resources to engage in property speculation through its
businesses, which included construction and property development. Allegations of
fraud also surfaced. he inancial secretary called on the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank
and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China to support Liu Chong Hing
through its liquidity crisis. It took the colonial administration three years to pass the

68. Goodstadt, Proits, Politics and Panics, 75–95, quotation from 89.
69. Ibid., 115–43.
Banking Ordinance (1964), which placed some limits on investments in real estate
and stock shares, key roots of the banking crisis.70
Regardless of the legal remedies and administrative powers in the Banking
Ordinance, it was too late to prevent the banking crisis of 1965. he crisis had the
same precipitating conditions as the 1961 crisis—property and stock share bubbles
and charges of fraud. Several Chinese banks failed, as depositors made runs on the
banks. he crisis also upended the largest local Chinese bank, Hang Seng Bank,
which was taken over by the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. hat bank, along with
the Chartered Bank, also bailed out other Chinese banks.71
Banking reforms introduced in 1964 included establishment of the Banking
Commission, stafed by professionals who had access to inancial information on
banks. he colonial government now had mechanisms to monitor and implement
bank bailouts. To fund these bailouts, the government decided to earmark reserves,
rather than use reserves to maintain spending during recessions. In deference to
the banking sector, the government restricted competition through a moratorium
on banking licenses which lasted until 1981. Although the banking crises of the
1960s seemingly imperiled Hong Kong’s future, robust growth of manufacturing
(see Figures 2.1 and 2.2) provided the economic resources to sustain the colony.72
Hong Kong’s inanciers and traders used their business networks to send these manu-
factures to European and North American markets. hese intermediaries of capital,
therefore, continued to undergird the city’s global integration and its strength as a
inance-trade center.73
In just over a decade, another crisis seemingly imperiled Hong Kong; this one
posed dangers that could have shaken the colony’s foundation. In spring of 1967
disturbances commenced over labor conditions at an artiicial lower factory in the
Kowloon section of Hong Kong. hese escalated into riots that the Communist-
dominated Federation of Trade Unions latched onto as a vehicle to protest British
rule. Beijing authorities objected to the treatment of workers, and anti-British dem-
onstrations erupted in Beijing and Guangzhou. Hong Kong continued to be rocked
by demonstrations, strikes, marches, and bombings, resulting in police suppression
of the disturbances.74
David Trench, the colonial governor, implemented a strategy that resolved the
crisis. hat strategy was premised on his assessment that Beijing did not want to
undermine Hong Kong. First, in his view evidence showed that the disturbances
70. Catherine R. Schenk, “Banking Crises and the Evolution of the Regulatory Framework in Hong Kong,
1945–1970,” Australian Economic History Review 43 (2) (July 2003): 143–46.
71. Schenk, “Banking Crises and the Evolution of the Regulatory Framework in Hong Kong, 1945–1970,” 146–51.
72. Goodstadt, Proits, Politics and Panics, 145–61.
74. Ray Yep, “he 1967 Riots in Hong Kong: he Diplomatic and Domestic Fronts of the Colonial Governor,”
China Quarterly 193 (March 2008): 122–39.
82 David R. Meyer
originated spontaneously; Beijing authorities did not instigate them. Second, he cal-
culated that Beijing would remain relatively passive if the local disturbances did not
degenerate into a full-scale confrontation between local Communists and the colo-
nial government. If the latter altercation were to occur, then Beijing might be forced
to fully support the local Communists. Trench, therefore, used police control over
rioters, including arrests and prosecutions. He undermined local Communist propa-
ganda by closing some Communist-aligned newspapers and suppressing schools
controlled by Communists. At the same time, he judiciously used accommodation in
some issues to show Beijing he was not hostile to China.75
By the end of 1967, the crisis had dissipated; Beijing had exerted control over the
local Communists. he reluctance of Chinese leaders to use the crisis to undermine
Hong Kong comported with their approach since the early 1950s and into the 1960s,
a period of signiicant tension between China and the United States that caught
Hong Kong as an unwilling bystander. Even as Beijing adamantly refused to recog-
nize the legal status of the colony, the People’s Liberation Army, stationed just over the
border in Guangdong Province, never threatened the city. Beijing oicials maintained
their policy that Hong Kong was China’s window to global capital—that is, the city’s
inanciers and traders must be protected for the beneit of China.76
he 1967 riots had only a brief impact on the city’s economy. Real GDP declined
1.9 percent between 1966 and 1967 (Figure 2.3), although nominal GDP actually rose
8.4 percent. he bigger impact was transmitted through the inancial sector. Over that
period, real deposits fell 10.2 percent, which led to a fall in real assets of 5.7 percent
(Figure 2.4). Hong Kong’s inancial sector, nevertheless, switly rebounded from
the crisis; from 1967 to 1968 real deposits soared 22.9 percent, and real assets rose
16.0 percent.77
Arguably, the inal challenges to Hong Kong during the Cold War years com-
menced a few years into the 1970s as oil-price shocks ratcheted through the world
economy. A more than tripling of oil prices between 1973 and 1974 led to a swit
decline in global growth. Hong Kong was not spared, as its real GDP growth rate
plunged from 12.3 percent in 1973 to 0.4 percent in 1975. Yet the city’s economy
quickly rebounded to grow at 16.2 percent in 1976. Real oil prices doubled in 1979,
and the world economy slowed again. A growing property bubble in Hong Kong
muted the impact on the city’s economy, but the bubble burst in 1982, sending the
city’s economy into a slowdown. Overall, the seemingly dramatic oil crises of the
1970s had only modest impact on Hong Kong.78 he intermediaries of capital in
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Computations based on data underlying Figures 2.3 and 2.4.
78. Economic Analysis Division, Financial Secretary’s Oice, “Oil Shocks in the 1970s and How hey Had
Impacted on Hong Kong Economy,” 2005 Economic Background and 2006 Prospects (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region Government, February 2006), 11–12.
Hong Kong in inance and trade certainly felt the slowdowns, but the oil price shocks
did not disrupt their position in Asia.
Although Hong Kong experienced economic diiculties at various times during
the 1980s as the Cold War wound down, these challenges mostly had roots in
international markets. In 1983 the Hong Kong government instituted the peg of its
currency to the US dollar. he world stock market crash of 1987 impacted Hong Kong,
as it did most global markets, but this did not disturb the relative position of the city’s
intermediaries of capital in Asia.79 he next major threats to Hong Kong would come
ater its return to China’s sovereign control in 1997.
he Post–Cold War Years
he Asian inancial crisis (AFC) of 1997–98 impacted Hong Kong because the econo-
mies of hailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Korea were devastated
from signiicant currency depreciation, inancial system collapses, and stock market
crashes. he causes of the AFC are complex, but several factors seem to have been
important contributors. On the supply side, inancial liberalization made available
massive amounts of capital from Western industrialized economies, which entered
these Asian economies mostly as portfolio investment. On the demand side, these
economies experienced booming industrial growth and rising investments in infra-
structure such as real estate. Credit growth exceeded GDP growth, and the excess
credit lowed into stock markets and real estate, creating speculative bubbles. Most
of these economies pegged their currencies to the US dollar. he massive inlows of
credit, therefore, could not be equilibrated by a strengthening currency. Instead, the
low of capital caused the money supply to surge, fueling inlation.80
he AFC’s impact was transmitted to Hong Kong’s inancial, trade, and other
business services; the city’s economy, therefore, shrank signiicantly. Between 1997
and 1998, real GDP plunged 6.1 percent, from US$148 billion to US$139 billion.
he recovery began the next year, and by 2000 total GDP reached US$153 billion,
surpassing the 1997 level.81
Because the city was open to the global economy, speculative attacks on its cur-
rency could be mounted. As these attacks commenced, the Hong Kong Monetary
Authority was able to weather them. It drew on its large supply of US dollar reserves,
and it implemented a controversial policy of buying large amounts of stock on the
79. Peter Ferdinand, “Hong Kong, China and the Handling of the Financial Crises: Monetary Management in
1983, 1987, 1997 and 1998,” in Ash, Ferdinand, Hook, and Porter, Hong Kong in Transition, 43–49.
80. Gregory W. Noble and John Ravenhill, “Causes and Consequences of the Asian Financial Crisis,” in he
Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance, ed. Gregory W. Noble and John Ravenhill
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1–6.
81. Computed from the historical data iles, real GDP (2010 dollars) available from USDA, http://www.ers.usda.
gov/data-products/international-macroeconomic-data-set.aspx.
84 David R. Meyer
Hong Kong Exchanges to thwart hedge funds that had attempted to cause turmoil in
money markets and the stock market.82 China operated a closed capital account that
shielded it from speculative currency attacks. Much of its capital inlows came in the
form of stable foreign direct investment rather than portfolio investments that could
be reversed quickly.83 While China’s economy slowed, it did not severely contract.
Consequently, Hong Kong’s intermediaries of capital had access to business opportu-
nities, even as the Asian economies hit by the AFC were severely hurt.
Seemingly, one of the most signiicant threats to Hong Kong during the post–Cold
War years erupted in the latter half of 2014. he Occupy Central movement had a
variety of motivations, but a key aim of this protest movement was a challenge to
China’s authority to oversee the choice of the chief executive of Hong Kong. At the
most general level, the movement aimed to gain more democracy in the city’s gov-
ernance, and at their peak demonstrations mustered as many as 100,000 or more
protesters.84
Commentators’ views on the impact of the protests on the future of Hong Kong
as a global inancial center fell into two broadly deined groups. One side claimed
that the protests would have a modest impact on Hong Kong’s future.85 Arguably, the
larger group of commentators claimed that the protests had the potential to under-
mine Hong Kong’s position as the leading inancial center of the Asia-Paciic. In fact,
it was argued that Beijing would become suiciently disillusioned with the city’s
residents that China’s government would promote Shanghai as a better alternative as
the country’s major global center.86
Concerns over Hong Kong’s future as a global inancial center, however, are
misplaced. Its resilience remains—it is the premier meeting place of the Chinese
and foreign social networks of capital in Asia, a position that Hong Kong has held
since the late nineteenth century.87 No viable competitor exists: Tokyo is primarily a
Japanese inancial center; Singapore is a Southeast Asia center; and Shanghai is the
mainland’s international inancial center, but not an Asia-Paciic center. China’s leaders
have occasionally expressed annoyance at Hong Kong’s citizens, such as during the
82. Ferdinand, “Hong Kong, China and the Handling of the Financial Crises,” 49–53.
83. Hongying Wang, “Dangers and Opportunities: he Implications of the Asian Financial Crisis for China,”
in Noble and Ravenhill, he Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance, 152–55.
84. Clare Jim, “China Could ‘Punish’ Hong Kong Over Protests, Says Ex-HK Central Bank Chief,” Reuters
(October 29, 2014); and Alfred Liu, “Hong Kong Protest Exceeds Fund Manager’s Wildest Dream,”
Bloomberg (October 8, 2014).
85. Neil Gough, “Hong Kong Wealth Gap on Display in Protests,” New York Times (October 5, 2014); and
Matt Schiavenza, “Protests Aside, Hong Kong’s Status as Financial Center Is Not in Jeopardy,” International
Business Times (October 1, 2014).
86. Ng Kang-chung, “‘Occupy Central’ May Hurt Beijing’s Conidence in Hong Kong as Financial Centre,” South
China Morning Post (July 21, 2014); “‘Occupy Central’ Bears More Potential Damage to Mainland han
Hong Kong,” Rianovosti (October 22, 2014); and Heather Timmons and Jason Karaian, “Why Hong Kong
Protests Matter to the Global Economy,” Quartz (September 29, 2014).
protests of the Occupy Central movement. hese leaders, however, have never devi-
ated from their support for Hong Kong as their window to global capital, a position
they have maintained since the start of the Cold War in the 1950s.88
Conclusion
he continuity of Hong Kong as the home of the key decision makers of capital
exchange within Asia and between that region and the global economy remain its
most salient features as a global city. Within a few decades ater its establishment
as a British colony in the 1840s, Hong Kong became the premier meeting place in
Asia of the Chinese and foreign social networks of capital, and no other business
center in Asia has usurped that position. Observers who challenge that view misread
the signiicance of size. Hong Kong is not a large business center compared to many
other cities in Asia, especially Tokyo and Shanghai. Rather, Hong Kong is the hub
of the most sophisticated networks of capital. Until these networks are disrupted by
economic and political turmoil beyond anything seen in Asia, including world wars,
the end of colonialism, and civil wars, these networks will continue. Its premier hub
status attracts new irms who optimize their participation in the business networks of
Asia by housing their senior decision makers in the city.
While Hong Kong remained the pivotal global management center for the Asia-
Paciic from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s, the poverty of Asia
restrained the city’s scale as a global business center. hat would change dramatically
during the Cold War era from the late 1940s to the late 1980s. his era witnessed con-
vulsions, most notably the victory of the Communist Party which led to the People’s
Republic of China, the subsequent reforms of Deng Xiaoping, and the rise of mil-
lions of Asians out of poverty. he economic development of Asia led global irms to
markedly increase their use of Hong Kong as a pivotal management center for their
Asian business. he early Cold War period from the 1950s to the mid-1960s, when
foreign banks expanded in Hong Kong and the city industrialized, foreshadowed its
rise to major global business status. Now it stands as the third-greatest global business
management center, ater London and New York. Since the late nineteenth century,
Hong Kong’s businesses have been pivotal intermediaries for China with the global
economy. Now this integration takes on explicit forms that relect the bonds of the
city with its sovereign power: the Qianhai zone uniting Hong Kong and Shenzhen,
the leadership of Hong Kong inancial institutions in renminbi payments, and the
connections of the Hong Kong Exchanges with China’s exchanges.
Numerous threats to Hong Kong’s status surfaced from the 1950s through to
the early decades of the twenty-irst century. Comparisons of the severity of these
88. David Meyer, “No Need to Fret, Hong Kong’s Financial Centre Status Is Not under hreat,” South China
Morning Post (December 23, 2014), A11.
86 David R. Meyer
threats covering about seventy years with the severity of threats in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries prove diicult because political-economic contexts
signiicantly difer. Nonetheless, threats since 1950 created serious challenges to
Hong Kong’s business sector. Initially, irms dealt with a political economy domi-
nated by the hostility of the United States toward China, yet it had been the leading
market for Hong Kong’s inanciers and traders for over a century. Banking crises of
the 1960s, the 1967 riots, oil price shocks of the 1970s, the 1987 stock market crash,
and the Asian inancial crisis of the late 1990s meant that every decade witnessed one
or more major threats to Hong Kong. he Occupy Central movement of 2014 raised
the specter of a challenge to the governance stability that China aimed to achieve ater
the return of Hong Kong to China’s sovereign control in 1997.
Consequently, the Occupy Central movement reignited the central question:
Would China’s leaders maintain their support of Hong Kong as the country’s window
to global capital and as the premier business center of Asia-Paciic?89 his questioning
of China’s commitment, however, does not comport with evidence. In the Sino-British
Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong signed in 1984, China committed
to supporting Hong Kong as an international inancial center. he government
enshrined that pledge in the Basic Law, the constitution that governs Hong Kong,
which was passed in 1990. Article 109 of the Basic Law explicitly states that the city’s
government is to maintain Hong Kong as an international inancial center.90 Beijing’s
senior leaders, including the president, premier, vice-premiers, and heads of minis-
tries, repeatedly reairm support for Hong Kong as China’s global inancial center.
While they also commit to making Shanghai mainland China’s leading international
inancial center, Hong Kong is their window to global capital.91 hat support by an
economic power undergirds the city’s enduring status as the leading center of deci-
sion making for the exchange of capital in Asia-Paciic and between that region and
the global economy.
89. Ash et al., Hong Kong in Transition; Enright, Scott, and Dodwell, he Hong Kong Advantage, 281–318; and
Ng, “‘Occupy Central’ May Hurt Beijing’s Conidence in Hong Kong as Financial Centre.”
90. William H. Overholt, he Rise of China: How Economic Reform Is Creating a New Superpower (New York:
Norton, 1993), 249–312; and he Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s
Republic of China.
91. Jane Cai, “Beijing Unveils Financial Blueprint,” South China Morning Post Business Post (September 18,
2012), 1; George Chen, “Jockeying for Position,” South China Morning Post News (May 18, 2012), 4;
Rahul Jacob, “Beijing Expands Support for Hong Kong,” FT.com (August 17, 2011); and Sung Yun-Wing,
“Hong Kong and Shanghai: Rivalry or Complementarity among Asia’s International Service Hubs?”
in Gipouloux, Gateways to Globalisation, 101–16.
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3
Hong Kong and the Cold War in the 1950s
Tracy Steele
he signiicance of Hong Kong to Britain varied over the century and a half of British
rule that began in 1842. In its irst century, Hong Kong was a colonial backwater,
eclipsed in trade and strategic importance by Shanghai and Singapore. Its fortunes
changed, however, ater the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949
following the defeat of President Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) and the Nationalist
Party of the Republic of China (ROC).1 Chiang and troops loyal to the Nationalist
cause led to the 200-mile long island of Taiwan, where the ROC claimed to be the
legitimate government of China. In addition, Chiang retained control of some Chinese
territory, the coastal island groups of Quemoy (Jinmen) and Matsu (Mazu). hrough
sympathizers and spies, the Nationalists also encouraged low-grade but aggressive
action against the Chinese Communists outside their jurisdiction in neutral spaces
such as Hong Kong. From 1949, therefore, the British colonial outpost was a cross-
roads where powerful military and political currents intersected: the Cold War in
Asia among the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China
(PRC); the uninished civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists; and
the anticolonial rhetoric of the competing Chinese camps, both capable of causing
agitation or inciting subversive activity among the overwhelmingly Chinese major-
ity in Hong Kong. he British were determined to retain Hong Kong, but at key
junctures in the 1950s, particularly during the Korean War and the Ofshore Islands
Crises of 1954–1955 and 1958, their conidence was shaken by internal threats as well
as international events beyond their control.
In September 1949, CCP chairman Mao Zedong announced that China had “stood
up.”2 His words declared to the world that the century of humiliation marked by con-
cessions to foreign powers such as Britain was over: China was an equal to other
nations and would be treated as such. Later Mao announced that the PRC would “lean
1. he content and citations will utilize romanization systems as they appear in the archival documents, with
pinyin in brackets the irst time the name or term appears.
2. Mao Zedong, “Zhongguo renmin zhanqilaile” [he Chinese people have stood up], Zhongguo renmin
zhengzhi banshang huiyi diyijie quanti huiyishang de kaimu ci [Opening speech at the irst plenary session
of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference], September 21, 1949, http://www.marxists.org/
chinese/maozedong/marxist.org-chinese-mao-19490921.htm, accessed on December 21, 2012.
to one side” in foreign relations, which suggested sympathy for the Soviet Union if not
full membership in the Soviet bloc.3 For the irst time in the colony’s history, a strong
China appeared to be emerging across the border. Given London’s close association
with the US Cold War camp, neither statement augured well for the future of the
British in Hong Kong. British oicials nonetheless believed that the existing status of
Hong Kong ofered beneits to the PRC that would enable Britain to retain Hong Kong
so long as no group within the colony, particularly the Americans or their Nationalist
allies, took actions that would provoke the Chinese Communists. In July 1950, one
Hong Kong oicial wrote, “China cannot yet aford to cut itself of from Hong Kong
which remains its only open door to the South Seas and to the rest of the world. . . .
here are still many commodities [despite the embargo] from Hong Kong as well as
remittances which continue to come to China through here.”4 During the 1950s, the
British performed a balancing act, seeking to discourage the Chinese from taking
action against the colony by convincing them that the United States would intervene
to defend it, while simultaneously interesting the Americans in Hong Kong’s fate but
not allowing them to establish a foothold that the PRC might perceive as a threat.
British attempts in the 1950s to limit the American presence in Hong Kong
relected divergent Anglo-American policies toward the PRC on such issues as rec-
ognition of China, Chinese membership of the United Nations, and export controls.5
On January 5, 1950, Britain announced that it would extend de jure recognition to
the PRC, given that the Communists had established control over the vast majority
of China proper. he Beijing government did not recognize the United Kingdom in
return.6 Instead, the British were informed that the PRC was prepared “to begin pre-
liminary and procedural negotiations,” phrasing the British initially believed relected
“lack of familiarity with normal international practice” for establishing diplomatic
relations.7 It soon became clear, however, that this was deliberate. As Liu Shaoqi,
vice-chairman of the Central People’s Government, noted, “he British recognized
3. Mao Zedong, “Lun renmin minzu zhuanzheng” [On people’s democratic dictatorship], in Zhongguo
Gongchandang wenxian ziliao: Mao Zedong xuanji [Chinese Communist Party documents: Selected works
of Mao Zedong], Vol. 4, June 30, 1949, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64184/64185/66618/4488978.html,
accessed on December 21, 2012.
4. Hong Kong (O.A.G.) to the Secretary of State for the Colonies telegram 840, July 24, 1950, FO371/83397
FC1192/21, United Kingdom, the National Archives [hereater TNA], Kew, London.
5. Beale memorandum to Rayner re: Analysis of US-UK diferences, January 5, 1955, 611.41/1-555, Record
Group 59 [hereater RG59], General Records of the Department of State, US National Archives II [hereater
NA], College Park, Maryland, United States.
6. W. G. Graham Peking, letter to General Chou En-lai [Zhou Enlai], Minister for Foreign Afairs, January 5,
1950, Zhonghua Minguo Waijiaobu Danganguan Yuelanshi [Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Afairs,
Republic of China (Taiwan)], Beijing: 110-00022-01, Jiu Zhongguo Yingguo jianli waijiao guanxishi liangguo
kaizhang de huhan [Correspondence between the Foreign Ministers of China and Britain on establishing
Sino-British diplomatic relations], January 5, 1950.
7. Annual report on China for 1950 submitted by J. D. Hutchison, Beijing, March 1, 1951, FO371/92189
FC1011/1, TNA.
94 Tracy Steele
us without any requirements, but now they fear that we may raise Hong Kong and
other problems.”8
In fact, British policy toward the Nationalists, not Hong Kong, was Mao Zedong’s
primary concern. Britain’s failure to make any stipulations in exchange for recog-
nition convinced Mao that the PRC had the upper hand, an advantage he feared
Chinese diplomats might not realize. Although Mao initially agreed to allow British
oicials to travel to Beijing to open negotiations, within days he directed the Ministry
of Foreign Afairs to “wait for a while” (tuoyixia) and work closely with CCP oicials
to determine precisely what topics should be discussed with the British delegation
and exactly what line China should take. he British were indeed initially unsure
whether the PRC had recognized them in return. When they sought clariication,
Mao directed the Ministry of Foreign Afairs to obfuscate.9 He did so in retaliation
for British abstention in the United Nations (UN) vote on the seat reserved there for
China, ostensibly on the grounds that such an important decision should be made
through collective consultation rather than an open vote. he Communists consid-
ered this stance, which efectively helped the Nationalists retain the seat, unaccep-
table.10 Mao had indeed preapproved Chinese recognition of the UK, if the British
gave a satisfactory explanation of their UN vote.11 Seeking to mollify the PRC, the
British subsequently altered their vote, but by then the Korean War had begun and
the Chinese did not acknowledge the change.12
8. Zhonghua Minguo Waijiaobu Danganguan Yuelanshi [Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Afairs, Republic
of China (Taiwan)], Beijing: 110-00022-02, January 16, 1950, Jiu Zhong Ying jianli waijiao guanxi de tanpan
yijianshi [Comments on negotiation for establishing Sino-British diplomatic relations].
9. Moscow message, January 18, 1950, Soviet Union message, Mao to Liu: Guanyu Yindu zhi zhishi [Directions
concerning India], January 20, 1950, Zhonghua Minguo Waijiaobu Danganguan Yuelanshi [Archives of
the Ministry of Foreign Afairs, Republic of China (Taiwan)], Beijing: 110-00022-03, Mao Zhuxi guanyu
Zhongguo Yingguo tanpan de zhishi [Directions from Chairman Mao concerning negotiations between
China and Britain]; Mao Zedong Zhuxi guanyu Zhongguo Yingguo jianli waijiao tanpan de zhishidian
[Directive telegram from Chairman Mao Zedong concerning negotiations for establishing Sino-British
diplomatic relations], January 24, 1950, 110-00022-05 [Directive telegram from Chairman Mao Zedong
concerning negotiations for establishing Sino-British diplomatic relations], January 26, 1950, Moscow
message, Mao to Liu: Zhishi dui Ying, Yin, Yinni zhi chuli yijian [Directions on handling Britain, India,
and Indonesia], Zhonghua Minguo Waijiaobu Danganguan Yuelanshi [Archives of the Ministry of Foreign
Afairs, People’s Republic of China], Beijing: 110-00022-05.
10. Jiu Zhongguo jianjiao yu Ying linshi daiban Hu Yinsen de di’erci tanpan jilu [Record on second negotia-
tion with chargé d’afaires ad interim Hutchison for the establishment of Sino-British diplomatic relations],
March 17, 1950, Zhonghua Minguo Waijiaobu Danganguan Yuelanshi [Archives of the Ministry of Foreign
Afairs, Republic of China (Taiwan)], Beijing: 110-00024-04; Ministry of Foreign Afairs report, unsigned
and undated, but ater March 17, 1950: Substance of an oral communication, dated March 17, 1950:
Hutchison (Hu Jiasen), 110-00024-05, Guanyu women yu Yingguo jianjiao guochengzhong youguan wenti
de kaolü [Considerations concerning the questions during the establishment of Sino-British diplomatic rela-
tions], January 26, 1950.
11. Jiu Zhongguo Yingguo jian jiaoyu [Record on second negotiation with chargé d’afaires ad interim Hutchison
for the establishment of Sino-British diplomatic relations], March 17, 1950, page 1.
12. Annual report on China for 1950 submitted by J. D. Hutchison, Beijing, March 1, 1951, FO371/92189
FC1011/1, TNA.
Despite their initial failure to open diplomatic relations with the PRC, the British
continued to recognize the new government, an action they claimed did not denote
approval but simply acknowledged its existence. In justiication, they cited not simply
the de jure reality of Communist rule but the need to protect British interests, par-
ticularly Hong Kong; to safeguard trade interests in China; and to keep in step with
Asian Commonwealth countries such as India. Conversely, the British government
simultaneously recognized the Nationalist authorities as the de facto administration
of Taiwan and maintained a consulate in Tamsui (Danshui) on Taiwan. In theory,
Britain dealt only with the Provincial Taiwanese authorities and had no relations with
the Central government of the Republic of China. his duality of approach meant
that both the PRC and Taiwan censured Britain for following a two-China policy.13
As Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden observed in 1954, trade—rather than the mis-
sionary work on which the Americans had concentrated—was historically Britain’s
primary interest in China.14 Underlying Eden’s comment was the suggestion that
the American approach to the PRC was more emotional than was the pragmatic
and realistic British attitude. he Americans, by contrast, recognized the Nationalist
authorities as the de jure government of all China and maintained an ambassador
in Taipei.
he Korean War
Before June 1950, when the conlict in Korea began, the United States seemed to be
disassociating itself from Chiang Kai-shek, whom President Harry S. Truman consid-
ered corrupt and not worth wasting “one single American life to save.”15 Without the
protection of the United States, liberation of Nationalist-held Taiwan was a distinct
possibility, but one of Truman’s irst actions ater ighting ensued in Korea was to
direct the Seventh Fleet to patrol the waters between Taiwan and the Chinese main-
land to prevent either side from initiating military action. he entrance of Chinese
“volunteers” into the Korean conlict later that fall further negated any possibility of
American recognition of the PRC for decades.16 In the long term, the United States
reinforced its military posture in East Asia by securing bases and military alliances
with Japan and the Republic of Korea; Chiang beneitted greatly from the 1955 mutual
defense treaty that placed Taiwan, though not necessarily the ofshore islands, under
the American military umbrella.
13. Foreign Oice (FO) brief for Geneva Conference, April 2, 1954, FO371/110231 FC1042/1A, TNA.
14. Geneva Conference, Eden telegram, April 30, 1954, PREM11/649, TNA.
15. Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (London: Gollancz, 1974), 283.
16. For further discussion of these issues, see Bruce Cumings, Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American-
East Asian Relations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Patterns in
the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949–1950 (New York: Columbia
96 Tracy Steele
he British balancing act continued. In the period immediately ater the Korean
War began, the British urged the Americans to use only conventional weapons in
Korea. Concurrently, they worked closely with Washington in the United Nations to
prevent the PRC from assuming the China seat and also to pass resolutions against
the Chinese Communists. his included enforcing an embargo, referred to as the
Chinese Trade Diferential, upon strategic items that Western countries sold to the
Soviet Union but agreed to refuse to ship to the PRC. James T. H. Tang argues that
Britain acquiesced in these US initiatives “somewhat reluctantly,” particularly since
both the UN embargo and the imposition of export license controls on Hong Kong
hurt the colony signiicantly.17 his is borne out by a Local Intelligence Committee
Review warning that though no evidence existed that the PRC intended to mount an
imminent attack, one trigger for such an assault might be if an “embargo on export of
oil and strategic materials through Hong Kong were imposed.”18
he sudden and apparently unanticipated North Korean assault disturbed British
complacency over Hong Kong. In April 1950 the British Defence Co-ordination
Committee Far East, when considering transferring the hird Commando Brigade
from Hong Kong to Malaya, projected at least a ive-week warning of any external
invasion of Hong Kong.19 By July that estimate had fallen to one week’s notice.20 he
Malayan insurgency put additional strains on British inances, leading the mili-
tary chiefs of staf (COS) for British Co-ordination Committee Far East, to weigh
their options for transferring troops and equipment if necessary: “Failure to hold
Hong Kong in the face of an attack by Communist China would have grave reper-
cussions on the Allied position in Southeast Asia and Far East, and would be very
damaging to British prestige generally. At the same time a failure in Malaya would
be an even worse catastrophe.”21 he COS therefore planned for two contingencies:
either Hong Kong’s involvement in a major war or its engagement in a limited war
with the PRC, perhaps with covert Soviet assistance. In either case, Britain’s ability to
hold the colony would depend on the international situation and Britain’s ability to
deploy reinforcements. Operating under severe inancial stress and burdened with
colonial commitments across the globe, the COS determined that, while refraining
17. James T. H. Tang, “From Empire Defence to Imperial Retreat: Britain’s Postwar China Policy and the
Decolonization of Hong Kong,” Modern Asian Studies 28 (2) (May 1994): 331.
18. Unnumbered telegram from Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, July 11, 1950, Local
Intelligence Committee Review of the hreat to Hong Kong approved by the G.O.C. in C., FO371/83397
FC1192/20, TNA.
19. GHQ Far East Land Forces to Ministry of Defence, London and GHQ Land Forces, Hong Kong, SEACOS 43,
April 20, 1950, FO 371/83397 FC1192/14G, TNA.
20. Unnumbered telegram from Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, July 11, 1950, Local
Intelligence Committee Review of the hreat to Hong Kong approved by the G.O.C. in C., FO371/83397
FC1192/20, TNA.
21. Approved Defence Policy for Hong Kong with Special Regard to Attack by China, Ministry of Defence to
G.H.Q., Far East Land Forces, COSSEA 774, October 4, 1950, FO371/83398 FC1192/38G, TNA.
from either provoking or appeasing the PRC, the UK would make “every possible
efort to deter the Chinese from attacking” Hong Kong “by giving an impression of
conidence and strength.”22 In conclusion, the COS noted that they were “considering
the possibility of obtaining American assistance” should Hong Kong be attacked; the
British also planned to appeal to the UN under Article 51.23 Although plans to defend
Hong Kong and considerations of their feasibility underwent review and tweaking in
subsequent years, all assumed American assistance, particularly with airpower, even
though the British feared that such American actions might provoke the PRC.24
Colonial oicials in Hong Kong focused primarily on the territory’s needs,
whereas Foreign Oice representatives in London, driven by broader Cold War con-
siderations, oten sought to coordinate British policies rather closely with those of the
United States. he two sides oten clashed over just how extensive the American pres-
ence in Hong Kong should be. When Hong Kong government oicials complained to
the Foreign Oice that the US consul general was pressuring British irms to refrain
from trading with the PRC, the Foreign Oice urged them to defer remonstrating
with the Americans until they had more proof, even warning that the Hong Kong
government’s own hands were “by no means clean in the matter of trade with China.”25
he rapid expansion of the US consulate general in Hong Kong concerned the
colonial authorities. In October 1949 there were two US consuls and six vice-consuls;
by September 1951, numbers had risen to ive consuls and twenty-four vice-consuls,
and overall staf to ninety-six; and by April 1952, the US Consulate numbered more
than one hundred, including thirteen service attachés.26 By late 1950, the swelling
numbers and embarrassing behavior of “particular sections” of US consulate staf
in Hong Kong tremendously alarmed the colonial authorities, but, given the inter-
national situation, London encouraged them to remain silent.27 heir vociferous
complaints that consulate staing was disproportionate to the estimated size of the
Hong Kong American community continued. In September 1951 H. P. Hall urged
that the Foreign Oice should
point out to the United States Embassy that 96 oicials are not needed to look
ater a United States community scarcely exceeding 1000. It is equally obvious that
if these oicials in fact earn their pay, they must be doing other work—i.e. work
concerned with China. his is against our policy that Hong Kong should not be
used as a base for work concerned with China. If Hong Kong is to continue to
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ministry of Defence, London to B.J.S.M., Washington, COS(W)828, July 21, 1950, for Lord Tedder from
Chiefs of Staf; Reference COS(50) 109th Meeting, Minute 4, FO371/83397 FC1192/22G, TNA.
25. M. J. M. Paton minute, May 16, 1951; J. B. Sidebotham to Shattuck, May 15, 1951; and J. F. Nicoll to
J. B. Sidebotham, April 23, 1951, FO371/92385 FC1905/6, TNA.
26. N. C. C. Trench minute, October 4, 1951, FO371/92385 FC1905/9G, TNA; and H. P. to K. R. Oakeshott,
April 3, 1952, FO371/99379 FC1906/2G, TNA.
27. H. P. Hall to N. C. C. Trench, February 6, 1951, FO371/92385 FC1905/1, TNA.
98 Tracy Steele
cooperate with the United States by turning an oicial blind eye on these activi-
ties, it is only fair that the State Department should do something in return for
Hong Kong.28
he help to which Hall referred was relaxation of the trade controls. Yet neither then
nor in 1952, despite acknowledging that the size of the US consulate general “must by
now be a standing joke in the colony,” was the Foreign Oice willing to remonstrate
strongly with the United States on the subject. Instead, London sought to discuss the
colony’s defense with the Americans.29 he Colonial Oice’s continued complaints
regarding the consulate caused one Foreign Oice functionary to suggest that it
should occasionally be reminded that the British “have an interest in the prosecu-
tion of the ‘cold war’ against Communism, which is presumably the raison d’être of
most of the large American stafs at Hong Kong and other strategic points in Asia.”30
Soon, moreover, the Foreign Oice discovered that the Colonial Oice had asked the
United States to add some consulate staf to assist with Hong Kong refugee problems.
In December 1952 the Hong Kong government admitted that circumstances had
changed since 1950, meaning they would wait and see whether the Americans kept
their word to restrain the consulate’s growth.31
Image 3.1
US consulate general, Hong Kong, early 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
28. H. P. Hall to N .C. C. Trench, September 27, 1951, FO371/92385 FC1905/9G, TNA.
29. T. S. Tull minute, October 6, 1952, FO371/99379 FC1906/10G, TNA.
30. P. S. Fall minute, September 26, 1952, FO371/99379 FC 1906/10G, TNA.
31. I. H. Harris to K. R. Oakeshott, December 19, 1952, FO371/99379 FC1906/12 G, TNA.
hroughout the 1950s British oicials, military and civilian alike, were distinctly
schizophrenic over whether Hong Kong was defensible and also regarding the extent
to which the Americans should be invited to participate in defense plans and prepara-
tions. In January 1951 the COS concluded that Hong Kong was indefensible, even
suggesting that if talks could be initiated with the PRC, it might be demilitarized but
remain in British hands, though they eventually agreed that such pessimistic talk was
premature.32 Within months, the COS became more optimistic over Britain’s ability
to defend the colony. Before discussing the situation with the Americans, the COS
needed to determine whether Hong Kong could be defended or whether the inten-
tion was simply to evacuate the territory, since the military assistance required to
defend Hong Kong against a purely Chinese attack difered from that needed for an
evacuation.33
By 1952 the British were still uncertain, and the situation was muddied by border
skirmishes not just in Hong Kong but also in Portuguese Macau, where the presence
of an estimated 100,000 Nationalist operatives and sympathizers heightened tensions
and provoked violent clashes within Macau and on the border.34 On at least one occa-
sion “brisk shooting” between Nationalist “guerillas” and the Macau police erupted
close to the British consular oices there. he British thought Macau’s colonial
administrators incapable of handling the situation and worried events might escalate
and provoke a sudden PRC invasion of Macau. In this case, they had little fear that
Hong Kong too would be at risk of invasion. heir sole concern would be to evacu-
ate from Macau British and Commonwealth citizens, estimated to number below
200, as well as Chinese sympathetic to the British.35 Fortunately, tensions decreased,
thanks in part an agreement by the PRC to sell Macau necessary supplies such as
fresh vegetables and rice in return for “strategic materials” otherwise embargoed by
the United Nations. Macau enjoyed relative peace ater the Nationalist “mandarin,”
as the British referred to him, “agreed to take prompt and efective action against any
lawless Nationalist elements” who might embarrass the Macau administration, who
in turn agreed “to mete out less summary justice” to Nationalist “guerillas” operating
in the colony.36 Although British evacuation plans relied as much as possible on using
civilian rather than military vessels, the British intended to share these proposals with
32. A. A. E. Franklin minute, January 26, 1951 on C.O.S. (51) 9th meeting, January 11, 1951, FO371/92299
FC1193/4G, TNA.
33. B.J.S.M., Washington to Ministry of Defence, London, JSM 836, April 25, 1951, FO371/92211, TNA.
34. Government of Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Savingram 586, April 16, 1953,
FO371/105199 FC1019/9G, TNA.
35. Macau Consul to the Foreign Oice, telegram 35, March 5, 1953, FO371/105199 FC1019/7, TNA.
36. Macau Consul E. J. Cowan’s political report to the Secretary of State, Sir Anthony Eden, July 17, 1953,
FO371/105199 FC1019/16, TNA.
100 Tracy Steele
the Americans in Hong Kong, involving them “in strictest secrecy” in the planning
process even though there were only an estimated twenty-six Americans in Macau.37
As with Macau, the British decision whether to defend or evacuate Hong Kong
in a crisis would hinge on the potential US attitude. he British nonetheless found
it impossible to decide when and how to approach the Americans, and ultimately
deferred doing so. hey had several reasons. he irst was the diiculty of reconciling
British and American policies on China.38 Once the border skirmishes decreased, there
was general agreement that the matter could await the election of a new American
president in November 1952.39 In October 1952, therefore, the British were taken
by surprise when the Americans themselves requested British views on Hong Kong’s
defense requirements. he British found it embarrassing to contemplate telling the
Americans their decision that, even though they believed that Hong Kong could be
defended with American help, faced with an all-out attack, their policy would be a
ighting withdrawal. hey were concerned that, given this negative British attitude,
the Americans would not ofer assistance.40 Not all British oicials were gratiied
when the Americans proved pleased to help defend the colony. he COS brought up
the question of whether the Americans would need to deploy troops in Hong Kong
in advance of an attack.41 When a senior Foreign Oice oicial suggested that the
Hong Kong garrison might be pared back to permit the stationing of American
troops in the colony, Foreign Secretary Eden forthrightly denounced the idea: “No,
No. I don’t want Americans there” until Hong Kong is “in fact attacked.”42
he 1954–1955 Taiwan Straits Crisis and Ater
Ater the Korean Armistice was signed in 1953, Eden sought to “reset” the Anglo-
Chinese relationship. British apprehensions now focused upon the Nationalists.
One major reason the British were so ambivalent toward the American presence
in Hong Kong was unwavering US support for Chiang and the Nationalists ater
June 1950. For two decades, against the advice of the British embassy in Beijing and
over strong PRC objections, the Foreign Oice continued to maintain a consulate
37. HKP 176/2/01 Memorandum: Evacuation of Macau approved by the Minister of State, the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, the Chiefs of Staf and the Governor of Hong Kong in July 1953, FO371/105199
FC1019/15G, TNA; E. T. Biggs minute, May 18, 1953, FO371/105199 FC1019/12G, TNA.
38. R. H. Scott to Brigadier Ewbank, August 11, 1952, Defence of Hong Kong, FO371/99325 FC1194/5G, TNA.
39. Foreign Oice oicial minute, August 1, 1952, FO371/99325 FC1194/5G, TNA.
40. B.J.S.M., Washington to Ministry of Defence, London, ELL471, October 9, 1952, to the Chiefs of Staf from
Elliot, South East Asia Talk, FO371/99325 FC1194/6G, TNA.
41. Ministry of Defence to B.J.S.M., Washington, COS(W)296, October 13, 1952, U.K. Eyes Only, for Elliot from
Chiefs of Staf, FO371/99325 FC1194/6G, TNA.
42. Sir Pierson Dixon Minute, December 1, 1952 and Foreign Minister Eden Minute, December 2, 1952,
FO371/99325 FC1194/10G, TNA.
in Tamsui in Taiwan.43 hey may have feared that they could not safely relinquish
the protection of their nationals and interests on the island to US diplomats there,
especially when such interests involved Nationalist attacks on primarily Hong Kong–
based British shipping.
When the Korean armistice was signed in July 1953, British oicials worried that
Chiang would be emboldened to renew the Nationalist-imposed embargo against
shipping along the PRC’s coast. he Seventh Fleet’s presence was initially intended
by Truman not only to protect the Nationalists but also to prevent them from attack-
ing the PRC and potentially broadening the Korean War. In June 1953, incoming
US president Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the Seventh Fleet’s mission, ordering it
to protect Taiwan but not to hinder Nationalist naval attacks against shipping along
China’s coast, a policy British oicials repeatedly deplored.44 he British therefore
blamed Eisenhower when the Nationalist blockade of the Chinese mainland and port
closures, actions that the British considered illegal under international law, afected
British shipping in Hong Kong.45 he blockade represented a signiicant problem,
since irrespective of the country of registry, ships suspected of carrying goods the
Nationalists deined as strategic to mainland ports were subject to interference.
he Nationalist embargo predated the Eisenhower administration, but interdic-
tions, including military attacks on neutral shipping, increased substantially ater
1953. he Nationalists largely ignored protests by British consular oicials to the
provincial government in Tamsui over incidents involving British shipping. he same
was true of US representations to Nationalist leaders on behalf of the British. In any
case, pro-Nationalist American oicials in both Taiwan and Washington tended to
agree with Chiang that British ships calling at mainland ports were actually owned
or leased by Communists and were transporting strategic materials to evade the UN
embargo on such trade. Although the British vehemently refuted these claims, their
protests failed to convince American oicials, particularly since the fact that it was
illegal for American merchants and shipping to engage in any form of trade with
the PRC tended to leave US representatives decidedly unsympathetic to any British
commercial dealings with mainland China. One further reason the British distrusted
the Americans was the role of US military oicials in Taiwan in passing on to the
Nationalists naval intelligence on ship movements, British vessels among them.46
So pro-Nationalist was the US attitude toward the blockade that it fueled British fears
that any permanent American military presence in Hong Kong would result in the
United States using the territory as a base for operations against the mainland.
43. Position of Naval Liaison Oicer in Tamsui 1950, FO371/83561 FC1912/1 to /21, TNA.
44. De Zulueta minute to Macmillan, September 6, 1958, FO371/133532 FCN1193/275, TNA.
45. Note by Sir G. Fitzmaurice, November 15, 1954, FO371/110238 FC1042/151, TNA.
46. Appu K. Soman, Double-Edged Sword: Nuclear Diplomacy in Unequal Conlicts: he United States and China,
1950–1958 (London: Praeger, 2000), 118.
102 Tracy Steele
To counter the Nationalists, the British ordered the Royal Navy to patrol the Taiwan
Straits with one destroyer or frigate, with backup vessels standing by at Hong Kong.
Seeking to prevent a direct clash between the British and Nationalist navies, in early
1954 the British fruitlessly considered negotiating a pact with the Nationalists to
remove the Royal Navy if they curtailed their attacks on British shipping.47 If any-
thing, the situation escalated during the 1954–55 Taiwan Straits Crisis. his began in
September 1954, when the PRC, irritated by Nationalist eforts to close the ports of
Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Shanghai, and probably hoping to begin the process of annex-
ing the remaining Nationalist-held territories, began intermittent artillery attacks
against various Nationalist-held ofshore islands, including Quemoy, Matsu, and the
Dachens (Tachens).48 Even though few attacks on British vessels occurred during the
crisis, it foreshadowed new risks for British shipping in the Taiwan Straits.49
he British resented Nationalist instructions to avoid the Taiwan Straits, even
though this would reduce the chances of British ships being attacked.50 Foreign
Secretary Eden bristled when Admiral Yu Ta-wai (Yu Dawei), the Nationalist minis-
ter of national defense, personally delivered a warning to British diplomats in Tamsui.
Eden refused to order Admiralty oicials in Hong Kong to issue warnings to British
shipping in the Taiwan Straits. British captains needed no Admiralty advice; for
reasons of self-preservation, during the shelling most avoided the mainland ports
close to the Nationalist-held ofshore islands.51 Disappointed by Eden’s hostility,
Yu made an unprecedented follow-up approach. He urged that, regardless of Britain’s
legal views on the ofshore islands and the port closure, it would be sagacious for
Britain “to avoid becoming involved in any hostilities by preventing British ships
from approaching the danger areas.”52 his did not impress Eden, who wished the
Nationalists to realize that further attacks would incur grave consequences.53 Initially,
American oicials were unsympathetic to British complaints. By mid-1955, however,
Nationalist attacks on British and other non-Chinese shipping grew so aggressive
that, to avoid further international embarrassment, the United States felt obliged to
rein in its ally. Fears that Britain might no longer support American maneuvers to
retain China’s UN seat for the Nationalists may also have played a part.54 In August
1955, the Nationalists agreed to issue conidential instructions to their forces not
47. Biggs minute, January 29, 1954, FO371/110309 FC1261/24, TNA.

48. On the crisis, see Soman, Double-Edged Sword, 115–64.
49. Radford to Murphy, September 3, 1954, 793.5/9-354, RG59, NA.
50. Rankin to State Department, October 19, 1954, 793.00/10-1954, RG59, NA.
51. Aldrich to State Department, December 2, 1954, 793.00/12-254, RG59, NA.
52. Hermann to FO, November 16, 1954, FO371/110313 FC1261/171, TNA.
53. Eden to Tamsui, November 23, 1954, FO371/110313 FC1261/171, TNA.
54. Memorandum of conversation between Koo and Robertson, August 9, 1955, US Department of State,
Foreign Relations of the United States [hereater FRUS], 1955–1957, Vol. 11, United Nations and General
International Matters (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1988), 292–93.
to ire on ships lying the British lag unless they were carrying strategic cargo for
the PRC.55
he shelling of the Nationalist-held ofshore islands in September 1954 resulted in
a strong American response to protect Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands. he British
were extremely concerned that the ofshore islands might draw the Americans into a
wider conlict. While willing to agree that the PRC should not reclaim Taiwan through
force, they were adamant that all the ofshore islands should be abandoned in order to
neutralize and stabilize the area—a possible irst step toward a two-China solution.56
Eden further observed, “In view of the possible repercussions on Hong Kong and the
position in the Far East as a whole,” the British assumed that the Americans would
inform them in advance before military decisions were taken.57 Given their concerns,
the British agreed to work with the Americans on an approach to the United Nations
to end the ighting in the Taiwan Straits. Ater the 1955 Bandung Conference, Eden—
by this time British prime minister—even ofered to meet Zhou Enlai, the PRC’s
premier and foreign minister, in Hong Kong to discuss the issue, an invitation Zhou
declined.
Much to British annoyance, during the 1954–55 crisis the Americans oten
referred to Hong Kong as Britain’s ofshore island. Well aware of British exasperation
with the Nationalists, in February 1955 Eisenhower remarked, “Of course, they’re not
too interested in Formosa [Taiwan] but Hong Kong—that’s another story. hey’d do
almost anything to retain that.”58 At one point, Eisenhower questioned whether his
administration should seek clariication on what the British expected the United States
to do if Hong Kong were threatened.59 British eagerness that the Nationalists abandon
the ofshore islands led to American counter-suggestions that they might agree to an
Anglo-American pledge to protect not only Hong Kong but also Taiwan should the
PRC attempt to use force to change the status of either. From Taiwan, the pro-Nation-
alist American ambassador Karl Rankin endorsed the idea of linkage but noted that
the United States “scarcely would wish to commit itself to the defense of Britain’s
ofshore islands immediately in addition to acquiescing in the surrender of Free
China’s.”60 hese comments irritated British Foreign Oice oicials, who longed to
explain to Dulles why they thought it a false analogy to compare the ofshore islands
and Hong Kong:
55. Barnes to Goodpaster, January 27, 1956, Box 20: Eden Visit January 30–February 1, 1956 (3), International
Series, Ann Whitman Files [hereater AWF], Dwight D. Eisenhower Library [hereater EL].
56. COS (54) 99th meeting, Minute 5, September 15, 1954, FO371/110258 FC1094/27, TNA.
57. Kirkpatrick to Rumbold, September 13, 1954, FO371/110258 FC1094/35, TNA.
58. FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. 2, China (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1986), 202–3.
59. Eisenhower to Dulles, Wednesday, February 16, 1955, Box 9: Phone Calls–Jan–July 1955 (3), DDE Diary
Series, AWF, EL.
60. Rankin to Robertson, May 2, 1955, 794a.5/5-255, RG59, NA.
104 Tracy Steele
Hong Kong is a British territory by virtue of treaties which are internationally

recognised. he island of Hong Kong was ceded to Britain by the Chinese in the
Treaty of Nanking in 1842. Kowloon was ceded by the convention of Peking of
1860. he new territories were leased to the United Kingdom for 99 years under
the Convention for the extension of Hong Kong signed at Peking in June 1898.
Although they had made claims both to the leased territories and to Kowloon
City the Chinese government have never raised the question of the status of
Hong Kong as a whole.61
Just as the Nationalists assumed that the United States would defend the ofshore
islands despite the vagueness of their treaties on that score, British planning for the
defense or evacuation of Hong Kong likewise assumed American assistance would
be given.
Ironically, the British thought Hong Kong was reasonably secure as long as the
Chinese Communists focused their attention on Taiwan, particularly since the British
believed that the PRC took it for granted that Hong Kong would eventually revert to
China. In 1955 William Denis Allen, assistant undersecretary of state, minuted, “At the
moment Formosa tends to keep pressure of Hong Kong. Once Formosa was no longer
at stake we might well ind the heat turned on to ourselves.”62 As Wm. Roger Louis has
noted, in 1955 Sir Alexander Grantham, Hong Kong’s governor, told the American
consul general that he expected Hong Kong to remain British until 1997. Grantham
did not anticipate that Hong Kong would gain independence from Britain as a separate
entity or city state apart from China. Grantham also “believed that the greater danger
to Hong Kong would come if and when the United States re-established relations with
the Communist mainland.”63 In the 1950s that seemed unlikely to occur, so in the
meantime any PRC threat to Hong Kong was considered to be less likely through the
military than through subversion and sabotage. he Americans also believed that
the weakness of UK military forces in Hong Kong led the British to treat the PRC
moderately and cautiously.64 Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staf during the Ofshore Islands Crisis, who was determined that the Nationalists
should retain the ofshore islands, likewise considered too pessimistic the judgment
of British military intelligence that Hong Kong was indefensible. Radford personally
believed that, with reasonable warning and appropriate naval and airpower, com-
bined US and British forces could hold Hong Kong.65
61. FO minute for Secretary of State, September 1955, FO371/115011 FC10345/91, TNA.
62. Allen minute on long-term solutions for Formosa, June 10, 1955, FO371/115054 FC1041/940, TNA.
63. Drumright, Consul General Hong Kong to State Dept., March 22, 1955, record of conversation with
Grantham on March 18, 1955, 746G.022/3-2255, RG59, NA; and Wm. Roger Louis, “Hong Kong: he
Critical Phase, 1945–1949,” American Historical Review 102 (4) (October 1997): 1067.
64. McConaughy, Consul General Hong Kong, to State Department, August 17, 1951, 746G.52/9-2551,
RG59, NA.
65. McConaughy to Johnson, June 30, 1953, 746G.5/5-1453, RG59, NA.
Irrespective of any potential PRC threat, British oicials found Nationalist activities
in Hong Kong highly problematic. One of the most serious incidents was the destruc-
tion in April 1955 of an Air India jet, the Kashmir Princess, carrying Chinese oicials
and journalists to the Bandung Conference, when a Nationalist Chinese sympathizer
placed a bomb in its wing while it was serviced at Kai Tak Airport.66 Nationalist
military aircrat and ships oten sought safe haven in Hong Kong, embarrassing the
government and leaving it exposed to Communist taunts.67 Prime Minister Eden hes-
itated before releasing a Nationalist Sabre photo-reconnaissance jet that had landed
in Hong Kong in January 1956 ater experiencing engine trouble. Eden, who was
attempting to improve Sino-British relations, was reluctant to alienate the PRC by
releasing the plane and its pilot, whom the Communists wanted detained. Ultimately,
the aircrat (which was American owned and leased to the Nationalists) was quietly
returned to the Nationalists without publicity.
In the atermath of the 1954–55 Ofshore Islands Crisis, there was general agree-
ment that Hong Kong was in less immediate danger than was Taiwan. In February
1956, a reassessment of Britain’s military commitments resulted in the decision to
inform the Americans that the United Kingdom would halve its forces in the colony.68
Complicating matters was the fact that the Americans believed that Hong Kong, like
Taiwan, really owed its safety to the presence of the Seventh Fleet and American pre-
paredness.69 he American military presence in Hong Kong was viewed as benevolent
and encouraged, so long as it was not permanent. In April 1956, Governor Grantham
suggested that the US Air Force should henceforth be charged fees for using Kai Tak
Airport. he Foreign Oice strongly opposed his proposal: “We are anxious to inter-
est the Americans in the future of Hong Kong and to add these pin-prick irritants
to U.S. military aircrat landing at Kai Tak airport would not be in harmony with
this policy.”70
Early in 1957, the British commander in chief of the Far East Station told Governor
Grantham the Admiralty planned to close all naval establishments in Hong Kong and
to withdraw ships based there. Grantham opposed these draconian cutbacks, which
included closing the dockyard, arguing that they would not only reduce Britain’s stake
in Hong Kong but also jeopardize conidence in the colony’s future:
66. See esp. Steve Tsang, “Target Zhou Enlai: he ‘Kashmir Princess’ Incident of 1955,” China Quarterly 139
(September 1994): 766–82.
67. Crowe minute, February 22, 1956, FO371/120939 FC1092/2, TNA.
68. Memorandum of conversation MacArthur, Caccia, et al., February 2, 1956, 611.41/2-256, RG59, NA; and
memorandum of conversation, Coulson, Graves, Robertson and Hodge, February 8, 1956, 746G.5/2-856,
RG59, NA.
69. Franklin to Crowe, March 13, 1956, FO371/120965 FC1382/51, TNA.
70. Murray minute, June 13, 1956, and Mayall minute, June 14, 1956, FO371/120968 FC386/1, TNA.
106 Tracy Steele
A. Disappearance of all local naval forces might well seriously prejudice any
chance of H.M.G. discharging its responsibility of evacuating British women
and children.
B. he Chinese could demonstrate whenever it suited them that we were
defenseless on the sea by staging an incident; it might be most tempting to
test our morale in this way without running any risks.
C. he efect on the Americans has also to be considered.71
he Admiralty backed down to the extent of agreeing that at least one frigate and
six inshore minesweepers be kept in Hong Kong, and proposals for a naval base at
Hong Kong were approved.72
Clearly, no consensus as to Hong Kong’s security needs existed among Hong Kong
oicials or the Foreign Oice. Until the 1957 Washington agreement, no concrete
commitment existed guaranteeing automatic US assistance in defending Hong Kong
in case of a Chinese Communist attack, but some British oicials assumed such
support would be forthcoming. Still, American diplomats in London were startled
to hear Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd tell other diplomats that any Chinese
Communist attack would result in World War III since Britain would ight back with
American assistance. Most worrisome was the impression Lennox-Boyd gave that a
concrete agreement existed.73
Allied and Interdependent: Post-Suez Anglo-American Relations and

Hong Kong
For two years, from mid-1955 onward, Hong Kong was largely absent from Anglo-
American relations. By 1957, the time was ripe for the agreement on Hong Kong and
China concluded in October by Eisenhower and Harold Macmillan, who replaced
Eden as British prime minister in January 1957, ater the Suez debacle. Following
the previous year’s crisis, both sides sought to rebuild their countries’ relationship by
reaching collaborative agreements on a wide range of issues. Factors impelling them
to bring in Hong Kong and China included, as Chi-Kwan Mark argues, Governor
Grantham’s concern to prevent a recurrence of the riots the colony had experienced
in 1956 and 1957 and Macmillan’s need to reduce defense expenditures, as well as
growing Anglo-American nuclear cooperation.74 Ater the 1956 Suez Crisis, more-
over, the Americans believed they could take advantage of Macmillan’s attempts to
rejuvenate the Anglo-American relationship to persuade the British to follow the US
lead on East Asian issues. As one State Department oicial noted, the United States
71. Grantham to Sec. of State for Colonies, March 26, 1957, CO1030/808, TNA.
72. Minister of Defence’s tour of the Far East, 1957, CO1030, TNA.
73. American Embassy London to McConaughy, November 26, 1956, 611.46G/11-2656, RG59, NA.
74. Chi-Kwan Mark, “A Reward for Good Behaviour in the Cold War: Bargaining over the Defence of
Hong Kong, 1949–1957,” International History Review 22 (4) (December 2000): 842.
could accelerate the process by assuming additional responsibilities for defending

British interests there in exchange.75
In preparation for the October 1957 meeting with the British, the Americans
began a review of National Security Council (NSC) Action Memorandum 256 of
October 20, 1949, the only NSC document dealing speciically with Hong Kong.76
Before Macmillan and Selwyn Lloyd, his foreign secretary, arrived, a new policy state-
ment (NSC 5717) had been adopted. Eisenhower approved this document despite
his irritation over American responsibility for evacuating US citizens from potential
danger spots. he president and others in his administration worried over expanding
American international military commitments. One NSC meeting doubted, however,
that Hong Kong was in any real danger, since the PRC appeared to regard British
Hong Kong positively and had given no sign that it intended to change the status
quo.77 According to a March 1957 National Intelligence Estimate attempting to fore-
cast trends within the mainland over the next ive years:
Communist China is committed to the ultimate incorporation of Hong Kong

and Macao in its territory although this has not been stated as explicitly as in the
case of Taiwan. However, for the period of this estimate the Chinese Communists
will probably not attempt to seize these colonies by force. Non-Communist
Hong Kong and Macao have a certain utility to Peiping [Beijing] as points of
contact with the West; furthermore, Peiping probably believes that an attack on
Hong Kong at least would involve hostilities with the UK and possibly with the
US as well. Nevertheless, during the period of this estimate, Communist China
will attempt to exploit frictions which arise over Hong Kong and Macao. Peiping
will almost certainly continue unabated its campaign through outright subver-
sion and “peaceful penetration” to increase its political and economic inluence
in Hong Kong and Macao, to reduce the efectiveness of these areas as Western
listening posts, and to undermine the resolve of the UK and Portugal to maintain
their positions.78
In October 1957, Macmillan and Selwyn Lloyd met with Eisenhower and Dulles in
Washington. On their irst day of talks Macmillan informed Dulles that, since Suez,
he had come to believe that a new organization might be created that would leave
the United Nations “somewhat in the titular role of the House of Lords.”79 Dulles
interpreted this as a signal that Macmillan was willing to barter Britain’s vote on the
moratorium (the procedure used at the opening of each General Assembly to avoid
a debate on which China should retain the seat assigned to China) for less restrictive
trade controls. Alluding to their earlier talks in Bermuda in March 1957, Dulles told
75. Sebald to Reinhardt, April 5, 1957, 611.41/4-557, RG59, NA.

76. Robertson to Reinhardt, May 1, 1957, 611.41/5-157, RG59, NA.
77. Memorandum dated August 9, 1957, Box 9: 334th Meeting of NSC, August 8, 1957, NSC Series, AWF, EL.
78. Doc. 244, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. 3, China (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1986), 510.
79. Memorandum of conversation between Macmillan, Lloyd, and Dulles at the British Embassy, Washington,
October 23, 1957, Box 7: Dulles, John Foster, October 1957 (1), Dulles-Herter Series, AWF, EL.
108 Tracy Steele
Macmillan that the administration had been trying “to accommodate itself to the UK
trade views,” but “that some accommodation was needed on the political side with
the US views.”80 Macmillan’s pleasure over the outcome of the talks was evident as
he reported to the cabinet on the signing of the Declaration of Common Purpose.
He played down Britain’s concessions, noting how in return the United States had
expanded its commitments, including an agreement “to make a joint study with us of
the threat to Hong Kong and the steps which might be taken to meet it.”81 Macmillan
did not reveal that, to avoid giving any impression at home that he had done some
“horse trading,” he had requested that the paragraph about China (in which the
Americans acknowledged that in exchange for continued UK help on China in
the United Nations, Britain needed some relaxation of the strategic trade controls
the Western allies had imposed on China) be placed not in the communiqué but in a
separate private memorandum.82
Hong Kong paid the price for the favorable vote on the UN moratorium resolution.
his and other British activities resulted in accusations from the PRC that Britain
was following a “two-China” policy. While the Washington agreement promised
Hong Kong, now assured of American support, greater security, the declaration of
common purpose and interdependence did not directly afect Hong Kong’s govern-
ance or its relations with the PRC. Britain hoped to retain the colony until 1997, and
the Americans were eager to encourage Britain to keep Hong Kong in friendly hands;
most importantly, the understanding on Hong Kong’s defense did not require Britain
to subordinate its military control to that of the United States. Since Hong Kong was
a traditional target for PRC abuse and Anglo-Chinese relations had reached a new
low thanks to Chinese criticism of Britain’s role in the Suez Crisis, the potential for
increased pressure on Hong Kong due to Britain’s promise to continue to support
the United States on the UN moratorium vote seemed negligible.83 In January 1958
Macmillan told Walter Nash, New Zealand’s prime minister, that the Communists
might eventually take Hong Kong, but in the interim it suited them to allow it to be
an outlet for trade.84
he Washington agreement did not change many people’s basic assumptions on
American willingness to protect Hong Kong, but establishing an Anglo-American
80. Memorandum of dinner conversation between President, Macmillan, Lloyd and Dulles at White House,
October 23, 1957, Box 5: Meetings with the President–1957 (2), White House Memoranda Series, Papers of
John Foster Dulles, EL.
81. C.C. (57), October 25, 1958, CAB 128/31, TNA.
82. Peacock memorandum for S/S, October 25, 1957: extract of the Secretary’s memorandum of his conversa-
tion with Prime Minister Macmillan at the Secretary’s residence and while riding together to the White
House on October 24, 1957, Box 20: Macmillan, October 23–25, 1957 (3), International Series, AWF, EL.
83. Dalton minute, August 28, 1958, FO371/133494 FC2251/19, TNA.
84. Extra record of conversation between United Kingdom Prime Minister and New Zealand Prime Minister,
January 23, 1958, CO1030/595, TNA.
working committee on Hong Kong did enhance policy coordination. James Tang
argues that ater Suez, “Hong Kong ceased to be crucial in the eyes of policy makers
in London.” One might go further and contend that, for top-echelon oicials, even
before November 1956 Hong Kong was not a high priority and that in 1957 Macmillan
found it a rather useful bargaining chip to demonstrate his willingness to work with
the Americans.85 So efectively did the Washington agreement neutralize the China
issue that, when Macmillan and Eisenhower met again in the summer of 1958, China
was not even mentioned.
Britain and Trade: A Window of Opportunity in 1957
Following the abolition of the special embargo (China List) on strategic trade with
China in early summer 1957, Britain decided to send a trade minister to Beijing for
informal discussions. he PRC used the October visit of Frederick Erroll, parliamen-
tary secretary at the Board of Trade, to review Sino-British relations. In an unexpected
interview—the Foreign Oice was indeed annoyed that such important information
was not delivered by the Chinese representative in London—Premier Zhou Enlai
told the trade minister that British attempts to persuade the United States to recog-
nize the PRC as one of two Chinas would be foiled and Sino-British relations would
sufer.86 Zhou noted that Britain was the only country in the embarrassing position of
recognizing the PRC but voting in favor of the UN moratorium. Regarding Hong Kong,
Zhou complained of Nationalist activities there but then proposed that a PRC repre-
sentative be sent to the colony and a through train be introduced from Hong Kong to
the city of Canton (Guangzhou), the major city of neighboring Guangdong Province.
he premier spoke of peaceful coexistence but warned that although China wanted
peaceful development, it was not afraid of war.87
In practice, few opportunities for increased Sino-British trade existed, because
the PRC preferred the state-to-state trade agreements that were common among
Communist countries. Additionally, an embargo on strategic goods identical to that
on the Soviet Union remained in place against China. Rather than celebrating the
end of the China List, the Chinese were annoyed that the embargo had not been
entirely eliminated.88 British oicials, disappointed that Britain’s apparent break with
the United States on the China List had not boosted relations with the PRC, generally
agreed that they should be reasonable but irm, realistic but not provocative toward
the Chinese Communists. his was certainly the case in Hong Kong. British oicials
85. Tang, “From Empire Defence to Imperial Retreat,” 331.

86. Dalton minute, February 26, 1957, and Brief, February 26, 1957, FO371/133386 FC1051/22, TNA.
87. Wilson Beijing telegram, October 31, 1957, FO371/127357 FC1151/143, TNA.
88. Wilson to Dalton, November 7, 1957, FO371/127358 FC1151/167, TNA.
110 Tracy Steele
worried that if Sino-British relations did not eventually improve, the colony would
experience increasing Communist harassment.
Following up the overtures made during Erroll’s visit, Hong Kong’s government
was willing to allow a through-train service from Canton, but discussions stalled
because of the PRC’s refusal to recognize Hong Kong’s right to control immigration.
Governor Grantham feared that if efective controls were not negotiated, the popula-
tion of the territory, traditionally a refuge for Chinese during times of crisis, would
balloon. As Gary Catron has noted, PRC oicials did not consider border controls as
constituting a British problem, “because it was unthinkable that so many people would
want to leave New China.”89 Grantham opposed posting a Chinese representative in
Hong Kong on the grounds that it would increase rather than decrease tensions not
just between the two governments but also within the colony itself. A Chinese oicial
on the governor’s doorstep would be a nuisance, an irritant, and possibly a trouble-
maker.90 Criticizing the Board of Trade’s argument that Sino-British commerce would
increase if a representative were accepted, Grantham wrote:
It would be a strange irony if Great Britain, having acquired Hong Kong for the
purpose of facilitating trade with China, were ater all these years to begin the
process of handing Hong Kong back in the hope that it might bring to British
merchants a few extra contracts.91
In Beijing, Ambassador Sir Duncan Wilson speculated that Zhou’s repeated refer-
ences to these proposals meant that PRC leaders, genuinely alarmed “by the general
evidence of revision of our defense arrangements in the area, have concluded that we
are likely to enter into closer ties with the Americans in Hong Kong” and were there-
fore anxious to demonstrate good will toward the colony.92 he crux of the matter
was that it was not in Britain’s interest to meet the criteria necessary to improve Sino-
British relations, because its relationship with the United States took precedence.
he 1958 Ofshore Islands Crisis and Hong Kong
When Macmillan and Eisenhower met in 1958, they did not discuss China, but their
respective support oicials agreed that in the near future China would not be a prob-
lem.93 Events soon proved them wrong. Chairman Mao was marshaling the Chinese
people for the Great Leap Forward, which would afect both Taiwan and Hong Kong.
89. Gary Catron, “Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955–60,” China Quarterly 51 (July–September
1972): 407.
90. Grantham to Lennox-Boyd, November 16, 1957, CO1030/598, TNA.
91. Ibid.
92. Wilson Peking telegram, February 4, 1958, CO1030/595, TNA.
93. London Foreign Service dispatch to Washington, February 7, 1958, 611.41/2-758, RG59, NA; Barbour to
State Department, February 7, 1958, 611.41/2-758, RG59, NA.
Ater three years of relative calm, in August 1958 shelling of the ofshore islands also
resumed, prompting an alarming through relatively short crisis. From June 30, 1958,
onward PRC propaganda against both the United States and Britain and their respec-
tive positions in Taiwan and Hong Kong heightened dramatically in tenor, tone, and
frequency.94 he Ofshore Islands Crisis ended fairly quickly with the resumption of
Sino-American talks, plus an announcement from the Communists that they would
bomb the ofshore islands only on alternate days, to allow deliveries of food and
supplies. he British were fortunate that the confrontation ended relatively speedily
without further escalation, since the declaration of interdependence gave them little
inluence on American China policy. Macmillan made no attempt to conceal that
his irst priority was to protect the “special relationship,” even though he believed
that the PRC had “an unanswerable case to the possession of these islands.”95 While
Hong Kong came into play, for Britain’s prime minister it was not a major concern.
Although the target of signiicant Chinese attention, it attracted only propaganda
rather than military attacks. Trade relations continued in a rather desultory fashion,
but with Anglo-Chinese relations at their lowest ebb since the Korean War, there was
little concrete action the British could take in response.96
Among the more worrisome aspects of the 1958 crisis was the PRC’s announce-
ment on September 4, 1958, that it would defend Chinese claims to a twelve-mile
water and airspace territorial limit. he United States, like Britain, recognized only
a three-mile limit. Britain believed that this declaration had been timed to coincide
with a British dispute with Iceland over isheries, but it also further ratcheted up ten-
sions. he statement had potentially serious implications for Hong Kong, where it was
seen as part of the PRC’s campaign to pressure the colony. A twelve-mile limit would
restrict the entry and exit of warships. Although Hong Kong could be approached by
sea and air without coming within twelve miles of the PRC, normal shipping routes
did pass within the twelve-mile zone. Oicials speculated that the PRC was trying
to “browbeat us into restricting the operations of naval vessels and aircrat” at a
time when Britain might support the United States in a major clash over the ofshore
islands, forcing Britain to keep its head down. Later, there were suggestions that the
PRC’s provocations were designed to persuade Britain to pressure the United States
(a forlorn hope as long as Macmillan was prime minister).97 he Chinese position also
afected Hong Kong’s ishing community, since most of the leet’s catch came from
within or near the three-mile limit. he PRC’s announcement was seen as another
94. Youde to Dalton, August 1, 1958, FO371/133356 FC1023/17, TNA; and Synopsis, August 1, 1958, Box 35:
August 1958–Goodpaster Brieings, DDE Diary Series, AWF, EL.
95. Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 (London: Macmillan, 1971), 544.
96. London to Secretary of State, July 8, 1958, 611.93/7-858, RG59, NA; and Wilson Beijing telegram,
September 30, 1958, FO371/133476, TNA.
97. Beijing telegram, September 6, 1958, CO1030/595, TNA; and Hong Kong to Secretary of State, September 11,
1958, 793.00/9-1158, RG59, NA.
112 Tracy Steele
step in its attempt to gain control of the Hong Kong leet and its catch.98 Ultimately,
the British did not ask the PRC to clarify its understanding of the twelve-mile territo-
rial limit, choosing to proceed on the assumption that the proclamation did not apply
to Hong Kong.99 his course of action avoided giving the Communists any opportu-
nity to criticize Britain.100
hroughout the 1958 Ofshore Islands Crisis, the United States was careful to stay
outside the three-mile limit while generally ignoring the twelve-mile claim, but PRC
broadcasts of successive carefully numbered protests against alleged American intru-
sions served to keep tensions simmering. In 1958, however, there was a notable shit
from the American position during the earlier crisis, evidenced by Dulles’s apparent
willingness to seek a long-term solution rather than just obtain international sanction
for any action that the US deemed necessary to handle the crisis.101 he Americans
showed new lexibility. Eisenhower and Dulles seemed to be more willing to control
such hard-liners as Walter Robertson, a key State Department oicial in charge of Far
Eastern Afairs who was staunchly pro-Nationalist. his was a relief to the British,
who continued to fear Nationalist activities in Hong Kong. Eventually, the PRC’s de
facto cease-ires of October 6 and 12, 1958, defused the situation, creating an atmos-
phere permitting an American approach to Chiang. Dulles visited Taiwan with the
intention of convincing the Nationalists to abandon the ofshore islands. Renewed
shelling on the eve of his arrival aborted that prospect, but he still attempted to per-
suade Chiang to reduce his forces on Quemoy.102 Dulles had considerable diiculty
in obtaining a “nonforce” declaration from Chiang that might serve to improve the
Nationalists’ image in world opinion, “at least stemming a tide which was running
strongly against our common policies.”103 Allan Veitch, the British chargé d’afaires in
Tamsui, reported that the meeting between Dulles and Chiang had been somewhat
acrimonious. One important outcome of their talks had been Chiang’s public renun-
ciation of the use of force to recover the mainland, but Veitch remained somewhat
unimpressed by Dulles’s accomplishment, which he believed “publicly linked control
of the islands with the defense of Formosa” by the United States in return for an
ambiguous promise from Chiang.104
During the period of tension in the Taiwan Straits, the PRC prosecuted a propa-
ganda war against Hong Kong, but this situation did not loom large in Macmillan’s
98. Ledward minute, December 1, 1958, FO371/133322 F1353/1, TNA.

99. Hong Kong to Secretary of State, September 11, 1958, 793.00/9-1158, RG59, NA.
100. Hong Kong to Colonial Oice, October 7, 1958, CO1030/595/178, TNA.
101. Hood telegram 2434 to Macmillan, September 5, 1958, PREM11/2300, TNA.
102. Dulte 7 from Taipei to the President, October 23, 1958, Box 8: Dulles–October 1958, Dulles-Herter Series,
AWF, EL.
103. Memorandum of conversation with the president, October 25, 1958, Box 7: White House—Meetings with
the President, July 1, 1958–December 31, 1958 (4), White House Memoranda Series, Papers of John Foster
Dulles, EL; and Dulles letter to Chiang, October 29, 1958, 611.93/10-2958, RG59, NA.
104. Veitch to FO, October 24, 1958, FO371/133542 FCN1193/499, TNA.
formulation of policy during the crisis, because the PRC never showed any aggres-
sive intentions or threatened to liberate the colony. he new governor of Hong Kong,
Sir Robert Black, speculated that PRC propaganda on issues ranging from American
activities in the colony, actions or events that seemed to imply the existence of
two Chinas, to education was fundamentally designed “to keep the Hong Kong
Government on the defensive,” since the PRC’s hostility toward Hong Kong was
a “fact from which we can never escape.” Still, Black thought the PRC would not
move against Hong Kong, because it derived not just economic advantages from the
colony’s inancial facilities but also political beneits “from the diference between
British and American policies toward China and the implications for the vulnerabil-
ity of Hong Kong.” he main deterrent guaranteeing the colony’s future, the governor
maintained, was “the thought that an attack upon Hong Kong might precipitate a
war with the United States.”105 Like Taiwan, Hong Kong relied on the United States for
its defense, but unlike Taiwan, its authorities did not wish to challenge the PRC and
therefore followed a policy of irmness without provocation.106
Whither the Anglo-American Study for the Defense of Hong Kong?
he 1957 Anglo-American agreement between Macmillan and Eisenhower to under-

take a joint study of requirements for the defense of Hong Kong did not actually
commit the United States to defend the territory, but neither did it force the British
to accept what the Americans sought to ofer. he British continued to be extremely
apprehensive as to what guaranteed American assistance might mean and whether it
might provoke the Chinese Communists. It was assumed that the Americans would
provide air support, but the British—who had in the early 1950s considered and then
rejected the possibility of violating the PRC’s airspace by sending reconnaissance
lights across Hong Kong’s border to observe any potential troop buildup—did not
want to give them too many details as to precisely what such operations might entail.
he British did not wish to commit themselves to defending Hong Kong (since it
was widely accepted that, depending on the international situation and the type of
attack, it was probably indefensible) and preferred to discuss resisting aggression. he
British relied on “the general strategic deterrent to prevent” an attack, but during their
talks they discovered that the American concept of defending Hong Kong “involved
large scale nuclear attacks on China.”107 his would require the installation by the
Americans of expensive equipment such as radar, which the British feared would
105. Black to Secretary of State for the Colonies, March 3, 1959, Hong Kong: Review of Developments during
1958, CO1030/596 FED82/403/01, TNA.
106. Brief for the Secretary of State’s meeting with the Governor of Hong Kong on November 25, 1959,
CO1030/769/7, TNA.
107. he original release date for this ile was 2036. C.O.S. (60) 45th Meeting, July 14, 1960, 2 Hong Kong,
FO371/150391 F1192/5G, TNA.
114 Tracy Steele
commit their allies in advance to ight for Hong Kong, if only to prevent strategic
equipment falling into Chinese Communist hands, irrespective of other factors. For
these reasons, the talks stalled, leaving the Americans with the impression that under
no circumstances would the British defend the colony.
In 1960, in the Eisenhower administration’s inal months, American secretary of
state Christian A. Herter caused great consternation among the British when he simply
asked if they intended to defend Hong Kong if challenged by the Communists. Ater
much soul searching, plus head scratching as to what precisely what the Americans
wanted to hear, the British decided to inform him that they would be willing both
to resist aggression and to take part in joint military staf talks on Hong Kong’s
defense, so long as there were no binding commitments on either side or discussion
of political issues. he guidance papers for the proposed Anglo-American Working
Group reveal the ambivalence the British felt toward the Americans and also the
constraints they placed on themselves to avoid provoking the Chinese Communists
or allowing Hong Kong to become linked to American commitments to Taiwan or
the ofshore islands: “he Chinese should be encouraged to believe that an attack on
Hong Kong carries a real risk of US nuclear retribution. But . . . this belief should
be maintained without providing the Chinese with any excuse for claiming that
Hong Kong is being used by the Nationalists or any foreign power against them.”108
Governor Black queried just how the PRC could be apprised of the potential threat
of American nuclear retaliation without giving the impression, either through a
formal announcement or a leak to the Communists, that an American buildup was
underway in Hong Kong. Black had no problem, however, with policies that meant
“the Chinese should continue to be let to draw their own conclusions from the state
of Anglo-American relations generally and in particular from the present friendly
but informal co-operation that exists” between the US military and British forces in
Hong Kong, demonstrated through such measures as allowing Hong Kong to serve
as an American leave center for the Seventh Fleet and occasional visits by American
service commanders to Hong Kong.109 With another American presidential election
impending, however, and the British preparing to review their China policy with the
goal of improving Sino-British relations, the proposed talks went no further. Even
without these excuses for delay, the British simply did not want the Americans to be
overly active in Hong Kong.
108. he original release date for this ile was 2036. P. G. F. Dalton to F. W. Mottershead, Ministry of Defence,
August 24, 1960, FO371/150392 F1192/7G, TNA.
109. he original release date for this ile was 2036. From the Governor, Hong Kong, to the Oice of the
United Kingdom Commissioner General for S. E. Asia, No. 154, November 22, 1960, FO371/150392
F1192/7G, TNA.
Conclusion
Despite periods of internal agitation and international tension, in the 1950s the
British did not fear the imminent loss of Hong Kong, which they believed was of
value to the Chinese Communists as it stood. Still, the British were never compla-
cent. During times of tension in East and Southeast Asia, British defense planning for
Hong Kong went into high gear, but the inescapable reality was that Hong Kong could
not be held without American air cover. Because, however, of the close relationship
between the Nationalist Chinese and the Americans, neither the Foreign Oice nor
colonial oicials in Hong Kong wanted defense planning to be too closely aligned
with the United States. One reason for keeping Anglo-American defense coordina-
tion at a low level was apprehension that, if the United States installed expensive
and technologically advanced equipment in Hong Kong, the Americans would insist
that the colony must deinitely be defended by whatever means necessary to prevent
this being captured by the Chinese Communists. A greater concern was that the
Americans might attempt to use the colony as a base for hostile, intrusive activities
against the PRC, as Chinese Communist propaganda consistently claimed was the
case. Simultaneously, however, at the core of British military planning for Hong Kong
was the hope that China would not invade. he British therefore wished the Chinese
to believe any attack might prompt nuclear retaliation. Making matters still murkier
were the divergent British and American approaches to recognition of the PRC and
ROC. Actions by both Chinese governments caused multifarious problems that
threatened to divide the British and Americans. Despite entreaties from colonial
oicials in Hong Kong to rein in the Americans and their Nationalist allies, through-
out the 1950s British policy makers usually placed greater emphasis on preserving
harmonious Anglo-American relations. As the British balanced competing inter-
ests, while always bearing in mind the goal of retaining Hong Kong, the course they
steered to accomplish this oten appeared more contradictory and vague than it did
clear and decisive. However confusing the tactics, the objective remained the same.
References
Archival Sources
Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Afairs, People’s Republic of China. Beijing, China.
Dulles, John Foster, Papers. Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., Papers: Ann Whitman Files. Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential
Library, Abilene, Kansas.
Mao Zedong. Zhongguo gongchandang wenxian ziliao: Mao Zedong xuanji [Chinese
Communist Party documents: Selected works of Mao Zedong]. Vol. 4. Communist Party
of China Website. http://cpc.people.com.cn.
Marxists Internet Archive. http://www.marxists.org.
116 Tracy Steele
United Kingdom. CAB 128. British Cabinet Oice Files. UK National Archives, Kew, London.
United Kingdom. CO 1030. Colonial Oice: Far Eastern Department: Registered Files. UK
National Archives, Kew, London.
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London.
United Kingdom. PREM 11. Records of the Prime Minister’s Oice, 1951–1964. UK National
Archives, Kew, London.
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Files. US National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.
Printed Primary Sources

Macmillan, Harold. Riding the Storm, 1956–1959. London: Macmillan, 1971.
US Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957. Vol. 2, China.
Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1986.
———. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957. Vol. 3, China. Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Oice, 1986.
———. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957. Vol. 9, United Nations and General
International Matters. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1988.
Other Works
Catron, Gary. “Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955–60.” China Quarterly 51 (July–
September 1972): 405–24.
Cumings, Bruce. Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American-East Asian Relations. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
Louis, Wm. Roger. “Hong Kong: he Critical Phase, 1945–1949.” American Historical Review
102 (4) (October 1997): 1052–84.
Mark, Chi-Kwan. “A Reward for Good Behaviour in the Cold War: Bargaining over the Defence
of Hong Kong, 1949–1957.” International History Review 22 (4) (December 2000): 837–61.
Miller, Merle. Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. London: Gollancz, 1974.
Soman, Appu K. Double-Edged Sword: Nuclear Diplomacy in Unequal Conlicts: he United States
and China, 1950–1958. London: Praeger, 2000.
Tang, James T. H. “From Empire Defence to Imperial Retreat: Britain’s Postwar China Policy
and the Decolonization of Hong Kong.” Modern Asian Studies 28 (2) (May 1994): 317–37.
Tsang, Steve. “Target Zhou Enlai: he ‘Kashmir Princess’ Incident of 1955.” China Quarterly 139
(September 1994): 766–82.
Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf. Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition
Controversy, 1949–1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
4
he American Cold War in Hong Kong,
1949–1960
Intelligence and Propaganda
Lu Xun
During the early Cold War years, the United States came to regard the British colony
of Hong Kong as an outpost of its own in terms of relations with the People’s Republic
of China. Sharing a border with New China, Hong Kong became an arena for both
the Cold War between East and West and the conlict between Communist and
Nationalist Chinese. By its very existence, it served as an intelligence and propaganda
vector for the US Far Eastern containment policy, sometimes at considerable cost to
Hong Kong itself. he existing scholarly literature on US policies toward Hong Kong
during the 1950s largely focuses on top-level Anglo-American negotiations, with
little consideration of the role of Hong Kong per se as a regional pivot in making and
waging the Cold War.1 his chapter examines those factors that enabled the colony
to succeed in surviving the ideological confrontation, while arguing that over time
the signiicance of Hong Kong to American Cold War strategy steadily increased.
It scrutinizes in detail US propaganda institutions and programs in Hong Kong that
appreciably inluenced the overseas Chinese in East and Southeast Asia.
Hong Kong was a divided city. In 1949 its population numbered almost
2.5 million, including Americans (0.02 percent), Portuguese (0.04 percent), Indians
(0.09 percent), British (0.3 percent), and permanent Chinese residents (72 percent)
who were either born in Hong Kong or had lived there long enough to regard it as
their home.2 Most of these people had one overriding desire—to stay out of what
1. Johannes R. Lombardo, who particularly emphasizes Anglo-American cooperation, argues that Hong Kong
had “most importance” in terms of intelligence gathering and US defense commitments, while Chi-Kwan
Mark stresses the simple signiicance of the colony as a “bargaining chip” between the two allies. See Johannes
Richard Lombardo, “United States’ Foreign Policy towards the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong during
the Early Cold War Period, 1945–1964” (PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 1997); Johannes
Richard Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage, Intelligence and Psychological Operations: he American
Consulate in Hong Kong, 1949–64,” Intelligence and National Security 14 (4) (Winter 1999): 64–81; and
Chi-Kwan Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations, 1949–1957 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2004), 7, 223–26. Other introductory works include Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
and the United States, 1945–1992: Uncertain Friendships (New York: Twayne, 1994); and Yu Qun and
Cheng Shuwei, “Meiguo de Xianggang zhengce (1942–1960)” [he Hong Kong policy of the United States],
Lishi Yanjiu [Historical research] 247 (3) (1997): 53–66.
2. For the population of Hong Kong in 1949, see Xianggang nian jian [Hong Kong yearbook], Vol. 2, 1949
(Hong Kong: Huaqiao ribao, 1949), xuan ii.
118 Lu Xun
they regarded as “trouble”—and one great ambition—to it themselves for appropri-

ate careers in the commercial port. In addition, the population also included 600,000
to 700,000 mainland refugees, who had led ahead of the Communists during the
Chinese Civil War or who had tried life under the Communists and found it unat-
tractive. Only a minority of these Chinese refugees regarded Hong Kong as their
home. Most were interested in either moving to somewhere more secure or working
to create circumstances that would enable them to return to the mainland where they
belonged, a political uncertainty of mind that augured a cloudy future for Hong Kong.
he colony accommodated people from diferent and oten colorful political back-
grounds, making Hong Kong a nexus for Cold War encounters. Hong Kong was an
arena where four major political actors, namely, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),
the Nationalists or Kuomintang (KMT), the British colonial government, and the
United States, competed for power and inluence, locally and beyond. he CCP, with
Soviet backing, sought to use Hong Kong to drive a wedge into the Anglo-American
special relationship. During talks in Moscow in late 1949, their irst and last personal
encounters, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin urged Chinese Communist Party chairman
Mao Zedong “not to rush” in recovering Hong Kong, since the Chinese could use it
“to put pressure on the British.”3 With rare exceptions, until the Sino-Soviet split of
the late 1950s, the Kremlin was willing to leave it to the Chinese to decide exactly how
to handle the status of Hong Kong; subsequently, the Soviets, though sometimes criti-
cizing China for acquiescing for economic reasons to Britain’s continued retention of
Hong Kong, failed to take any well-deined stance.4 KMT activists in Hong Kong were
heavily involved in trying to make it a base from which to encourage anti-Communist
resistance and sabotage on the mainland, eforts that oten won US acquiescence and
assistance. Although Washington was reluctant to make any formal defense commit-
ment to the British colony, American oicials desired to build it up as a freestanding
warship. In an awkward quadrangle, the British authorities simultaneously moved
to eliminate Chinese extremists and curb US crusaders, leading to Anglo-American
bickering and bringing Hong Kong under East-West cross ire.
he famous KMT-CCP dispute from early 1950 until 1952 over the Nationalist-
held assets of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) and the Central
Air Transport Corporation (CATC) in Hong Kong was an excellent example of how
events in the colony could become an irritant and wedge that jeopardized high-level
Anglo-American relations. Hong Kong was subjected to harsh pressure from the
American government, the US Congress, individuals such as William J. Donovan
(founder of the wartime US Oice of Strategic Services), and eventually His Majesty’s
3. Conversation between Mao and Stalin, December 16, 1949, in Cold War International History Project
Bulletin, 6–7 (Winter 1995–96): 6.
4. See Michael Share, Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Macao (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007), 117.
he American Cold War in Hong Kong, 1949–1960: Intelligence and Propaganda 119
Privy Council, to transfer these aircrat to the United States; the Hong Kong govern-
ment’s reluctance to do so won it a bad name among McCarthyite American politi-
cians.5 he episode heightened tensions not simply between Washington and London
but within the Crown colony itself, where uneasiness and uncertainty translated into
rumors and rising food prices. “he local press,” according to one Hong Kong report,
“gave wide coverage to this issue, and rumors of attempted sabotage and violence,
were prevalent everywhere.”6
At the height of the Korean War, the Truman administration further black-
listed this entrepôt, including it in the severe US embargo imposed on the Chinese
mainland, which crippled Hong Kong’s economy, reducing it to unprecedentedly low
levels. he United States had been Hong Kong’s second-largest source of imports,
making it heavily dependent on American raw materials, such as cotton, tinplate,
and blackplate. Following the embargo, however, in 1950–51 mutual trade shrank
by almost half, with 50 percent of Hong Kong’s imports together with 25 percent
of its exports evaporating.7 “Trade in Hong Kong and Macau,” one witness recalled,
“was extremely chilly, and shops had no business.”8 Not until February 1952 did the
United States begin to relax its export licensing policy toward Hong Kong.9 he com-
mercial port inally survived the manmade catastrophe by successfully switching
to vigorous light industry. Yet, during the years when Hong Kong’s interests were
sacriiced to US Cold War policy, desperation and depression were rife in diferent
social groups.
Four broad political attitudes existed among the residents of colonial Hong Kong.
Given the uncertain future, the majority of the population was politically passive
or at least unwilling to express its views. he one hope this whole group shared,
as was apparent in numerous statements in the media and in conversations, was a
sincere desire for peace and prosperity. hat group became the logical target for US
propaganda.
he pro-Communist sector decreased during the 1950s. he increasingly tough
stance the colonial government took toward Communist China was a major factor
in frustrating pro-Communist support among local people. Even so, such support
5. For details of the CNAC-CATC case, see Alexander Grantham, Via Ports: From Hong Kong to Hong Kong
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965), 162; also Lombardo, “United States’ Foreign Policy
towards the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong during the Early Cold War Period, 1945–1964,” 80–84; and
Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 94–100.
6. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, March 26, 1953, Folder Report Semi-Annual, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–
55, Record Group 84, Records of the US Department of State: Foreign Service Post Files [hereater RG84],
US National Archives II [hereater NA], College Park, Maryland, United States.
7. Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 200.
8. Lu Zhongdu, Xianggang huiyilu [Hong Kong memoirs] (Hong Kong: Guanghua liti ditu fuwushe, n.d.), 43.
9. See National Security Council [hereater NSC] 122/1, Report to the President by the NSC, February 6, 1952,
US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereater FRUS], 1952–54, Vol. 14, Pt. 1: he
Near and Middle East (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1986), 5.
120 Lu Xun
was still “very substantial,” organized, and efective. Beside cadres sent by Beijing for
“special work” in Hong Kong, there were many ideologically convinced or opportu-
nist laborers and businesspeople, who made serious eforts to promote the Communist
cause in Hong Kong. British government representatives in Hong Kong were just as
unsympathetic as US oicials to these elements. In February 1949 the Communist-
sponsored Tat Tak College, which served as a propaganda center, was closed.10 In June
1952 the pro-Communist newspaper Da Gong Bao (Ta Kung Pao) was tried for sedi-
tion and convicted, with appropriate ines imposed. Just among labor activists, more
than ity-three prominent pro-Communist leaders were deported. his policy had a
signiicant impact on the majority of the Chinese in Hong Kong. he British authori-
ties had neatly and determinedly implemented a get-tough policy against pro-Com-
munist Hong Kong agitators, which apparently proved suiciently efective to dampen
considerably any enthusiasm most Chinese felt for that cause. he modus vivendi
between Beijing and London persuaded the Communists and pro-Communists alike
to scale back their activities, while provoking only subdued reactions in response.11
With the outbreak of the Korean War, the Communists maintained a de facto policy
of moderation in Hong Kong, for the expedience of “international publicity, supplies
purchase, and united front.”12 From 1953, CCP propaganda in Hong Kong became
more subtle than before, with only the mildest pro-Communist magazines displayed
on the newsstands.13
Conditions within China were another factor afecting pro-Communist sentiment
beyond its borders. Most prominent among the disillusioned were Chinese business-
people who had witnessed irsthand the cruelties of the hree-Antis and Five-Antis
movements on the mainland. Among local Chinese workers and labor unions there
were also steady, near weekly defections from pro-Communist ideals and practices.14
One Hong Kong railway strike in 1950, for example, failed ater some of the striking
employees visited Guangzhou and “observed the very unpleasant situation existing
there.”15 Even among Chinese overseas students, who had traditionally been pro-
Communist, a deinite decline in enthusiasm for the new regime began to take hold.
Fewer students let Hong Kong for China to study in universities there or to assist
in the “glorious” reconstruction of the motherland. In 1954, 900 students enrolled
10. See “Sudden Closure of Tsing Shan Tat Tak College,” Wen Wei Po (February 24, 1949).
11. Jin Yaoru, Zhonggong Xianggang zhengce miwen shilu [Secret CCP policies in Hong Kong] (Hong Kong:
Greenield Bookstore, 1998), 26, 78.
12. Minutes of Hong Kong work conference held by Ye Jianying, August 23, 1950, quoted in Kiang Kwan-sang,
Zhonggong zai Xianggang [he CCP in Hong Kong], Vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 2012), 57–60.
13. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, August 19, 1953, Folder Report Semi-Annual, Box 3, USIS HK
1951–55, RG84, NA.
55, RG84, NA.
15. Memo, oral report by Philip C. Jessup, April 3, 1950, US Department of State, FRUS, 1950, Vol. 6, East Asia
and the Paciic (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1976), 72.
in colleges and universities in Taipei, some with US assistance, and an even larger
group was absorbed by the University of Hong Kong and the “refugee colleges” in the
New Territories.16
Anti-Communist elements in Hong Kong, by contrast, steadily and openly
increased. As the only organized anti-Communist Chinese force in the region, Taiwan
expanded its roots in the mushrooming new free unions. In the interval between
the Communist national holiday of October 1 and the old KMT national day of
October 10, the local authorities soon came to recognize a familiar pattern of mount-
ing political agitation. Given American sympathies for Taiwan, the US consulate
general in Hong Kong scrutinized each year’s celebration. he 1952 October 10
celebration was interpreted as proof positive that with every year the Nationalist
stock was rising in Hong Kong. Besides citing the increasing number of Nationalist
lags lown on that day, the consulate listed the following evidence of Hong Kong
support for Taiwan:
1. he recent 14-man businessman’s mission to Taiwan.

2. he recent 19-man manufacturer’s mission to Taiwan.
3. 107 university students go to Taiwan.
4. Ten Hong Kong Chinese attend the founding Taiwan’s China Youth anti-
Communist National Salvation Corps.17
On several occasions when the Hong Kong government felt compelled to arrest
demonstrators, it discovered that these were in the employ of KMT agents provoca-
teurs from Taiwan, who had locked into Hong Kong to escalate the level of violence.
In April 1955, these intelligence operatives even exploded a bomb on the Kashmir
Princess aircrat that Chinese premier Zhou Enlai had been scheduled to take as
he traveled to the Bandung Conference in Indonesia.18 hese agitators also assas-
sinated pro-Communist business igures, instigated unrest within Hong Kong, and
were responsible for some of the most signiicant outbreaks of violence, such as the
October 1956 Kowloon Riots. Seeking to allay the British government’s annoyance
over these outbreaks, US consul general Everett Drumright reported that he had
done his “best . . . to exculpate the right-wing unions for the riots.”19
he fourth element, the hird Force, was the weakest of all groupings among the
local Chinese people. It was disorganized, had very few supporters, and lacked an
operational base or funds, to the point that it could hardly even rightly be considered
16. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, July 21, 1954, Folder Educational Exchange Reports, Box 5, USIS HK
1951–55, RG84, NA.
55, RG84, NA.
18. See Steve Yui-sang Tsang, “Target Zhou Enlai: he ‘Kashmir Princess’ Incident of 1955,” China Quarterly 139
(September 1994): 766–82.
19. Everett F. Drumright to State, November 8, 1956, cited in Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage, Intelligence
and Psychological Operations,” 73.
122 Lu Xun
a political force. Some American agencies attempted to subsidize the hird Force
in Hong Kong as part of the anti-Communist cause. Li Huang, a Chinese Youth
Party leader, recalled how in 1951 a US marine delivered a letter appointing him
a “Qiandi [frontline] senior advisor” together with payment in dollars to his home
in Hong Kong.20 he Hong Kong government disapproved of such initiatives and
tried to nip them in the bud. Even so, with US inancial backing, many writers and
intellectuals drawn from hird Force supporters made deinite contributions to anti-
Communist literature aimed at a Chinese audience.21
At least in the early 1950s, American foreign-policy makers viewed Hong Kong
as a “desirable” venue for formulating and implementing propaganda programs.22
Generally speaking, the US consulate general in Hong Kong was responsible for the
welfare of American citizens, relations with the local authorities, and implementing
US foreign policy. Technically the US Information Service (USIS) in Hong Kong,
associated with the consulate, was the real executive agency in the ield of overt intel-
ligence and propaganda. It invested heavily in producing anti-Communist materials
attacking mainland China. According to one of Washington’s inspectors, the oicials
working on this enterprise “display noticeable enthusiasm for their work.”23
Fearful of provoking Beijing, the British openly opposed US eforts to turn
Hong Kong into a Cold War front line. As Chi-Kwan Mark notes, the United States
and Britain took diferent approaches to propaganda: “Whilst USIS operations were
basically overt in nature, the British believed that if propaganda and information
work were to be efective in Asia, materials had to be disseminated unattributably via
indigenous channels.”24 he realistic British policy was to maintain the status quo in
Hong Kong, while dealing with both the Chinese Communists and American Cold
Warriors. On the eve of Britain’s de jure recognition of Beijing, the British embassy
in Washington sent an aide-mémoire to the State Department, claiming that “no
diference” existed between the United Kingdom and the United States in terms of
their objectives of not enhancing China’s military strength, but emphasizing that “the
British had to keep an eye on Hong Kong.”25 On more than one occasion, British
oicials made it quite clear that Hong Kong should “not be employed by any agency
or individual as a production or distribution point for material which would in any
way antagonize Communist China and, thereby, jeopardize the future safety of the
20. Li Huang, Xuedunshihuiyilu [Memoirs of Li Huang], Vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Ming Pao Monthly, 1982), 723–24.
21. See Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 191.
55, RG84, NA.
23. Inspection report, Garland C. Routt to USIA, September 23, 1955, Box 4, Inspection Reports, Record Group
306, Records of the US Information Agency [hereater RG306], NA.
24. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 7, 195.
25. See memorandum of conversation, September 13, 1949, FRUS, 1949, Vol. 9, he Far East: China (Washington,
DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1974), 82.
Colony.”26 In 1953, the Hong Kong colonial authorities issued two strong oicial
protests to the US consulate complaining that materials printed by USIS violated
Hong Kong’s publication ordinances. he government did not consider unattrib-
uted materials “overt” but warned that explicitly anti-Communist publications did
not fall within the scope of the agreed USIS function to “explain, by overt means,
American policies and American life.” American propagandists even considered
opposition from the local government to be one of the two “main obstacles” ham-
pering their eforts and just as great a handicap as “Chinese Communist controls.”27
In consequence, miscellaneous US publications such as unattributed pamphlets were
cut to a minimum. Without prior warning, in 1953 the government-owned radio
station, Radio Hong Kong, discontinued Voice of America (VOA) newscasts. he
United States reacted strongly to this decision. Most newspapers in Hong Kong
carried hundreds of column inches illustrating so-called “splits between US and the
UK,” citing as evidence statements originating in Washington and London.
Yet, while US activities in Hong Kong let the local British government chronically
nervous, in terms of anti-Communism the two allies had much in common. Despite
British concerns, the political situation in Hong Kong efectively facilitated US Cold
War policies. hanks to intensive mainland Communist propaganda ofensives, the
United States cooperated extensively with the British in the ields of education, public
relations, and labor. Within this framework, USIS Hong Kong observed, its programs
operated reasonably successfully and satisfactorily. he United States also managed
to use the colony as a natural bastion for both intelligence gathering and Cold War
propaganda across much of East and Southeast Asia.
Watching China
As the Cold War heated up, American policy makers steadily placed ever-greater
value on Hong Kong’s signiicance in terms of intelligence and information. In 1955,
one American inspector thoughtfully assessed the colony as “perhaps the best source
of information and intelligence in the Far East.”28 Two years later, in 1957, when the
National Security Council produced Document 5717 (NSC 5717), the irst speciic
American evaluation of its overall Hong Kong policy, it described the colony as
“the most important American source of hard economic and political information
on Communist China.” A further report on Hong Kong in 1959 echoed the same
26. Paul W. Frillman to Brad Steiner, December 19, 1950, Folder Relations with British, Box 4, USIS HK 1951–
55, RG84, NA.
1951–55, RG84, NA.
28. Inspection report, Garland C. Routt to USIA, September 23, 1955, Box 4, Inspection Reports, RG306, NA.
124 Lu Xun
wording.29 NSC 5717 observed, moreover, that, as “the number of visitors to and
from Communist China has increased, particularly since 1955 and the inauguration
of the current phase of ‘peaceful coexistence’ tactics on the part of Communist China,
so has Hong Kong’s importance as a point of entry and exit grown.”30 Interviews
with the relatively steady low of Chinese visitors or refugees from the mainland con-
sistently supplied irsthand, oten invaluable information on China. In mid-1954, for
example, such sources gave concrete evidence indicating that a signiicant audience
existed in urban China for VOA radio programs, giving tremendous encouragement
to USIS in its work in Hong Kong.31
By its very nature, Hong Kong was well supplied with information and intelli-
gence on China. Mainland newspapers were readily available in Hong Kong, ofering
substantial information on events in Communist China. he political and economic
sections of the Hong Kong consulate general assigned extensive personnel and other
resources to studying these materials. With appropriate safeguards, in many instances
the consulate’s classiied assessments of political and economic events provided
valuable and accurate information that was passed on to the American press and
general public.
According to V. George Sayles, then the press chief of International Press Service
Far East Branch, Hong Kong was “the one slit in the Bamboo Curtain through which
a picture of communist China, undistorted by oicial censorship, can be obtained.”32
hrough Hong Kong, the world learned of China’s agricultural collectivization and
subsequent food shortages and riots. In mid-1954, the New York Times published
information from one USIS report released to it on the implementation and impact
of the Communist policy of United Grain Procurement and Marketing. he policy
banned free trade in grain and established a system of state monopoly over grain pro-
duction and distribution, which was introduced in 1953 and played a role in the Great
Famine of 1959–61. Citing direct quotations from several mainland Chinese news-
papers supplied by USIS Hong Kong, the New York Times argued that “Communist
China is being obliged to export food to the Soviet Union and its European satellites
in spite of serious food shortage in China.”33
Raw materials in Chinese were systematically excerpted and shaped into a biweekly
booklet, Propaganda Review, each issue of which presented consolidated themes of
Chinese Communist propaganda. he editors undertook analyses of public opinion
29. NSC 5717—US Policy on Hong Kong, July 17, 1957, Box 21, Records 52–61, National Security Archive,
George Washington University [hereater NSA]; and inspection report, James L. Meader to USIA,
November 3, 1959, Folder Inspection Reports, Box 4, RG306, NA.
30. NSC 5717, NSA.
31. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, August 10, 1954, Folder Report (Semi-Annual, etc.) 1955, Box 4,
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
32. USIA to HK, December 10, 1953, Folder Voice of America, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
33. “Food Riots in China Reported by ‘Voice,’” New York Times (July 12, 1954).
in China and maintained “a card ile of statistics and events of Chinese propaganda
for future reference for reports.”34 he Review usually consisted of a brief summary of
the propaganda highlights of the previous fortnight, a fairly lengthy article describ-
ing the major points emphasized in recent propaganda, a chronology of events
during the propaganda campaign, the techniques used to carry out the campaign,
a series of translations from magazines and newspapers constituting examples of the
propaganda in question, and a series of brief notes providing unevaluated statements,
statistics, circulation igures of prominent propaganda organs, descriptions of the
contents of magazines that were not available in Hong Kong, and the like. Most of the
themes covered were of continuing signiicance (for example, Sino-Soviet friendship,
national construction, and changes in the methods of collecting taxes), illustrative of
the techniques that the Communists had applied “to twist a complex subject into a
simple but distorted form” and thereby sell it to the people. Although the Review was
suspended in 1953 because of personnel shortages, the Hong Kong branch continued
to undertake essentially similar tasks, following China’s propaganda moves and tech-
niques closely and reporting on these to the State Department.
With assistance from the consulate, USIS Hong Kong also undertook painstaking
eforts to collect and analyze overall information from China on such Communist
campaigns as land reform, counterrevolutionary eforts, and the hree-Antis and
Five-Antis, and “to make sure that the ten million Chinese overseas had accurate
and constant information on these events.” Focusing on the CCP’s own admission
of “excesses” in those movements became the most convincing evidence used to
promote American aims “in turning the tide against Communism.”35
American oicials were constantly preoccupied by Communist charges that the
United States had used germ warfare tactics during the Korean War. Reports by USIS
Hong Kong to the State Department reveal that American oicials were decidedly
apprehensive over the inal report of the Communist-invited International Scientiic
Commission headed by the well-known British academic Joseph Needham. USIS
Hong Kong characterized the report’s charges against the United States as “particu-
larly devastating” and “not unconvincing to many local Chinese who began to have
their irst doubts about this whole matter.” To rebut these charges, USIS examined
the techniques Chinese Communists had used to extract confessions of waging germ
warfare from captured American prisoners of war, irst from Lieutenants John Quinn
and Kenneth Enoch, and later from Lieutenants Floyd O’Neal and Paul Kniss, reveal-
ing how over time the art of obtaining confessions had become decidedly more pro-
fessional and efective. Undoubtedly, these eforts bore some fruit, especially when
55, RG84, NA.
35. Ibid.
126 Lu Xun
USIS Hong Kong issued a clear statement refuting Beijing’s claim under the name of
one of China’s greatest scientists, the epidemiologist Dr. Wu Liande. his provoked
CCP attempts to persuade some of the doctor’s former colleagues and friends in
mainland China to win a private retraction from him.36
In terms of US trade restrictions on China, the Hong Kong branch of USIS ofered
its own advice, which characterized Chinese businesspeople as “more politically apa-
thetic” than their counterparts elsewhere, thereby calling into question the original
reasons for applying these controls. At the initiative of USIS Hong Kong, changes and
relaxations in Treasury regulations were inally announced in 1952.37
he Hong Kong consulate followed closely the mid-1952 Sino-Soviet economic
discussions in Moscow, cabling perceptive and valuable analyses back to Washington.
In early September, it forecast that Chinese requests to the Russians would include
increased military and economic aid to compensate them for the Korean War; the
restitution of Port Arthur, Dairen, and the Changchun Railway; the cessation of
hostilities in Korea; and Soviet aid in “liberating” Taiwan.38 When the oicial text
of the Sino-Soviet agreement in Moscow was inally published on September 18,
1952, those prognostications proved largely accurate. Around the same time, Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) specialists began to notice the Sino-Soviet discord and
predicted the forthcoming conlict and split, relying heavily on Chinese materials
from Hong Kong.39
In addition, Hong Kong acted as a liaison and coordinator for eforts to defend US
policies in Asia. Such undertakings encountered varying success. One particularly
unfavorable episode occurred in January 1953, when the Asian Socialist Conference
meeting in Rangoon, Burma (present-day Yangon, Myanmar), alleged that the
concept of “getting Asians to ight Asians” was the underlying theme of all American
policy in East Asia. Although USIS had some success in obtaining newspaper space
for locally written editorials and stories explaining American policies and rebutting
these allegations, with almost thirty newspapers being published in Hong Kong,
on balance the weight of news coverage was against the United States.
USIS also arranged visits to Hong Kong by high-level American oicials who
wished to inspect China from the closest adjoining vantage point. Among these
were some prominent politicians, including Vice President Richard M. Nixon and
Republican congressman Walter H. Judd of Minnesota, head of the House Foreign
Afairs Committee. During Nixon’s stay in November 1953, shortly ater the Korean
36. Ibid.
1951–55, RG84, NA.
55, RG84, NA.
39. See Philip Bridgham et al., “Mao’s Road and Sino-Soviet Relations: A View from Washington, 1953,” China
Quarterly 52 (October–December 1972): 670–98.
truce, while visiting a local elementary school he delivered a message of “greetings

and best wishes and the spirit of friendship from all the people of the United States
to all the Chinese people.”40 Nixon also met with local business leaders, expressing
his support for the relaxation of trade restrictions on Hong Kong and even, for the
irst time, stating that he hoped for an “early resumption” of trade with China.41 Days
later, from November 25 to 27, 1953, Judd led a House Foreign Afairs Committee
study group to Hong Kong. Following speciic instructions from Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles, the consulate arranged for Judd and his entire mission to “meet
with anti-Communist groups” and pay a 45-minute visit to a refugee resettlement
area in Chai Wan. Shortly aterward Judd, a former missionary to China who,
as Glen Peterson describes elsewhere in this volume, took a leading role in establish-
ing the organization Aid to Refugee Chinese Intellectuals (ARCI), stated publicly:
We are impressed with the eiciency with which the Government is handling its
extraordinarily diicult problems, providing asylum and assistance to so large a
number of refugees from Communist imperialism. Having myself lived under
Communist rule in the 1930’s, I can appreciate the ordeal of people in this part of
the world who as in Eastern Europe, understand Communist imperialism. hey
know it is a malignant cancer.42
hese impressions relected the staunchly anti-Communist outlook of Judd, who

earlier that year had been a founder of the powerful lobbying organization, the
Committee of One Million against the Admission of Communist China to the
United Nations.
Another report from Hong Kong had more shocking and spectacular rever-
berations across the United States. In late 1955 Everett F. Drumright, the US consul
general in Hong Kong, sent an 89-page White Paper to the State Department, alleging
that almost all Chinese in America had entered the United States illegally.43 he entire
Chinese community then came under federal investigation. “Chinatown was hit like
an A-bomb fell,” one Chinese American recalled, as every Chinese became liable to
hear hurried knocks on the door and be subjected to lengthy questioning on every
aspect of his or her life.44 he charges from Hong Kong led the US Immigration and
40. Richard Nixon, “Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American National Red Cross,” May 19, 1971,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Richard Nixon, 1971: Containing the Public Messages,
Speeches, and Statements of the President (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1972), 646.
41. Meeting with Vice President R. M. Nixon, CO 1030/184 1953, “Commercial Relations between Hong Kong
and China,” the National Archives, Kew, London (hereater TNA). I thank Professor Glen Peterson of the
University of British Columbia for providing me with this piece of information.
42. Department of State Instruction, Dulles to HK, A-286, October 29, 1953; and printed drat speech with
handwritten editing, undated, Folder Visiting Persons, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
43. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, December 9, 1955, Report on the Problem of Passport Fraud at
Hong Kong, Box 720, Record Group 59 (RG59), General Records of the US Department of State, NA.
44. Iris Chang, he Chinese in America: A Narrative History (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 251; Meredith
Oyen, he Diplomacy of Migration: Transnational Lives and the Making of U.S.-Chinese Relations in the Cold
128 Lu Xun
Naturalization Service to establish the discriminatory Chinese Confession Program

in 1956, calling on Chinese Americans who had fraudulently won US citizenship in
the past to come forward. he maelstrom this program generated among Chinese
Americans led to great bitterness and sometimes even the complete breaking of ties
among family members.
Although its outpost in the British colony served as the eyes and ears on China for
American policymakers, it did not rank highly among US security priorities. Until
mid-1955, USIS reports constantly suggested that Washington had failed to meet
its assigned responsibilities to Hong Kong. In early 1955, USIS Hong Kong direc-
tor Arthur W. Hummel Jr. still complained that information lowed only one way,
from Hong Kong to the United States: “We are getting inadequate backstopping.”45
Gradually, however, the value of the information received and broadcast from
Hong Kong raised the post’s importance not simply in Washington but across much
of Asia.
Voice of America
he staf of USIS Hong Kong energetically facilitated US propaganda eforts beyond

the territory. By their own account, “More than half of our time and budget is spent
in translating, writing, editing, printing and distributing printed and mimeographed
materials to other posts.”46 he bureau consisted of one director, the public afairs
oicer, and several sections responsible for libraries, book translation, press and
publications, distribution, motion pictures, radio broadcasting, and other matters,
working separately in ive locations (two in Kowloon and three on Hong Kong
Island) across the colony. Between 1949 and 1960, the directors were, successively,
Paul W. Frillmann, Arthur W. Hummel Jr., Richard M. McCarthy, and Robert J. Clarke.
Before 1953, USIS lacked any clear and accurate plan as to precisely who should
constitute the post’s target group. Frillmann prepared attractive programs for local
Hong Kong people. For him, Hong Kong was both the base and the target. He there-
fore preferred pamphlet publications as a propaganda medium. He proposed
to the State Department a pamphlet program designed to discredit the Chinese
Communists in the eyes of overseas Chinese and other Asian readers in Hong Kong.
Two series of pamphlets were carefully tailored for speciic audiences, one aimed at
neutralist-minded intellectuals and the other more generally at readers with a middle
school education. Accordingly, each was designed in an appropriate style: the irst
War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015), 110–14; and L. Ling-chi Wang, “Politics of Assimilation
and Repression: History of the Chinese in the United States, 1940–1970,” unpublished manuscript, 368,
Asian American Studies Collection, Ethnic Studies Library, University of California at Berkeley.
45. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, March 16, 1955, Folder Report (Semi-Annual, etc.) 1955, Box 4, USIS
HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
46. Ibid.
depended on the “selective presentation of objective facts” from Communist sources,

while the second relied on narrative interest, satire, and other popularizing elements.
Both series were originally produced in Chinese and also published in English so
as to make them immediately available to Asian intellectuals who read English and
indirectly available for translation into other languages. he program insisted on
retaining the Chinese tone of the writing, even in the English translations, to make it
a “demonstration of the principle of ‘Asians speaking to Asians.’” he content carefully
linked direct quotations from the abundant materials from the Chinese Communist
press amassed in Hong Kong, ensuring that these would “invariably be unfavorable
to Communist China.” By mid-1953, USIS Hong Kong had produced 7,000 copies of
each of twenty intellectual-oriented pamphlets and ten popular ones, on such topics
as thought reform, written propaganda, social control, and overtime labor on the
mainland. In both Chinese and English versions, each issue was thirty-six pages in
length, and cost 6.5 to 15 cents per copy to produce.47
In addition, a children’s hour program and recorded music concerts took place
weekly in the Hong Kong center and later also in Kowloon. For ten weeks both
centers mounted a further weekly movie program, but this enterprise was dropped
because of high attendance and security reasons. Large exhibits were staged several
times a year. In 1952, for example, an exhibit of Children’s Educational Materials was
displayed in each library for one evening, and these were later presented to the gov-
ernment-funded Teachers Training College. Another exhibit of outstanding books of
1950–51 was shown for three days on Hong Kong Island and three days in Kowloon,
and then presented to the City Hall Public Library. he libraries sought to maintain
strong ties with the United States among those Hong Kong Chinese who had studied
there. he American libraries alone served more than 25,000 registered borrowers,
and the coordinators thought it might be possible to double the number of patrons.
Hong Kong welfare workers commented that the libraries had been invaluable in
boosting the spirit and morale of refugee intellectuals.48 Collections of books ranging
from eleven to one hundred titles were loaned to schools, societies, and organiza-
tions. American aid to Chinese higher education reached so signiicant a proportion
that Governor Alexander Grantham admitted, “he [Hong Kong] Government gives
no inancial support to the Chinese post-secondary colleges and all such help comes
from America and, to a smaller extent, from the United Kingdom.”49
he ilm program won excellent cooperation from Hong Kong schools, the YMCA,
and other organized service groups. From 1952 onward, it stepped up and intensi-
ied its eforts to work with local factory workers and labor unions. A breakdown of
47. Operations memorandum, HK to State, “New Pamphlet Series,” November 7, 1952, Folder Publications, IPS,
Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
55, RG84, NA.
49. Savingram, HK to State, “US Aid to Hong Kong,” January 2, 1957, FO 371/127303, TNA.
130 Lu Xun
ilm screenings reveals that schools and churches hosted 75 percent in 1952 but only
50 percent in 1953, while factory workers and labor unions watched 21 percent in
1952 but 25 percent the next year.50 Labor groups and schools gradually became the
exclusive audience for these. Translated Chinese scripts of Union and the Community
and Union Local were sent to all free labor unions in Hong Kong, to disseminate
propaganda on American trade unionism and to encourage use of these particular
USIS ilms. he American consulate even claimed that distributing such materials
in 1950 had countered Communist propaganda and helped to bring an end to a
Hong Kong tramway strike.51
Arthur Hummel Jr., who had been born in China and became US ambassador to
the PRC from 1981 to 1985, sought to implement more ambitious objectives than
had his predecessor, in terms of facilitating American eforts to compete with and
discredit Communist China among both Chinese and other Asians. Hummel made
it the mission of USIS to “encourage solidarity and cooperation among the various
Chinese anti-Communist groups” into “Objective no. 2.” Although later downgraded
to third place, this objective undoubtedly drew much USIS energy and was a peren-
nial guiding operational principle.52 In June 1954, he put forward a ith aim:
By collecting and distributing authentic information about the Chinese main-

land, to help other USIS posts convince Asians that the aspirations of Chinese
Communist leaders threaten to impose on other Asian nations a hegemony that
would be alien to Asian traditions and values.53
Hummel stressed that “this post relies on the audiences in Communist China and
in Southeast Asia, not in Hong Kong.”54 he deliberate exclusion of the colony was a
strategic move to preclude objections from the British.55 Hummel therefore gave up
unattributed pamphlets, curtailed motion picture activities, and paid special atten-
tion to radio programs and anti-Communist novels, enlisting the famous Chinese
athlete Lee Wai-tong and the female Cantonese opera star Li Shifang, with the inten-
tion of boosting audiences among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.56
50. Foreign Service dispatches, HK to State, March 26, August 19, 1953, Folder Report Semi-Annual, Box 3,
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
51. See Lombardo, “A Mission of Espionage, Intelligence and Psychological Operations,” 68.
52. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, February 23, 1954, Folder Report (Semi-Annual, etc.) 1955, Box 4,
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
53. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, August 10, 1954, Folder Report (Semi-Annual, etc.) 1955, Box 4, USIS
HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
54. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, February 23, 1954, Folder Report (Semi-Annual, etc.) 1955, Box 4,
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA. Emphasis in original text.
55. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 202.
56. While curtailing its own ilm shows, USIS compensated by training school teachers and missionaries to
use their projectors and loaning the equipment to them, so that the total number of ilm viewers actually
increased in 1954. See Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, August 10, 1954, Folder Report (Semi-Annual,
etc.) 1955, Box 4, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
Tape-recording work constituted the major portion of VOA activity in Hong Kong,
which was a “natural center for the production of Chinese language broadcasts.”57
he recordings fell into nine categories: interviews in Chinese with refugees from the
mainland, prepared statements by refugees and by well-known Chinese, a 15-minute
weekly xuexi (thought instruction) program in Mandarin aimed at more than 2,000
Chinese Communist cadres known to monitor VOA, a weekly Amoy-dialect version
of the xuexi program, a weekly one-hour Mandarin program called he Chinese Hour
designed for long-wave broadcasts to overseas Chinese, a weekly Cantonese version,
a youth book-discussion program, incidental recordings such as anti-Communist
music and songs, and two weekly news analyses in Chinese. All these programs were
produced in VOA studios, irst in downtown Hong Kong and later in Kowloon, under
improved acoustic conditions.
he interviews with refugees were conducted largely in Cantonese, as it was far
easier to reach Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong and overseas. Most people inter-
viewed on tape came from the “middle peasant” and small shopkeeper levels. Also
interviewed were well-known Chinese, such as the top CCP dissident Zhang Guotao.
On April 7, 1955, USIS oicials interviewed Zhang, seeking to extract exclusive infor-
mation on the “Gao Gang afair” (in which purged CCP leader Gao Gang committed
suicide) and on the Politburo.58
he Mandarin xuexi program became a standard Hong Kong project. It took the
Chinese Communist xuexi meetings for its model. Using Chinese Communist source
materials available in Hong Kong, the program oten focused on the same subject
that the CCP was discussing at the time of the broadcast. Both Mandarin and Amoy
versions ironically used as an introduction a well-known Chinese Communist song
banned in 1949 by the government of the new People’s Republic of China. he script-
writers, Chinese who had personally experienced almost two years of such meetings
on the mainland, took great care to demonstrate their inside knowledge of the CCP,
making every efort to avoid any extravagant language that might lead cadres to close
their minds to the program content. hus, free discussions usually arrived at conclu-
sions diferent from those reached in the CCP-oriented meetings.
he Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Hour’s took the form of entertainment pro-
grams. Until December 31, 1952, these were disseminated through the local wired
radio service Redifusion, with nearly 54,000 speakers in private homes and business
establishments. hey consisted of ity minutes of such oferings as plays, quiz shows,
and modern Chinese songs, with a smooth 10-minute insertion of propaganda. his
was a stool-pigeon venture in which overt political content was largely minimized,
though even the quality of the entertainment possessed some propaganda value.
57. Inspection report, Garland C. Routt to USIA, September 23, 1955, Box 4, Inspection Reports, RG306, NA.
58. Interview with Chang Kuo-tao by Frank Robertson and Walter Brigge, April 7, 1955, Folder Information on
Communist Activities, Box 6, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
132 Lu Xun
Propaganda was incorporated as imperceptibly as possible. In every quiz show, at least

one question that made a point for either the Western world or the United States was
invariably asked. Some of the plays contained “a subtle thrust at the Communists.”
he program promoted movie actresses known to be anti-Communist by plugging
their song recordings, and likewise encouraged anti-Communist recording com-
panies by recommending their records and mentioning the companies by name.
In another instance, recordings of the chorus of St. John’s University in Shanghai were
introduced by the announcement that the Communists had abolished that college.
hroughout the 1950s, the program was also recorded on record albums for distribu-
tion to radio stations in Southeast Asia. One survey of VOA Chinese listenership in
the Saigon Cholon area of South Vietnam indicated that more than 12 percent of the
local population received VOA broadcasts every day in 1959.59
he youth book discussion program was aimed at overseas Chinese youngsters at
senior middle school level or above. It took place in Mandarin, ostensibly as sponta-
neous discussions by four young college-age men and women and one slightly older
student tutor of books published under the auspices of the USIS book translation
program, as well as other anti-Communist books appearing in Chinese. he program
was also taped and sent weekly to other posts in Southeast Asia for VOA use. In addi-
tion, USIS Hong Kong produced another half-hour weekly Cantonese program aimed
at Hong Kong and Macau audiences for Radio Villa Verde (Macau).60
In terms of printed materials, in 1952 the Chinese book translation program
in Hong Kong was placed on a full-scale basis. Early in 1950, shortly ater the
Communist victory on the mainland, the CCP also mounted one of its rare competi-
tive eforts in terms of Hong Kong publications. It took over the local oices, retail
outlets, and equipment of China’s two biggest publishing enterprises. hey set up
and stocked several other well-run and well-patronized bookstores and intimidated
a number of ordinary private booksellers into stocking and selling their materials.
Within eighteen months, three US organizations seeking a share in the Hong Kong
publishing desert appeared on the scene, namely USIS, the Committee for Free Asia,
and the Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals Oice (ARCI). All three enjoyed suicient
funds, ostensibly from a variety of diferent sources, though ultimately most came
from the US government. USIS Hong Kong, for instance, allotted US$50,000 “as a
rallying point for publishers and writers who want to resist Communist pressures,”
and the other two poured even more money into such eforts. With assistance from
USIS, local publishers brought out more than eighteen translations of American
books, “three titles a month,” producing a total of 100,000 to 300,000 copies in
59. See telegram, Saigon to USIA, March 13, 1959, TOUIS 224, Folder VS5902, Box 112, Country Project Files
1951–64, RG306, NA.
60. Inspection report, Garland C. Routt to USIA, September 23, 1955, Folder Hong Kong, Box 4, Inspection
Reports, RG306, NA.
half a year. he aims of these translations were, according to USIS, “interpreting

American life” and addressing “more visibly to our immediate political objectives.”
Approximately 80 percent of the books went outside Hong Kong to other posts with
Chinese audiences. In addition, two “small books” were published as special book
supplements to the area-wide USIS magazine World Today, with a print-run for each
condensation of 140,000 copies, making a total of 280,000.61
In an efort to attract more overseas Chinese, in 1954 USIS made a signiicant
change from book translations and locally written noniction to original iction by
popular Hong Kong authors. he story newspaper Xiao Shuo Bao (Hsiao Shuo Pao)
was printed in the form of a tabloid newspaper with color illustrations at one-eighth
the price of a conventional Chinese book, designed especially to “reach an audience
of persons who normally never read books.”62
Image 4.1
Newspaper vendor, Tsim Sha Tsui, 1970. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
he outcome was a considerable body of anti-Communist literature in bookshops

and schools in Hong Kong. hey provided a noticeable stimulus to anti-Communist
publishers, who in several instances enjoyed some editorial control over a book’s
content. “here is money in it,” admitted Richard M. McCarthy, a future public afairs
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
134 Lu Xun
oicer at the American consulate. he program also included a regular biweekly book
page in the Wah Kiu Yat Po newspaper, with USIS supplying all copy. At least one
publisher doing business with USIS began to use newspaper advertising on a regular
basis. ARCI, a private committee started in New York by Congressman Walter H. Judd,
at one point proposed publishing 360 titles annually, one-third of them translations
of American and other foreign books. Many of these publications were distributed on
request to schools and unions. Visits of these groups conirmed that the books had
gone into libraries or in some instances been used as supplementary textbooks and
were generally popular. To ensure reading eiciency and reach more people, USIS
Hong Kong instructed its translators and editors to exclude from these publications
any word or phrase that they would not have known at the age of iteen.63
he publications section of USIS Hong Kong continued to produce Chinese-
language materials both for local distribution and for posts throughout Southeast
Asia. he mainstays of the Hong Kong publications program were two regular
magazines, World Today and Four Seas. Other publications included booklets, pam-
phlets, lealets, and comic books. Most printing was done locally. World Today was a
USIS-attributed textual magazine of thirty-six pages, including covers, published
twice a month. he magazine had a semicommercial circulation of 100,000 to
150,000. Approximately 25,000 were sold in Hong Kong and Macao, less than 3,000 in
Burma, and 42,000 in Taiwan; another 20,000 copies were sent to schools and Chinese
organizations in Saigon; in hailand 15,000 copies were given away as a supplement
to one of the most inluential newspapers—a tactic “which at least ensures that it gets
into the hands of people who habitually read publications”; and in Indonesia 14,000
were mailed to those who wrote letters requesting it.64 Among young people, these
found a receptive audience. he other magazine, Four Seas, was a popular monthly
pictorial of twenty-four pages, “serious in content, and very anti-communist in tone,”
not attributed to USIS. It was distributed largely on a commercial basis, approxi-
mately 30,000 to 40,000 copies per issue in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.65
USIS Hong Kong was responsible for all the editorial work, artwork, preparation
of copy, layout, printing, and distribution. Every issue of the magazines carried at
least one anti-Communist article. hese articles fell into several categories, dealing
with events in Communist China, or Sino-Soviet relations, or Communist defeats,
or even the gap between Communist theory and practice. To gather information on
the reading habits of Hong Kong Chinese, a local advertising company conducted
a survey that USIS secretly sponsored. Of ive hundred persons interviewed, 271,
63. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, March 26, 1953, Folder Report Semi-Annual, Box 3, USIS HK
1951–55, RG84, NA.
64. Report on USIS vs. overseas Chinese, from Arthur W. Hummel to Saxton E. Bradford, August 3, 1954, Box 6,
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
65. See Foreign Service dispatches, HK to State, August 19, 1953, February 23, 1954, Folder Report Semi-
Annual, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
or 53 percent, said that they read magazines regularly or occasionally. Among these,
when asked which magazine they preferred, 20.3 percent selected World Today, the
irst ranked, and 13.7 percent Four Seas, the ith ranked. Each year the US Treasury
earned more than US$40,000 from sales of Hong Kong–produced publications.
Interestingly, the comic books USIS produced sold particularly well—in some cases
more than 35,000 copies—among less educated groups, including laborers, small
shopkeepers, and children.66
USIS Hong Kong also maintained cooperative relations with other overseas
American posts in Asia, such as USIS Taipei.67 hese two branches reached an agree-
ment to publish articles on Taiwan in World Today. Under its terms, Taipei sent
Hong Kong a continuing low of propaganda materials, and Hong Kong guaranteed
Taipei some space in each issue of the magazine and consulted Taipei as to which arti-
cles should be printed. In addition, in spring 1953, Hong Kong received from Taipei
the cartoon series Little Moe, illustrations that depicted the deiant life of repressed
people behind the Iron Curtain through the protagonist, Little Moe, accompanied by
rhyming captions in Chinese.68 By January 1954, the comics had reached an estimated
readership of more than 35 million around the world. In Hong Kong the consulate
general collected these panels and published them in the local newspaper Chung Nan
Daily, which enjoyed a circulation of 15,000. Hong Kong therefore asked Taipei
to send these cartoon strips more oten.69 Meanwhile, the US Information Agency
started to provide overseas posts with a regular low of picture materials from its
stockpile of more than 1,000, one of the largest collections of photographs on the
history, growth, and practices of world Communism. Among these, Hong Kong
selected for propaganda use sets with such titles as “he Conquest of Tibet,” “Land
‘Reform’ in China,” “Chinese Militarism,” “Sino-Soviet Relations,” and “Korean-
Chinese Relations.”70
he press section served news agencies, correspondents, and the local press with
selected items from the wireless bulletin in mimeographed, bilingual form. General
releases were made to twenty to twenty-two dailies, four semiweeklies, sixteen to
eighteen weeklies, between four and eleven biweeklies, six to nine monthlies, and
nine to twelve “mosquito” sheets. Of these publications between iteen and nine-
teen were pro-Taiwan with a combined circulation of 102,000 to 190,000; between
thirty-two and ity-eight were allegedly independent with a combined circulation
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
67. Cooperating American agencies also included Psychological War Tokyo and Psychological War Washington.
68. See Rideo, Little Moe: His Life behind the Iron Curtain (Taipei: Chung Hsin, 1954).
69. Department of State instruction, “International Press Service Cartoon Features,” USIA CA-367, January 5,
1954, Folder Publications, IPS, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
70. Department of State instruction, “Communist Pictures,” USIA CA-676, April 20, 1954, Folder Publications,
IPS, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
136 Lu Xun
of 278,000 to 336,000; and eight were pro-Communist with a circulation of 32,000

to 43,000. he news coverage was broad. A breakdown of ity-two specially written
articles placed in the local press from mid-October to December 1952 revealed that
seven dealt with Sino-Soviet Friendship Month, six with the Korean truce talks, ive
with slave labor, ive with the United Nations, three with germ warfare, and one with
Point Four, ive were year-end reviews, and the balance covered individual events
such as the death of the American philosopher John Dewey (who from 1919 to 1921
had delivered almost 200 lectures in China). Materials produced in Hong Kong for
the Chinese press were also forwarded to Southeast Asian posts for placement by
them. On average, 60 percent of news iles released every month were used by local
papers and magazines.71
In 1952 and 1954, moreover, the Hong Kong consulate initiated speaking tours
of the Far East by prominent Asian Americans.72 In 1953, for instance, it funded
Jade Snow Wong, author of the memoir Fith Chinese Daughter, on a tour of Tokyo,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Bangkok, and Rangoon. Interestingly,
according to one US consul, local Chinese in Hong Kong tended to regard
themselves as “true Chinese,” albeit on an arbitrary border, and therefore unlike
Chinese Americans, whom they oten considered “White Chinese.”73
Ater one decade of indoctrination, according to American observers, a vast major-
ity of the Hong Kong population viewed the United States as “a powerful and friendly
country which is currently serving as the main military deterrent to Communist
expansion.”74 Chinese writers and their manuscripts, the Hong Kong post reported,
“lood the USIS oices daily,” and it was “serving as a center . . . a source of encour-
agement to the many Chinese intellectuals who were making the anti-communist
ight the only way they can—by writing.”75 his indicated the positive side of the US
reputation in Hong Kong. Yet another less upbeat USIS report noted that local resi-
dents still found it diicult to forgive the United States for imposing the trade controls
against China that had so adversely afected the colony’s economy during and ater
the Korean War.76
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
72. See Meredith Oyen, “Communism, Containment and the Chinese Overseas,” in he Cold War in Asia: he
Battle for Hearts and Minds, ed. Yangwen Zheng, Hong Liu, and Michael Szonyi (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,
2010), 81–82.
73. Foreign Service dispatch, HK to State, February 26, 1953, Folder Visiting Persons, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55,
RG84, NA.
74. Inspection report, James L. Meader to USIA, November 3, 1959, Box 4, Inspection Reports, RG306, NA.
1951–55, RG84, NA.
HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
Table 4.1
USIS Hong Kong distribution of air shipments, 1949–52
Zero Air Carriers General Target Areas
Philippine Airlines Manila, Indonesia
British Overseas Airways Singapore, Rangoon
Cathay Paciic Airlines Manila, Bangkok
Hong Kong
Chinese Air Transport Taipei, Tokyo, Pusan
Pan American Airways Manila, Bangkok
Air France Saigon, Hanoi
Source: Foreign Service dispatch, Hong Kong to State, March 26, 1953, Folder Report Semi-
Annual, Box 3, USIS HK 1951–55, RG 84, NA.
Hong Kong became a center of propaganda, which was radiated around East and
Southeast Asia. Around 65 to 72 percent of publications were sent to other USIS
posts in the region to connect to local distribution networks, while the remaining
28 to 35 percent were distributed in Hong Kong and Macao. For almost two years,
overseas distribution initially relied upon air-freight shipments by major carriers (see
Table 4.1). Because of budget cuts in late 1952, the air shipments gradually switched
to ocean carriers, except for two regular lights every month to the inland city of
Hanoi. he Hong Kong Stevedoring Corporation acted as agent for the remaining
sea shipments. USIS publications and ilms in transit were also made available to
passengers on shipboard.
Chinese-language publications from Hong Kong dominated the consumption
of non-Communist materials among overseas Chinese in Asia. Branding these as
“Made in Hong Kong” justiied American propaganda as messages from one group of
Chinese to another. According to Arthur Hummel, “several anti-communist pictorial
magazines published in Hong Kong (one of them by USIS) dominate sales of other
pictorials” in Burma, Indonesia, Singapore, hailand, the Philippines, and South
Vietnam. When potential shortages of non-Communist textbooks were identiied, the
local USIS post would request Hong Kong to ship these in time to avoid any shortfall.
In 1959, the Chinese language service to Southeast Asia accounted for 52.5 percent of
the expenses of USIS Hong Kong, compared with only 16.8 percent devoted to local
programs.77 Books and magazines from Taiwan, by contrast, could compete neither
in quantity nor in quality, and were “seen in only very small numbers, and . . . the tone
and language of Taiwan products is more concerned with denouncing enemies than
persuading friends.” Hummel noted, “I saw virtually no Chinese Nationalist politi-
cal magazines on newsstands, and was told that very few are imported.”78 Another
77. Inspection report, James L. Meader to USIA, November 3, 1959, Folder Hong Kong, Box 4, Inspection
Reports, RG306, NA.
78. Report on USIS vs. overseas Chinese, from Arthur W. Hummel to Saxton E. Bradford, August 3, 1954, Box 6,
USIS HK 1951–55, RG84, NA.
138 Lu Xun
reason USIS Hong Kong successfully dominated the Chinese publication market in
Southeast Asia was that, in an efort to disprove charges that it was using overseas
Chinese to export revolution to neighboring countries, ater 1952 Beijing had shited
the targets for its propaganda in the region away from Chinese migrants to other
Southeastern Asians.79
Between the appearance of NSC 5717 in 1957 and NSC 6007 in 1960, the American
conviction that the United States possessed both inluence and interests in Hong Kong
became even stronger. Whereas NSC 5717 envisaged that the United States would
simply evacuate the territory if faced with a Communist attack on Hong Kong,
in 1960 NSC 6007 suggested conditioned military support of the British defense
forces. NSC 6007 highlighted the US policy guideline for the 1960s, as approved by
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to “make known publicly U.S. sympathy and support
for the eforts of the Hong Kong Government . . . to further U.S. policy objectives.”80
he signiicance of Hong Kong to the United States as a base for observing China and
a center for the production and dissemination of anti-Communist US propaganda
around much of Asia helped to enhance its value in American eyes, so that by 1960
the Eisenhower administration at least contemplated playing an active part in any
military defense of Hong Kong against mainland China.
Conclusion
In the 1950s Hong Kong, as a British colony in South China, played a unique role
in Cold War history. It served the interests of the United States not just by provid-
ing a warm-water port for warships but also by furnishing ammunition and cannon
fodder for ideological warfare. he millions of Hong Kong residents were initially
regarded as pawns and tools, to be manipulated, targeted by, and even sacriiced to
the Cold War enthusiasms of both blocs. On occasion, events in Hong Kong had
global implications, as with the 1950 CNAC-CATC airplane case, the 1955 Kashmir
Princess incident, and the 1956 Drumright report that prompted the Chinese
Confession Program. For Hong Kong, the Cold War brought both sufering and posi-
tive developments. hough their harsh impact was much resented, US trade controls
ultimately sped up local industrialization, helping to make Hong Kong “one of the
most stable economies” in East Asia by the end of the 1950s.81 Anglo-American fric-
tions notwithstanding, the red and pink political sectors in Hong Kong declined in
numbers and inluence, and, clearly thanks in part to US assistance, anti-Communist
79. See CCPCC instruction on overseas Chinese work, January 6, 1952, in Zhonggong dangshi jiaoxue cankao
ziliao [CCP history teaching reference], Vol. 19 (Beijing: National Defense University, 1986), 429–30.
80. NSC 6007/1-Hong Kong, June 11, 1960, Box 28, Records 52–61, NSA.
81. Inspection report, James L. Meader to USIA, November 3, 1959, Folder Hong Kong, Box 4, Inspection
Reports, RG306, NA.
forces grew in strength. In March 1954, USIS Hong Kong was formally assigned
responsibility for coordinating all Chinese-language USIS operations. Washington,
as this development revealed, eventually came to realize that Hong Kong could be
more strategically important than Taipei as a regional intelligence and propaganda
center in the Far East, and the US consulate general managed its activities in the
colony with that purpose in view. he value of Hong Kong in keeping watch on China
and facilitating American propaganda eforts well beyond its borders was one reason
the United States ultimately came to view Hong Kong as an asset that might be worth
defending.82
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5
Crisis and Opportunity
he Work of Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals (ARCI)
in Hong Kong and Beyond
Glen Peterson
During the tumultuous years immediately preceding and following the establish-
ment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949, hundreds of
thousands of Chinese led the prospect of Communist rule for the neighboring
British colony of Hong Kong. By 1954 Hong Kong’s population stood at 2.25 million,
a fourfold increase in the space of nine years. When the newly created oice of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) decided to dispatch a
mission to Hong Kong in 1954 to investigate the refugee problem, it eventually came
up with a igure of 667,000 Chinese refugees in Hong Kong—nearly 30 percent of
the colony’s population.1 Most arrived with few possessions and were forced to live
in appalling conditions while struggling to reestablish viable lives. Vast “squatter”
camps sprung up on hillsides and uninhabited areas throughout Hong Kong, while
tens of thousands of refugees erected makeshit shelters on the rootops of tenement
buildings in the colony’s dense urban spaces. When the UNHCR deputy commis-
sioner James Read toured the colony in 1952 (ironically, to investigate the plight of
European refugees in China), he was immediately struck by the desperateness of the
refugee situation unfolding before him. “All over the city,” Read wrote, “one sees clus-
ters of squatters and refugees in the most primitive circumstances . . . their houses are
shacks and lean-tos, put together from a few pieces of wood and corrugated iron . . .
sanitary arrangements are non-existent.”2 Within a decade, the number of refugees
in Hong Kong had swollen to more than a million, prompting one US congressional
report on the subject to comment that the Chinese refugees in Hong Kong constituted
“the single largest concentration of anti-communist refugees anywhere in the world.”3
1. “Extract from: Refugee Problem, Head of U.N. Survey Mission Outlines His Task,” Colonial Oice [here-
ater CO] 1030/381, the National Archives [hereater TNA], Kew, London, United Kingdom; “Executive
Committee of United Nations Commission for Refugees Discussion of Report on Hong Kong Refugees.
Notes for brieing of UK Representative,” CO 1030/382, TNA; Addis (FO) to McGinnis, British Embassy,
Washington, September 8, 1953, CO 1023/117, TNA; and Edvard Hambro, he Problem of Chinese Refugees
in Hong Kong: Report Submitted to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Leiden, Netherlands:
A. W. Sijthof, 1955), 2, 29, 148.
2. James M. Read, “Report to the High Commissioner on Trip to Southeast Asia,” in CO 1030/384, TNA.
3. US House of Representatives, Refugee Problem in Hong Kong: Report of a Special Subcommittee of the Committee
of the Judiciary, House of Representatives (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Oice, 1962), 8.
142 Glen Peterson
he sudden arrival of so many refugees attracted a broad range of international

and local humanitarian organizations, individuals, and governments seeking to inlu-
ence, ameliorate, and proit politically from the massive human displacement that
accompanied the establishment of the PRC. his chapter seeks to shine a light upon
one such organization, known as Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals (ARCI). ARCI
was a US-based private charity whose avowed mission was to rescue refugee Chinese
intellectuals by enlisting them in the Cold War struggle against Communist China.
he intersection of humanitarian interventions and Cold War political agendas is a
subject that has so far received surprisingly little attention in either the literature on
international humanitarianism or the study of Cold War politics.4 he chapter begins
with a brief overview of the range and types of humanitarian response to the Chinese
refugee crisis in Hong Kong in the 1950s. he next part of the chapter situates ARCI
within the larger universe of US “psychological warfare” by comparing ARCI to
other US-based charitable organizations that were established in the atermath of the
Second World War for the purpose of mobilizing refugees from the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe. he chapter then moves to a discussion of the distinctive blend of
politics and humanitarianism that characterized ARCI’s approach toward the refu-
gees and of the ambitions that ARCI harbored for refugee Chinese intellectuals.
Humanitarian Responses to the Chinese Refugee Crisis
he desperate plight of the Chinese refugees elicited strong humanitarian and politi-
cal responses from within and outside Hong Kong. Although it would take nearly
four years for the UNHCR to mount an oicial investigation into the refugees’ plight,
local and international relief eforts began almost immediately. Within the space of a
few years, nearly a hundred diferent local and international voluntary organizations
were engaged in relief eforts.5 Among the broad spectrum of refugee relief organi-
zations active in Hong Kong during the 1950s, it is possible to identify four main
types. Distinct from one another in terms of origin and motive, they also cooper-
ated and competed with one another for resources and personnel. First and foremost
were those voluntary associations that were rooted in Hong Kong’s various Chinese
communities. Drawing upon long-established traditions of mutual assistance, they
were oten the “irst port of call” for those arriving from neighboring Guangdong
Province. Because of Hong Kong’s history and its location as a main hub in the
global circuitry of Chinese migration, such organizations were oten heavily involved
4. Notable exceptions include Michael Barnett, Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2011); and Gil Loescher and John A. Scanlan, Calculated Kindness: Refugees
and America’s Half-Open Door, 1945 to the Present (New York: Free Press, 1986).
5. Hambro, he Problem of Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, 121.
Crisis and Opportunity: he Work of Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals 143
with assisting newcomers and facilitating the movement and adaptation of people
coming and going from China and overseas. Organized along lines of kinship, native
place, and religious ainity (Buddhist, Daoist, and local Christian), as well as on a
civic and community-wide basis (such as the Tung Wah Hospital), they oten played
a key role in integrating refugees into local networks. Perhaps the most important in
this regard were native place associations (tongxianghui ⎴悱㚫) representing locali-
ties in Guangdong and elsewhere in South China, where the overwhelming majority
of refugees in Hong Kong originated.6
A second realm of humanitarian activism centered on local neighborhood associ-
ations known as kaifong (埿⛲). hese community-based organizations were set up in
1949 under the supervision of Hong Kong’s Secretariat of Chinese Afairs. Reluctant
at irst to commit large-scale government resources to deal with the refugee problem,
Hong Kong’s colonial government instead sought to mobilize local communities to
assist the refugees. Organized on a neighborhood basis, kaifong associations pro-
vided free or low-cost basic education and training as well as health care to refugees.7
A third realm of humanitarian action centered on the work of international chari-
table organizations. Most had Christian ailiations with roots in Europe and North
America as well as in China itself, as was the case with Christian missionaries who
relocated to Hong Kong ater 1949. During the interwar period, a strong Christian
humanist tradition had developed in Europe, concentrated on assisting refugees and
other victims of war and persecution. Ater the Second World War and the gradual
winding down of the refugee crisis in Europe, this Christian humanist impulse
was projected onto Asia and Africa, where major new refugee crises were begin-
ning to erupt in the contexts of decolonization and revolution. his globalization of
Christian humanitarian activism was symbolized by the establishment in the early
postwar period of organizations such as the Lutheran World Federation (established
1947), World Council of Churches (established 1948), and Caritas Internationalis
(established 1951). All of these organizations, as well as numerous other US-based
Christian charitable agencies, were actively involved in providing relief to Chinese
refugees in Hong Kong in the 1950s.8
6. See also R. Keith Schoppa, In a Sea of Bitterness: Refugees during the Sino-Japanese War (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2011), 51–53, which notes the primary importance of tongxianghui in organizing
refugee relief and repatriation among refugees from the Sino-Japanese War.
7. Aline K. Wong, “he Kaifong (Neighbourhood) Association in Hong Kong” (PhD dissertation, University of
California, Berkeley, 1970).
8. he US-based National Catholic Welfare Association (Conference) was one of the largest nation-based
charities assisting refugees in Hong Kong during the 1950s. he Hong Kong Red Cross Society was estab-
lished in July 1950 as a branch of the British Red Cross, and it performed functions broadly similar to
its parent organization: assisting refugees and “displaced persons” and helping them trace missing family
members. In 1953 Caritas established a branch in Hong Kong to provide assistance to the colony’s destitute
and distressed, many of whom were new arrivals from the mainland.
144 Glen Peterson
Image 5.1
Young refugee and CARE (Cooperative for
American Remittances to Everywhere) packages,
1958. Courtesy of the Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
A fourth realm of humanitarian intervention encompassed secular nongovern-

mental organizations that were allied to the US and Republic of China governments.
Unlike the organizations previously discussed, this realm of humanitarian assistance
was overtly political in its aims and character. he principal refugee organization with
links to the Nationalist government on Taiwan was the Free China Relief Association
(FCRA) (formerly the China Mainland Famine Relief Association). Established in
Taipei in April 1950 to provide food for famine victims in China and to assist refugees
from the Chinese mainland who had sought sanctuary in neighboring countries in
East and Southeast Asia, the FCRA was in reality a creature of the Nationalist govern-
ment, which paid the association’s administrative expenses and supplied most of its
staf. he FCRA became a nominally “voluntary” organization out of necessity in
1950 so that it could to continue to operate in countries and territories that no longer
recognized the Nationalist government or that, like Hong Kong, were extremely wary
of allowing any formal Nationalist government presence.9 It is this fourth, overtly
politicized approach to refugee assistance that concerns us in this chapter.
ARCI and the Battle for Hearts and Minds
As an organization created for the speciic purpose of assisting refugee intellectuals,

ARCI was undoubtedly inspired by earlier organizations that had been set up to rescue
intellectuals leeing from Nazism, such as the US-based Emergency Committee in
Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars and the Geneva-based Comité Internationale pour
le Placement d’Intellectuels Réfugiés.10 ARCI’s eforts to recruit refugee Chinese
9. he association’s manifesto is displayed in Free China Relief Association, Our Support for Communist
Escapees Fleeing to Freedom (Taipei: Free China Relief Association, 1956).
10. On international eforts to assist intellectuals leeing Nazi Germany, see Norman Bentwich, he Rescue and
Achievement of Refugee Scholars (he Hague: M. Nijhof, 1953); also Stephen Duggan and Betty Drury, he
intellectuals are perhaps best understood, however, as part of a broader US-led cam-
paign of “psychological warfare” waged against Communist regimes ater the Second
World War. here were many players in this global efort, some of the most important
of which were, like ARCI, ostensibly private citizens’ organizations with close ideo-
logical and inancial ties to the US government.
he public face of psychological warfare was the United States Information Agency,
which operated overseas as the United States Information Service (USIS). Established
by Eisenhower in 1953 as an oicially independent news and information agency,
the United States Information Agency assumed responsibility for a range of public
information functions that had previously been exercised by the State Department’s
internal International Information Administration. Eisenhower had been persuaded
by the argument that because State Department diplomacy was mainly concerned
with communications between governments, an independent agency was needed to
carry out “large-scale [propaganda] operations directed at whole peoples.”11 Indeed,
Eisenhower had campaigned against Harry Truman the previous year on a promise
to make “psychological warfare” a central plank in US security strategy. As Nelson A.
Rockefeller, Eisenhower’s chief advisor for psychological warfare, told the president
in 1955, “the World Struggle is shiting more than ever from the arena of power to
the arena of ideas and international persuasion.”12 Following Stalin’s death in 1953,
the focus of US concern also began to move from Europe to preventing Soviet and
Chinese inluence from spreading to other non-Western and postcolonial states.
According to Kenneth Osgood, more so than in any other part of the world, USIS
propaganda in Asia emphasized anti-Communism; by 1960, fully one-third of
USIS’s global budget was directed at Asia.13 In order to service USIS needs, the State
Department created a massive printing facility in Manila, capable of producing mil-
lions of copies of “informational” pamphlets and other reading material for distribu-
tion across the region. By the end of the 1950s, USIS was operating some ity-eight
libraries across Asia and publishing thirty-three periodicals in seventeen diferent
languages.14 Beside Vietnam, Laos, hailand, and Japan, where the United States had
direct and growing security interests, the main countries to which this propaganda
campaign was directed were Malaya and Indonesia, especially their ethnic Chinese
populations.
USIS viewed ethnic Chinese throughout Southeast Asia as “critical targets” of
its operations in the region. In 1956 the Operations Coordinating Board of USIS
Rescue of Science and Learning: he Story of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars
(New York: Macmillan, 1948).
11. Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence:
University of Kansas Press, 2006), 88.
12. Ibid., 46.
13. Ibid., 115.
14. Ibid., 121.
146 Glen Peterson
established a special working group charged with developing a plan that would
be directed speciically at “Overseas Chinese.”15 Chi-Kwan Mark has shown how
Hong Kong also functioned as a “production and coordination centre of anti-com-
munist materials for Southeast Asia,” produced under USIS auspices and aimed pri-
marily at ethnic Chinese.16 According to Carl Trocki, US diplomatic and intelligence
oicials in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were “particularly interested in promoting
anti-communism among the Chinese.” his involved a “coordinated efort to spread
anti-communist propaganda throughout the British colonies in Asia” that included
the spreading of “disinformation” about Communist activities in China and Malaya-
Singapore, planting bogus articles in the local press, and pressuring Britain to sup-
press pro-PRC business tycoons like Tan Lark Sye and Lee Kong Chian. According
to Trocki, the United States and Britain were “convinced that they were confronting a
determined ‘cultural ofensive’ by China and the USSR” that involved recruiting
students to return to China for study and a form of “popular diplomacy” involving
the distribution of ilms, magazines, and music to Chinese communities in Southeast
Asia.17 ARCI’s ambitious plans to plant refugee Chinese intellectuals in academic
institutions and in ethnic Chinese community organizations across Southeast Asia
need to be understood against this broader backdrop of the US global campaign of
psychological warfare against Communist states.
It is equally clear that ARCI’s creation was inspired by similar American organiza-
tions that had been set up in Europe, starting in the late 1940s, for the purpose of
forging a political force from the ranks of Soviet and Eastern European refugees and
displaced persons. ARCI bears a strong resemblance to the American Committee on
Liberation from Bolshevism, or Amcomlib. Amcomlib began operations in 1950 and
was formally incorporated in 1951 with headquarters in New York City.18 Amcomlib’s
stated mission was to provide “material and moral support” to anti-Bolshevik activ-
ists from Eastern Europe (mainly) as well as the Soviet Union. Like ARCI, Amcomlib
was also oicially a private citizens’ committee, made up of prominent US citizens
who were well known for their anti-Bolshevik views. And like ARCI, Amcomlib also
had close ties to the US government, in this case the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), from which Amcomlib drew nearly all of its operational funds. Amcomlib’s
main activities included funding an émigré-hosted radio station, Radio Liberation
15. Ibid., 121.

16. Chi-Kwan Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations 1949–1957 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2004), 36–37.
17. Carl A. Trocki, Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control (London and New York: Routledge,
2006), 110–11.
18. On Amcomlib, see Simo Mikkonen, “Exploiting the Exiles: he Soviet Emigration in US Cold War Strategy,”
Journal of Cold War Studies 14 (2) (Spring 2012): 99–101, 104, 107–9, 112–26. On the US efort to enlist
ethnic minorities in the United States in the propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, see also Ieva Zake, ed., Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).
and maintaining a quasi-academic center in Munich for the production of anti-

Soviet literature, known as the Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of
the USSR. Unlike ARCI, however, Amcomlib did not seek widespread publicity or
engage in public fund-raising eforts.
Finally, as we will see below, ARCI also had much in common with another,
more publicly featured and CIA-funded organization for enlisting Eastern European
refugees in the Cold War struggle against Communism. he National Committee
for a Free Europe (NCFE) was founded in 1949 to “assist refugees from the six Iron
Curtain countries of Eastern Europe so that they can furnish democratic leadership
when these countries regain their freedom.”19 Echoing ARCI’s goals with respect to
refugee Chinese intellectuals, NCFE’s founder, Joseph Grew, an American diplomat
and former undersecretary of state, spoke about the importance of East European
refugees “maintain[ing] themselves in useful occupations,” by which he meant
working for CIA-funded radio stations and print organizations. Like ARCI, NCFE
was also closely connected to the US government. he idea for NCFE had irst been
put forward in 1949 by US diplomat George F. Kennan, the originator of the Cold
War strategy of “containment” and irst head of the State Department’s new Policy
Planning Staf, in consultation with Grew and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. All
were agreed that US assistance for Eastern European refugees should be organized
outside the US government and that Grew should take the lead by heading up a
“private corporation” to deal with the refugees. Like ARCI, NCFE’s executive com-
mittee was also made up of former diplomats, famous generals (including Dwight
D. Eisenhower), and prominent members of America’s corporate elite. And like ARCI,
NCFE also conducted a series of highly publicized fund-raising eforts, the purposes
of which were not only to raise funds but also to attract public attention and create the
impression of widespread public support and sympathy for the organization’s aims.20
Humanitarian Assistance and Cold War Politics: Walter Judd and the
Committee to Secure Aid for Chinese Refugee Intellectuals
he US government in the 1950s regarded refugee policy as an extension of foreign

policy and an instrument of Cold War politics. Oicial American interest in the
19. he quotation is from Joseph Grew, NCFE’s founder, cited in Anna Mazurkiewicz, “‘he Voice of the
Silenced Peoples’: he Assembly of Captive European Nations,” in Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.:
Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, ed. Ieva Zake (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 69.
20. See Mazurkiewicz, “he Voice,” in Zake, Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S., 169–70; and Mikkonen,
“Exploiting the Exiles,” 100. One signiicant diference between ARCI and other US-based private organiza-
tions for assisting refugees from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is that the latter were also conceived
as a means to bridge the oten bitter political divides that separated diferent émigré and refugee groups.
Among Soviet émigré organizations, for example, some of which had been in existence for as long as the
Soviet Union itself, disagreements frequently revolved around the question of overthrowing Communist
rule versus secession from Russian rule.
148 Glen Peterson
Chinese refugees in Hong Kong derived from a determination to discredit Communist

regimes and halt the spread of Communist inluence around the world. US refugee
assistance was framed in a Cold War discourse that identiied refugees as “defectors”
and “escapees” from Communist totalitarianism. However, the US government in
the early 1950s had little appetite for mounting large-scale and costly refugee relief
eforts of its own. Neither was it willing to rely upon international organizations like
the UNHCR, which were beyond its control. Instead, the US sought to formulate its
own independent refugee policy in the form of the Mutual Security Agency’s Escapee
Program and to contract out refugee assistance to surrogate organizations willing to
align themselves with US foreign policy goals.21 In addition, the US was mainly inter-
ested in “high-value” refugees whose insider knowledge of Communist states could be
exploited for intelligence and propaganda purposes. In this respect, the Chinese refu-
gees in Hong Kong seemed at irst to ofer few prospects. Most were ordinary people
with little education and no insider connections to the Communist government in
China. Less than 5 percent of the refugees in Hong Kong in the mid-1950s were uni-
versity or college educated; one-third of them had only primary school education.22
here were, however, among the Chinese refugees in Hong Kong a relatively small
number who could be considered as intellectuals. hey quickly attracted the attention
and became the focus of a newly established private American charitable organization.
Known as the Committee to Secure Aid for Refugee Chinese Intellectuals (ARCI), the
organization was founded in November 1951 by the inluential congressional rep-
resentative, former medical missionary in China, and outspoken anti-Communist
crusader, Walter Judd (1898–1994).23 Envisioned as a kind of Asian equivalent of the
National Committee for a Free Europe, ARCI blended humanitarianism and Cold
War politics in a manner that was distinctly American. hese combined political and
humanitarian motives were frequently intertwined with a Christian sense of obliga-
tion on the part of ARCI’s leaders. For individuals like Judd, with deep missionary
roots in China, assisting the real and imagined victims of Chinese Communism
was an almost evangelical undertaking. Judd was convinced that Americans had a
Christian duty to save the Chinese from godless Communism; ARCI, he said, “will
prosper with God’s blessing.”24
21. On US eforts to sideline UNHCR and develop its own, independent refugee policy, see Gil Loescher, he
UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 61–72.
22. Hambro, he Problem of Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, 176.
23. Born in 1898 in Rising City, Nebraska, Judd went to China as a medical missionary in 1925, working irst at
the Congregational Mission Board in Nanjing and later at the Shaowu and Fukien hospitals before eventu-
ally returning to the United States in 1931. He returned to China in 1934 to oversee a hospital in Fenzhou,
Shanxi, and remained in China until 1938. He entered politics in 1942 and remained active in government
until his death in 1994. On Judd’s life and political career, see Lee Edwards, Missionary for Freedom: he Life
and Times of Walter Judd (New York: Paragon House, 1990).
24. Judd made this statement in his oicial memorandum to the State Department proposing establishment of
the ARCI. “Outline of Project for Relief and Rescue of Chinese Intellectuals and Professionals,” File 350.5
State Department oicials, in contrast, were clear that it was the opportunity to
embarrass and discredit the PRC government that convinced them to lend support
to ARCI’s activities in Hong Kong. A “valuable opportunity to score some points”
that could lead to “important political and psychological advantages” against the
Communist government was how one oicial described the State Department’s
decision to support ARCI.25 Indeed, some State Department oicials harbored even
grander hopes for ARCI’s refugee intellectuals, regarding them as nothing less than
a source of “democratic ideas and expression of the aspirations for freedom of the
mainland Chinese,” perhaps even a future “leadership cadre in the event of a change
of regime on the mainland.”26
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the range of motives described above, ARCI’s
network of supporters was drawn from the uppermost circles of the US political,
military, and business establishment. Headquartered on New York’s famed Fith
Avenue, ARCI boasted a prestigious membership of more than seventy business and
government leaders known for their close personal and political connections to both
the US and Nationalist governments.27 hey included the media magnate Henry R.
Luce, born in China to Presbyterian missionary pioneers and one of Chiang Kai-shek’s
staunchest supporters in the US, who employed his vast Time-Life media empire to
publicize the achievements of Chiang and the Nationalist government to American
audiences; John Leighton Stuart, who had also been born in China to Presbyterian
missionaries and was a former US ambassador to the Nationalist government;
Nelson Johnson, another past US ambassador to the Nationalist government; General
George C. Marshall; Paul McNutt, former US governor of the Philippines; Generals
Albert Wedemeyer and Claire Chennault, who had played key diplomatic and mili-
tary roles in China during the war and were known as unwavering supporters of the
Nationalist government; and the US leet commander Chester Nimitz. Others were
leading US business igures, such as Conrad Hilton, president of the Hilton Hotel
Corporation, and S. S. Kresge, founder and chairman of S. S. Kresge Company (later
Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical
Files 1949–55, Record Group 59 General Records of the Department of State (hereater RG59), US National
Archives II (hereater NA), College Park, Maryland, United States.
25. McConaughy to Morton, October 27, 1952, File 350.4 Refugees, Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese
Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
26. Escapee Program Submission 1954. “Secret,” October 17, 1954, File 350.4 Refugees, Box 34, Lot Files 57D
633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA. Not all State Department oicials were
as enthusiastic over US assistance to Chinese refugees in Hong Kong. Some believed that assisting refugees
from Communism in China would constitute a potentially limitless drain on US government resources.
“I am opposed in principle to using US funds in starting what might well be a never-ending program of local
relief for a constantly growing ‘escapee’ population,” wrote one State Department oicial in 1952. Martin to
W. O. Anderson, October 17, 1952, File 350.4 Refugees, Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs,
Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
27. Ena Chao, “he Cold War and Refugee Assistance: A Case Study of Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals,
1952–59,” EURAMERICA: A Journal of European and American Studies 27 (2) (1997): 65–108.
150 Glen Peterson
Kmart) of Detroit. he former Nationalist ambassador to the United States and

leading anti-Communist liberal intellectual Hu Shi chaired ARCI’s Advisory Board,
which maintained branches in both Taiwan and Hong Kong. he Taiwan Advisory
Board met at the Taipei headquarters of the US-funded Joint Commission on Rural
Reconstruction and included Jiang Menglin—its chair, the director of the newly
established USIS in Taiwan, plus eight representatives from the ROC government
and various nongovernmental organizations with operations in Taiwan. ARCI’s
Hong Kong Advisory Board was jointly directed by Harry Brunger, president of the
Hong Kong YMCA, and C. Y. Stone, an American-educated Chinese and former dean
of Soochow University. 28
Judd and other members of the committee saw assembling a high-powered roster
of supporters as crucial to establishing ARCI’s credibility in the eyes of the main-
stream American public, which was far less aware of and potentially less sympathetic
to the plight of refugees from Asia than that of European refugees from the hird
Reich and the Soviet Union. Declaring that “free men must stand together against
Communist tyranny which limits freedom of thought and inquiry and starves and
crushes the mind,” ARCI’s chief publicity and fund-raising agent in the United States
Harold Oram, who had already established himself as a noted anti-Communist
crusader, was chosen to launch ARCI’s fund-raising drive, which began with a gala
dinner held at New York’s Plaza Hotel on April 28, 1952. he guest list, which Oram
had calculated to be of “high enough prestige to fully impress the press, the public,
and our potential source of funds, with the importance and urgency of our program,”
read like a who’s who of America’s intellectual and cultural elite. Guests included
Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and Jr., Robert Oppenheimer, hornton Wilder, Carl Jung,
Walter Gropius, Bertrand Russell, John Dos Passos, and no fewer than ten Nobel
Prize winners. One of the speakers that evening was former assistant secretary
of state for Far Eastern afairs Dean Rusk, who had been directed to airm to the
assembled guests the “inherent pledge of the intellectuals of the Free World standing
together against all the foes of Freedom.”29 In subsequent months, ARCI took out
full-page advertisements in the New York Times with emotional appeals such as “Save
one Chinese family from slowly starving to death in Hong Kong,” “Your git of $350
will save one Chinese for freedom,” “Free Men Die . . . While We Do Nothing,” and
“Send $350 to enable the resettlement of one family—a family group which thought
enough of freedom to hazard the agony of exile rather than bow to Communism.”30
28. File 350.5 Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs,
Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
29. he preceding quotations are cited in Madeline Hsu, “Immigration and Cold War Alliances: Aid Refugee
Chinese Intellectuals, Inc. (ARCI) and American Outreach in Asia,” unpublished manuscript, June 2010,
5–6. I thank Professor Hsu for permission to cite her manuscript.
30. New York Times (October 14 and 15, 1953).
Altogether, ARCI managed to raise around US$250,000 to US$300,000 of its goal

of US$1 million from such public appeals.31 he purpose of such advertisements,
however, was not only to raise funds but, equally, to win publicity for the organization
and its cause. In any case, the shortfall was not of major concern to Judd and others
in the organization because, unlike many other private charities whose capacity to act
depended entirely on the generosity of the donating public, ARCI also had a direct
line to the US government.
Although nominally a private “citizens’ committee,” ARCI worked closely with the
State Department. State Department archives conirm that ARCI soon began to derive
a signiicant proportion of its funding from the State Department, on a covert basis.32
Judd himself had irst proposed the committee in a June 1951 memorandum to the
State Department, in which he had called for the creation of a “fund-raising commit-
tee of representative Americans” to be led by a “distinguished American known for
his interest in China” for the purpose of assisting the “many thousands” of Chinese
intellectuals and professionals who had recently escaped from Communist China and
were now facing joblessness and destitution in Hong Kong.33 According to at least one
former insider, the CIA also had a hand in ARCI’s creation, contributing US$50,000
to its start-up costs and channeling additional funds through various private foun-
dations.34 In May 1952 ARCI registered with the State Department’s Advisory
Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, a vital irst step toward securing access to State
Department funds. Later the same year, ARCI emerged as the primary advocate and
beneiciary of the State Department’s 1953 decision to extend the Mutual Security
Agency’s Escapee Program for assisting Soviet-bloc defectors to include “escapees”
from the PRC.35
31. Hsu, “Immigration and Cold War Alliances,” 7.

32. “Outline of Project for Relief and Rescue of Chinese Intellectuals and Professionals,” File 350.5 Aid Refugee
Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55,
RG59, NA; and Allison to Perkins, May 19, 1953, File 350.5 Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., Box 34,
Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
33. “Outline of Project for Relief and Rescue of Chinese Intellectuals and Professionals,” File 350.5 Aid Refugee
Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55,
RG59, NA.
34. he same source also claimed that ARCI’s Hong Kong oice served as a CIA listening post, but that Judd
himself was not aware of this. Marvin Liebman, Coming Out Conservative (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle
Books, 1992), 92–93, cited in Hsu, “Immigration and Cold War Alliances,” 7n23.
35. Between 1954 and 1960 the Far East Refugee Program, which functioned as the Asian division of the
United States Escapee Program, disbursed a total of US$6,592,440 to more than twenty voluntary agencies in
Hong Kong, of which ARCI received US$1,178,986. ARCI was the second largest recipient of FERP funds
in the colony, ater the US-based National Catholic Welfare Conference; among the other organizations
funded by FERP, none received more than US$7,000. Far East Refugee Program, American Consul General,
Hong Kong. FERP Funds Expended or Obligated—May 1, 1954–December 31, 1960, HKRS 394 D-S No. 9-2,
Hong Kong Public Record Oice, Hong Kong. See also US House of Representatives, Refugee Problem in
Hong Kong, 18–19, 29–30.
152 Glen Peterson
ARCI’s close ties to the State Department and its eagerness to exploit the
Chinese refugees in Hong Kong for propaganda purposes worried Hong Kong’s
colonial rulers, who faced the delicate task of not antagonizing Beijing while at the
same time living up to Britain’s status as a close Cold War ally of the United States.
As Chi-Kwan Mark has argued, the British attempt to strike a balance between these
two conlicting imperatives required pursuing a “diplomacy of restraint” when it
came to deining Hong Kong’s role in US eforts to “contain” Communist China.
Essentially, this meant insisting that US activities in this regard be as “indirect,
discreet and non-confrontational in nature as possible.”36 While the British were
unwilling to grant the Americans carte blanche to carry out “an unrestrained anti-
communist crusade in the territory,” they were prepared to allow a surrogate organi-
zation like ARCI to operate in the colony, provided that its links to the US government
remained under cover.37 he State Department was well aware of British sensitivities
and instructed the US consulate general in Hong Kong to seek assurances from the
Hong Kong government that it was not opposed in principle to the State Department
funding ARCI’s activities in Hong Kong. Ater consulting with the Hong Kong gov-
ernment’s political advisor, the consul general reported that, while the Hong Kong
government had no inherent objection to the ARCI presence in Hong Kong, none-
theless, because ARCI was “vulnerable to Chinese Communist propaganda attacks,”
it would be “most desirable if no publicity were given in Hong Kong to the fact the
US is supporting ARCI.”38 he US government thereupon entered into a formal
agreement with ARCI in June 1953, under which funds from the Escapee Program
were to be disbursed secretly to ARCI. No publicity was to be given to the agree-
ment, and no US government funds were to be issued directly to the ARCI oice in
Hong Kong. Even the UNHCR itself was not to be informed of the US government’s
oicial involvement with ARCI.39
36. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 2, 6, 49.

37. Ibid., 5. For its part, Beijing described ARCI as an “espionage organization” formed by American imperial-
ists with British cooperation for training spies on the Chinese mainland. In 1953 China’s oicial Xinhua
News Agency cited a TASS (Soviet news agency) report from Rome, in which a New York newspaper corre-
spondent was quoted as claiming that Britain had accepted a request by US secretary of state Dean Acheson
to set up a “Chinese Refugees Relief Commission” in Hong Kong, backed by US$10 million in operating
funds courtesy of the State Department and Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Xinhua (㕘厗) (Beijing)
(August 22, 1953); reprinted in Nanfang ribao (⋿㕡㖍⟙) (August 24, 1953).
38. “Conidential Security Information Memorandum for Mr. Obly,” File 350.5 Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals,
Inc., Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA; and Martin
to Holland, October 22, 1952, File 350.5 Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals, Inc., Box 34, Lot Files 57D 633,
Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
39. G. W. Aldington (Hong Kong Government Political Advisor) to Howard Boorman, US Consul General,
Hong Kong, February17, 1953; British Embassy, Washington to Foreign Oice (FO), April 5, 1953;
F. S. Tomlinson, FO to British Embassy, Washington, April 25, 1953; and Ralph Clough, American Consul
General, Hong Kong to Geofrey Aldington, Political Advisor, Hong Kong Government, June 10, 1953,
CO 1023 1952/54 Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, TNA.
ARCI’s Cold War Agenda
Originally, ARCI’s leaders had contemplated the establishment of mass relief stations
across Hong Kong as a means of publicizing the plight of mainland refugees. his
plan was soon discarded, however, in the face of Hong Kong government opposi-
tion and dissenting views on ARCI’s executive committee. Instead, ARCI decided to
focus on providing “palliative” assistance to the refugees, such as vocational training
and basic medical care. Ultimately, though, ARCI’s ambitions were decidedly more
political than humanitarian. As Madeline Hsu has observed, “ARCI carefully culti-
vated a public image of broad support in order to bolster its image as a non-proit,
non-sectarian, humanitarian outreach organization in order to hide that the core of
its leadership and staf were staunch anti-Communists and supporters of Nationalist
China.”40 ARCI’s greater objective was to enlist the refugees in a global campaign to
discredit the Communist regime in China by involving them in propaganda activities
in Hong Kong and—more important—resettling the refugees in Taiwan and overseas.
In Hong Kong ARCI mounted a series of initiatives that appear to have been directly
inspired by the State Department’s Psychological Strategy Board, an organization that
had been set up in 1952 to coordinate US anti-Communist intelligence and propa-
ganda activities. his included the recruitment of “defectors” to serve as intelligence
operatives, translators of print and radio broadcasts from the PRC, and staf for
CIA-run clandestine radio stations. ARCI’s Free China Literature Project and Free
China Literary Institute employed around 250 refugees as translators and compilers
of school textbooks and other publications. ARCI even supported a plan to amalgam-
ate ive refugee colleges in the colony into a Free Chinese University with buildings
and equipment to be provided by ARCI.41
ARCI’s greatest ambition, however, was to resettle the refugees in places where
it was believed they could play politically useful roles in the struggle against
Communism. ARCI had little interest in the hundreds of thousands of ordinary
refugees languishing in Hong Kong; it was, however, keenly interested in recruit-
ing educated Chinese, especially those who were considered to possess leadership
potential. ARCI deined “intellectual” rather loosely to include anyone with at least
two years of education in a university or equivalent institution, including military
training facilities. ARCI worked with other charitable organizations in the colony,

41. he Hong Kong government registered its “serious political objection” to the proposal for a “Free Chinese
University” on the grounds that the staunchly pro-Nationalist colleges would become “a centre of KMT
[Nationalist] inluence and intrigue in the colony.” Aldington [Hong Kong government Political Advisor] to
Secretary of State for Colonies, December 8, 1952, CO 1023 117 1952/54 Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong,
TNA; see also “Escapee Program Submission 1954 “Secret,” October 17, 1952, File 350.4 Refugees, Box 34,
Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA. Several of the refugee
colleges did eventually amalgamate of their own volition to become the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
154 Glen Peterson
such as those listed at the beginning of this chapter, to identify and select applicants.
Especially important in this respect were the roles played by the FCRA—which
Dominic Yang describes as “an organ of the Nationalist government disguised as a
charitable humanitarian agency”—and the native place associations that together
played a leading part in organizing social and cultural life in the sprawling Rennie’s
Mill refugee camp, established by the British colonial authorities in 1950 for exiled
Nationalist government soldiers and supporters. he Hong Kong Rennie’s Mill
Refugee Camp Relief Committee, established by Hong Kong’s major philanthropic
organizations with the blessing of the Hong Kong government for the purpose of
managing and coordinating relief work in Rennie’s Mill, also played an important
role.42 By August 1952 ARCI had collected applications from around 15,000 persons.
Only about a quarter of them, however, met ARCI’s generous deinition of “intel-
lectual,” while more than 40 percent of all applicants were former KMT military and
police oicers.43 Eventually, ARCI committed to resettling around 25,000 applicants;
together with their dependents, they numbered around 70,000.44 ARCI’s executive
committee in New York initially regarded Taiwan as the most desirable destination
for the majority of applicants, where they could presumably be enlisted for service
in the Nationalist government. ARCI’s chief of staf in Asia, George Fitch, who was
personally acquainted with the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, set up
two programs (the “440 specials” and the Leadership Training Project) to prepare
refugees for service in the Nationalist government and military in Taiwan. It was
soon realized, however, that the Nationalist government itself had very little appe-
tite for admitting large numbers of refugees from Hong Kong for fear of subversion
by Communist spies as well as the economic and social pressures ensuing from any
large-scale refugee inlux. In the end only around 14,000 of those registered with
ARCI and their dependents were eventually resettled on Taiwan.45
Taiwan was not, however, the only resettlement destination upon which ARCI
set its sights. Southeast Asia was also high on the list of priorities. he Portuguese-
ruled island colony of Timor was broached as one possibility, but ARCI’s executive
director, B. A. Garside, lamented the fact that Timor was “so far removed from any
part of China, or any Chinese inluence, that it seems any people resettled there
will be permanently lost to any future service to China.” Before long, the idea was
42. Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, “Humanitarian Assistance and Propaganda War: Repatriation and Relief
of the Nationalist Refugees in Hong Kong’s Rennie’s Mill Camp, 1950–1955,” Journal of Chinese Overseas
10 (2) (2014): 169–70, 176–79, 185; and Yang Mengxuan [Dominic Yang], “Tiaojingling: Xianggang ‘xiao
Taiwan’ de qiyuan he bianqian, 1950–1970” [Rennie’s Mill: he origins and vicissitudes of Hong Kong’s
‘Little Taiwan’, 1950–1970], Taiwan shi yanjiu [Taiwan historical research] 18 (1) (2011): 158.
43. “UN General Assembly Report of the High Commissioner on the Question of Chinese Refugees in
Hong Kong,” March 19, 1953, p. 3, in CO 1023/117 1952/54 Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, TNA.
45. Ibid., 10–13, 16–17.
dropped.46 Portuguese Timor may have been viable as a resettlement destination

precisely because there was no signiicant Chinese community present on the island,
and perhaps because the Portuguese may have been regarded as potentially easier
to pressure than British or French colonial authorities in the region. In Malaya,
North Borneo, and Singapore, British colonial authorities were loath to permit any
additional Chinese immigration for fear of Communist iniltration and rising ethnic
tensions. Meanwhile, across Southeast Asia, postcolonial states from Indonesia and
the Philippines to South Vietnam steadfastly refused to admit Chinese immigrants,
and many of them were in the process of enacting their own anti-Chinese legislation
and restrictions.47
It was against this background that ARCI, working with State Department backing,
embarked on a plan to resettle refugee Chinese intellectuals in the major ethnic
Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, where they would occupy strategic positions
in government and academic circles, and thereby serve as efective anti-Communist
spokespersons and propagandists. As early as 1951, a secret memorandum from the
US consulate general in Hong Kong advised the State Department that “there are in
Hong Kong a number of anti-communist and anti-Chiang Chinese personages who
can be a valuable asset in combating communism in Asia.” he memorandum urged
“moving these persons and their dependents, estimated at 250 persons, to various
Southeast Asian countries for subsequent employment by interested US govern-
ment agencies.” Speciically, the report suggested recruiting refugees to work in USIS
branches and on a project referred to only as “PSA” for furnishing trusted Chinese
personnel to the British government in Malaya.48
he reference to the need to recruit refugees who were not only anti-Communist
but also “anti-Chiang” was signiicant, for it suggests the disagreement that frequently
surfaced in the 1950s between the State Department and ARCI and within the State
Department itself over how much US support should be given the Nationalist gov-
ernment. As noted above, ARCI’s New York–based executive committee was made
up almost entirely of inluential igures and members of the China Lobby with close
professional and personal ties to the Nationalist government, and they regarded
ARCI’s mission as one of assisting the Nationalist government. But within the State
Department itself there were difering views, and not everyone was as willing or
enthusiastic as ARCI was to use the refugees to bolster the claims and legitimacy of
46. Cited in Hsu, “Immigration and Cold War Alliances,” 16.

47. When the head of the UNHCR Survey Mission in Hong Kong, Edvard Hambro, toured Southeast Asian
countries in 1954 to identify potential resettlement destinations for Chinese, he met with rejection every-
where he went. Glen Peterson, “To Be or Not to Be a Refugee: he International Politics of the Hong Kong
Refugee Crisis, 1949–55,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 (2) (June 2008): 183.
48. Rusk (FE0) to Clubb (CA), January 15, 1951,“Secret,” File 570.2 Overseas Chinese, Box 31, Lot Files 57D 633,
Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
156 Glen Peterson
the Nationalist government, or even to regard the latter as synonymous with “Free
China.” Some State Department oicials openly viewed unqualiied US support for
Chiang and the Nationalist government on Taiwan as a liability.49 It was not surpris-
ing, given these diferences, that during this period the State Department maintained
a separate list of refugees who were known to be both “anti-commie” and “at outs”
with Chiang Kai-shek.50
In early 1954 State Department oicials began loating the idea of resettling ARCI-
registered refugees in Britain’s Southeast Asian colonies to the UK Colonial and
Foreign Oices. In the words of the British consul in San Francisco, who participated
in the discussions, the Americans
think it would be a great pity if . . . ARCI should concentrate on shipping all

the intellectuals that it can to Formosa. hey would see an advantage in suitably
chosen refugees being farmed out to the countries of Southeast Asia in which
there is an overseas Chinese population. he numbers of such persons need not
be large, but if they are carefully selected and had irst hand experience of the less
pleasant aspects of the Peking regime, it would constitute a irst rate propaganda
operation just to settle them in Southeast Asia in academic or other jobs where
inevitably their experiences would be recounted to overseas Chinese.51
Within a month the plan had expanded to include the creation of an “overseas
Chinese University” somewhere in Southeast Asia. he choice of exactly where such
a university should be located was admittedly a “headachy question” owing to the
political sensitivities involved, but the advantages of such an institution were thought
to be obvious: not only would it provide much-needed employment for refugee
Chinese intellectuals, it would also give young ethnic Chinese throughout Southeast
Asia “an alternative to travelling to [the] mainland” for higher education, thereby
“eliminat[ing] the propagation of communist ideology . . . and improv[ing] the inter-
nal security of the Southeast Asian countries.” State Department oicials were only
49. In late 1951, O. Edmund Clubb of the State Department’s Oice of Chinese Afairs warned that a “close
partnership” between the United States and the Nationalist government was likely to “alienate many non-
communist personages” from China. O. E. Clubb to Strong, December 2, 1951, File 364.21 Resistance to the
Communist Regime: Political, Box 30, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55,
RG59, NA.
50. he list included former Nationalist general Zhang Xueliang, who had been under KMT house arrest since
1936; former warlords Bai Chongxi and Yan Xishan, who were also under Nationalist government “surveil-
lance” in Taiwan; hird Party leaders such as Carson Chang (Zhang Chunmai) in India; former CCP leader
Zhang Guotao, who was living in Hong Kong; former International Labour Oice oicials and labor leaders
Zhang Tiankai (in Washington) and Li Bingheng (in Paris); Chinese Muslim leaders Aisa Beg (in Indian
Kashmir), Ma Pufang, and Mohammad Imin (Bughra) (in Cairo); as well as numerous ex-Nationalist dip-
lomats living in the United States, France, and Brazil. File 350.4 TS Political Refugees, Box 29, Lot Files 57D
633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
51. Extract of letter from HM Consul in San Francisco homas Tull, enclosed with Foreign Oice letter PR
101091/2 dated January 1, 1954, and reproduced in correspondence marked “Top Secret” in Barton to
Hopson, January 29, 1954, CO 1023/117 1952/54 Chinese Refugees in Hong Kong, TNA.
too aware that signiicant numbers of ethnic Chinese students in Southeast Asia were
returning to the PRC for higher education in the early 1950s. hey were convinced,
however, that many of these students were drawn to the PRC “not solely by reasons
of blood but also of necessity” since, with the exception of Malaya, opportunities
for ethnic Chinese to access higher education in the region were extremely limited.
It was determined that the funding for such a university should be sought in the irst
instance from organizations like the Ford Foundation and from local Chinese com-
munities before “thinking of outpourings from Uncle Sugar.” In the end, however, the
plan failed to materialize, and it was let to others to create Southeast Asia’s irst—and
only—Chinese-medium university.52 At the same time, ARCI’s lack of success in
resettling pro-Nationalist social elites in Southeast Asia would have signiicant reper-
cussions for the politics and culture of Hong Kong, as the colony became a key site for
conlict between mass Chinese political movements.
Conclusion
his study of ARCI’s activities in Hong Kong supports Gil Loescher’s claim that the
principal aim of US refugee policy during the Cold War was to expose “the inadequa-
cies of the Soviet Union and its allies,” in this case China. As Loescher has shown,
US strategists in the early 1950s sought to constrain the role of the UNHCR and other
international organizations in addressing refugee problems in favor of developing
what Loescher terms an “independent, principally anti-communist refugee policy”
on the part of the United States.53 Organizations like ARCI, with their close ties to
the US political establishment, were critical players in this efort. At the same time,
however, this chapter also conirms the indings of previous scholarship concerning
the complicated international politics that surrounded the Chinese refugee problem
in Hong Kong.54 As discussed above, Hong Kong’s volatile political status—as a British
colony on the doorstep of Maoist China—led Hong Kong’s British rulers to impose
strict limits on the degree to which the US was allowed to exploit the propaganda
value of the refugee crisis in Hong Kong. Given these constraints as well as ARCI’s
limited success in achieving its other major goal—that of resettling large numbers
of Chinese refugee intellectuals in places and occupations where they could play a
52. Clubb (CA) to Strong (CA), “Education of Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia,” February 14, 1951, File 570.2
Overseas Chinese, Box 31, Lot Files 57D 633, Oice of Chinese Afairs, Numerical Files 1949–55, RG59, NA.
Nanyang University was established in Singapore in 1955, thanks largely to a generous donation and land
endowment by Tan Lark Sye (Chen Liushi 昛ℕἧ), a leading Singapore tycoon well known for his gener-
ous educational philanthropy in both Singapore and the People’s Republic of China. Nanyang remained
Southeast Asia’s only Chinese-medium university until it was merged with the University of Singapore in
1980 to form the National University of Singapore.
53. Loescher, he UNHCR and World Politics, 42.
54. Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War; and Peterson, “To Be or Not to Be a Refugee.”
158 Glen Peterson
politically useful role—one is let to ponder whether ARCI had any lasting signii-
cance beyond its impact on the lives of the individuals and families who were reset-
tled overseas under its auspices, which was signiicant and oten dramatic.
he urge to blend humanitarian responses with hard political calculations
remained a hallmark of US refugee policy throughout the Cold War. Although ARCI
ceased its Hong Kong operations in December 1960, the organization continued to
exist until 1970 when it inally folded on the eve of the Sino-American rapproche-
ment. ARCI and the range of similar organizations that embodied this Cold War
politico-humanitarian urge are now all but forgotten, their alphabet soup of organi-
zational acronyms largely meaningless to everyone except historians. hey appear to
us now as quaint and obsolete relics of an earlier age, one whose political imperatives
and moral challenges have long since given way to new global anxieties. But at the
very least ARCI and similar Cold War creations deserve to be remembered as illustra-
tions of how the humanitarian impulse is never quite as politically neutral as it may
appear or proclaim itself to be. In this sense, ARCI may also hold some lessons for
the future.
References
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UK National Archives, Kew, London, England.
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of Chinese Afairs. Numerical Files 1949–55. Lot Files 57D 633. US National Archives II,

Free China Relief Association. Our Support for Communist Escapees Fleeing to Freedom. Taipei:
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Intellectuals, 1952–59.” EURAMERICA: A Journal of European and American Studies
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(ARCI) and American Outreach in Asia.” Unpublished manuscript, June 2010.
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Loescher, Gil. he UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001.
Loescher, Gil, and John A. Scanlan. Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America’s Half-Open
Door, 1945 to the Present. New York: Free Press, 1986.
Mark, Chi-Kwan. Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations 1949–1957. Oxford:
Mazurkiewicz, Anna. “‘he Voice of the Silenced Peoples’: he Assembly of Captive European
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Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006.
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6
Hong Kong as an International Tourism Space
he Politics of American Tourism in the 1960s
Chi-Kwan Mark
Since 1842, the former British colony of Hong Kong has served as a primary node
for the low of people, goods, and ideas between China and the rest of the world.1
Strategically located and protected by British law, Hong Kong was a valuable place
where merchants, workers, reformers, and revolutionaries from the mainland came
to seek better economic opportunities or advance their political causes.2 Ater 1949,
Hong Kong’s connections with China, then under Communist rule, did not cease
altogether but were eclipsed by Hong Kong’s full integration into the American-led
global economic system. From 1959, the United States became the principal export
market for Hong Kong, which had transformed itself from a traditional entrepôt for
the China trade into an export-oriented industrial economy. In the 1960s tourism
was Hong Kong’s second most important industry, ater textile manufacturing. he
largest national group of foreign visitors was Americans, including both civilians
coming for leisure and business purposes and military personnel taking rest and
recreation (R & R) leaves in the colony.3 In the mid-1960s, however, the escalation of
the Vietnam War and the outbreak of the Chinese Cultural Revolution–inspired riots
in Hong Kong threatened the lows of American tourists, both military and civilian.
Informed by disciplines such as political geography, tourism research, and globali-
zation studies, this chapter examines Hong Kong–US tourist relations in the 1960s
1. For studies of Hong Kong’s regional and global connections, especially the economic and inancial
aspects, see David R. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000); Takeshi Hamashita, Xianggang dashiye [Hong Kong in macro perspective] (Hong Kong: Commercial
Press, 1997); Catherine R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Emergence and
Development, 1945–65 (London: Routledge, 2001); Gary McDonogh and Cindy Wong, Global Hong Kong
(London: Routledge, 2005); and Stephen Chiu and Tai-Lok Lui, Hong Kong: Becoming a Chinese Global City
(London: Routledge, 2009).
2. See Stephanie Po-yin Chung, Chinese Business Groups in Hong Kong and Political Change in South China,
1900–25 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998); Chan Lau Kit-ching, From Nothing to Nothing: he Chinese
Communist Movement and Hong Kong, 1921–1936 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1999); and
John M. Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2005).
3. Lu Dongqing and Lu Shoucai, Xianggang jingji shi [A history of the Hong Kong economy] (Hong Kong:
Joint Publishing, 2002), 213–14; and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States,
1945–1992: Uncertain Friendships (New York: Twayne, 1994), 226–30.
Hong Kong as an International Tourism Space: he Politics of American Tourism 161
through the notions of place, space, and tourism space. Place is not simply a physi-
cal location; rather, it is “socially constructed” over time. Space is “not geography
but practice”; its character is not static but is determined by human actions and the
broader economic, social, and political structures in which they operate.4 Tourism,
according to Linda K. Richer, is “a highly political phenomenon.”5 he production,
governance, and consumption of tourism are inluenced by power relations. he
nature of tourist lows and host-guest encounters have signiicant implications for
internal security and international relations.6
Image 6.1
USS Hornet, Victoria Harbour, 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
In the context of the escalating Vietnam conlict, the People’s Republic of China
repeatedly lodged diplomatic protests with the British government over the ever-
increasing number of American naval visits to Hong Kong. Since 1949 Beijing’s
approach toward Hong Kong had been one of “long term planning and full utiliza-
tion.” Although not recognizing the three “unequal treaties” that governed its colonial
status, Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai tolerated the British admin-
istration of Hong Kong and would demand its retrocession when “the conditions
4. See, for instance, Lynn A. Staeheli, “Place,” in Companion to Political Geography, ed. John Agnew,
Katharyne Mitchell, and Gerard Toal (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 158–70; Gyan Prakash, introduction to he
Spaces of the Modern City: Imaginaries, Politics, and Everyday Life, ed. Gyan Prakash and Kevin M. Kruse
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 1–18; and Tim Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).
5. Linda K. Richer, he Politics of Tourism in Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989), 2.
6. See Andrew Church and Tim Coles, Tourism, Power and Space (New York: Routledge, 2006); and Richer,
he Politics of Tourism in Asia.
162 Chi-Kwan Mark
are ripe”—probably in 1997 when the 99-year lease of the New Territories expired.
In the interim, they imagined Hong Kong as an “observatory” or a “window” to the
outside world—as a valuable locale in terms of collecting intelligence, obtaining
remittances from the overseas Chinese, and importing embargoed strategic goods.7
he United States likewise utilized Hong Kong as a center for intelligence gathering,
economic containment, propaganda, and R & R for American military personnel
serving in Vietnam. In consequence, the colonial authorities needed to perform a
delicate balancing act between Beijing’s warnings against American military tourism
and Washington’s Cold War requirements. Worse still, the outbreak of the letist
riots in May 1967 cast a shadow over Hong Kong’s security and economy. Although
foreign tourists were not targets of the Maoist rioters, negative and exaggerated over-
seas reports on the Hong Kong riots deterred American citizens from visiting the
colony in the latter part of 1967. he prospects for American civilian tourism thus
became a concern for the Hong Kong government and the tourist industry. his study
analyzes the struggle over the “tourism space” of Hong Kong in the mid-1960s: How
Hong Kong (both the government and private actors in the tourist industry) and the
two external powers concerned (the United States and Communist China) perceived,
negotiated, and contested the meanings and consequences of American tourism in a
place and at a time of great international and internal political tensions.8
he politics of Hong Kong–US tourist relations in the 1960s were illustrative of
the phenomenon of globalization and its impact on local government and society.
International tourism and globalization are inextricably linked. he movement of
tourists across borders is invariably accompanied by the mobility of goods, infor-
mation, and inancial transactions. Moreover, the spread of international tourism
depends on the development of transnational networks among a host of multina-
tional, state, and private actors with a stake in the tourist industry—international
airlines, hotel chains, oicial tourist bodies, travel agents, travel writers, and so forth.
Travel and consumption thus contribute signiicantly to globalization, and vice versa.9
Nevertheless, the global lows of people, goods, and cultural practices have weak-
ened the capacity of the government to control its territory and citizens, and, accord-
ing to critics of globalization, even call into question the future of the nation-state
7. Jin Yaoru, Zhonggong Xianggang zhengce miwen shilu [A secret record of the Chinese Communist Party’s
Hong Kong policy] (Hong Kong: Tianyuan shuwu, 1998), 2–5; and Qi Pengfei, Deng Xiaoping yu Xianggang
huigui [Deng Xiaoping and the return of Hong Kong] (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 2004), 19–52.
8. On the concept of “tourism space,” see Gareth Shaw and Allan M. Williams, Tourism and Tourism Spaces
(London: Sage, 2004). For an insightful study of the struggle over “tourism space” in the Middle East, see
Waleed Hazbun, Beaches, Ruins, Resorts: he Politics of Tourism in the Arab World (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2008).
9. he connection between international tourism and globalization is highlighted in Shaw and Williams,
Tourism and Tourism Spaces, and in two historical case studies: Christopher Endy, Cold War Holidays:
American Tourism in France (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); and Hazbun, Beaches,
Ruins, Resorts.
in a seemingly borderless world. As far as the globalization of tourism is concerned,

the United States has been a dominant player not only in terms of the number and
wealth of American tourists but also through American-funded transnational cor-
porations operating airlines, hotel chains, and travel agencies, thus seriously weak-
ening the autonomy of national states and local industries to set their own tourist
policy. However, globalization has not brought about the end of the nation-state, for
local governments and peoples are still able to exercise agency in regulating trans-
national lows and networks. In this vein, place or geography still matters, and the
global is indeed “embedded” in, but does not replace, the local.10 By examining how
Hong Kong was afected by, and responded to, the globalization and politicization
of American tourism against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the anticolonial
riots, this study highlights the role of local actors in global politics and processes.
Hong Kong Tourism Space: Created, Consumed, and Imagined
Between 1957 and 1965, the number of tourists to Hong Kong grew by 927 percent,
the fastest growth rate among the ninety-four member countries of the International
Union of Oicial Travel Organizations (IUOTU, the United Nations–recognized
worldwide body representing the tourist and travel industry). According to the gov-
ernment’s estimate, in 1961 Hong Kong received 220,884 visitors coming from more
than eighty countries; by 1965 it hosted 446,743 tourists. Among them, US citizens
constituted the largest national group: 78,954 in 1961 and 126,822 in 1965. he
number of visitors continued to increase for the rest of the decade (and beyond),
making Hong Kong the second most popular destination in the Far East ater Japan.11
he signiicance of tourism to Hong Kong’s economy was such that, as an earner
of foreign exchange (an estimated HK$750 to 1,000 million per annum), it ranked
second only to textiles (the main export of Hong Kong).12
Both the oicial and private stakeholders of the industry contributed to the infra-
structure of Hong Kong’s tourism—accommodation, communications, shopping, and
10. From a theoretical perspective, the nation-state is not entirely the same as local actors in the global-national-
local nexus. But Hong Kong is a rather special case since it was not a nation-state but a British colony
with no prospects for independence, thanks to China’s opposition. As this chapter aims to provide a histori-
cal account of Hong Kong–US tourist relations, the national (the colonial state and its British sovereign)
and the local (private actors of the tourist industry) are grouped under “Hong Kong agency” or local
agency in contrast to the global (Cold War powers and the force of globalization). On the notion of the
embeddedness of the global in the local, see Saskia Sassen, A Sociology of Globalization (New York: Norton,
2007). On the continued signiicance of geography, especially geopolitics, in a globalized world, see
Klaus Dodds, Geopolitics in a Changing World (Harlow, UK: Prentice Hall, 2000).
11. Hong Kong Report for the Year 1965 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1966), 162; and Digest of Annual
Statistics—1972 Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Tourist Association Research Department, n.d.), 29.
he igures do not include transit visitors.
12. A Touristic Guide to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Department of Extramural Studies, Chinese University of
Hong Kong, 1968), 162.
164 Chi-Kwan Mark
recreational facilities. In 1957 the Hong Kong government established the Hong Kong
Tourist Association (HKTA) to promote and develop tourism.13 Representing the
ive branches of the tourist industry, namely, airlines, sea carriers, hotels, travel
agents, and tourist agents, in 1968 the HKTA had 154 full members and 446 asso-
ciate members (the latter consisted of irms engaged in tourism-related businesses
such as restaurants and nightclubs).14 Supported by four local information centers
and a few overseas oices in six countries/regions (as of early 1967), the HKTA con-
centrated on four main areas of work: production of tourism material, promotion
and marketing, public relations work, and special projects. During the period of
April 1966 to March 1967, for example, a total of 1,301,466 brochures, pamphlets,
posters, and other printed promotional items were distributed in Hong Kong and
abroad. In particular, the HKTA published a tourist guidebook entitled Around and
about Hong Kong; a monthly newsletter for overseas readers, the Hong Kong Travel
Bulletin; and a monthly domestic bulletin, News Views. Overseas, it distributed the
promotional ilm A Million Lights Shall Glow and later Destination Hong Kong. he
worldwide advertising program organized insertions of Hong Kong items in inter-
national travel magazines and news channels, including ASTA Travel News, Esquire,
Paciic Travel News, National Geographic, and a New York Times supplement. he
HKTA was a member of a number of international and regional travel organizations,
such as the IUOTO, the American Society of Travel Agents, and the Paciic Area
Travel Association. Given Hong Kong’s status in the tourist trade, the executive direc-
tor of the HKTA sat on the executive committee of IUOTO.15
he globalization of tourism was facilitated by the advent of commercial jet air-
crat in the late 1950s, which greatly reduced transoceanic travel time.16 Because of
its strategic location as a gateway to Asia, by 1967 Hong Kong was served by twenty-
six airlines with scheduled services. hese included trans-Paciic airlines such as
Pan American World, Northwest Orient, and Canadian Paciic, and those provid-
ing regional services, such as Japan Airlines and Malaysia-Singapore Airlines.17 he
only Hong Kong–based airline was Cathay Paciic, owned by the prominent British
trading hong, Butterield & Swire. (In 1959 Cathay Paciic had taken over its much
smaller rival, Hong Kong Airways.) Flying within Asia, Cathay Paciic saw its busi-
ness grow at an average annual rate of 20 percent during the 1960s, carrying its one
millionth passenger in 1964. Besides, Butterield & Swire founded the Hong Kong
Aircrat Engineering Company, based in the colony’s Kai Tak Airport, to provide
13. Report of the Working Committee on Tourism 1956 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1956).
14. A Touristic Guide to Hong Kong, 69–70.
15. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Annual Report 1966/7 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1967);
and Hong Kong Report for the Year 1966 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1967), 165–69.
16. D. Clayton Brown, Globalization and America since 1945 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003), 72.
17. Hong Kong Report for the Year 1967 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1968), 162–63; and A Touristic Guide
to Hong Kong, 3–4.
maintenance and repairing facilities to world airlines.18 Together with convenient

entry and exit regulations and eicient land transportation, these made Hong Kong
the major crossroads of communication routes in East Asia.
Hotels were another main pillar of Hong Kong’s tourist industry. In 1966, there
were around thirty-three major hotels of diferent price ranges, ofering a total of
6,089 rooms (11,031 beds).19 Among the most historic and luxurious was the
Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, opened in 1928 and owned by the enterprising Kadoorie
family. Decorated in neoclassical style and famous for its British-style aternoon tea,
the Peninsula was the place where, in late December 1941, Hong Kong governor
Sir Mark Young formally surrendered to the Japanese invaders. In the mid-1960s, the
hotel was one of the most popular choices for high-spending Japanese tourists (prob-
ably due to Japanese guidebooks’ promotion of its “glorious” past during the Second
World War).20 An equally luxurious but newer hotel was the Mandarin, which oi-
cially opened its doors in 1963. Located on the Victoria Harbour waterfront, the 650-
room Mandarin Hotel was owned by the Hong Kong Land Company, the property
development arm of the famous British trading irm Jardine, Matheson & Company.21
In 1967 both the Peninsula and the Mandarin were honored by the leading US men’s
magazine, Esquire, as being among the twenty-nine “Grand Hotels of the World,”
and the Mandarin was additionally chosen by Fortune magazine as one of eleven
“imperturbable oases in a clamorous world.”22
American-funded multinational companies invested in Hong Kong’s hotel indus-
try. he Hilton Hotel chain chose Hong Kong as the site for its irst branch in East
Asia and the largest outside North America. Opened in 1963, the Hong Kong Hilton
in the Central District was the city’s largest hotel to date, with almost 900 rooms
and suites. Chinese business groups in Hong Kong, too, were interested in the lucra-
tive industry. he Miramar Hotel and Investment Company, founded by a Chinese
merchant, opened the elegant Hotel Miramar in Kowloon as a springboard for the
expansion of its hotel-chain business.23
Shopping was one of the main attractions of Hong Kong, which was internation-
ally renowned as a “shopping paradise” by the mid-1960s. Prices were low and com-
petitive in this free port with no customs duties, with the exception of a few items
such as tobacco and liquor. Products from all around the world were on ofer, ranging
18. Feng Bangyan, Xianggang Yingzi caituan, 1841–1996 [British business groups in Hong Kong, 1841–1996]
(Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1996), 168–72; and Cathay Paciic Airways Ltd., http://www.cathaypaciic.
com/cpa/en_INTL/aboutus/cxbackground/history.
19. Digest of Annual Statistics—1972 Hong Kong, 22.
20. Leo Ou-fan Lee, City between Worlds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 144.
21. Feng, Xianggang Yingzi caituan, 54–57, 145–53.
22. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Hong Kong Travel Bulletin 9 (12) (December 1967).
23. Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992, 215; and Feng, Xianggang huazi caituan,
1841–1997, 224–25.
166 Chi-Kwan Mark
from Western watches and Japanese appliances (some of them priced more cheaply
than in the country of origin) to China-manufactured handicrats and locally tailored
suits (the latter particularly popular among American tourists).24 Moreover, large and
elegant shopping centers sprung up in the 1960s, some within or adjacent to major
hotels and some in the busy entertainment districts. Among the latter was the Ocean
Terminal in Kowloon, a modern cruise terminal with a two-story shopping arcade
that opened in 1966. he Ocean Terminal, owned by the Jardine Matheson subsidiary
Kowloon Wharf & Godown Company Limited, was a stimulus to Hong Kong’s travel
industry, visited by the world’s seventh-largest passenger vessel, the P & O luxury
cruiseliner Canberra, on the day it opened.25
Hong Kong ofered a variety of entertainment and sightseeing spots that provided
“place-speciic” experiences—or what John Urry has termed “the tourist gaze.”26
One popular place for tourists to gaze upon was Tiger Balm Gardens on Hong Kong
Island. he HKTA hailed this lavishly built garden with grottoes and pavilions
displaying eigies from Chinese mythology as “a mecca for sightseers local and
foreign.”27 But perhaps the most famous example of “the (American) tourist gaze”
was Wanchai, an entertainment and nightlife district on Hong Kong Island. he suc-
cessful Hollywood movie he World of Suzie Wong, produced by Ray Stark in 1960
and based on a best-selling novel by British author Richard Mason, and the resultant
American popular imagery of Wanchai / Hong Kong as the “exotic Other,” did much
to promote the fame and development of Wanchai. Set in 1950s Hong Kong, the
movie depicted an American expatriate falling in love with and “saving” a beautiful
Chinese girl named Suzie Wong who worked as a prostitute in Wanchai. As a result,
Wanchai became the wonderful “world of Suzie Wong,” with girlie bars, dance halls,
brothels, restaurants, and tailors springing up to cater to American visitors, especially
the numerous military personnel on rest and recreation.28 (It is worth noting that
Wanchai had historically been a district of drinking and prostitution serving the local
population.)29
24. Hong Kong Travel Bulletin 7 (10) (October 1965); and A Touristic Guide to Hong Kong, 44.
25. Feng, Xianggang Yingzi caituan, 155–56.
26. According to Urry’s deinition of “the tourist gaze,” tourism and travel “involve the notion of ‘departure,’ of a
limited breaking with established routines and practices of everyday life and allowing one’s senses to engage
with a set of stimuli that contrast with the everyday and the mundane.” John Urry, he Tourist Gaze, 2nd ed.
(London: Sage, 2002), 2.
27. Hong Kong Travel Bulletin 8 (3) (March 1966).
28. Arthur Hacker, Wanchai (Hong Kong: Odyssey, 1997), 100–101; and Andrew Coe, Eagles and Dragons:
A History of Americans in China and the Origins of the American Club in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: he
American Club, 1997), 168, 184.
29. See Carl T. Smith, “Wanchai: In Search of an Identity,” in Hong Kong: A Reader in Social History, ed.
David Faure (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2003), 157–207.
Image 6.2
Lockhart Road, Wanchai, 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
Private travel writers and publishers helped to project a speciic image of “Tourist
Hong Kong.” “Before 1997,” as two scholars put it, “Hong Kong was constructed, rep-
resented, and performed as the ‘exotic’ East with Western colonial characteristics.”30
True, Hong Kong was a unique East-meets-West hybrid, ofering exotic Chinese
cuisine and oriental sightseeing on the one hand, and colonial-style hotels and
modern shopping on the other. A travel book on Hong Kong, written by the pub-
lisher of a monthly travel magazine of the Paciic Area Travel Association, referred
to shopping in Hong Kong as “an adventure” and “a sightseeing excursion.” Another
travel writer, who had lived locally as an American journalist for ive years, wrote that
Hong Kong, which means “Fragrant Harbour” in Chinese, had “the most beautiful
and best-developed harbour in Asia.” Perhaps the author of the book Hong Kong in
Pictures best captured the hybrid city that was Hong Kong: “By modern standards
of world politics Hong Kong should not exist. It is a British Crown Colony in an age
30. Ngai-Ling Sum with Mei-Chi So, “he Paradox of a Tourist Centre: Hong Kong as a Site of Play and a
Place of Fear,” in Tourism Mobilities: Places to Play, Places in Play, ed. Mimi Sheller and John Urry (London:
Routledge, 2004), 119.
168 Chi-Kwan Mark
when colonialism has been buried beneath the surging tides of nationalism. . . . But
the Colony lives on, a sometimes harmonious sometimes strained combination of
rich and poor, intrigue and industry, East and West.”31
Nevertheless, as a “tourism space,” Hong Kong was bound to be imagined, con-
structed, and used diferently by foreign visitors and foreign governments. In the
mid-1960s, Hong Kong’s tourism was politicized by the escalating Vietnam War and
the radicalized Chinese Cultural Revolution: the city became a sensitive and con-
tested place for American tourists, both military and civilian.32
Regulating American Military Tourism: Hong Kong and the Vietnam War
With its British colonial status and deep-water harbor, Hong Kong had been used as a
liberty port by the US Seventh Fleet ever since the Korean War of 1950–53. With the
gradual escalation of the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, Hong Kong’s role as an R & R
center for the United States became more important than ever.33 Visiting American
military personnel came by air and particularly by sea. Naval ships could call at
the British naval base at HMS Tamar. he larger vessels usually docked at Victoria
Harbour and used ferries to bring the sailors ashore at Fenwick Pier in Wanchai, one
reason why for alcohol- and sex-starved American servicemen Wanchai became the
popular “world of Suzie Wong.”
In 1965, the year when President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration committed
US ground troops to Vietnam, 330 naval vessels called at Hong Kong. he next year,
the total number reached the all-time high of 390, bringing to the colony approxi-
mately 185,000 service personnel (including those coming by military aircrat).34
A comprehensive study of the pattern of tourist spending and its impact on the
local economy in 1966, commissioned by the HKTA and based on interviews with
4,800 tourists of all nationalities and a further 200 US naval personnel, underscored
the “great importance” of tourists from the armed forces. hat year, Hong Kong earned
an estimated minimum total revenue of HK$1.0042 billion (US $160 million) from
31. Frederic M. Rea, A Sunset Travel Book: Hong Kong (Menlo Park, CA: Lane Magazine & Book, 1965 and
1969), 43 and 51; Morgan J. Vittengl, All Round Hong Kong (Wheaton, UK: A. Wheaton, 1964), 11; and
James Nach, Hong Kong in Pictures (New York: Sterling, 1963), 7.
32. From a purely economic perspective, the Hong Kong tourist industry faced other problems and challenges
too, for example, a shortage of hotel rooms, competition from other tourist destinations in Asia, and—
by the late 1960s—the question of extensions to Kai Tak Airport to cope with the growing air traic and
larger jumbo jets.
33. For a comprehensive analysis of the American use of Hong Kong as an R & R center and its broader
international and domestic implications, see Chi-Kwan Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists: US Naval Visits to
Hong Kong and British-American-Chinese Relations, 1965–1968,” Cold War History 10 (1) (February 2010):
1–28.
34. Hong Kong to Foreign Oice, January 27, 1967, FCO 21/73 FC3/8, the National Archives [hereater TNA],
Kew, London.
tourists. Military tourists, who constituted 27 percent of the 675,000 visitors, were
estimated to have spent a minimum of HK$316.9 million locally. hey also tended to
stay longer (an average of 5.8 days as opposed to 4.4 days) and were more likely than
their civilian counterparts to shop.35
If the colonial and American governments were eager to transform Hong Kong
into a major R & R center, the Chinese government, bearing in mind the “century
of humiliation” of Western gunboat diplomacy, saw the city as a diferent kind of
“space.” he Johnson administration’s escalation of the Vietnam War in July 1965 and
the accidental crash of a US air transport plane of Hong Kong waters in late August
provoked China into lodging what would be the irst of a series of diplomatic protests
with the British government. In their note of September 1, the Chinese Communists
warned against using Hong Kong “as a base of operations for the United States war of
aggression against Viet Nam.” Drawing attention to numerous visits by US warships,
planes, and military personnel as well as alleged American military procurement in
Hong Kong, they argued that these “criminal activities” not only “endangered the
peaceful life of the inhabitants of Hong Kong and the safety of their life and prop-
erty” but also “posed an increasingly grave threat to the security of China and of
Southeast Asia.” Finally, the note of protest irmly demanded that the British govern-
ment should immediately take “efective measures” to end all aggressive US activities
in Hong Kong, and that otherwise the British government “must bear full respon-
sibility for all the consequences arising therefrom.”36 On February 1, 1966, Beijing
delivered its second protest note to the British, triggered by the recent US resump-
tion of bombing of North Vietnam and visits by several naval vessels to Hong Kong.
Referring to the concentration in the harbor of as many as nine warships, including
the nuclear-powered carrier Enterprise, which had lately been on duty of Vietnam,
the note asserted that the United States was “attempting further to use Hong Kong as
a springboard for its future attack on China’s mainland.”37
On receiving these Chinese protests, Sir David Trench, Hong Kong’s governor,
deliberated over possible responses, consulting both the British government and the
American consulate general and US Service Liaison oicers in Hong Kong. Following
the irst protest note in September 1965, they agreed to suspend temporarily (for
ten days) visits by US troops from Vietnam. he governor also ensured that no
naval ships would be granted access during the sensitive period of the two Chinese
national days, from October 1 to October 10. Likewise, ater China’s second protest
in early 1966, the Hong Kong authorities requested that the United States postpone
35. Robert C. Hazell for Hong Kong Tourist Association, he Tourist Industry in Hong Kong, 1966 (Short Report)
(Hong Kong: Far East Research Organization and Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1967).
36. Beijing to Foreign Oice, no. 1070, September 1, 1965, FCO 40/56, TNA.
37. Beijing to Foreign Oice, no. 88 and no. 89, February 1, 1966, DEFE 11/537, TNA.
170 Chi-Kwan Mark
the visit of the carrier Ticonderoga for several weeks, to avoid possible trouble with
Beijing.38
hese cancellations and postponement notwithstanding, the British decided that
the program of R & R visits should be allowed to continue. One reason was that the
Hong Kong government was acutely aware of the economic beneits from American
military tourism. Both the governor and Whitehall oicials, moreover, were rather
skeptical over just how genuine Chinese fears that Hong Kong was being used as a
“US base of aggression” really were. As Trench told top US oicials when he visited
Washington in mid-1966, “the Chinese were not very touchy in this context,” and
“they would prefer to overlook the [naval] visits if they could do so without losing
face.”39 Beijing had ater all failed to follow up its threats in both protest notes. he
British assessment was that the Chinese protests were primarily propaganda exercises,
intended not least to demonstrate solidarity with North Vietnam in the light of the
intensiication of the Sino-Soviet split, by then almost a decade old.40 he governor of
Hong Kong and the British Foreign Oice therefore decided to send an unpolemical
reply to each of the two Chinese protest notes, stressing that Hong Kong was used
primarily for rest and recreation by the Americans, but not as a military base.41
he governor could not, however, completely ignore the Chinese complaints and
sensitivities. If the outright closure of Hong Kong’s harbor and airspace was out of the
question, Trench nonetheless thought that the lows of American military personnel
should be regulated in a more formal manner. Until that time, apart from occasional
informal restrictions, no institutional machinery governing the American use of
the various facilities in Hong Kong had existed. It was therefore decided that the
British and American governments should initiate negotiations to formulate some
ground rules for US naval visits to Hong Kong. By late May 1966, ater months of
talks, they had agreed upon a set of Anglo-American guidelines. hese allowed the
Hong Kong government to determine the scale and pattern of US naval visits, thereby
minimizing the risk of provoking Beijing. Accordingly, any increase in the number
of troops coming in from Vietnam “should be unobtrusive and take place by easy
stages.” here should be no undue concentration of ships at any one time, with twelve
being the upper limit; the total number of visiting personnel in Hong Kong at any
one time should not exceed 8,000; and any publicity of operational activities by visiting
vessels should be avoided for one month prior to their scheduled visits. Meanwhile,
it was agreed that a Consultative Group, consisting of the colonial authorities and the
38. “U.S. Forces to Resume Hong Kong Rest Visits,” New York Times (September 16, 1965); and Hong Kong to
Colonial Oice, no. 173, February 16, 1966, PREM 13/1253, TNA.
39. Trench to Wallace, July 29, 1966, CO 1030/1752, TNA.
40. Beijing to Foreign Oice, no. 89, February 1, 1966, DEFE 11/537; and Beijing to Foreign Oice, no. 76,
January 29, 1966, PREM 13/1253, TNA.
41. Text of reply to Chinese Note of September 1, 1965, FCO 40/56, TNA.
British service commanders on the one hand, and personnel from the American con-
sulate and US naval representatives on the other, should be established in Hong Kong
to oversee the implementation of these guidelines.42 he spatial and temporal regula-
tion of US naval visits within the framework of the new guidelines proved successful
during 1966, a year in which the record number of 390 warships visited Hong Kong.
Image 6.3
Lockhart Road, Wanchai, 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
In March 1967, shortly ater the nuclear-powered aircrat carrier Enterprise visited
Hong Kong, China lodged a third diplomatic protest with the British government,
repeating the themes of the previous two notes.43 But it was the outbreak of riots in
Hong Kong in early May that really threatened future inluxes of both American mili-
tary and indeed civilian tourists. Beginning with an industrial dispute in Kowloon
and inspired by the radicalized Cultural Revolution in mainland China, let-wing
elements in Hong Kong launched what would grow into a year-long, territory-wide
42. “Guide-lines for Use of Facilities in Hong Kong by US Armed Forces,” May 31, 1966, and Holford to Hyland,
February 23, 1966, FCO 40/59, TNA.
43. Beijing to Foreign Oice, no. 311, March 21, 1967, FCO 40/56, TNA.
172 Chi-Kwan Mark
anticolonial struggle characterized by demonstrations, strikes, border clashes, and

terror bombings.44
he deteriorating security situation in Hong Kong made visits by US ships and
service personnel more sensitive but also more vital than ever. he American visitors
were now regarded as not just economically valuable but also politically useful: their
presence could boost local morale and conidence. At a time when let-wing rioters
threatened the authorities with strikes and bombs, the governor of Hong Kong and
Whitehall oicials all thought it essential to maintain the support and loyalties of the
rest of the population. Any large-scale cancellations of R & R visits “might depress
local non-Communists and encourage the Chinese to demand formally that the visits
should end altogether.” In addition, the presence of US vessels would be useful to the
colonial government in the event that it became necessary to undertake an emergency
evacuation of British and other foreign nationals from Hong Kong, a scenario under
consideration in London in the critical months of July through December 1967.45
he British response was also inluenced by their assessments of Chinese inten-
tions toward Hong Kong during 1967. Preoccupied with the anticolonial struggle
in Hong Kong and the “seizure of power” at home, despite occasional propaganda
attacks by the radical rebels and Red Guards, during the riots Chinese leaders by
and large remained silent on the question of US naval visits. Ater delivering its note
of March 1967, Beijing made no further protests until early 1968, ater the riots had
ended.46 British oicials estimated, quite correctly, that economically China beneited
just as much as Hong Kong from US naval visits. A lourishing Hong Kong tourist
economy—and indeed the continuation of British rule—was a guarantee of foreign
exchange earnings for the People’s Republic. For all their verbal and material support
for the local Maoists, in 1967 Mao and Zhou were therefore not prepared to jeopard-
ize the “tourism space” of Hong Kong.47
If Beijing made no fuss over the visits of US naval ships during the riots, neither
did the Hong Kong Maoists turn visiting American service personnel into targets
for demonstrations and physical attacks. In practice, the guest-host relationship of
American tourists in Hong Kong had always been harmonious. he locals gener-
ally demonstrated no hostility toward Americans and other gweilo (foreign devils).48
44. See Gary Ka-wai Cheung, Hong Kong’s Watershed: he 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 2009); and Robert Bickers and Ray Yep, eds., May Days in Hong Kong: Riot and Emergency in 1967
45. Hong Kong to Commonwealth Oice, no. 639, May 18, 1967, FCO 21/217, TNA; and minutes of Ministerial
Committee on Hong Kong, K(67)1st meeting, July 24, 1967, CAB 134/2945, TNA.
46. Hong Kong to Commonwealth Oice, no. 835, June 14, 1967, FCO 21/217, TNA.
47. Ma Jisen, Waijiaobu wenhua dageming jishi [he Cultural Revolution in the Foreign Ministry of China]
(Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2004), 155–63; and Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, Zhou Enlai:
A Political Life (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2006), 261.
48. For an interesting account of local encounters with foreigners, see May Holdsworth, Foreign Devils:
Expatriates in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Although incidents due to drunkenness and thet sometimes occurred, the majority
of visiting American military personnel did not behave like “ugly Americans” and
thereby provoke resentment and resistance within the host society. (Hong Kong
never, for example, witnessed anti-American riots and activities resembling those
that erupted in Taiwan in 1957 and Japan in 1968.) As Governor Trench made plain
to London, “he U.S. servicemen on leave have been (a) well superintended and dis-
ciplined and (b) rich.”49 In Hong Kong, the US Navy Shore Patrol, which was posted
with the British Military Police, helped maintain discipline among American military
personnel. In the interests of avoiding embarrassment with the colonial authorities
and, worse still, a diplomatic row between London and Beijing, the patrol usually, for
example, quickly arrested any drunken American sailors who caused trouble on the
streets before the Hong Kong police became involved. he United States was eager
to minimize chances of friction and incidents between visiting American military
tourists and the locals, not least to ensure that Hong Kong continued to support the
Vietnam War from afar.50
Image 6.4
US serviceman in rickshaw, 1960s. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
During the 1967 riots, minor incidents involving American targets did occur,
however. In late August, as the let-wing bombing campaign was under way, a terror-
ist bomb shattered an elevator in the US-inanced Hong Kong Hilton Hotel. Although
no one was hurt, this was the second bomb found in the hotel in four days, the irst
49. Hong Kong to Commonwealth Oice, no. 70, January 17, 1967, FCO 21/216, TNA.
50. Hong Kong to Department of State, no. A-493, February 24, 1967, Box 2176, Central Foreign Policy Files,
1967–1969, Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State [hereater RG59], US National
Archives II [hereater NA], College Park, Maryland, United States.
174 Chi-Kwan Mark
one being a small bomb within a cigar tin which had been safely removed and deto-
nated.51 As the American consul general assessed the Hilton incident and the more
general implications of the bomb campaign, he feared “the Hilton bombing may . . .
have a negative efect on the tourist trade, as it is now apparent that even the Hilton
Hotel is vulnerable to terrorist attack.”52 he violence and terror of the latter part of
1967 did indeed have a deterrent efect on civilian American tourists.
Reviving American Civilian Tourism: Selling Hong Kong to the World
he United Nations designated 1967 as “International Tourist Year.” Its motto of

“Tourism, Passport to Peace” envisaged that the tourist industry would “contrib-
ute even more strongly towards the welfare of mankind” and “the improvement of
the economies of countries.”53 As a key player in world tourism, Hong Kong undoubt-
edly beneited from the publicity surrounding this international event: in the
irst six months of 1967, the number of visitors reached 253,250, an increase of
19.25 percent over the same period in 1966, with 11,010 Americans arriving in June
alone.54 But the escalation of the rioting from July 1967 onward into border clashes
and terror bombing adversely afected the low of American visitors to Hong Kong.
In September 1967, for the irst time in a decade the number of American civil-
ian tourists (7,974) coming to Hong Kong fell below those who had visited during
the same month in the preceding year (12,396), a pattern that continued through
December 1967. Assessing the possible causes of this decline, the North American
representative of the HKTA later wrote, “he exaggerated reports of disturbances in
Hong Kong through all media of publicity in the United States during the latter half
of 1967 had an inhibitive efect on travel of Americans to Hong Kong.”55
he Hong Kong riots undoubtedly attracted widespread international media cov-
erage, in terms of both accurate reportage and of speculative commentary, shiting
between optimism over British colonial rule and pessimism over Hong Kong’s future
according to the ever-changing local security situation. From May 1967 onward,
for example, the New York Times, one of the most widely circulated US newspa-
pers, provided detailed coverage of the disturbances. During the irst two months
or thereabouts of rioting, the newspaper remained fairly conident that the British
would be able to restore law and order. On May 28, its correspondent wrote that
“the British Government in Hong Kong can take pride in the fact that it has emerged
51. Reuters, “Bomb Goes Of in Hotel,” New York Times (August 22, 1967).
52. Hong Kong to Department of State, no. A-70, August 25, 1967, Box 2176, Central Foreign Policy Files,
1967–1969, RG59, NA.
53. Hong Kong Report for the Year 1967, 162.
54. Hong Kong Travel Bulletin 9 (8) (August 1967).
55. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Annual Report 1967/8 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1968),
21 and 11.
successfully from the irst bout with the Maoist revolution.” On June 22, he reported
that “Hong Kong is again functioning normally.” But in subsequent months, as mili-
tary clashes between British colonial and Chinese forces took place on the border
and terror bombings occurred in urban areas, the reports became more alarmist in
tone. hroughout July, articles on Hong Kong bearing headlines such as “Gunire
from Red China Kills 4 Hong Kong Police,” “Hong Kong Beset by New Violence,”
and “Chinese Letists Continue Terrorism in Hong Kong” peppered the newspa-
per. In mid-August 1967 its correspondent reported that local Maoists had begun
“using Chinese Army grenades in their terrorist attacks,” and in early September that
the British had erected “a coiled barbed-wire fence” along the Hong Kong–China
border.56 Other US news media likewise featured alarming, even highly exaggerated,
reports. On July 17, 1967, an Associated Press article stated, “Hong Kong represents
serious new threat to peace. If Communist China decides exert heavy pressure to
force Britain to withdraw, a major Asian war or even a world war could break out,”
in which the United States “could become involved.”57
he colonial government and Hong Kong businessmen were deeply worried by the
impact on tourism. In September 1967, hotel bookings fell, visits became shorter, and
the number of American tourists dropped sharply.58 hat month, Governor Trench
drew London’s attention to his concerns over the attitude of major British airlines and
shipping companies toward Hong Kong. He noted that the British Overseas Airways
Corporation was “not being very active in the promotion of travel to Hong Kong” and
was unwilling to assist Hong Kong’s eforts “to counteract Communist propaganda
by air-freighting Hong Kong newspapers free of charge to certain places overseas.”
Meanwhile, the P & O Company was “considering reducing the duration of the visits
of some of their liners [to Hong Kong] next year.”59 International conidence in the
local economy as a whole, moreover, seemed to have been shaken, with a light of
capital (especially through the free market in US dollars) from politically turbulent
Hong Kong to safer havens, at least temporarily.60 he Federation of Hong Kong
Industries was concerned that overseas buyers had displayed “a marked hesitancy”
56. “Hong Kong Pause,” New York Times (May 28, 1967); “Hong Kong Living Normally a Month ater Riots,”
New York Times (June 22, 1967); “Gunire from Red China Kills 4 Hong Kong Police,” New York Times (July 8,
1967); Associated Press, “Hong Kong Beset by New Violence: Transport Is Cut Sharply by Communist
Intimidation,” New York Times (July 12, 1967); United Press International, “Chinese Letists Continue
Terrorism in Hong Kong,” New York Times (July 24, 1967); “Hong Kong Reds Add to Arsenal: Chinese
Reported Using Red Army Grenades,” New York Times (August 14, 1967); and Associated Press, “Hong Kong
Erecting Fence,” New York Times (September 3, 1967).
57. Associated Press article, July 17, 1967, as cited in Hong Kong to Department of State, no. 423, July 19, 1967,
Box 1969, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, RG59, NA.
58. “Reds’ Violence in Hong Kong hreatens Vital Tourist Trade,” New York Times (September 10, 1967).
59. Hong Kong to Commonwealth Oice, no. 1355, September 7, 1967, FCO 40/105, TNA.
60. See Catherine R. Schenk, “he Empire Strikes Back: Hong Kong and the Decline of Sterling in the 1960s,”
Economic History Review 57 (3) (August 2004): 561–70.
176 Chi-Kwan Mark
to place orders for domestically manufactured products, particularly in the months

of May and June.61
Given these exaggerated overseas reports about Hong Kong, colonial oicials
considered it imperative to launch a massive information campaign. Its objectives
were to present a balanced view of the riots and to project to the international com-
munity the image of a vibrant and stable Hong Kong. he HKTA played a key role
in this enterprise. During the year 1967–68, it distributed a total of 1,225,562 books,
brochures, pamphlets, display pieces, and other items of promotional material locally
and abroad. It launched a very successful postcard project, with visitors and residents
alike encouraged to send postcards featuring various illustrations of Hong Kong by
renowned Czech author and illustrator Miroslav Sasek to their friends around the
world, conveying the message that all was well in the colony. With the HKTA paying
the postage, more than 22,000 postcards were dispatched to 127 diferent countries.62
he campaign of “selling Hong Kong” targeted American nationals in particular.
In the United States, the HKTA maintained oices in San Francisco, where an infor-
mation director was stationed, and New York. (It also had overseas representation in
Canada, Britain, Japan, Australia / New Zealand, and the Middle East.) To counteract
exaggerated US media reports, the HKTA and its San Francisco and New York rep-
resentatives used diverse methods, including press releases, circulating statements by
the governor of Hong Kong, distributing photographs of tourists in Hong Kong to
their hometown newspapers, making contact with travel writers and editors, giving
special lectures and seminars on Hong Kong, and giving interviews to all types of
publicity media. To reach out to as many potential Hong Kong visitors as possible, the
HKTA, working with Cathay Paciic and leading travel agents, undertook a program
of special presentations in twenty-two US cities. Seeking to catch American atten-
tion, the HKTA and the Trade Development Council chartered a locally built Chinese
pleasure junk—an icon of “Tourist Hong Kong”—and shipped it to the United States,
where it was displayed in several cities. A specially written new booklet, What Every
American Should Know about Shopping in Hong Kong, produced by the Department
of Commerce and Industry, was distributed within the United States. American air-
lines applying for trans-Paciic routes to Hong Kong also received assistance.63
Private actors, too, played an active part. Both locally and overseas, airline pro-
prietors, hotel and shop owners, and travel agents and writers were indeed just as
anxious as the colonial authorities to revive the low of visitors. November in particu-
lar witnessed various activities and openings that contributed in one way or another
to the subsequent revival of the tourist and travel industry. he month began with
61. he Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Annual Report 1967 (Hong Kong: Federation of Hong Kong
Industries, 1968), 6.
62. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Annual Report 1967/8, 10.
63. Ibid., 11–12; and Hong Kong Report for the Year 1967, 164.
the inauguration of the Hong Kong Festival of Fashions, which showcased locally
produced clothes to potential buyers and top fashion writers from all over the world.
Next came Hong Kong Week, intended to promote the sale of locally manufactured
products as well as a sense of community among the population in the light of
the let-wing riots. he organizers and sponsors of both events, who included the
HKTA and the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, had decided to proceed with
the opening despite the continuing disturbances because they wished to convey a
message of “business as usual” to both the local population and the outside world.64
In the course of Hong Kong Week, the irst Trans International DC8/61 jet plane
landed at the city to collect a party of 244 American doctors and their wives bound for
the United States. hirty-ive American irms based in Hong Kong also demonstrated
their conidence in its economy and society by hosting a 2,000-guest reception at the
swanky Hong Kong Hilton. In December, a new wing opened at the Miramar Hotel,
with an extra 268 rooms, boosting Hong Kong’s hotel accommodation capacity to
more than 6,000 rooms. A group of nineteen American travel agents arrived to obtain
a irsthand view of the current situation in Hong Kong. In an interview reported in the
HKTA’s travel bulletin, with worldwide distribution, the vice president of the Paciic
operations of the American International Travel Service enthused, “Hong Kong has a
great travel potential. Your hotels are superb, restaurants are marvelous and there is
unlimited scope for sightseeing and, of course, shopping.”65
Image 6.5
Star House, Tsim Sha Tsui, 1974. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
64. Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Annual Report 1967, 11–12 and 14–15.
65. Hong Kong Travel Bulletin 9 (12) (December 1967); 9 (11) (November 1967).
178 Chi-Kwan Mark
hanks to the eforts of oicial and private stakeholders in the industry, together
with the colonial government’s ultimate suppression of the riots, by the end of 1967
the HKTA’s representative in America observed “a strong upward surge of favour-
able Hong Kong publicity in press, radio and television.”66 For all of 1967, the overall
number of US tourists dropped by 1.69 percent to 140,332, and the increase in
tourism as a whole was a mere 4.28 percent instead of the 15 percent or more origi-
nally anticipated. Yet Hong Kong’s tourist industry was resilient; it weathered the
political storm of 1967 and recovered quickly the following year. In 1968 the number
of tourists grew by 17.26 percent to 618,410, including 158,915 civilian visitors from
the United States.67 Hong Kong was once again a dynamic world tourist city.
Conclusion: Hong Kong Agency in the Globalization of American

Tourism
Ater 1945 globalization and mass tourism were mutually reinforcing developments.
A traditionally free travel space, Hong Kong was part and parcel of the globaliza-
tion of tourism. Major international and regional airlines operated in and through
Hong Kong, new hotels sprang up while the older ones expanded in size, and the city
became the “shopping paradise” of the world. For Americans, whether businessmen,
leisure travelers, or military personnel on rest and recreation, Hong Kong was one
of the most desirable destinations in Asia, second only to Japan. Yet the globaliza-
tion of American tourism was a highly politicized process. Because of its strategic
location, Hong Kong became embroiled in the geopolitics of the Vietnam War and
the political spillover of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In the mid-1960s, Beijing
repeatedly protested against what it claimed was the US Navy’s use of Hong Kong
as a “base of aggression” against North Vietnam. Meanwhile, in 1967 let-wing ele-
ments in Hong Kong carried out their own Cultural Revolution–style struggle against
the authorities. Sandwiched between American demands for R & R facilities on the
one hand and the Chinese protests and local Maoist challenges on the other, the
Hong Kong government had to deliberate on the future of American tourism.
Yet Hong Kong was not a passive actor in the process of globalization through
travel. Signiicantly, “Hong Kong agency” was exercised by a host of players with
a stake in the local tourist industry: the colonial government and the semioicial
HKTA, the US–Hong Kong Consultative Group, British and multinational hotel
companies, and international and regional airline operators, not to mention countless
shop owners, travel writers, and media publishers within and beyond Hong Kong.
hese state and private actors, working either individually or collectively and oten
66. Hong Kong Tourist Association, Annual Report 1967/8, 11.

67. Hong Kong Report for the Year 1967, 165; Hong Kong Tourist Association, Annual Report 1968/9 (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Tourist Association, 1969), 11; and Digest of Annual Statistics—1972 Hong Kong, 29.
competing as much as cooperating with each other, all contributed to ensuring the
continuing lows of American tourists into Hong Kong despite the Vietnam War
and the anticolonial riots. Repeated Chinese protests did not impel the colonial
authorities to close Hong Kong’s harbor and airspace to US military tourists. Rather,
the British resorted to spatial regulation by negotiating with the Americans new
guidelines governing the scale of US naval visits, seeking simultaneously to address
Chinese sensitivities and satisfy ever-growing American demands for R & R facili-
ties. With the outbreak of the 1967 riots, supporting the Vietnam War from afar in
Hong Kong became more important than ever to British oicials. Beyond the eco-
nomic beneits, the presence of American ships and service personnel now ofered
the added political advantage of boosting domestic morale and conidence. In addi-
tion, the Hong Kong government, seeking to counteract exaggerated overseas reports
and project the image of a safe and prosperous city, conducted a massive information
campaign targeted at Americans. he HKTA and its overseas oices played an active
role in reviving the low of American civilian tourists, who had been afraid to visit
a locale reportedly plagued by violence and bombing. Private stakeholders in the
tourist industry—locally based American irms and the Chinese-owned Miramar
Hotel, for instance—were also involved in “selling” Hong Kong to the international
community both through verbal expressions of conidence and by expanding their
business operations.
In Hong Kong’s case, therefore, the globalization of American tourism did not
eliminate the autonomy of the local or the signiicance of place. Rather, the US gov-
ernment and American service personnel attached importance to the city as a unique
travel destination, diferent from other R & R centers in Asia, such as Bangkok and
Manila. Undoubtedly, Hong Kong had its “place-speciic” qualities (or “place myths”):
it symbolized the wonderful “world of Suzie Wong,” the hybrid city of East-meets-
West, and the Anglo-American special relationship on the ground. hus, Hong Kong
was able to exercise agency in regulating and capitalizing on the global lows and
processes of American tourism in the 1960s.
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7
“Reel Sisters” and Other Diplomacy
Cathay Studios and Cold War Cultural Production
Stacilee Ford
he character of Hong Kong ilm underwent a major change ater 1949, when
Communism successfully took over the mainland and Hong Kong became a
major launching ground for the West’s cultural eforts in its Cold War against
China. . . . As Hong Kong cinema gradually shook loose from its ties to the
mainland, it made a conscious attempt to be more like the West. Producers, even
those with clear political ailiations, became more entertainment-oriented when
“bottom line” was placed above ideology. . . . By the 1950s and 1960s, the ilm
industry had established a solid foundation. Yet closure of the mainland market
to Hong Kong ilms, drastic changes in the overseas Chinese communities, and
the ilmmakers’ desire to expand prompted the search for new markets. . . . [T]he
Hong Kong industry’s border-crossing endeavors long predated the “kung fu
craze” of the 1970s. he export of Hong Kong ilms and ilmmakers is not limited
to the John Woos and Jackie Chans of recent years. . . . One can also see in these
[Cold War] actors’ careers the changing role of women in Hong Kong society.1
On October 25, 1959, the Dinah Shore Show featured Grace Chang (Ge Lan),
a Shanghai-born singer and Hong Kong movie star, beloved by fans across East and
Southeast Asia (and in Chinese diasporic communities in the West). Chang partici-
pated in a glamorous Cold War “border-crossing endeavor,” to borrow Law Kar and
Frank Bren’s phrase from the epigraph above. Shore, herself a popular singer, actress,
and talk show host, devoted the entire hour to “favorite entertainers of the Orient.”
An estimated 60 million viewers across the United States watched Chang, perhaps
best known at that point for her role as a stylish and spunky Hong Kong teenager in
the Cathay Studios musical ilm Mambo Girl (1957), perform a Mandarin Chinese
ballad, “he Autumn Song.” Following her solo, Chang chitchatted with Shore and
Japanese screen idol Yukiji Asaoka. Shore gushed with approval at the luency of
Chang’s English and expressed surprise that she had learned it in a French convent
school in China. (“hat’s quite a combination!” Shore exclaimed.)
hroughout the show, the three women detly modeled the sort of cross-cultural
exchange that Christina Klein has noted in her work, demonstrating that US popular
1. Law Kar and Frank Bren, Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View (Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2004), xviii.
184 Stacilee Ford
culture was an important megaphone for Cold War rhetoric.2 Broadway plays,
Hollywood ilms, and popular music reduced audience anxiety about the foreign
within and beyond the borders of the nation. Shore, Chang, and Asaoka, like all
of the women discussed in this chapter, were engaged in what Susan Henders and
Mary Young have called “other diplomacy.” As nonstate actors, women who shared in
the labor of cultural production wielded sot power by using their talent and celebrity
to encourage amicable international relations between America and Asia. he other
diplomacy these women performed included acting, singing, and dancing to soten
the edges of geopolitical conlict. Additionally, as these “reel” women (their personal
lives oten revealed a diferent negotiation with modernity) portrayed new models of
womanhood, they gently braced audiences for real social change, including changes
in women’s expectations and desires. Women in Cold War Hong Kong ilms, par-
ticularly those of the 1950s and 1960s, blended seemingly disparate cultural values
and national ideologies, cherry-picking tradition and ofering audiences a chance to
“try on” new ways of communicating, consuming, and being in the rapidly changing
postwar world.3
I began this discussion of celebrity women as other diplomats with Grace Chang
because her performances of womanhood and other diplomacy (the two were oten
linked) are not only among the best known to Hong Kong audiences; they varied
with setting and circumstance as well. In the United States, Chang was co-opted into
the American Orientalist project, à la Klein. On the October 1959 Shore show, the
trio performed a song and dance routine featuring the Rodgers and Hammerstein
ballad “Getting to Know You” (from the Broadway musical he King and I) before
an appreciative studio audience, including attentive young children attired in various
pan-Asian fashions. Chang was warm and gracious but endlessly deferential to Shore.
What I had not realized until I watched Chang’s appearances on Shore’s show
and in the 1955 ilm Soldier of Fortune was that, in Hollywood, Chang, for whatever
reason, acted nothing like she did on Hong Kong screens. his was of course neither
the irst nor the last time a star would—by choice or coercion or both—conform
to the ilm industry’s narrow and exoticized view of Chinese womanhood. In the
same period, Cathay Studios star Li Lihua, cast repeatedly in Hong Kong ilms as a
strong-willed, sophisticated, and outspoken diva, made her irst (and last!) American
appearance in the 1958 ilm China Doll. As the dowdy and timid war bride of the
gallant soldier Victor Mature, when Li speaks at all, it is in Chinese (to male inter-
preters who become brokers and mediators of her romance). In Hollywood, Chang
and Li were cast as exotic China dolls in need of the sort of “white knight” rescue
2. Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945–1961 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2003).
3. See Mary M. Young and Susan J. Henders, “‘Other Diplomacies’ and the Making of Canada-Asia Relations,”
Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 18 (3) (September 2012): 375–88.
“Reel Sisters” and Other Diplomacy 185
Gina Marchetti has noted in her work.4 In Hong Kong, their screen roles were very
diferent from those that Hollywood prescribed.
On both sides of the Paciic, women’s bodies, words, expressions, and emotions
were part of the gendered dance of diplomacy and important resources in the arsenal
of sot power. Here the emphasis is on other diplomacy as viewed through the lens of
gendered and racialized cultural production. On the Shore show, Chang played to a
self-orientalizing type Olivia Khoo has called “the Chinese exotic,” while Shore pro-
jected a maternal exceptionalism linked to her intersecting identities as white, female,
and American.5 Dressed as the twentieth-century incarnation of Anna Leonowens
of he King and I fame, Shore’s full skirt and cinched waist took up, literally, twice as
much of the television screen as either Chang’s cheongsam or Asaoka’s kimono. Shore
conidently sang stanzas of “Getting to Know You” in both Chinese and Japanese,
joined by Chang and Asaoka when their respective idioms were showcased. he
three concluded by singing the last verse of the homage to cross-cultural understand-
ing in English. As Klein has shown, he King and I “belonged to a distinct cultural
moment in which Americans turned their attention eastward. Between 1945 and
1961 American cultural producers churned out a steady stream of stories, iction and
noniction, that took Asia and the Paciic as their subject matter.”6 But what of similar
types of popular culture on the other side of the Paciic and the cultural producers
who had their own diplomatic agendas?
Image 7.1
Scenes from Mambo Girl (1957). Source: Ain-ling Wong, ed., he Cathay Story (2002).
4. Gina Marchetti, Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
5. Olivia Khoo, he Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2007).
6. Klein, Cold War Orientalism, 2.
186 Stacilee Ford
Chang’s performance of womanhood in the United States was conditioned by

American attitudes about nation, gender, race, and class, and it difered markedly
from her performances on movie screens and in media appearances in Hong Kong
and across Asia, where a diferent set of expectations was in play. In Hong Kong,
Chang herself—like the characters she played—walked, talked, and dressed in
Western fashions, like Dinah Shore. So did other Cathay stars who exuded pluck,
independence, and conidence in ways that marked them as a young and more
modern and Westernized generation.
he story is more complex, of course. Beyond a comparison of celebrity and star
performances across national borders, it is important to consider how Cathay ilms
engaged in other diplomacy. As Derek Lam has shown, there was a spectrum of
representations of women’s lives and various other subjects and issues on screen in
this period. Hong Kong cinema was a site of political and ideological negotiation
and conlict, particularly ater the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
in 1949 and during the Cold War. Lam’s work positions Cathay on a political spec-
trum that was much more closely ideologically aligned to Hollywood and the West
than to let-leaning, oten more pro-PRC studios. As such, Cathay’s representations
of women difered from those from studios producing Cantonese-speaking melo-
dramas or factory-girl comedies. Although Cathay also made ilms in Cantonese,
the studio is best known for its elaborate Mandarin musicals and melodramas, both
of which elevated escapist or romantic fantasy over gritty social reality. Even more
moderate ilms made by companies such as Union Film Enterprise Ltd. difered
fundamentally in their treatment of similar issues when compared to the way the
issues were engaged on Cathay screens. Lam argues that Cathay’s depiction of poverty
and working-class perspectives as opposed to those of the middle-class or elites in
Hong Kong was, when these subjects were portrayed at all, stilted or patronizing.7
What all of these studios and the cultural workers they employed shared was a
complex legacy of political and social change as a result of historical circumstances
and geographical position. Women’s rights were oten a key part of decoloniza-
tion or nationalist eforts, particularly in the early stages. Chang and other cultural
workers who were ailiated with the Cathay Studios—and this would extend to men
and women behind as well as in front of the camera, including screenwriters such
as Eileen Chang—were beneiciaries of agitation for change in both China and the
West. However, Cathay ilms were and are seen as more escapist and elitist than ilms
7. See Derek Hon-kong Lam, “he Cinema of Development: Class Factors and Global Trends in Hong Kong
Cinema” (PhD thesis, University of Hong Kong, 2013). Not only does Lam put the Cathay ilms in perspec-
tive, but he also does a ine job of making the case for Hong Kong ilm as an important and overlooked
archive of world cinema.
more vociferously critical of US and Western imperialisms, including the spread of

capitalist systems and ideology in Asia.8
Interestingly, partly because of their ideological position and connections to
Hollywood, Cathay ilms enjoyed wide distribution throughout the region and sig-
niicant popularity among audiences of all ages, and they were an important source of
inspiration and competition for the Shaw Brothers enterprise that would eventually
eclipse Cathay. hey are a rich archive that yields multiple examples of performances
of other diplomacy. In the Cathay ilms, women modeled myriad types of aspirational
femininity for multiple purposes, advancing egalitarian relationships, nurturing pro-
fessional aspirations, healing generational rits, and supporting families, schools, and
society in tumultuous times. Acting as anything but deferential on Asia’s ilm screens,
as they were directed to do in the United States, they were, rather, part of a woman-
centered, some might say protofeminist cinema displaying a menu of cosmopolitan
female modernity in a Hong Kong (and China) in lux.
I did not originally read the women of Cathay ilms in this light. Grace Chang’s
Cathay Studios ilm performances led me to oversimplify and categorize her in my
previous research as belonging to a cohort of “Americanized” Chinese women in
Hong Kong.9 What I failed to understand until I saw her again on US soil in her
Dinah Shore Show appearance (through the magic of YouTube) is that she and all of
her cinematic sisters were residents of what Gloria Anzaldua has called “the border-
lands” (more below). Simple categorizations fail to capture these performances. But
by viewing the Cathay ilms, we can appreciate how Chang and her peers were other
diplomats and how their performances of gender, class, nation, and ethnicity facili-
tated the adjustment to domestic and international shits in a moment of increased
trans-Paciic encounter. he importance of looking at how Asian cultural production
was in conversation with Hollywood and US power is driven home when we scruti-
nize more closely, rather than dismissing, that which was seen as both popular and
commercially successful. As Lisa Funnell and Philippa Gates have argued, “While the
impact of Hollywood on global cinema is signiicant, more important is to recognize
8. here is a growing body of work on the ilms made in this period, but much remains to be said about the
ways in which cultural production and political ideology shaped one another. he best place to start is the
Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) catalogues that discuss these issues in light of particular
ilms produced according to historical era. here are also some excellent retrospective works on the studios
and the ilms they produced as part of the HKIFF archive. In addition to Derek Lam’s work noted previously,
there is the scholarship and critiques of Poshek Fu, Law Kar, Stephen Teo, and Gina Marchetti. Lam is rightly
critical of Chang’s 1957 ilm Mambo Girl and its view of youth culture, poverty, and Hong Kong society.
He irst introduced me to the Cathay archive and continues to inform my perspective, although I believe
there is more going on in the Cathay melodramas than many scholars have acknowledged.
9. Stacilee Ford, Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2011).
188 Stacilee Ford
that the inluence runs both ways—and in multiple directions.”10 Hollywood style was
a touchstone and a taking-of point for Cathay ilms, but the messages were very
speciic to a place and time that difered dramatically from the US.
Hong Kong Film as Borderland Film
he second half of this chapter will consider women’s cinematic performances of

gender, nation, ethnicity, class, and historical time period through glimpses of three
Cathay Studios ilms produced in the Cold War borderland of Hong Kong. (Others
could have been chosen, as similar themes run throughout the archive, but space
requires limiting the analysis here to three examples.) Before doing so, however,
I frame the three ilms I wish to discuss within the theoretical context of transna-
tional feminism (sometimes equated with “hird Wave” feminism). Many scholars
have written about Hong Kong’s unique geographical and symbolic positioning but,
building on Law Kar and Frank Bren’s use of “border-crossing endeavors” above,
I invoke the borderlands trope that Latina feminist Gloria Anzaldua popularized in
the 1980s, when she argued, “Borderlands are physically present wherever two or
more cultures edge each other, where people of diferent races occupy the same terri-
tory, where under, lower, middle, and upper classes touch, where the space between
two individuals shrinks with intimacy.”11
he borderlands metaphor is appropriate here because Cathay ilms—like many
ilms made in Hong Kong during the Cold War—ofer insight into Hong Kong as
a borderland where individuals from a variety of nations, cultures, ethnic and sub-
ethnic groups, and socioeconomic classes dwelled. More than a contact zone, the
very location of Hong Kong both geographically as China’s borderland as well as its
history as a colonial “borrowed place on borrowed time” makes it a unique site for
the consideration of cultural production. Women experience life in the borderlands
diferently than do men although there is much common ground among women and
men of similar class or ethnic backgrounds and there are, of course, profound difer-
ences in the way individual men and women live. During the Cold War era, women
were involved in several aspects of the development of the Hong Kong ilm industry,
as they had been from its beginning.
Women continued to play signiicant roles as cultural workers well ater Cathay’s
glory days passed and have been noted as key players in the late colonial lead-up
to reversion to PRC sovereignty in 1997. hey are still involved in Hong Kong’s
current struggle to navigate the choppy seas of mainland co-optation and Hollywood
10. Lisa Funnell and Philippa Gates, introduction to Transnational Identities in Pan-Paciic Cinemas, ed.
Lisa Funnell and Philippa Gates (New York: Routledge, 2012), xiii.
11. See Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands / La Frontera: he New Mestiza (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books,
1987), preface.
hegemony in the new world of cinematic coproductions and cross-border collabora-

tions.12 As actors, directors, screenwriters, and producers, they oten combine or shit
between the aforementioned roles, at times within the same project.13 hey are, like
the women of Hong Kong’s New Wave and Second Wave cinema cohorts, part of the
“exchange of Asian identities taking place at the levels of both ilm production and
ilm reception.”14
Cathay ilms anticipated the migration melodramas of the late 1980s and 1990s
by narrating life in the borderlands of Hong Kong (and other places in Asia) via
stories of home, class struggle, ethnic and subethnic identity crises, and migration.
Films focused on women’s conlicting roles in the postwar world, mainland versus
Hong Kong Chinese identities, domestic dramas, romances, or cross-generational
tensions concerning social change in Hong Kong. As noted previously, the ilms
most oten privileged upwardly mobile subjects and subjectivities. hey celebrated
a rising postwar aluence, airming the hopes of a younger generation eager for
education, opportunity, and new consumer goods. Yet the youth in the ilms also
exhibited a concurrent restlessness and clear sense of respect for elders and tradition
that difers from Hollywood’s archive. Cathay appropriated foreign inluences and
ideologies, with diferent borrowings from both Hollywood and from various types
of Cantonese productions, particularly the Hong Kong noir ilms that Philippa Gates
has explored. What the two Chinese ilm genres have in common is that both noir
and romance-cum-melodrama told stories about life in postwar and Cold War
Hong Kong, paying attention to women as embodying multiple tensions and shits
in overall Chinese society.15 In the Cathay ilms, the mythologies of the postwar and
12. See Law Kar, “he American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema,” in he Cinema of Hong Kong:
History, Arts, Identity, ed. Poshek Fu and David Desser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000),
44–70.
13. Women behind and in front of the camera have been the focus of some signiicant research, particularly in
reference to the migration melodramas of the Hong Kong New Wave–Second Wave and pre-1997 period.
Works by Gina Marchetti, Esther Yau, and Stephen Teo are most helpful here. See Esther M. K. Cheung,
Gina Marchetti, and Tan See-kam, eds., Hong Kong Screenscapes (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 2012); Tan See-Kam, Peter X. Feng, and Gina Marchetti, eds., Chinese Connections: Critical Perspectives
on Film, Identity and Diaspora (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2009); Esther C. M. Yau, ed.,
At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2001); Stephen Teo, Hong Kong Cinema: he Extra Dimension (London: British Film Institute, 1997); and
Stephen Teo, Wong Kar-Wai (London: British Film Institute, 2005). Additionally, scholars such as Poshek Fu
and Law Kar have noted the centrality of women in the plots of Cathay ilms. here is much more to be
said, however, especially on the ways in which women and gender were linked to the Cold War project.
When discussing Hong Kong ilm noir, Philippa Gates writes, “Although we think of Hong Kong cinema as
conservative—especially when compared to American cinema in the 1960s—they were more progressive
in their representation of heroic and empowered women.” See Gates, “Hong Kong Noir: American Film
Noir and Asian Innovation, 1956–66,” in Funnell and Gates, Transnational Asian Identities in Pan Paciic
Cinema, 11.
14. Funnell and Gates, introduction to Funnell and Gates, Transnational Asian Identities in Pan Paciic
Cinema, xiii.
15. Gates, “Hong Kong Noir,” in Funnell and Gates, Transnational Asian Identities in Pan Paciic Cinema, 9–11.
190 Stacilee Ford
Cold War American dream met the mythologies of a decolonizing and economically
powerful Asia. Hong Kong women were borderland residents, translating and medi-
ating between them.
Hong Kong Film and the Cultural Cold War
To see cinema as an archive of other diplomacy in the borderland of Cold War

Hong Kong is to place it in the context of a broader and more complex conversation
about connections, past and present, across the Paciic, across the Chinese diaspora,
and across the global cultural imaginary of the postwar and Cold War period. Much
has been written about Hollywood ilms set in Hong Kong, such as Love Is a Many-
Splendored hing (1955) and he World of Suzie Wong (1960). But Hong Kong ilms
appropriated and embraced bits of Hollywood style and production, as well as rel-
evant notions of national myth and American fashion, music, and speech, to lip the
script on histories of exclusion and racist stereotypes in Hollywood. At times the
Cathay ilms subtly challenged perceived excesses of US culture and society, or they
openly championed Confucian values as a way to resist the tide of Westernization,
capitalism, and the consumer goods a younger generation was hungry to purchase.
Many of the Cathay ilms complement much of the recent scholarship on Cold War
Hong Kong and Asia that is part of an expanding body of work shattering the bipolar
(USSR versus US) framing of the conlict, considering Asia in all of its complexity and
diversity including popular culture’s role in the events of the period and the “Asian
Sixties.” As Hong Liu and Michael Szonyi argue, a “shit away from diplomacy toward
culture allows for the exploration of Cold War history from a transnational as well as
a comparative perspective.” hey remind us of the importance of regional diferences,
note the ways in which Asia has too oten been overlooked in studies of culture and
the Cold War generally, and demonstrate that “Asians developed their own formula-
tions of ideas and also appropriated and adapted the ideas disseminated by the super-
powers and their agents. In this process, new (and sometimes conlicting) ideas and
visions about Asian futures emerged. hese in turn shaped the domestic and social
and political transformations of individual countries.”16
Many scholars, including Prasenjit Duara—who reminds us in this volume that
Hong Kong was “a space of negotiation, facilitation and experimental creativity”—
16. Michael Szonyi and Hong Liu, “Introduction: New Approaches to the Study of the Cold War in Asia,” in he
Cold War in Asia: he Battle for Hearts and Minds, ed. Zheng Yangwen, Hong Liu, and Michael Szonyi
(Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 6. Other works in this vein include Klein, Cold War Orientalism;
Stephen J. Whitield, he Culture of the Cold War, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1996); Frances Stonor Saunders, he Cultural Cold War: he CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
(New York: New Press, 1999); and two special issues of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, “he Asian Sixties,” Inter-
Asia Cultural Studies 7 (4) (December 2006); and “American Popular Culture,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies
13 (4) (December 2012).
have recognized Hong Kong’s role in this broadened discussion of the Cold War
period. In language that dovetails nicely with the notion of Hong Kong as bor-
derland, in the following chapter Duara views it as a “zone of interaction between
socialism and capitalism, a space where the otherwise forbidden traic between these
two opposing ideological systems could take place,” and “an important contact zone
between imperialism and nationalism where national and developmental ideas could
encounter colonial and free trade principles to generate hybrid and new practices
beholden to neither political ideology.” Because it was “unburdened by the weight of
nationalist ideologies which most decolonizing societies were experiencing,” Duara
argues that Hong Kong represented a frontier of experimentation with the capitalist
market, new forms of state intervention, identity creation, and cultural media.
Several factors contributed to Hong Kong’s rise as a hub of ilm production and
intersection for multiply inlected identity work. I have already noted some of the
ideological diferences of the studios producing ilms in Hong Kong. hose difer-
ences were linked to migration from China in the wake of turmoil on the mainland,
accompanied by the rise of Hong Kong as an industrial metropolis. Both presented
multiple opportunities for cultural workers. Running what was one of the last
remaining outposts of the British Empire in a rapidly decolonizing world, Hong Kong
colonial government leaders were forced by simmering social discontent to construct
a social safety net for local Chinese who had previously mostly been let to their
own resources. A nascent cultural industry was nurtured by various groups, local and
foreign, interested in promoting diverse economic and political agendas in a moment
when a dizzying array of individuals, ideas, and enterprises locked to Hong Kong
seeking refuge and economic opportunity or pursuing military and covert activities.
As noted above, ater 1949, China’s inward turn lattened ilm production in the
PRC, where most Hollywood ilms were banned. he exodus from Shanghai was
accompanied by the arrival of talent drawn to Hong Kong from Singapore and other
parts of Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the United States. By the mid-1950s, when
Grace Chang’s character in Mambo Girl was showing a new generation of youth
in Hong Kong how to embrace Westernization in fashion, music, and lifestyles,
Hong Kong was rapidly becoming the “Hollywood of the East.” Hong Kong became
a node of global exchange, a commercial hub, and—despite pejorative characteriza-
tions of it as a “cultural desert” relative to Shanghai or London—a safe haven and
vibrant and multicultural crossroads for screenwriters, actors, directors, producers,
and other cultural workers.
Cold War Hollywood and Hong Kong ilms circulated around Asia in conjunc-
tion with Screen International (a trade magazine produced by Cathay that connected
the ilms worlds of Hollywood and Asia), and a trans-Paciic low of celebrities who
moved across geographical borders, between ilm genres and media platforms (ilm,
television, trade publications, radio). Cathay stars, screenwriters, and executives
192 Stacilee Ford
support Radha Hegde’s assertion that “transnational media environments serve

as a crucial site from which to examine gendered constructions and contradictions
that underwrite globalization.”17 Films constitute a type of expanded archive, to use
Antoinette Burton’s sense of the word, because of the cultural memory work that they
perform.18 Even the most ahistorical of ilms can tell us something about a particular
era or place. But Hong Kong ilms ofer glimpses into one of the most luid locales in
the contemporary world.
Not only did Cathay ilms articulate multiple meanings of Chinese-ness and
Westernization, but their plotlines lightly hinted at shared pasts and ongoing con-
nections through travel and migration.19 he ilms support Leung Ping-Kwan’s dec-
laration that “it is impossible to understand the city of Hong Kong and its cultural
identity by means of solely Western or Chinese models.”20 Poshek Fu has shown
how Hong Kong ilms chronicled generational conlicts in many Chinese homes
where more conservative elders worried about free-spirited youth connecting across
borders and nations through higher education, travel, protest movements (including
decolonization in Asia), and postwar consumption.21
Fu notes that Cathay and Shaw Brothers were key players in the “Mandarinization
of Hong Kong cinema.” Films made by both studios relied heavily on Mandarin
rather than Cantonese dialect and relected a Shanghainese cosmopolitan style.22
In time the established Cantonese studios would likewise appropriate much of this
style. Hong Kong ilms generally and the Cathay ilms speciically alert us to under-
studied aspects of the turbulent 1960s in Asia, to transnational connections among
17. Radha S. Hegde, ed., Circuits of Visibility: Gender and Transnational Media Cultures (New York: New York
University Press, 2011), 1.
18. Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
19. For an example of the type of historical and cultural tasks Hong Kong ilms perform in various periods, see
works cited above by Poshek Fu, Gina Marchetti, Law Kar and Frank Bren, and my book, Mabel Cheung
Yuen-ting’s An Autumn’s Tale (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008).
20. Leung Ping-kwan, “Urban Cinema and the Cultural Identity of Hong Kong,” in Fu and Desser, he Cinema
of Hong Kong, 236. he term “in-between place” has been used as a framing device and guiding concept
by many scholars, journalists, and critics, including most recently Elizabeth Sinn and Hong Kong English-
language author Xu Xi. Elizabeth Sinn, “Hong Kong as an In-between Place in the Chinese Diaspora,
1849–1939,” in Connecting Seas and Connected Ocean Rims: Indian, Atlantic, and Paciic Oceans and China
Seas Migrations from the 1830s to the 1930s, ed. Donna R. Gabaccia and Dirk Hoerder (Leiden: Brill, 2011),
225–47; and Xu Xi, Chinese Walls (Hong Kong: Typhoon Media, 1994); Daughters of Hui (Hong Kong:
Asia 2000, 1996); Hong Kong Rose (Hong Kong: Asia2000, 1997); he Unwalled City (Hong Kong: Typhoon
Media, 2000); History’s Fiction: Stories from the City of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chameleon Press, 2001);
Overleaf Hong Kong: Stories & Essays of the Chinese, Overseas (Hong Kong: Chameleon Press, 2005);
Evanescent Isles: From My City-Village (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008); and Habit of a
Foreign Sky (Hong Kong: Haven Books, 2010).
21. Poshek Fu, “he 1960s: Modernity, Youth Culture, and Hong Kong Cantonese Cinema,” in Fu and Desser,
he Cinema of Hong Kong, 71.
22. Fu, “he 1960s,” in Fu and Desser, he Cinema of Hong Kong, 72.
individuals, governments, and ilm industries (as Hong Kong became the Hollywood
of the East) and to the ways in which Hong Kong ilm embraced various models of
modernity. Cultural workers were practitioners of other diplomacy in the cultural
Cold War, but they also imagined new articulations of gender relations, Chinese
nationhood, personal philosophies, and business strategies.
he Cathay Story
he term Cathay Studios used here is a shorthand reference for MP & GI (Motion
Picture and General International), the Hong Kong subsidiary of the Cathay
Organization. On its own, Hong Kong could not ill the gap let by the withdrawal
of mainland ilm companies from the ilm scene. Southeast Asian “conglomerates”
began playing a bigger role by investing more heavily in the media industry. In 1957
two large studios intensiied their presence in Hong Kong: MP & GI–Cathay and
Shaw Brothers. he two were rivals in much of Asia, but critics argue that their com-
petition was good for the industry. For a decade beginning in the 1950s, Shaw and
MP & GI “consolidated their bases and spectacularly increased their shares of the
local market, even winning over the Cantonese audience. In 1960, Cantonese ilms
more than tripled those in Mandarin, but by the decade’s end, Mandarin cinema had
outstripped the input of its Cantonese counterpart.”23 Poshek Fu writes that Mandarin
ilms such as those produced by Shaw and Cathay joined “Hollywood ilms as the
preferred, voguish source of popular entertainment in Hong Kong, especially among
the younger generation. It brought to sharp relief the cheapness, sloppiness, con-
servatism and precapitalist mode of organization and production of the Cantonese
cinema.” But Fu also notes that during the 1960s in Hong Kong, both Cantonese and
Mandarin ilms showcase “a ferocious world of economic rivalries, sensationalism,
and commercialism.”24
Originally founded in 1947 in Singapore, Cathay owed much of its success to
Dato Loke Wan ho (1910–64), the only son of Chinese-born Malayan billionaire,
Loke Yew, and his fourth wife (who was also a shrewd business operative). In addi-
tion to making ilms, the family successfully built dozens of spacious and elegant
movie theaters all across Southeast Asia. Ater acquiring the troubled Yonghua
Studio, Loke Wan ho relocated the bulk of the production operations to Hong Kong,
assumed greater artistic control, and began aggressively recruiting famous stars and
directors. In March 1956 he launched MP & GI (or Dianmou in Chinese) to be the
Hong Kong-based Chinese-language ilm production arm of Cathay. Administered
on lines similar to those of Hollywood studios, MP & GI created a star system and
23. Law and Bren, Hong Kong Cinema, 163.

24. Fu, “he 1960s,” in Fu and Desser, he Cinema of Hong Kong, 81.
194 Stacilee Ford
invested heavily in advertising and script development. Fu writes that, “backed by

diasporic capital, and operated as a central part of a transnationally organized, verti-
cally integrated business structure, MP & GI set itself the goal of bringing modern
entertainment to all people in Asia and modernizing their popular culture.”25
Although MP & GI–Cathay was particularly important before Shaw Brothers
began operations in Clearwater Bay in the late 1950s, both studios, Fu argues, “played
critical roles in leading Hong Kong to become a global cinematic city.”26 he Lokes
and the Shaws, as Law Kar has noted, were “true multinationals, primarily con-
cerned with the Nanyang market but eager to expand into other regions, with a more
liberal and aggressive attitude to business than their Hong Kong counterparts.”27 But
both studios also drew on talent from Hong Kong and many other places, includ-
ing Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea as well as the Greater China region and
Southeast Asia.
he Mandarin ilms of Cathay fell between more realistic depictions of people and
lifestyles in Cantonese ilms and the glamorous exoticism of Hollywood’s Hong Kong.
Karen Kuo’s recent work is a good model for thinking about how all of these ilms
lend themselves to multidirectional analysis—considering both how Hollywood
imagined Hong Kong as well as how Cathay ilms talked back to Hollywood while
addressing audiences in Hong Kong and beyond. As Kuo has shown, Asians, white
Americans, and Asian Americans “tested out diferent notions of gender and sexual-
ity” through a “mutual gaze” that “used their imaginings of each other’s national and
cultural identities to test out how both Asia and America it into the modern world.”28
Mutual gazes and imaginings were not, however, all created equal. Hong Kong as
a Cold War outpost was rife with tensions, anxieties, and power struggles. Hollywood
was oten aligned with Washington, DC, and the Cathay story opens up a conversa-
tion on the American government’s inluence in Hong Kong. Stephen Teo, Poshek Fu,
and Charles Leary, as well as Lu Xun in an earlier chapter of this volume, have written
on how ilms and other types of cultural production were oten connected to US gov-
ernment initiatives to promote democracy and the containment of Communism in
Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia. hese eforts were not only aimed at the Chinese
diaspora but relied heavily on diasporic collaboration (the same could be said for
Communist eforts on the let). Leary’s work connects several of Cathay’s directors,
screenwriters, and stars to the anti-Communist propaganda efort, foreground-
ing links between the Committee for Free Asia—an organization formed by US
25. Fu, “Modernity, Diasporic Capital and 1950s Hong Kong Mandarin Cinema,” Jump Cut: A Review of
Contemporary Media 49 (Spring 2007), http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc49.2007/Poshek/.
26. Fu, “Modernity, Diasporic Capital and 1950s Hong Kong Mandarin Cinema.”
28. Karen Kuo, East Is West and West Is East: Gender, Culture, and Interwar Encounters between Asia and
America (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2013), 9.
citizens in California, with Central Intelligence Agency backing, which later became
the Asia Foundation—and its “Tri-Dimensional Project for the Battle for People’s
Minds,” a three-pronged media propaganda initiative envisaging print publications,
movies, and intellectual front organizations devised in 1952 by the anti-Communist
journalist Chang Kuosin, that included the Asia Pictures entity. Leary lists a number
of MP & GI personnel who were, prior to their involvement in the studio, tapped to
be part of the Asia Pictures projects. Although Asia Pictures made only nine ilms,
these were widely distributed throughout East and Southeast Asia (as well as within
diasporic communities in North America).29
As important as the ilms themselves is the way in which a consideration of the
Cathay story contributes to a deeper understanding of a community of highly edu-
cated and elite “overseas Chinese,” many of whom had been afected by the conlict
between the PRC and the ROC. hey were brought together to do cultural and politi-
cal work in several places throughout the world (including Chinatowns in the US as
well as in Hong Kong) that—depending on the project—allowed room for individual
agency and varying ideologies. Fu’s assertion that the Cathay ilms “were anything
but innocent” comes to mind when thinking about how and to what extent MP & GI
enlisted or was drated into the cultural Cold War in Asia. Leary reminds us that the
Far Eastern Economic Review in 1952 characterized Hong Kong as a “Cold War City,”
adding that “both the Chinese Communist Party and the US government believed
Hong Kong to be a key location for ighting the Cold War in Asia, and both also
recognized the cinema as an important propaganda tool in this ight.”30
Leary writes of the “careful iction” of Hong Kong’s neutrality, arguing: “he ilm
world in Hong Kong had (1) a decided political atmosphere, with two opposing
camps emerging on the right and the let, both largely populated by émigrés from
China among its staf, and (2) exhibition networks to audiences of overseas Chinese
across Asia.”31 hose who made ilms in Hong Kong navigated cautiously. Americans
needed to be sensitive to the British colonial oicials who were keen to avoid antago-
nizing the PRC, and pro-PRC forces in Hong Kong were also watched carefully.32
While various groups helped subsidize Cold War cultural production in Hong Kong,
the inished product did not always conform to funders’ expectations. A range of
agendas could be served in the process of making a ilm, despite censorship regula-
tions and a tense political environment. Cathay employed cultural workers who were
independent thinkers and cross-culturally savvy souls (many of whom transited
comfortably across Asia and the Paciic as part of the Chinese diaspora). hey made
29. Charles Leary, “he Most Careful Arrangements for a Careful Fiction: A Short History of Asian Pictures,”
Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 13 (4) (December 2012): 548–58.
30. Ibid., 549.
31. Ibid., 549.
32. Ibid., 548.
196 Stacilee Ford
the most of resources from Washington or Hollywood (sometimes both) to enhance

the studio’s (and Hong Kong’s) role as a site of transnational and multidirectional
cultural production.
Case Studies of Cathay Studio Melodrama
he remainder of the chapter will briely consider three early MP & GI–Cathay melo-
dramas—For Better, for Worse (1959), Between Tears and Laughter (1960), and Father
Takes a Bride (1963)—and the cultural and historical work they perform on behalf of
other diplomacies (promoting Hong Kong as a postwar site of economic prosperity,
ideological temperance, and a balance of Chinese values for a post-war/decolonized
world), ofering expanded gender and social scripts to a rising generation of educated
and well-traveled youth. In the diverse examples of womanhood and manhood por-
trayed on screen, the ilms relected many types of Chinese and Sinophone identities.
he ilms discussed here are exemplars of certain themes and didacticisms found
in many of the early Cathay ilms, three of which, the musicals Mambo Girl (1957),
Air Hostess (1959), and June Bride (1960), I have discussed elsewhere.33 Films made in
the late 1950s and early 1960s were the most popular of Cathay’s archive.
Although the musicals difered in important respects from the more serious melo-
dramas, what all of these ilms have in common is that they tell stories of women in
various stages of negotiating between social expectations and their personal desires
and freedom. Like all ilms released in this period, the Cathay ilms are quite didac-
tic. hey entertain and educate by ofering up various examples of contemporary
lifestyles served with a side order of moralizing. hey capture women embracing
consumer culture, dating, and achieving circumscribed types of professional success
(via teaching, writing, sales jobs, and clerical and secretarial work). Very few young
women are seen as homemakers, although nearly all plots ultimately conclude with
women headed in that direction.
Cathay’s cultural workers—both the on-screen characters and those who created
them—ofered paths to new modes of self-fulillment without jettisoning cherished
notions of domestic or social harmony. hey are domestic dramas that generally hint
at rather than engage head-on with the geopolitical struggles raging just beyond the
ilm set, but they showcase Hong Kong as the place where one can balance personal
and political desires and enjoy night clubs, cofee shops, and fashions that appro-
priate style from all over the world. Between Tears and Laughter is the most “girl
33. Ford, Troubling American Women, 130–32. In addition to the six ilms mentioned in this chapter, I believe
that the conclusions drawn here apply to many other Mandarin ilms produced by Cathay Studios in the
1950s and 1960s. See he Splendour of Youth (1957), Dreams Come True (1960), Ladies First (1960), Sister
Long Legs (1960), Education of Love (1961), and Springtime Afairs (1968).
poweresque” of the three melodramas discussed here, the one most like the musicals
that are the clearest examples of the blend of Hollywood aesthetics and American
music (in clubs and on the radio and record players). Frequent references to extended
kinship networks (relatives and friends are constantly lying in from San Francisco or
Singapore) mark all of these ilms.
Movies, “Moderate Chinese Modernity,” and Hong Kong Women’s History
Women in all three of the melodramas, like those in most early Cathay ilms, relect
of situated knowledge, hybridized cultural backgrounds, and embodied citizenship.
Duara argues that women are important actors in bolstering national “regimes of
authenticity” and various forms of national identity.34 National ailiation is implied
rather than explicit, but generational identity is constituted via transnational associa-
tion with women in Hollywood ilms. One sees an imagined community of women
on both sides of the Paciic claiming public space as well as new freedoms and
opportunities.
According to Law and Bren, “Hong Kong’s irst postwar batch of teenage stars
[were] in the energetic and carefree mold of Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor,
Natalie Wood, or Debbie Reynolds.” heir Hong Kong counterparts were “igures
like Grace Chang, Lucilla Yu Ming, Jeanette Lin Cui, Julie Yeh Feng, and Christine
Pai Lu-ming, who were blessed with talent in singing and dancing to go with the skills
they learned in the studio’s acting classes.” Cathay’s stars would be joined and eventu-
ally eclipsed by those from Shaw Brothers, but Cathay celebrities helped shape and
promote Hong Kong cosmopolitan urbanity on and of screen, and they embraced
“the MP&GI lifestyle of parties, picnics, and dances.”35 Melodramas might deal
with weightier issues, but they did so while drawing on the star power of those who
appeared in musicals as well. As such, there was a seamless and episodic connection
between ilms of diverse genres and subject matter.
Yet even as they modeled the latest Western fashions and sipped Coke, Pepsi, and
Green Spot soda, characters in the ilms clearly encouraged striving cosmopolitan
audiences to retain certain traditional attitudes and avoid the excesses of the West,
particularly the United States. In that vein, the dialogue in these three ilms (and
in many other Cathay ilms) reprises, to a certain extent, themes and attitudes that
Louise Edwards has noted in the cultural production of Shanghai in the 1930s. She
argues that women’s fashion and lifestyle magazine Linglong’s “imagined America
34. Prasenjit Duara, “he Regime of Authenticity: Timelessness, Gender, and National History in Modern
China,” in Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, ed. Kai-wing Chow, Kevin M. Doak, and Poshek Fu
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 381.
198 Stacilee Ford
relected a signiicant point of reorientation in ideas about how to be simultaneously

modern and Chinese.”36
Although late 1950s Hong Kong was a very diferent place from prewar Shanghai,
in both contexts, imaginings of American culture, particularly Hollywood culture,
served as a source of inspiration and patina for much of the scenery and background
music. Yet cosmopolitan characters could turn on a dime and editorialize on the
importance of home cooking (Father Takes a Bride), the virtues of monogamy
(Between Tears and Laughter), and the dangers of Westernized (read American)
approaches to disciplining children (For Better, for Worse). Additionally, while there
are several examples of working women in the ilms, as a rule women are employed
because they are waiting for a man to come along or because of misfortune that leaves
them responsible for supporting themselves or other family members.
Deploying Kuo’s multidirectional analysis model, one can compare Hollywood’s
blockbuster ilms about Hong Kong, such as he World of Suzie Wong or Love Is
a Many-Splendored hing, to the Cathay ilms considered here. In the case of the
Cathay ilms, one sees that, as Edwards has argued, “the imagined America provided
convenient boundaries,” and “American excess became a useful counterpoint” in con-
structing what Edwards has called “moderate Chinese modernity.”37 Women in the
Cathay ilms may look and dress like glamorous Hollywood stars, but they are at their
most appealing to men when performing conventionally coded Chinese femininity.
(Sensuality is oten paired with maternal tasks such as washing children’s hair, serving
tea, or cooking.)
In fact, modern women in the Cathay ilms are oten seen as being better at
homemaking tasks because they have access to knowledge or new technology that
improves the domestic setting. As Law and Bren write, “In the immediate postwar
years and in the 1950s, Hong Kong audiences appreciated Hollywood’s ‘bad girls’
and femmes fatales such as Rita Hayworth, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, and
Ava Gardner. Yet they could not accept such open wickedness in home-based stars
like Li Lihua.”38 In terms of on-screen fashion, even the most rebellious of the Cathay
divas stayed covered up. here is the occasional glimpse of a thigh or a bit of cleavage,
but nothing more. Passionate embraces rarely led to long, lingering kisses, let alone
anything beyond.
36. See Louise Edwards, “he Shanghai Modern Woman’s American Dreams: Imagining America’s Depravity to
Produce China’s ‘Moderate Modernity,’” Paciic Historical Review 81 (4) (November 2012): 567.
37. Ibid., 568–70.
For Better, for Worse
Image 7.2
For Better, For Worse (1959).
Source: Ain-ling Wong, ed., he
Cathay Story (2002).
he 1959 Cathay ilm For Better, for Worse assures audiences that Hong Kong is a
place where sensible people can learn to ilter out “bad” tradition (superstitions)
and keep the good. he ilm centers on the dramatic conlict between a bright and
diligent Chinese widow, Meijuan (Helen Li Mei), who remarries a young widower,
Gao Yongsheng (Yang Chang). Both have a child from their previous marriages, and
friends and family gather to support them on their wedding day at a modest reception
in their lat in Kowloon. he one shadow that is cast over the event is that Yongsheng’s
sister (Qianmeng Liu) is against the marriage. She believes that Meijuan brings bad
luck to the household. he chatter in the kitchen about the bride’s status as a widow,
and Yongsheng’s sister’s absence from the wedding festivities, focuses on the ways in
which attitudes about widows and women generally are changing in Hong Kong and
in communities elsewhere in the region:
Woman #1: If a woman dies, her husband can marry someone else immedi-
ately. . . . And no one would say anything bad as if it’s what he ought to do.
Woman #2: Well, I know many men . . . even have three or four women at a
time . . . before their wives die. How unfair it is!
Woman #3: It’s much better now. In the old days when the husband died, the wife
would have been more miserable . . . as if she had been plunged into hell.
As the narrative rolls forward, it is Yongsheng’s sister who is revealed as the worst
possible blend of Chinese and Western culture. She lives in a spacious apartment and
200 Stacilee Ford
orders servants around all day. (Meijuan and Yongsheng live in a small lat but enjoy
harmonious relationships with their landlord and other neighbors who share a
common cooking area.) She is rude to Meijuan and her daughter, chainsmokes, and
plays mahjong until well ater dinner should be served and the children should be
asleep. Her superstitious nature prevents her from seeing that Meijuan is a loving
wife and supportive mother and stepmother. She tries to buy the love of her sons and
nephew by purchasing them toy guns, with which they run around the house, shoot-
ing and wreaking havoc along the way. Her husband peppers his Mandarin phrases
with Americanized English words, particularly “stupid.” He is a bully and as the father
sets a bad example for his family.
Although Meijuan and Yongsheng live in a modest housing estate, they are
upwardly mobile. he ultimate moral of the ilm is that thoughtful modernity wins
out over mindless superstition and wanton consumption. he newlyweds experience
economic diiculties in their marriage, and at one point Yongsheng loses his job. he
ilm hints at the diicult decisions employers must make in a capitalistic society but
ultimately it is up to individual employees to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and
learn to live in a more competitive Hong Kong. he couple try to do just that. hey
are willing to curtail their wants in order to ensure that their daughter as well as their
son can aford to go to school. But it is Meijuan who does the bulk of the sacriicing.
She takes on additional laundry work and endures Yongsheng’s depression, chain
smoking, and verbal abuse. As the ilm nears its climax, Meijuan reaches a breaking
point with both her husband and her sister-in-law. She stands up to Yongsheng and
insists that he stand up to his family. She rages, “You think I married you because
I could depend on you? Did I want your money? I can work. I can live on my own.
I married because I wanted a good family. I don’t want to depend on my husband or
to have a comfortable life.”
But Meijuan is not of to the oice with a briefcase. She is aware that her husband’s
job loss has threatened his sense of masculinity and he feels that he has failed as
a provider. Ultimately the couple reconciles and she gladly assumes her domestic
responsibilities. he inal scene of the ilm is a close-up of a sign over the door pro-
claiming that this home is inhabited by “A Harmonious Couple.” he reconstituted
family has sided with moderate Chinese modernity, but it is in a position to embrace
the best of past and present as the parents raise their children in an atmosphere of
warmth and certainty.
What makes the ilm of particular interest from the perspective of the present is
the way in which it supports the notion of the “blended” rather than the “broken”
family. It is also quite forward thinking in the ways in which it challenges stereo-
types of widowhood (divorce would come later), pays attention to links between
economic turmoil and domestic abuse, and pushes back against the Americanization
of Hong Kong homes and child rearing. (It is clear that part of what troubles Meijuan’s
surly sister-in-law is her own overly Westernized husband, who spoils his children
and looks down on Yongsheng while speaking in Chinglish.) he ilm ends on a
positive note mostly because the tenants in Meijuan and Yongsheng’s apartment
complex have stepped up to ill the role of surrogate elders. he other diplomacy
performed by women in this ilm is that of negotiators between old and new eco-
nomic and familial systems in changing times and exemplars of cosmopolitan Cold
War modernity. Like the contented Goldilocks at the end of her domestic adven-
ture in the woods, women in these ilms are not too inclined toward Communism,
Americanization/Westernization, or tradition. hey are “just right.”
Between Tears and Laughter
Image 7.3
Between Tears and Laughter (1960). Source: Ain-ling Wong, ed., he Cathay Story (2002).
Between Tears and Laughter (1960) is a story of three women who bond as roommates
in a stylish and spacious lat not far from Hong Kong’s bustling Central District. Each
female lead has a distinct personality and a speciic problem to resolve in her life.
While the various subplots turn on romantic tension and the search for the “right”
spouse, what holds the narrative together is a more important story about the ways in
which friends become family. he youngest of the women, Manli (Kitty Ting Hao),
harbors hopes of romance with a pen pal who lives in Singapore, Zheng Dajiang
(Roy Chiao Hung). Zhao Shuxian (Wang Lai) has been separated from her husband,
who ran away with another woman to Japan. She has a son in the hospital and must
juggle parenting with her job in a music store. Pang Meifen (Helen Li Mei, who
played the devoted young widow in For Better, for Worse) is a writer who has thrown
herself into her work to avoid heartbreak and the unwanted “feminine emotions”
it stirs in her.
he three women are mothered by their loveable but meddling landlady,
Mrs. Zheng (Kao Tsiang), who also cooks and cleans for them (and reminds them to
eat rather than focus on their careers!). As noted earlier, Cathay ilms oten privileged
stories of Hong Kong’s more aluent or at least inancially secure residents. As such,
the ilms oten tell stories about the amicable relationships between protagonists and
their domestic employees. In Between Tears and Laughter, Mrs. Zheng is rendered
202 Stacilee Ford
as a beloved relic of an earlier generation of women focused solely on the domestic

sphere, but it is her labor that keeps the frenetic trio of working women healthy and
well fed. When Meifen wants to keep writing instead of taking time for a proper
meal, Mrs. Zheng says she “can’t really understand girls like you.” Expressing her
concern that all three women have wandered too far aield from convention, she
sighs, “It should be time for aternoon tea. But you’re still having breakfast. . . . I can’t
understand.” Yet despite her worries she is part of a community of women in transi-
tion. As the plot unfolds, we see women in a range of situations trying to balance
work and family life, looking out for each other, and seeking relationships where their
abilities and independence are airmed. However, as was oten the case in Hollywood
ilms of the same period (and of many ilms today), the protofeminist plot gives way
to a conclusion that upholds conventional domestic arrangements.
By the end of the ilm, all three protagonists are involved in relationships with men
who have proven themselves worthy of the bright and driven women they love. he
troika decides to vacate the apartment as Shuxian has reconciled with her husband
and Manli has realized that not only are she and Dajiang mismatched but she is
genuinely in love with the young man that her family wants her to marry. In the
meantime, Dajiang has convinced Meifen that she should not close herself of to love.
He expresses his devotion to her and confesses his admiration of her novels. he
two writers celebrate their romance and their shared professional interests. he inal
scene of the ilm features Meifen giving her soon-to-be ex-roommates, Shuxian and
Manli, a copy of her latest novel, which bears the name of the ilm, Between Tears
and Laughter. Again, as in For Better, for Worse, women negotiate between love and
ambition, unashamedly claiming the right to follow their dreams and expecting the
men in their lives to respect their desires. While it is clear that all three are headed for
the altar, there is an open-endedness about the inal scene that leaves room for each
woman to continue pursuing her own interests as well romance.
Between Tears and Laughter performs other diplomacy in the ways in which it
shows Hong Kong women balancing rather than going to extremes in their personal
lives and gender roles. Capable but committed to heterosexual relationships, citizens
of the world who are interested in travel, literature, music, and friends who are also
willing to put family irst, they perform the “Getting to Know You” ballet on the other
side of the Paciic from Dinah Shore, claiming the space of new types of relationships
and professional desires for women, yet assuring men and anxious elders that change
need not be all that disruptive. Heteronormativity is assumed, and women’s increased
appetites for products, experiences, and professional recognition are not sated at the
expense of men’s own desires and ambitions.
Father Takes a Bride
Image 7.4
Father Takes a Bride (1963). Source: Ain-ling Wong, ed., he Cathay Story (2002).
he last of the ilms speciically considered here, Father Takes a Bride (1963), is perhaps
the most famous of the three because the screenplay was written by Eileen Chang
(Zhang Ailing), recently best known for her novella Lust, Caution, the inspiration
for director Ang Lee’s 2007 blockbuster ilm. Several critics and scholars have written
about Chang’s role in the cultural Cold War. While that story is beyond the purview
of this chapter, it is important to underscore that Chang’s cultural work was of a dif-
ferent type than that performed by the stars in front of the camera. She was one of
only a few women in this period involved in writing the Cathay stories of women,
gender, and social change. She did so in a range of complex ways.39 Father Takes a
Bride shares common ground with Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution in its articulation of the
double standard imposed on women by patriarchal norms.
Wang Jinghui (Lucilla Yu Ming) is a university student with a bright career ahead
of her. Her plans are interrupted when, ater her mother’s death, she is let to care
for her younger brothers and father, Wang Yin (Wang Yan). Early in the ilm Jinghui
reconnects with a former classmate from university, Sun Chuan (Kelly Lai Chin),
who is, like many of the men in the Cathay ilms, understanding and supportive of
women’s ambitions and desires while keen to see them retain certain traditionally
feminine characteristics and perform what has been coded as female labor. When
the young couple begin dating and eventually discuss marriage, Jinghui’s little broth-
ers worry. hey fear that Jinghui’s romance and their father’s relationship with a col-
league at work, Li Quhuai (Wang Lai, who played Zhao Shuxian in Between Tears
and Laughter) will disrupt their secure world, so recently reconstituted ater their
mother’s death.
39. See Kam Louie, ed., Eileen Chang: Romancing Languages, Cultures and Genres (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 2012). While several of the essays in the volume touch upon Chang and the Cold War, the
essay that focuses most clearly on this theme is Xiaojue Wang, “Eileen Chang, Dream of the Red Chamber,
and the Cold War,” 113–30.
204 Stacilee Ford
All of these ilms are afectively charged by tropes of maternity, but none of
them valorizes motherhood quite like this one. hroughout the ilm the audience is
reminded of the importance of mothers as full-time homemakers. his is most clearly
articulated in the repetition of a song Jinghui sings at the beginning of the ilm while
she is washing her little brothers’ hair:
Flowers have vines, trees have roots.

Mother’s grace is deepest.
She hugs me when I was young.
She advises me until I grow up.
Like the ireplace in winter and shelter of trees in summer.
Let’s sing praise of our mother, we’ll never separate.
he scene and the song afect Sun Chuan so deeply that he rushes to help Jinghui
with her tender domestic chore. he other diplomacy advocated here is a message of
retention of certainty in the face of economic and political change. he moral is hard
to miss: when mother is serving her family, others will follow, and again, harmony
prevails.
But there are also conlicting messages in the ilm. Mrs. Li, who does not realize
that Jinghui is her future stepdaughter, tries to talk Jinghui out of sacriicing herself
for her family. She shares her own experience as a teacher turned spinster who, while
initially happy to support her own family members, has been let alone as she ages
while those for whom she sacriiced so much have moved on with their lives. She
warns Jinghui, “Youth doesn’t last. You should take good care of yourself.” In this ilm,
as in many other Cathay ilms, part of a woman’s learning to take care of herself is
deined as inding a mate who respects her ability to make a happy home. Although
both Jinghui and Mrs. Li end up reunited with their respective partners and they will
share in the care of the young brothers in the future, the ilm—like many Hollywood
ilms—sends mixed messages. It encourages women to avoid losing themselves in
domesticity while valorizing the familial structure that will entice them to do so.
Father Takes a Bride performs an ambivalent type of other diplomacy, hinting at
the ways in which the personal is political. Critics have noted that Chang wrote this
and other screenplays for Cathay because she was in dire economic straits. If that is
the case, then the ilms themselves become even more interesting. Panned by those
who saw the dialogue as wooden and the plot as uncharacteristically moralistic when
compared to other Chang works, the ilm is the only one of the three considered here
that engages class identity in any meaningful way. One of the neighbors is a daughter
who lives in fear of her abusive mother. Derek Lam has noted that the ilm’s take on
these characters reinforces the ways in which Cathay ilms marginalized those let
behind by Hong Kong’s economic rise. Mild in its social critique, it is nonetheless
quite pointed in its gender critique.
Father Takes a Bride serves as the best reminder that Cathay ilms did their most
innovative work in terms of thinking gender in relation to place and time. he men of
Cathay merit separate consideration in another study, as most of the male characters
in the ilms resist Hollywood stereotypes of Chinese and Western men and all of
them take women and their ambitions seriously—something that is still quite rare in
ilms on both sides of the Paciic even today. he Cathay ilms are part of Hong Kong
history because they capture a particular moment in time, and they are rich texts
for consideration in women’s history, gender and sexuality studies, and transnational
feminism. he ilms imagined women’s aspirations and abilities in a period marked
by deep ambivalence about changes in gender and family identities. While the PRC
outlawed polygamy and concubinage in 1950, in Hong Kong this did not happen
until 1971, the same year that the Hong Kong government instituted six years of free
compulsory schooling for all children (raised to nine years in 1978).
here were some stirrings in society at large over women’s rights and the obliga-
tions of the British colonial government to navigate various interests in the territory.
he Family Planning Association of Hong Kong opened in 1950, providing Western
contraceptive services through three birth control clinics. Early advocacy of separate
taxation and equal pay for women began in the 1950s, although the Joint Committee
on Equal Pay for Equal Work was not formed until 1963, and it would take until
the 1990s to establish an Equal Opportunities Commission.40 While the ilms do not
hint at any of this rich historical context, they are ahead of it in some ways, and more
work needs to be done in this vein. It would be interesting, for instance, to explore
links between Cathay cultural workers and the elite social reformers and mainstream
politicians and government authorities of this period.
Common hreads
A changing physical landscape provided the backdrop for women’s stories. Cathay
ilms showcased Hong Kong’s upwardly mobile lifestyles, new cars, charming fer-
ryboats, and rapidly developing skyline. Domestic melodramas featured trips out and
about, ofering the audience glimpses of Hong Kong’s physical beauty and its indus-
trious and energetic population at work and at play. Picnic trips to Castle Peak on the
Kowloon side of the harbor and leisurely automobile journeys up to Victoria Peak
(with an occasional car chase across various highways on both sides of the harbor)
appear with formulaic regularity.
Appropriating bits of Hollywood style in their happy endings, fashionable attire,
lush scenery, and youth themes, the ilms are, for the most part, optimistic narratives
40. See Louisa Mitchell, he Changing Faces of Hong Kong: A Cohort Analysis of Women, 1991–2011, 6 sections
(Hong Kong: Civic Exchange and he Women’s Foundation, February 2013), Section 1: 17–18, 24; Section 2:
21, 34; Section 3:37; and Section 4: 26, 37. Civic Exchange, http://www.civic-exchange.org/en/publications/.
206 Stacilee Ford
of reconciliation and familial warmth. But plots featured more locally grounded con-
cerns, such as how to educate the inlux of students crowding local schools, manage
the tensions arising from Hong Kong’s rapid industrialization and how to best
Singapore as a hub of culture and entertainment. In the 1962 Cathay musical roman-
tic comedy It’s Always Spring, for example, the glamorous singer from Singapore,
Ai-Lian Li (played by Julie Yeh Feng), lands at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong and
is greeted by a swarm of journalists who ask her opinions on the diferences among
men in the various Asian cities in which she performs. She replies, “Singapore men
are loyal. hey make ideal husbands. Hong Kong men are vigorous. hey are ideal
lovers.” She is whisked away to her next appointment with a ilm director who is also
a Hong Kong shipping magnate.
he message is clear: Hong Kong is imagined as the place where not only does
East meet West, but the West is appropriately tempered and tailored. he ilms are,
as noted previously, quite patronizing in their representation or elision of the poorest
of Hong Kong’s dwellers, unlike most Cantonese ilms of the same genre. As Law Kar
argues, “Cathay’s Hong Kong ilms display a conscious attempt to free themselves
from the mainland sensibility of Chinese ilms, steering clear of the heavy patriotism
and missionary burdens typical then of the Chinese intelligentsia.”41 I would add that
the ilms were also careful to distance themselves from overt US connections. But
there were still clear biases. he genre of the melodrama did perhaps facilitate the
avoidance of unambiguous political statements. his too was a form of other diplo-
macy. Cathay ilms could concurrently ofer general wisdom on identity formation
and relationships while steering clear of any speciic ailiation with a party, cause,
or source of funding. hey remind us of the ways in which pragmatism and careful
political negotiation marked the creative process and subtly inluenced hearts and
minds as well as consumption habits.
Speaking of consumer desires, it is important to note that, in most of these ilms,
shopping in Hong Kong is key to moving plots forward while providing diverting
sidebars. In this respect, Hong Kong people shared common ground with Americans
and others in the postwar and Cold War period who imbued the ability to purchase
and consume with social mobility and self-individuation. In her work on Cold War
America, Elaine Tyler May notes the importance of shopping to attaining the ideals of
upward mobility and family contentment, writing, “Pragmatism and family enrich-
ment were keys to virtuous consumerism.”42 In Between Tears and Laughter, when
Meifen and Manli go shopping together, they are challenging gender roles because
single women do not usually shop for or give gits to men. As young Asian cosmopolites

42. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988),
166.
sip cofee rather than tea in chic hotel restaurants or listen to jazz in nightclubs (where
there are usually a few nonspeaking Caucasian faces present), the message is clear:
Hong Kong has plunged full bore into the enjoyment of bourgeois distractions, but
its people can be disciplined in the expression of their desires and appetites. hose
who do not exercise such discipline end up paying for their excess via lost love, poor
health, or missed opportunity.
While not overtly political, the ilms are sympathetic to particular viewpoints
and general ideological meanings. More importantly, the three ilms considered here
relect mutual lows and gazes across the Paciic and within and across Asia. Shaped
in part by Hollywood sensibilities and historical circumstance, all three are domestic
dramas focusing on relationships inside the home as inluenced by socioeconomic
shits outside its walls. While there are important diferences among the three,
common themes are evident as well: First, all of the ilms discuss families that have
been or are being reconstituted in the wake of spousal death, inidelity, or remarriage.
Second, all three feature cross-generational conversations about social change, with
the older generation generally bewildered or mildly resistant to new ways of seeing
the world. hird, all three reference Hong Kong’s economic, cultural, and political
connections with other places (Singapore, San Francisco, Taipei, Shanghai) and
feature strong women negotiating between personal ambition and familial expecta-
tions. Fourth, all three present a view of postwar and Cold War family life, urban and
suburban living, and upward mobility via professionalization and consumption that
difers quite signiicantly from postwar and Cold War Hollywood domestic dramas
and American attitudes in this period. While there are common threads and strong
pulls toward nuclear family formation and traditional gender-role performance,
women and men work together to forge new meanings of identity and shape the
various futures of Hong Kong and other Asian societies facing similar demographic
and sociopolitical changes.
he three Cathay ilms considered here, as well as those that have been written
about elsewhere, strike an ambivalent pose with respect to women’s increased inde-
pendence and men’s anxieties over women’s shiting expectations. he ilms do,
however, perform important cultural work in trying to reassure audiences that a new
generation possesses all the coping mechanisms it needs if it will embrace change
with cautious optimism and keep an eye on what it is the elders still might know that
would be of value in a new world. For me, these ilms are an early template for the sort
of Hong Kong pragmatism that is the source of so much comment in later periods.
Additionally, although these ilms are for the most part about women, they also
contest negative stereotypes of Chinese men, particularly in the United States, where
anti-Chinese attitudes and legislation as well as popular culture had caricatured and
marginalized them. To that end, I believe they should be placed in conversation with
Chinese American cultural Cold War texts, something I hope to do in the future.
208 Stacilee Ford
Conclusion
Cathay’s glory days were short-lived. Although the studio still exists today, as Fu puts
it, “By the mid-1960s, Shaw Brothers defeated Cathay, which had been declining
steadily ater the sudden death of Loke [and several other studio executives] in a
plane crash in 1964, [and] it forced most independents out of the market.”43 Shaw and
Hollywood ilms gleaned an ever-increasing market share. By 1966, as Law and Bren
have shown, “the Cantonese youth cinema [and its screen idols] exploded onto the
scene, taking them both to levels of popularity never before attained and not since
equaled in Hong Kong ilm.”44
For a pivotal period, however, Cathay led the way in ofering audiences a range of
representations of new types of Chinese womanhood (and manhood). Its characters
and their celebrity counterparts displayed tropes of moderate Chinese modernity
updated for the postwar and Cold War context. Sending signals about how a new
generation of Chinese youth could successfully negotiate the changes around them,
Hong Kong became a key site of other diplomacy as well as knowledge production
about social change, and a fertile ground for future collaborations and bonding across
subethnic and intraethnic diferences. Cathay ilms also fueled a sense of pride in the
resilience of the diasporic Chinese population in many settings, ofering a blueprint
on how to succeed in the various cultural landscapes in which they lived, loved, and
worked. hey foreshadow subsequent chapters in the story of rising Asia and ofer
glimpses of globalization as it began to accelerate in Hong Kong.
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and Bryna Goodman, 197–211. London: Routledge, 2012.
Edwards, Louise. “he Shanghai Modern Woman’s American Dreams: Imagining America’s
Depravity to Produce China’s ‘Moderate Modernity.’” Paciic Historical Review 81 (4)
(November 2012): 567–601.
Father Takes a Bride. Film, directed by Wong Tianlin, black and white, 133 minutes, Hong Kong,
Cathay Studios, 1963.
For Better, for Worse. Film, directed by Yue Feng, black and white, 89 minutes, Hong Kong,
Cathay Studios, 1959.
Ford, Stacilee. Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting’s An Autumn’s Tale. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 2008.
———. Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong. Hong Kong:
Fu, Poshek. “Modernity, Diasporic Capital and 1950s Hong Kong Mandarin Cinema.” Jump
Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 49 (Spring 2007).
Fu, Poshek, and David Desser, eds. he Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity. Cambridge:
Funnell, Lisa. Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014.
Funnell, Lisa, and Philippa Gates, eds. Transnational Identities in Pan-Paciic Cinemas.
New York: Routledge, 2012.
“Grace Chang Captivates 60 Million Americans.” Sot Film, posted March 25, 2009. http://sot
ilm.blogspot.hk/2009/03/grace-chang-captivates-60-million.html. Accessed on October 7,
2013.
Hegde, Radha S., ed. Circuits of Visibility: Gender and Transnational Media Cultures. New York:
New York University Press, 2011.
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Asia and America. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2013.
Lam, Derek Hon-kong. “he Cinema of Development: Class Factors and Global Trends in
Hong Kong Cinema.” PhD thesis, University of Hong Kong, 2013.
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2004.
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Asian Pictures.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 13 (4) (December 2012): 548–58.
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Love Is a Many-Splendored hing. Film, directed by Henry King, in color, 102 minutes,
United States, 1955.
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Hollywood Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
210 Stacilee Ford
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8
Hong Kong as a Global Frontier
Interface of China, Asia, and the World
Prasenjit Duara
Hong Kong in the Global Setting
Hong Kong exempliies two senses of the term “frontier”: it represents the geographi-
cal limits or peripheries of a society and area with all of the territorial implications of
such zones as portals for the economy and security imperatives. In the second sense,
it represents a liminal space, a zone of openness, indeterminacy, and absence of a
relatively ixed identity. hese two types of frontier spaces may of course be simulta-
neous, as they oten were in the case of Hong Kong. One could arguably regard the
period of the Cold War until the handover of Hong Kong as a predominantly global
liminal space, whereas the posthandover may be seen as the relegation of its role to a
territorial periphery, as it seems to have been in the initial years.
I will survey the Cold War and post–Cold War—and especially, posthandover—
era from the dual perspective of the frontier. While at irst glance this kind of perio-
dization may seem correct, I argue that in the contemporary era, Hong Kong has
reemerged as a very important liminal space not only in terms of the formal economy
and service industries but particularly in the arena of civic activism and the new
media, the imaginative possibilities of which have yet to be explored in the political,
social, and global realms. In concluding the chapter, I wonder whether the condition
of liminality has penetrated the identity of Hong Kong, thereby endowing its people
with a certain strength in the face of great odds.
As a territorial frontier for much of its 200-year modern history, from a Chinese
cultural perspective, Hong Kong was considered to be peripheral and backward
in relation to the dominant Confucian or Communist culture. At the same time,
however, it was a space of negotiation, facilitation, and experimental creativity. For
much of the past 150 years, Hong Kong was thus a relatively open “contact zone” not
only between China and the Western world but also with maritime Asia.
he Cold War
During the Cold War, Hong Kong represented the zone of interaction between
socialism and capitalism, a space where the otherwise forbidden traic between these
212 Prasenjit Duara
two opposing ideological systems could take place. In this respect, Hong Kong resem-
bled Berlin, also a frontline city that generated an interesting and productive traic
between two antagonistic systems. But Hong Kong was not only a Cold War frontier;
while by no means demilitarized, it was an important contact zone between impe-
rialism and nationalism where national and developmental ideas could encounter
colonial and free-trade principles to generate hybrid and new practices beholden to
neither political ideology. Unburdened by the weight of nationalist ideologies, which
most decolonizing societies were experiencing, Hong Kong represented a frontier
of experimentation with the capitalist market and new forms of state intervention,
identity creation, and cultural media.
Once the Korean War began in 1950, the United States and the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) became implacably hostile to each other. he United Nations embargo
on trade with the new PRC on the mainland threatened Hong Kong’s historical trade
with China, which was vastly important not just to meeting the needs of the terri-
tory itself but to the very livelihood of a signiicant trading community. Hong Kong
was still, however, governed by the British who, recognizing that Hong Kong was
utterly vulnerable to economic sanctions and political intervention from China,
took a much more lexible attitude toward the PRC. he British also recognized that
Hong Kong was essential as a listening and learning post for the PRC about the rest
of the world. Despite its active role in the Cold War, Britain was much readier than
the United States to conciliate China and sought to ensure that Hong Kong remained,
if not relatively neutral territory, then not overtly a center for anti-CCP activities.
Image 8.1
Tourists at Lok Ma Chau border crossing, 1968. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
Chinese Communist as much as Confucian imagery oten regarded Hong Kong

as an entirely commercial and barren place, lacking moral or cultural standards and
accomplishments. In oicial Communist ideology, Hong Kong of course represented
the den of capitalist inequity and imperialist decadence. But even such Confucianists
as Qian Mu and Tang Junyi, now revered in the PRC, saw it as a place of exile in which
to test one’s capacity for sufering and moral worth. Hong Kong, “although beautiful,
was not our land. It did not even warrant a short stay” (晾ᾉ伶侴朆⏦⛇№炻㚦
ỽ嵛ẍ⮹䔁), noted Tang Junyi, writing about their experience in the early 1950s.
Although over the years these literati began to realize that they had to respond to the
needs of the local population if this was to be a long-term place of residence, even as
late as 1959, Tang was lamenting the absence of cultured people in Hong Kong. In the
Confucian imagination, to be a person (zuoren) meant to be a cultured Chinese and
even a universal humanist. A true person was certainly not identiied simply with
Hong Kong.1
While these Confucianists in Hong Kong may have represented a tiny minor-
ity, this attitude of literati in exile—the ones who wrote the books, ran many new
magazines and newspapers, and made ilms in the early period—was more wide-
spread. his was an agonizing moment for them, as they sought to fashion an identity
linked neither to Hong Kong nor the current mainland but to an abstract notion of
Chinese culture. Many of the ilms of the early 1950s, such as he Wild, Wild Rose,
by Wong Tin-Lam (1927–2010), the Shanghai-born director who made ilms in
several dialects, including Cantonese, relect this moment. In this ilm, the city and
urban work are depicted as corrupting forces, degrading all, men and women. he
old values of sacriice, chastity, iliality, and scholarly work were all endangered by
the commercialism and temptations of the city. For many intellectuals the city of exile
was a traumatic experience of separation from home and inability to ind work that
could match their values.2
hinkers like Qian Mu and Tang Junyi who had led the Communist mainland
did not merely bring Confucianism to the outside world, but they reworked it signii-
cantly to adapt to notions of “freedom,” moral commitment, and alternative educa-
tion in a capitalist world. Indeed, their alienation and exilic condition in Hong Kong
helped them to develop a communitarian Confucian theory of modernity. As homas
Fröhlich has shown us, Tang’s concept of the Chinese cultural nation diferentiated
from the territorial state enabled him to translate the angst of the loss of moorings
into an understanding of the modern condition. hese thinkers looked within the
vast repertoire of historical Chinese culture to fashion an ideal community in the
1. Tang Junyi, “he Original Spirit of NA and the Efort We Should Make,” New Asia Life: A Fortnightly
Periodical of New Asia College 1 (2) (May 19, 1958): 1, 8; and Tang Junyi, “‘To Be a Real Chinese Person’:
Mr. Tang Junyi’s Speech at the Beginning Ceremony of his Semester,” New Asia Life: A Fortnightly Periodical
of New Asia College 2 (7) (October 5, 1959): 5, 9.
2. he Wild, Wild Rose (ilm, directed by Wang Tianlin, in color, 123 minutes, 1960).
214 Prasenjit Duara
circumstances of modern civic society.3 he new Confucianists sought to realize their

ideal in the New Asia College, which was later integrated into the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. While they sufered bitter disappointments on this front, intellectually
and ideologically, their eforts did bear fruit. It was, for instance, the very notion of
the cultural nation that Tu Weiming translated into his theory of “cultural China” that
became such an inluential concept in Chinese globalization. Tu distinguished the
notion of Chinese-ness emanating from the political and territorial center of China to
those emerging from the overseas Chinese and Confucian intellectuals in the world
outside China. Indeed, one might say that this cultural China from the periphery has
succeeded to some extent in reintroducing Confucianism and other Chinese tradi-
tions in today’s China.4
here were also several other eforts to fashion a new identity quite diferent
from that of the Confucianists. In igures such as the Eurasian author and doctor
Han Suyin, we see a synthesis of ideas of freedom, nationalism, and socialism, and a
cosmopolitanism wedded to a unifying anti-imperialist solidarity. In 1955 Han’s auto-
biographical novel, A Many-Splendoured hing, was made into a famous Hollywood
ilm with almost the same title, starring William Holden. In later decades it would be
cited cinematically as part of the emergent Hong Kong identity.5
In these ways, Hong Kong was a frontier of Chinese-ness. But the feeling that
the city was a trap for good Confucian men and women did not unduly constrain
the energies unleashed in the city. PRC cultural products, such as the Chinese-
opera-based cinema of 1950s Shanghai, were adapted for Hong Kong and overseas
audiences, with whom they proved very successful. he box oice success of such
PRC-made opera ilms inspired the Shaw Brothers’ Studio and Cathay to produce
a series of opera ilms in Hong Kong, particularly about the monkey king. Many of
these mainland and Hong Kong opera ilms were widely distributed across Southeast
Asia and in North America via Hong Kong. Other 1950s Hong Kong cinema produc-
tions were of a high quality, relecting the attitudes of men and women seeking to
adapt their old values to the new society.6
Much has recently been written about the evolution of Hong Kong’s ilm industry
from the 1950s, and I will not rehearse the details here. he ilm industry itself saw
a combination of diferent international forces, especially Japanese technology and
cinematic ideas, interacting with wider Chinese themes, casts, and audiences. he
Shaw Brothers in competition with letist cinema in Hong Kong created motifs and
3. homas Fröhlich, “Nation, Self and Exile: On Tang Junyi’s ‘Communitarian’ Reconstruction of China’s
National Culture,” paper delivered at conference on “Chinese and Diasporic Exile Experience,” University of
Zürich, Switzerland, August 12, 2005.
4. Tu Weiming, “Cultural China: he Periphery as the Center,” Daedalus: Fity Years 134 (4) (Fall 2005): 145–67.
5. Love Is a Many-Splendored hing (ilm, directed by Henry King, in color, 102 minutes, United States, 1955).
6. Poshek Fu and David Desser, eds., he Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), especially the essays by Poshek Fu, David Desser, and Stephen Teo.
icons of a non-Communist Chinese-ness across greater China, especially throughout

Southeast Asia. he 1960s production of the martial arts or kung fu ilms played an
important role in crating this new identity of Chinese-ness. It did not just strongly
emphasize a cult of masculinity but simultaneously appealed in many ways to reli-
gious and civilizational Chinese Buddhist imagery and themes. his cinema would
deine itself against Japanese, Manchu, and Western imperialisms as much as it pitted
its heroes against Communism and antinativist forces. Cinematically, the pioneers of
this cultural movement were the ilmmaker King Hu and the actors Kwan Tak Hing
(as historical folk hero Wong Fei-hung), Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Gordon Liu.7
If the values of elite Confucian intellectuals from the North militated against the
commercialism, colonialism, peripheralism, and localism of Hong Kong culture,
from the 1950s to the 1970s the native Cantonese culture of the bulk of the local
populace was cinematically crated into an alternative identity, particularly through
the Wong Fei-hung series of eighty-nine ilms in Cantonese. his series on the epony-
mous martial arts and Chinese medicine folk hero who lived from 1847 to 1924 con-
tributed to the idea of Hong Kong as a homeland nested within a larger Cantonese
diaspora, in a simultaneously Confucian and subaltern moral framework distinct
from both the Mandarin and colonial frames.
As Hector Rodriguez’s study of the series shows, the cinematic characters were
embedded in Cantonese customs and lifeways, featuring dragon-boat races, lantern
festivals, and local street life that would appeal to local Hong Kong people and the
Cantonese diaspora across Southeast Asia. While the series produced a sense of “cul-
tural nationalism” appropriate for the local Cantonese elites, it was also infused with
the subaltern ethics of the righteous bandits of the “rivers and lakes” (shuihu) from the
hugely popular novel he Water Margin, whose violence was directed at restoring the
ideal Confucian ethical order by eliminating the predators of the people. his moral
sense was, in turn, not overly distinct from the demands for public accountability
and civic justice made upon the contemporary colonial power. Many of the values
developed in this localist, communal, Cantonese, subaltern-Confucian, and modern
matrix would ind their way into later cultural expressions and protest movements.8
Hong Kong also became a geographical frontier of the Cold War, the border bat-
tleground for opposing political interests, the space of contestation and even violence
between Communists and KMT-backed forces in various areas of life, including labor
unions, glee clubs, and the covert war of spies and espionage. But both in spite and
because of this role, Hong Kong developed as a space for mutual borrowing, negotia-
tion, and creativity in culture and economics. Although it was in the realm of what
we today think of as services—particularly culture and inance—that Hong Kong
7. Fu and Desser, he Cinema of Hong Kong; and Stephen Teo, Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: he Wuxia
Tradition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), esp. chs. 3, 5, 7.
8. Hector Rodriguez, “Hong Kong Popular Culture as an Interpretive Arena,” Screen 38 (1) (Spring 1997): 1–24.
216 Prasenjit Duara
Image 8.2
Star House, Tsim Sha Tsui, 1968. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
turned out to be most experimental and creative, Hong Kong remained an impor-
tant economic center as an outlet for Chinese goods and an inlet to funnel pounds
sterling into China. his makes it worth looking at the curious circumstances that
transformed Hong Kong into an innovative economic powerhouse.
Albeit greatly underexplored because it was perceived as a dying force, post–
Second World War colonialism also metamorphosed during the Cold War into
a more dynamic economic force. he postwar era was quintessentially the era of
nation-states, expressed through the United Nations, an organization that enjoyed
the full backing of the United States. he fundamental UN concept of its members
was of a nation-state committed to economic development, equity, and state activism.
While the colonial government could not simply continue to operate on the model
of the free-port and transshipment economy, at the same time, it was not commit-
ted to massive interventions in the commercial or inancial sectors. he Hong Kong
government was, for instance, among the few Asian economies of the 1950s that
was not committed to the import substitution model. Instead, the colonial govern-
ment sought a diferent path for the development of Hong Kong. A fruitful symbio-
sis between Hong Kong capitalists (many of them until recently Shanghai business
leaders) and the colonial government yielded a new economic model in Hong Kong.
Unlike South Korea, Hong Kong was not a developmental state; but the colonial
government created important preconditions for its economic growth, especially the
infrastructure for economic development and public housing for the expanded popu-
lation of workers who came in from the mainland. hese measures subsidized the
cost of labor and reduced transaction costs, meaning that the Hong Kong economy
was poised to move beyond its earlier status as a commercial entrepôt to become an
industrial powerhouse and, subsequently, a inancial capital.9
Hong Kong’s emergence as a inancial center was also due in part to colonial
policy. It may be more appropriate to say that it was a result of benign neglect by
the government. hroughout the 1950s and 1960s, dollar earnings from Hong Kong
were critical to balance the dollar indebtedness of the United Kingdom. As Catherine
Schenk has shown, it was expected that these high dollar earnings would be con-
verted into British pounds sterling at a lower than market rate. An unspoken agree-
ment existed, however, between the colonial government and Hong Kong merchants
that the dollar would continue to be traded at the market rate rather than the rate
ofered by the British Treasury. Hong Kong merchants argued—and the colonial
administration clearly concurred—that forcing them to trade with a more expensive
dollar would drive the transshipment trade away from Hong Kong to Macao and
other competitors.10
As a result, Hong Kong saw the operation of two currency systems: one applied
to the large, usually foreign, banks and irms subject to the ixed exchange rate and
sterling policies of the British government; the other, to the local and regional net-
works that utilized a market exchange rate with the US dollar that was necessary
for Hong Kong to function in its historical role as an entrepôt. In a narrow sense,
Hong Kong acquired its importance as an international inancial center because of
this peculiar structure, or what came to be known as the “Hong Kong gap”: the colony
could beneit from the sterling area while at the same time signiicant groups—most
notably, local bankers and merchants—possessed the ability to avoid the inancial
strictures imposed by colonial rule. he diferential between the value of the dollar
according to the ixed exchange rate and its loating market value invited vast amounts
of capital from all over the world to gain advantage from currency arbitrage. his
inlow also inanced, to some extent, the industrialization of Hong Kong, which in
turn added to its dollar and sterling export earnings.11
Many of these special characteristics of Hong Kong could not have emerged there
had it been run by the type of national government that dominated most recently
9. Prasenjit Duara, “Hong Kong and the New Imperialism in East Asia 1941–1966,” in Twentieth Century
Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday, and the World, ed. David Goodman and Bryna Goodman
(London: Routledge, 2012), 197–211.
10. Catherine R. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Emergence and Development 1945–65
(London: Routledge, 2001), 73–80. Almost 15 percent of Britain’s liabilities to overseas sterling areas (OSA)
were owed to Hong Kong by 1969. Catherine R. Schenk, “he Empire Strikes Back: Hong Kong and the
Decline of Sterling in the 1960s,” Economic History Review 57 (3) (August 2004): 551–80.
218 Prasenjit Duara
decolonized nation-states. A strong national movement, a Central Bank, and labor

unions would have permitted neither the free-wheeling labor markets nor the dual
inancial policy that enabled the Hong Kong gap that developed the capital market.
In general, moreover, the absence or limited nature of pressure channels from dif-
ferent social groups until the late 1960s enabled the smooth operation of policies
implemented by the colonial government and the big capitalist groups.
By the late 1960s, however, circumstances began to change and the very success
of Hong Kong, together with the radicalization of the Chinese mainland thanks to
the Cultural Revolution, gave segments of the local population greater conidence
to mobilize and protest the inequities fostered by rapid and nontransparent capital-
ist development built on the backs of low-paid workers and poor working condi-
tions. During 1966 and 1967 young people protested against increases in fares by
the Star Ferry Company and supported strikes by workers against factory owners.
John Carroll has shown that the rapid response to these popular movements by the
colonial government, which undertook an anticorruption drive, police reforms, and
Sinicization or, more precisely, Hong Kong–ization of governance, made for better
communication with the local people than previously.12
Image 8.3
Protesters outside Government House, 1967. Courtesy of Tim Ko.
By the mid- to late 1960s a new generation of educated Chinese that called
Hong Kong home had emerged and would become the core group of the identity
movements that developed over the next few decades. While several identities coex-
isted in these communities, competing and overlapping with each other—whether
as Chinese Communists, as Christians, Cantonese, or Hakka—the new generation
was also afected by its roots and culture in the city. his generation developed a
strong sense of cultural Chinese-ness, grounded in and encouraged by the writings
of Jin Yong and popular novels and the booming genre of martial arts movies that
12. John M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleield, 2007), 148–60.
brought Hong Kong’s ilm industry worldwide fame. To be sure, this cultural nation-
alism had an ambivalent relationship with both British colonial power and the
Communist state. At the same time, of course, it was also far from easy to cultivate
an identity of simply being Hong Kong. David Faure has suggested that while there is
no necessary incompatibility between being Chinese and belonging to Hong Kong,
nationalist ideologues in the PRC were not content with compatibility. “China to
them was an ideology or religion. He or she who is a Chinese believes in China. But
that is not all. To be Chinese, he or she has also to be part of China.”13
Ater the Cold War
Hong Kong identity from the mid-1980s was plunged into crisis as 1997 began to
draw closer, and many wealthy Hong Kong people began to make alternate arrange-
ments to enable them to move to Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. his is apparent
in the cultural productions of the last decade of the twentieth century, as depicted in
ilms such as Peter Chan Ho-Sun’s Comrades, Almost a Love Story or theorized in the
academic writing of Ackbar Abbas’s Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. In their
own ways, both works strike a note of extreme despair as they see media technology
and politics conspiring to erode identity with place or community. Abbas proposes
the idea of “tele-conquest of reality” by rapidly changing images that break down
stable points of reference in identity, which leads to identity having to be constantly
being remade. In Comrades, China is only a memory of pop songs and references
to fading appellations such as comrade. In this ilm, there is a constant refashion-
ing of the personal—as the protagonists go from China to Hong Kong to New York
City. In their travels through rapidly changing landscapes and life situations, the ilm
ultimately seeks out a celebration of the everyday and little feelings, loyalties, and
memories—such as Teresa Teng’s song (“Tian mimi”) and William Holden’s heroic
role in Love Is a Many-Splendored hing, itself a citation of Hong Kong from the
early 1950s.14
In 2002, the director Peter Chan remarked in an interview, “I think the reason
Hong Kong ilms have declined in popularity is that Hong Kong people are still
looking for stories to tell. hey don’t have stories to tell right now because they have
yet to ascertain their true identity. hat will take some time—a few years, maybe even
a decade.”15 Yet, well before the decade Chan anticipated was over, the people of
13. David Faure, “Relections on Being Chinese in Hong Kong,” in Hong Kong’s Transitions, 1842–1997, ed.
Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1997), 105.
14. Comrades, Almost a Love Story (ilm, directed by Peter Chan Ho-Sun, in color, 116 minutes, Hong Kong,
1996); and Ackbar Abbas, Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1997).
15. Jin Long Pao, “he Pan-Asian Co-Production Sphere: Interview with Director Peter Chan,” Harvard Asia
Quarterly 6 (3) (Summer 2002): 45, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/haq/200203/index.htm.
220 Prasenjit Duara
Hong Kong apparently managed to steer away from this sense of crisis. During
the irst decade of the twenty-irst century, and following the Asian inancial crisis,
Hong Kong people appear to have taken their destiny into their own hands in several
respects. A strong sense of local commitment has been revealed not only in the succes-
sive waves of protests to enhance democratic participation but also through engage-
ment to protect and conserve historical sites and places of community memory. One
may see this as a counterforce to Abbas’s description of the trend of disappearance of
community and identity. What accounts for the change?
According to Alvin So, Hong Kong society was plunged into an economic crisis
and despair immediately following the retrocession. he transfer of sovereignty
happened to coincide with the Asian inancial crisis of 1997–98, which exacerbated
many economic problems in Hong Kong stemming from structural issues and loss of
business to other parts of China. It afected all sectors of society, including the here-
tofore highly successful middle and professional classes, and it was dramatized by
real-term GDP decline of 7.8 percent in 1998. hese economic tensions and protests
suddenly transformed into a wide and general civil rights and community protection
movement.16
Conlict over economic issues and protests in the atermath of the SARS crisis
in 2003 prompted the new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (or HKSAR)
government to push for the passing of the National Security Law (or Article 23
of the Basic Law), which would have curtailed many of the political freedoms of
Hong Kong. his threat of the loss of hard-won political rights galvanized people
from diferent walks of life, and a new kind of politics—what So calls a postmodern
popular movement—appears to have emerged as a continuing movement—a kind of
political condition—in Hong Kong society over the past decade and has been suc-
cessful in preventing the implementation of Article 23. So believes that the transfor-
mation from interest group and economistic protest to the new rights-based politics
was actually enabled by the economic recovery of Hong Kong made possible by a new
kind of economic partnership forged between the HKSAR and the PRC.17
So furnishes us with the circumstances of the transformation from despair to,
if not optimism, at least a highly energetic and dynamic movement to protect rights,
community, and heritage from the executive power of a limited system of democratic
representation. Every year protests are held on July 1, marking the handover, and
on June 4, marking the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. he movement to protect
democratic rights has oten, moreover, converged with broader movements to protect
the environment, heritage, migrants, and the dispossessed. Chun Chun Ting writes
16. Alvin Y. So, “he Development of Post-modernist Social Movements in the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region,” in East Asian Social Movements: Power, Protest, and Change in a Dynamic Region,
ed. Jefrey Broadbent and Vicky Brockman (New York: Springer Science and Business Media, 2011), 365–77.
17. Ibid.
about this efort in the citizens’ movements that emerged irst with the spontaneous
resistance to the destruction of Star Ferry (2006) and the demolition of Queen’s Pier
(2007). hese piers had been unspectacular but important public spaces for ordi-
nary people in their everyday life at the center of the city and waterfront. Opponents
argue that their redevelopment has efectively restricted access to these spaces to the
middle classes. Although the citizens’ protests failed to prevent the demolition, they
did, especially with Queen’s Pier, succeed in negotiating the nature of the transforma-
tion. Ting argues that this kind of movement reveals a new type of commitment of the
people of Hong Kong as socially minded and locally engaged.18
he convergence of the moves to gain political rights with the defense of civil
rights and protection in general became evident in 2009–10, when a large-scale move-
ment developed against the construction of the Hong Kong–Guangzhou high speed
railroad known as the Express Rail Link. he protest was conducted for a variety of
reasons, including the displacement of communities, the destruction of environment
and habitat, the high price of a risk-illed engineering project, and the pervasive view
that it would beneit the real estate industry more than anything else. But the focus of
the campaign increasingly centered on the residents of Choi Yuen Tsuen village, who
had been conducting small protests for some time since the announcement of the
project in 2007. hese smaller protests galvanized a much wider movement in 2010,
drawing almost 10,000 people, which expanded to wider issues, including the release
of the Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo and a referendum on political reforms.19
To be sure, the local identity that is developing around these issues of community
building and historical preservation is precisely, but not only, that. It is a local identii-
cation that is quite compatible with a national identiication as well as a transnational
one. Indeed, Hong Kong may well ind itself once again a gateway, linking China to a
wider world—this time, perhaps, to a newly integrating Asia.
Hong Kong’s Transition and the Regional Context
Much of the discussion of Hong Kong’s contemporary history has taken place in the
context of China and secondarily in the colonial context. But Hong Kong is also a
regional metropolis; it has been and continues to be signiicantly connected to the
Asian region around it and beyond. Asia beyond China is one of the important
sources enabling Hong Kong to fulill its function as a liminal zone, and it has become
increasingly signiicant in the contemporary era when Hong Kong seeks to diversify
its connections and options.
18. Chun Chun Ting, “From ‘Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time’ to ‘Our Place, Our Time’: Reclaiming the City of
Hong Kong as Home,” unpublished manuscript, May 2009.
19. Ho-fung Hung and Iam-chong Ip, “Hong Kong’s Democratic Movement and the Making of China’s Ofshore
Civil Society,” Asian Survey 52 (3) (May/June 2012): 510–12.
222 Prasenjit Duara
Hong Kong was a later colonial addition to the older pattern of interlinked Asian
maritime trade that had developed since 1300 CE from Aden to Quanzhou and was
partly based on the Chinese tribute system. As the British Empire developed in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this network of maritime ports was extended
and the exchanges were intensiied. From the mid-nineteenth century, Hong Kong
became a vital transshipment center in this wider Asian and global trade. It was
the principal gateway for people, goods, remittances, and ideas (including religious
ideas) to travel from and to China, particularly ater the great demand for Chinese
immigrant labor in Southeast Asia (Nanyang Chinese) and the New World. From
that time, capital and labor recruitment networks that emanated from Hong Kong
also facilitated the movement of politics, inance, culture, and religion among the
Chinese overseas.
he population of Nanyang Chinese has not only carried Chinese inluences
abroad. At various points they have also initiated considerable change in Chinese
history, principally through Hong Kong. here is perhaps no better igure to represent
both Hong Kong and the diaspora as a major transcultural agency in the emergence of
modern China than Sun Yat-sen, the Father of Modern China. Sun was born in South
China but spent his most formative educational years in Hong Kong (and Honolulu),
which also became the launching pad for his political uprisings to topple the Qing
and later the warlords. For Sun, Hong Kong became a major organizing and inancing
center of the 1911 Republican Revolution; indeed, the Nanyang Chinese even claimed
that Sun had dubbed them the “Mother of the Revolution.” he efects of Nanyang
Chinese activities for the Republican Revolution went much further than is oten
realized, although not necessarily in China itself.20 Again, during the Deng Xiaoping
era, Hong Kong was the inancial and communications hub for the Nanyang Chinese
who responded to Deng’s call in 1992 to invest and transform China.
While the spread of economic and migrant networks from Hong Kong has been
well documented, less noted has been the spread of religious networks from China
fanning out into Southeast Asia through their connections in Hong Kong around
1949. hese include not only the well-known Confucian Religious Studies Association
(Kongjiao xuehui) but also redemptive and syncretic societies such as the Daodehui,
Xiantiandao, Dejiao, and many more that had followings of many millions during the
Republican period. Some of these religious networks traveled with labor migrants,
but as many traveled with merchant networks and created the trust communities
(or social capital) that enabled Chinese businesses across Southeast Asia to grow and
prosper in the postwar period. he movement of Christian missionaries and sects
from the PRC to Hong Kong also created a new environment for social activism.
So did Christian activities fanning into Hong Kong from the West and neighboring
20. Huang Jianli, “Umbilical Ties: he Framing of the Overseas Chinese as the Mother of the Revolution,”
Frontiers of History in China 6 (2) (June 2011): 183–228.
Asian societies, such as the Philippines and Taiwan. hey created the conditions of
Christian activism during the 1980s which played a signiicant role in the formation
of a Hong Kong Chinese identity built around notions of the need for sacriice by
Hong Kong people for the sake of the Chinese nation.21
Globalization and the Region
he wave of globalization since the late 1980s has had some curious results. Regions—
such as the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
Mercosur, and parts of Asia around the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN)—have emerged as vibrant entities, for instance. Regions are important
because while globalization produces wealth, it also generates stratiication and over-
consumption of resources. Regions permit smaller clustering of sovereign or semi-
sovereign agencies to tackle the spillover problems that a single nation-state oten
cannot manage.
What the Asian Development Bank terms “integrating Asia” includes sixteen
Asian countries, including ASEAN plus China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
and India. his integration has been increasing markedly since the Asian inancial
crisis. Before 1998, trade among these Asian countries was only 33 percent; ater 1998
this igure rose to 52 percent. he basis of integration is the vertical supply-chain
production networks. hus a Chinese product may be made from Japanese capital,
Taiwanese hardware, Indian sotware, and so forth. Financial integration is weaker—
but growing now in the present global meltdown crisis. he Chiangmai initiative has
been enhanced to US$120 billion. he idea of a single Asian currency unit, although
seemingly remote at this point, is also under discussion. Culturally, the Asian region
is seeing more connectedness through tourism, high and popular arts, and religions.
he fascination with Korean television serials and diferent Asian investments and
tourism in sites such as Angkor Wat are also indicators of this trend.22
What is the need for such integration? Imperatives for greater regional interaction,
if not for regional integration, include the need to coordinate common and linked
problems of regional public goods. Climate change, public health, and the environ-
ment are regional problems that cannot be addressed by a single nation. Take, for
instance, water management. he Himalayas are the watershed for ten major Asian
rivers. he building of dams and other projects along several of these rivers, especially
the Mekong, has serious consequences for countries downstream. Problems can be
resolved only by coordinating diferent eforts under a regional scheme. Additionally,
21. Lo Yung Kwong and Yeung Kwok Keung, he Mission and Identity of Hong Kong Christianity: A Historical
Analysis (Hong Kong: Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture, Chinese University of
Hong Kong, 2002).
22. Prasenjit Duara, “Asia Redux: Conceptualizing the Region for Our Times,” Journal of Asian Studies 69 (4)
(November 2010): 963–83.
224 Prasenjit Duara
labor migration between Asian countries is increasing at a rapid rate; this is also
afecting Hong Kong signiicantly. his too needs coordinated solutions, as do a host
of economic issues.23
ASEAN is at the core of this regional formation both because it is the organiza-
tion least threatening to any of the regional powers and also because it needs good
economic and political relations with its big neighbors for its member countries to
prosper. he nature of Asian integration is also very diferent from, say, European-
style integration. It is much looser and is neither committed to creating a common
bounded territory nor replacing nation-states. But it requires recognition of inter-
dependence and creation of diferent forums and platforms to address common
problems. In several ways, the new regional integration resembles more the Asian
maritime networks of precolonial times that interlinked so many diferent parts of
Asia economically, culturally, and by and large peacefully.
In this new dispensation, Hong Kong continues to play a key role in integrating
China with the rest of the world, and especially with Asian societies. he mainland
government has increasingly recognized Hong Kong’s status as a frontier of inno-
vation, particularly in the service sector, including the inancial, educational, and
entertainment industries. Take, for example, Hong Kong’s role in the very recent
internationalization of the renminbi. In mid-2011, only 2 percent of China’s inter-
national payments were settled in renminbi, while about 80 percent of China’s inter-
national payments were settled in US dollars. Just over a year later, in September
2012, 11 percent of China’s external trade was settled in renminbi. An increas-
ing number of banks, moreover, including institutions in Japan, South Korea, the
Philippines, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Chile, have expressed interest in holding ren-
minbi as part of their foreign exchange reserves.24
he sophisticated and creditworthy inancial sector in Hong Kong has not only
played a major role in China’s external trade and investment strategy to date, but,
as the internationalization of the renminbi indicates, it continues to remain a space
for experimentation not easily conducted elsewhere. About 30 percent of PRC trade
is mediated through Hong Kong, and more than 60 percent of mainland PRC invest-
ments are routed through Hong Kong banks and companies. In 2011 and 2012, more
than 90 percent of China’s new renminbi trade settlements were closed in Hong Kong.
he inancial community in Hong Kong is familiar with and relied upon for its under-
standing of Chinese markets and institutions. he institutional connections between
the regulatory authorities and inancial communities of both Hong Kong and main-
land China allow for better communication with foreign businesses in Hong Kong
23. Ibid., 976–80.

24. Bank of East Asia, “Renminbi Internationalization—the Role of Hong Kong,” he Bank of East Asia,
Limited Economic Analysis: A Publication of the BEA Economic Research Department (October 2012),
http://economists-pick-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Economic-Forum/Renminbi-
Internationalization-he-Role-of-Hong-Kong/ef/en/1/1X000000/1X09Q8LR.htm.
than in many other places. Although the future of the renminbi as an international
currency is not entirely clear, it will depend a great deal on the transparency of inan-
cial innovations in Hong Kong.25
here also appears to be signiicant awareness of Asia as a wider cultural arena
where Hong Kong can play a role. he Special Administrative Region (SAR) govern-
ment has been planning for Hong Kong to become an important educational hub in
Asia. Its higher education system with good training in both English and Chinese
can serve as an important bridge for other Asians—especially from former British
colonies—to enter China for business and other cooperative projects as well as for
Chinese to gain exposure to world-class education.26 he Hong Kong government
spends about one-fourth of its annual budget on education, of which around one-
quarter goes to higher education. he government has permitted its universities to
increase their percentage of nonlocal students from 10 to 20 percent, and it has set up
active recruitment processes internationally. Hong Kong is thus poised to be among
the irst Asian exporters of educational services, bringing in ever-greater numbers of
foreign and Chinese students to its higher educational establishments. As Glenn Shive
points out, “Hong Kong seeks to become a hub within China, reinforced as a hub
within Asia, and gradually enriched by a hub that attracts international talent in a
global system of student mobility and talent low.”27
Cinema, as we have seen, has played a pioneering role in and for Hong Kong’s cul-
tural reputation and economy. Perhaps more than any other ilmmaker, in his cinema
Peter Chan expresses an understanding of Hong Kong’s role in Asia. In the 2002 inter-
view cited earlier, Chan also expressed the view that the decline of the Hong Kong
ilm industry, traceable perhaps to the mid-1990s, can be overcome by making
cinema for an Asian market. Apart from China, he estimates that there are potentially
300 million viewers in the rest of Asia. With good collaboration, ilmmaking can
become the source of the renewal of Hong Kong’s ilm and culture industry. Indeed,
early postwar Hong Kong cinema was a collaborative Asian venture, especially with
major Japanese participation. Subsequently, the technology, techniques, and talents
were exported to other parts of East Asia, including China.
Chan’s production of Perhaps Love is an important expression of this impetus
for Hong Kong cinema to look toward Asia even while maintaining a connection
with mainland China. It is a ilm that was both critically acclaimed and an enor-
mous box oice hit in China. Perhaps Love has a pan-Asian cast, with the Taiwanese
actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, Hong Kong and Korean actors, and the mainland actress
Zhou Xun. Furthermore, it is a musical ilm within a ilm and conjoins Mandarin
25. Bank of East Asia, “Renminbi Internationalization—the Role of Hong Kong.”

26. Hong Kong Institute of Education, “Hong Kong Urged to Grasp Opportunities to Develop Regional
Education Hub,” press release, October 26, 2010, http://www.ied.edu.hk/web/news.php?id=20101026.
27. Glenn Shive, “Exporting Higher Education Services: An Engine of Growth for Hong Kong?” Hong Kong
Journal Archives (January 17, 2010), http://www.hkjournal.org/PDF/2010_spring/4.pdf.
226 Prasenjit Duara
pop with Bollywood-style dance choreographed by the Mumbai choreographer

Farah Khan. As Stephen Teo has argued, the ilm is not merely Asian in produc-
tion but seeks to unify through dance as the cultural transcendent. hus, while
Hong Kong cinema is becoming integrated with Chinese cinema, in part because
of its own survival strategies, it remains the gateway to bring in diferent Asian cin-
ematic traditions to link China with Asia. It can enhance and broaden the aesthetic
and cultural perspectives of viewers beyond those purveyed by purely national or
blockbuster Hollywood types of entertainment.28
Finally, Hong Kong’s rights protection and heritage preservation activism and
the enormous growth of its civil society represent the latest and a unique facet of
its frontier liminality. According to Ho-fung Hung and Iam-chong Ip, Hong Kong’s
civil society has become an “of-shoring space” for China’s civil society. Hong Kong
is a major clearinghouse for information and ideas that have diiculty penetrating
China directly. Visitors and travelers from the mainland have numbered more than
20 million annually in the last few years, and they have access to the practices and
information of nongovernmental organizations and other civic organizations—such
as the China Labor Bulletin or the Center for Human Rights and Democracy—which
they oten take back to publicize or implement on the mainland. he Guangdong–
Hong Kong link is particularly strong, and information lows speedily across the
border. Guangdong’s media is among the most open and liberal in China, and they
oten undertake detailed coverage of protest movements in Hong Kong. here have
also been episodes of cooperative protest through Twitter campaigns—for instance
on the campaign for the release of Liu Xiaobo—across the border.29
At the same time, liberal segments of Hong Kong society have also recognized the
importance of its connections to Asia at several levels. In the irst place, Hong Kong has
a large population of migrant Asian workers and many diferent Asian communities
who have been there for decades and even a century. Second, the tie to the Nanyang
Chinese continues to be robust. Finally, the growth of democratic movements in Asian
societies since the end of the Cold War disposes Hong Kong civic groups to build ties
with them. he Hong Kong People’s Alliance, for instance, created in 2004, listed
among its ailiates thirty-one organizations, including the Asian Student Association
(ASA), Documentation for Action Groups in Asia (DAGA), the Christian Conference
of Asia: Urban Rural Mission (CCA-URM), and the Asia Monitor Resource Centre
(AMRC). Migrant organizations under the Alliance include the Asia Paciic Mission
for Migrants (APMM), the Asian Migrants Centre, the Asian Migrants’ Coordinating
Body (AMCB), the Coalition for Migrants Rights (CMR), the Far East Overseas
28. Stephen Teo, “Promise and Perhaps Love: Pan-Asian Production and the Hong Kong–China
Interrelationship,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 9 (3) (January 2008): 341–58.
29. Ho-fung Hung and Iam-chong Ip, “Hong Kong’s Democratic Movement and the Making of China’s Ofshore
Civil Society,” 515–20.
Nepalese Association Hong Kong (FEONA-HK), the Indonesian Migrant Workers

Union (IMWU), the Philippines Domestic Helpers General Union (PDHGU), and
he Hong Kong Indonesian Migrant Workers Organization (KOTKIHO). Migrant
associations have worked particularly closely with Hong Kong democratic groups.30
As a part of developed Asia, Hong Kong is an important recipient of migrant labor,
and the city has about 250,000 labor migrants (especially female domestic labor).
Typically, the movement of labor from developing to developed Asia is a fraught
political process, since it involves important class and cultural diferences, negative
attitudes in the host populace to migrant labor, and strict regimes of supervision
and control by the governments of developed countries. Migrant labor, moreover,
is oten rendered vulnerable by the absence of citizenship rights and prohibitions
against organizing to protect their interests. Considerable mutual suspicion also
exists between diferent ethnic groups among migrant labor. In short, while trans-
national migration is expected to play an increasingly important role during the era
of globalization and regionalization of Asia, the relatively labor-intensive immigrant
laborer is highly vulnerable because he or she falls into the precarious transnational
spaces between sovereign regimes.
In this context, over the past iteen years Hong Kong civic organizations have
played a pioneering role. While raising the consciousness of the Hong Kong populace
at large, they have also enabled the development of consciousness and rights among
the immigrant working classes. he city has furnished an important staging ground
for peaceful activism of the pan-Asian grassroots migrant labor movement known
as the Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body (AMCB). Building upon the activism of
several Filipino migrant associations, it is a coalition of migrant organizations rep-
resenting several diferent Asian nationalities, including Indonesia, hailand, and
Nepal. An expression of transnationalism from below, the movement emerged in
1996 and by 2002 was able to mobilize more than 10,000 migrant workers to demon-
strate in protest against low wages and discrimination. he movement has not only
brought together typically isolated transnational ethnic labor groups but has also
developed close ties to the Hong Kong populace by joining hands with local civil
society groups. Hsiao-chuan Hsia believes that the success of this group owes much
to the activism of Filipino migrant organizations and the openness of Hong Kong
society and political institutions, which do not separate foreign workers from locals
but allow them to form and join unions and associations protected equally by law.31
hese patterns of civil society activism are likely to be studied by nongovernmental
30. Wikipedia, “he Hong Kong People’s Alliance on WTO,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_

People%27s_Alliance_on_WTO.
31. Hsiao-chuan Hsia, “he Making of a Transnational Grassroots Movement: A Case Study of Hong Kong’s
Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body,” Critical Asian Studies 41 (1) (March 2009): 113–41.
228 Prasenjit Duara
organizations in other parts of Asia, returning Hong Kong once again to its role as a
pioneer, this time in political development.
Conclusion
his chapter has sought to track the dual sense of the frontier that Hong Kong
has represented, particularly since the end of the Second World War. Under certain
conditions, peripheries can become dynamic and creative spaces, in part because of
their peripheral or threatened status and in part because they are bubbling cauldrons
of the world’s cultures. Over the past half century, diferent Hong Kong groups have
crated many innovative strategies for survival and prosperity from these circum-
stances, representing a kind of “strategic liminality.” We have seen these strategies
operate in the realm of economics, inance, education, cinema, and, most recently,
civic activism.
hese strategies of liminality may well have become part of the DNA of Hong Kong
identity: the cultural memory—or meme—necessary for its survival and lourishing.
Perhaps at no other time is Hong Kong’s liminal innovativeness challenged more
than at this moment in late 2015 when this book goes into press. As the youth-led
democratic movement that occupied Central Hong Kong for many weeks to protest
the PRC-backed policy of restricting the election of the chief executive to candidates
approved by the PRC leadership was dismantled and the youth ejected from their
occupied spaces, many feared it might spell the end of the rights movement. But
in this twenty-irst-century-style David-versus-Goliath encounter, the nonviolent
Hong Kong youth can draw on a tool kit of strategic liminality to mobilize the new,
global mediascape as well as the history of innovative activism that could guarantee a
resilience beyond our expectations.
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Aterword
Cold War Hong Kong
A Path to the Future?
Priscilla Roberts
Hong Kong was and is, as Prasenjit Duara points out in this volume, a place that
escaped from the boundaries and constraints of the nation-state, one with the poten-
tial to trigger novel and perhaps hybrid institutional arrangements, tailored to its
own circumstances, that might ultimately provide models for an increasingly glo-
balized and interdependent world, one where the ways that states functioned were
being adapted to meet changing demands. Neither a state nor even perhaps a genuine
colony, it had the scope to devise creative solutions to whatever problems it might
encounter. Cold War developments sometimes proved signiicant in this respect.
Peter Hamilton argues that when, during the mid-1960s, Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon
developed into a rather seedy red light district full of rowdy bars and down-market
businesses catering to visiting US military personnel on R & R from the Vietnam War,
this prompted both Hong Kong elites and ordinary people into organizing to protest
against this transformation. In so doing, Hamilton believes, they brought into being
a new kind of community activism, one that set political precedents for the future of
Hong Kong.1
Duara further highlights how, as increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants to
Hong Kong settled permanently in the territory ater 1945, rather than simply being
sojourners passing through, a new kind of Hong Kong identity and involvement
began to emerge. Many of those who grew up in Hong Kong in the 1950s, 1960s,
and beyond came to view themselves as irst and foremost part of a Hong Kong com-
munity. Living permanently in Hong Kong, they were also far more willing to become
active in a wide variety of civic organizations, to engage themselves in the afairs of
Hong Kong, and to speak up. In the 1970s, for example, Anson Chan, later the irst
woman (and irst Chinese) to serve as the chief secretary of Hong Kong, the ter-
ritory’s top civil servant, organized female government employees who successfully
demanded the same terms and conditions of employment as their male counterparts.
Hong Kong people were oten characterized as politically apathetic, materialistic,
and interested only in making money. But this was a considerable oversimpliication.
1. Peter E. Hamilton, “‘A Haven for Tortured Souls’: Hong Kong in the Vietnam War,” International History
Review 37 (3) (September 2015): 565–81.
Politically, Hong Kong was very far from being a democracy. But this did not mean
that the British-run government felt free to ignore public opinion. Rather, it dem-
onstrated considerable pragmatic lexibility and acumen in responding to demands
for change, as shown by the British response to the riots of 1966 and 1967, which—
as described earlier in this volume—provided the incentive and impetus for Governor
Murray MacLehose’s extensive social reform program of the 1970s.2 he 1967 distur-
bances, with months of violent confrontations—some resulting in deaths among the
Hong Kong police—along the border perimeter fence dividing Hong Kong from the
People’s Republic, also helped to deine Hong Kong spatially as a speciic entity. hey
brought increased militarization of the British side of the border, with the construc-
tion of new and more formidable barrier fences. From 1967 onward, the Hong Kong
authorities also stationed far greater numbers of police and troops permanently on the
border, where they could block the passage of new migrants from China. he physical
separation of Hong Kong from China was thereby emphasized and reinforced, with
unauthorized migrants generally intercepted and returned, and only relatively low
quotas of mainlanders allowed into Hong Kong.3 Beijing and Hong Kong alike had
apparently concurred that good fences make good neighbors.
Image 9.1
Women stringing barbed wire along the border to deter refugees, 1962. Courtesy of the Prints
and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
2. Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), 188–90;
John M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), 149–64;
and Frank Welsh, A History of Hong Kong (London: HarperCollins, 1993), 474–83.
3. Laura Madokoro, “Borders Transformed: Sovereign Concerns, Population Movements and the Making of
Territorial Frontiers in Hong Kong, 1949–1967,” Journal of Refugee Studies 25 (3) (September 2012): 421–23.
he British administration of Hong Kong would continue until June 30, 1997,
with British military units stationed in Hong Kong and patrolling the border until
then. Yet ties and commitments between Great Britain and the territory were steadily
eroded. As early as 1957, in the wake of the October 1956 Communist-KMT riots, the
British government had contemplated the possibility of withdrawing entirely from
Hong Kong.4 From the 1950s onward, the Hong Kong government increasingly ran
its own inances, with ever less reference to the Colonial Oice or the Treasury in
London, except when negotiating over precisely how much Hong Kong should con-
tribute to the British government’s cofers to cover the military expenses the British
incurred in connection with Hong Kong’s defense.5 When the British government
devalued sterling in November 1967, a measure with major implications for the
Hong Kong dollar, which was linked to that currency, the Hong Kong government
was not consulted and was only informed of this decision on the same day that
London implemented it. At that point, HSBC expressed a preference for delinking the
Hong Kong dollar from sterling. Ater several years of international monetary insta-
bility, as eforts to establish new ixed exchange rates proved unsuccessful, in 1972
Governor MacLehose pegged the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar. Following
successive American devaluations, to which China responded by revaluing its own
currency, making Chinese imports to Hong Kong considerably more expensive,
in November 1974 MacLehose inally allowed the Hong Kong dollar to loat freely.6
Around the same time, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968 for the irst time
removed from the majority of Hong Kong’s population what had been previously
been an automatic right of immigration to the United Kingdom. he British govern-
ment’s announcement in January 1968 that it would withdraw all its defense forces
east of the Suez Canal by 1971 let the British military garrison in Hong Kong—
together with that in Brunei—something of an anomaly.
Although London still appointed the governor of Hong Kong, many senior civil
servants and police oicers were of British origin, and British oicials would even-
tually negotiate with China over Hong Kong’s future, the territory was increasingly
detached from and peripheral to its British metropole. In terms of how Hong Kong
itself was run, a pattern of inclusion and consensus developed. Steve Tsang has gone
so far as to state that by the early 1980s, the British administration in Hong Kong “met
all the requirements for the best possible government in the Chinese political tradi-
tion.” his was, he added, “an achievement that had no match in over two thousand
4. Chi-Kwan Mark, “Defence or Decolonisation? Britain, the United States, and the Hong Kong Question in
1957,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33 (1) (January 2005): 51–68.
Hong Kong University Press, 2012), esp. ch. 10.
6. Valeria Zanier, “he Sterling Devaluation and the Change of Strategy in China–Hong Kong–UK Economic
Relations (1967–1974),” drat paper delivered at workshop on “China, Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s in
Global Perspective,” April 2015.
years of China’s history as a uniied country.”7 he government co-opted and drew

in prominent members of the Hong Kong community, including leading busi-
ness igures, political igures, educators, and community activists, consulting them
regularly on signiicant issues. Both private and oicial groups and individuals not
infrequently worked together, as they did when rebuilding Hong Kong’s post-1967
attractiveness to foreign tourists. Successive administrations in Hong Kong had
respected the rule of law, and the Hong Kong courts had normally been evenhanded
in interpreting and applying the territory’s laws. Hong Kong also had a free press,
albeit one in which local newspapers could be unbridled in sensational reporting of
scandals among the rich and famous, with gossip sometimes taking priority over hard
news. And increasingly, the territory was home to articulate and self-conident pro-
fessionals, born or raised in the city, most of whom had spent signiicant time outside
Hong Kong and had acquired extensive international experience and connections,
who had come to regard these kinds of cosmopolitan freedoms as an essential part
of Hong Kong’s identity and way of life.8 Earlier racial barriers, particularly informal
prohibitions on intermarriage (as opposed to less formal liaisons) and socializing
between Westerners and Asians, had become far less rigid than they were ity or sixty
years earlier. At least until well into the 1970s and 1980s, Eurasians oten attempted to
conceal their mixed origins. By the early twenty-irst century, mixed-race children at
local high schools cheerfully described themselves as “half-and-half.”
From the mid-1980s, the rapidly approaching British withdrawal from Hong Kong
and its return to the rule of the mainland Chinese government became a near con-
stant preoccupation, political, economic, and cultural. Many gloomily anticipated
that the special status of Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems” arrange-
ment negotiated in 1984 would in reality be a mere ig leaf for mainland dominance of
Hong Kong, which would become just another large Chinese city. he opportunistic
eagerness of some local business tycoons and political igures to ingratiate themselves
with the Beijing government, as they had earlier done with the British, was perceived
as boding ill for Hong Kong’s promised future “high degree of autonomy.” In June 1989,
the Chinese government’s violent repression of student protests in Tiananmen Square
in Beijing, and its subsequent belligerent and blustering justiication of these actions,
seemed to conirm all Hong Kong’s worst suspicions. Huge demonstrations supporting
the students were held in Hong Kong, and several hundreds of thousands of residents
let the territory before the handover. When a new governor, Chris Patten, introduced
what were in reality—despite his hyperbolic overselling of them—relatively modest
changes to the electoral system for choosing members of the Legislative Council,
Beijing responded with vituperative outrage and ferocious rhetoric. Hong Kong
people were pressured to demonstrate their patriotic identiication with mainland
7. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 197.

8. Ibid., 197–208; Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong, 167–72; and Welsh, A History of Hong Kong, 474–93.
China and their nationalist loyalty to the government in Beijing.9 Many did indeed
feel a real sense of being Chinese and took much pride in the growing economic
strength and international political clout of the People’s Republic. Among the largest
prehandover demonstrations in Hong Kong, second only to the protests of June 1989,
were those of July 1996 in support of Chinese claims to the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku
Islands in the East China Sea, which had been controlled by Japan since the 1890s.
But Hong Kong had also developed a strong and resilient tradition of civic activ-
ism, of which the Diaoyu Islands rallies of 1996 by Hong Kong people—gatherings
that would be repeated during the 2012 China-Japan crisis over the islands—were
indeed one example. In 1996, the mainland government actually sought to discour-
age popular protests within China over the islands, fearing that these might trigger
nationalist fervor that might easily escape the regime’s control and turn into public
criticism of the government’s policies. Duara points out how, even though Hong Kong
enjoyed only limited democracy both before and ater 1997, the city continued—
despite sporadic eforts on the part of the Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to dis-
courage this—to maintain a vigorous and assertive culture of organizing to address
perceived political and social problems. In 2002, press reports of attempts to infringe
on academic freedom brought the resignation of the vice-chancellor of the University
of Hong Kong. he following year, massive public protests led the Hong Kong govern-
ment to withdraw a National Security Law (Article 23 of the Basic Law) that would
have drastically reduced political freedoms in Hong Kong. When demonstrations
and polls made it clear that public opinion had turned against Tung Chee-hwa, the
irst chief executive of Hong Kong, his second term in oice was truncated, and he
assumed an exalted but more honoriic position within the Beijing hierarchy. Every
June 4 and July 1, demonstrations are held in Hong Kong, the irst date commemo-
rating Tiananmen, the second protesting the shortcomings of the 1997 handover.
Earnest warnings from the Hong Kong authorities, prominent business igures, and
Beijing oicials and sympathizers that such protests may adversely afect Hong Kong’s
prosperity and vehement accusations that protesters are mere tools or agents of inter-
national forces—especially the United States and Britain—who are hostile to China
and seek to contain its rising power have proved inefective in quashing such dissent.
Despite undoubted concerns over self-censorship in the local media, Hong Kong
does still have a free press and freedom of expression and a substantial number of
prominent and respected igures who are willing to speak out for causes in which
they believe. Nurtured in Cold War Hong Kong, many of them are now in their
ities, sixties, or seventies, with several decades of conident community activism
of every kind to their credit, enjoying international reputations and credibility.
hey are used to navigating treacherous and diicult terrain, and they are not easily
silenced. Recent attempts to rein in existing practices and freedoms in Hong Kong
9. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 245–67.

through intimidation and repression are liable to backire. When hitmen physically
attacked with knives and meat cleavers a Hong Kong newspaper editor who had
published articles on the inancial assets of the families of top Chinese leaders, the
news was reported around the world. Likewise, the mainland arrest and imprison-
ment of a Hong Kong publisher who had brought out books unlattering to Beijing
was seen as a heavy-handed efort to reduce freedom of expression in Hong Kong.
In summer 2014 the Hong Kong Independent Commission against Corruption
(ICAC) began investigating the inancial afairs of media mogul Jimmy Lai, a major
donor to the pan-democratic cause, whose publications oten carry stories critical of
the Hong Kong and Chinese governments. he ICAC raids on the homes and oices
of Lai and his associates were immediately perceived as an attempt to politicize the
ICAC. hese tactics immediately backired on the reputation of both Hong Kong
and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), focusing international attention on the
city and heightening concerns that the rule of law was increasingly in jeopardy
within Hong Kong. he refusal by the Beijing authorities to grant politicians from
the Hong Kong pan-democratic camp visas to China suggests that top PRC leaders
simply wish to ignore all voices that do not echo their own position. Yet the very
ability of such politicians to win a substantial following within Hong Kong indicates
that their views deserve a serious hearing.
In the past, Hong Kong’s value to China was irst and foremost economic. Both
Wang Gungwu and Prasenjit Duara presciently suggest in this volume that in the
future its greatest worth may lie in its capacity to help China chart new courses of
action and provide workable models of practices of good governance and political
development. he British authorities in Hong Kong, though prepared in the last
resort to use force to maintain internal order, ran the territory with a fairly light hand.
hroughout the Cold War and beyond, lexibility, accommodation, and the ability
to maintain a balance among conlicting forces, domestic and external, and adjust to
changing conditions were the hallmark of pre-1997 Hong Kong. hey had much to do
with creating a generation of Hong Kong people who had the sophistication and skill
to negotiate complicated situations and arrangements and ensure that these worked
rather well. Such abilities are clearly much needed today not just in Hong Kong but
also in China, as it seeks to modernize and become an internationally respected
great power.
As I wrote the irst version of this aterword, a little more than twenty-ive years
since Chinese students took over Tiananmen Square in Beijing, students from all
the universities in Hong Kong had spent a week demonstrating for greater political
democracy and autonomy. Protesters gathered outside the government headquar-
ters in Admiralty correctly anticipated that in the near future the Hong Kong police
would seek to remove them by force, a move that triggered further protests across
Hong Kong and the seventy-nine-day Occupy Central movement, protests that in
political terms both energized and polarized Hong Kong people. One year later,
the long-term impact and consequences of these events are still unclear. Neither side
won. he lawed but not completely meritless political reform package to which the
protesters and pan-democratic forces objected was not passed, leaving an even less
attractive system in place. he next Legislative Council elections are expected to
be bitter. Relations between the mainland government in Beijing and Hong Kong
have deteriorated dramatically, with trust and goodwill lacking on both sides and the
Hong Kong community deeply divided. Who, if anyone, will be prosecuted over the
protests remains unclear. he battleground has shited to the universities, with what
appear to be attempts on the part of pro-government and pro-Beijing forces to exer-
cise tighter control over appointments through the university councils and by making
use of the chief executive’s position as chancellor of all the universities attracting
intense media scrutiny and provoking ierce protests over academic freedom.
Hong Kong still possesses a long and well-honed pragmatic tradition, brought to
a ine art in the Cold War years, of successfully reconciling the apparently irreconcil-
able and maintaining a balance and compromise between supposedly irretrievably
opposed forces, internally and internationally. Wang Gungwu and Prasenjit Duara
both believe that Hong Kong’s greatest service to China may be to provide a lesson
and attainable model of good governance in practice, charting a path to the future.
he challenge facing Hong Kong and China alike is to ensure that this faith in
Hong Kong’s potential is fulilled.
References
2007.
Hamilton, Peter E. “‘A Haven for Tortured Souls’: Hong Kong in the Vietnam War.” International
History Review 37 (3) (September 2015): 565–81.
Madokoro, Laura. “Borders Transformed: Sovereign Concerns, Population Movements and
the Making of Territorial Frontiers in Hong Kong, 1949–1967.” Journal of Refugee Studies
25 (3) (September 2012): 407–27.
Mark, Chi-Kwan. “Defence or Decolonisation? Britain, the United States, and the Hong Kong
Question in 1957.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33 (1) (January 2005):
51–72.
Tsang, Steve. A Modern History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004.
Zanier, Valeria. “he Sterling Devaluation and the Change of Strategy in China–Hong Kong–
UK Economic Relations (1967–1974).” Drat paper delivered at workshop on “China,
Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s in Global Perspective,” University of Hong Kong, April
2015.
Contributors
John M. Carroll is professor of history and associate dean for outreach in the Faculty
of Arts at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Edge of Empires: Chinese
Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong (Harvard University Press, 2005); and
A Concise History of Hong Kong (Rowman and Littleield/Hong Kong University
Press, 2007; Chinese translation 2013, Chung Hwa). His research interests include
the history of Hong Kong, encounters between China and the West, and colonialism
and imperialism.
Prasenjit Duara holds the Oscar Tang Chair of East Asian Studies in the Department
of History at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. He was born and educated in
India, and received his PhD in Chinese history from Harvard University. Previously,
he was professor and chair of the Department of History and chair of the Committee
on Chinese Studies at the University of Chicago (1991–2008). Subsequently, he became
the Rales Professor of Humanities and director of the Asia Research Institute at
National University of Singapore (2008–15). In 1988, he published Culture, Power
and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford University Press), which won
the Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association and the Levenson Prize of
the Association of Asian Studies, USA. Among his other books are Rescuing History
from the Nation (University of Chicago Press, 1995), Sovereignty and Authenticity:
Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Rowman and Littleield, 2003), an edited
volume, Decolonization: Now and hen (Routledge, 2004), and A Companion to Global
Historical hought, coedited with Viren Murthy and Andrew Sartori (John Wiley,
2014). His work has been widely translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and
the European languages. His latest book, he Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian
Traditions and a Sustainable Future, was published by Cambridge University Press in
December 2014.
Stacilee Ford is honorary associate professor in the Department of History and the
School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong. She
teaches US history, women’s history, cultural history, as well as American studies
and cross-cultural gender studies. She has published several articles in anthologies
240 Contributors
related to transnational American studies, popular culture, and Hong Kong ilm and
culture, and has written two books, Mabel Cheung Yuen-Ting’s An Autumn’s Tale
(Hong Kong University Press, 2008) and Troubling American Women: Narratives of
Gender and Nation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press, 2011). She is cur-
rently working on a study of men and leadership in Greater China and Sinophone
contexts.
Lu Xun was educated at Peking University and Lund University, and earned his doc-
torate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is currently a research fellow at the
Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His major interests
are in Cold War history and China’s foreign relations. He has published on issues
relating to China’s diplomatic history and national identity as well as Sino-American
relations in China Review, Modern History Research, the Journal of Modern Chinese
History, and other academic journals. His publications include “Sovereignty and
Movements: China in Hot Wars (1949–1958)” (in the Journal of Chinese Historical
Researches, 2008), and “Meiguo zhengfu yu 1971 nian Lianheguo Zhongguo daibiao-
quan zhizheng” [he American government and arguments over Chinese representa-
tion in the UN in 1971] (in Zhonggong dangshi yanjiu, 2007). His most recent book is
Butterly and Dragonly: From the Civil War to the Cold War (2015).
Chi-Kwan Mark is senior lecturer in international history at Royal Holloway College,

University of London. He is the author of Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-
American Relations, 1949–1957 (Oxford University Press, 2004), and China and the
World since 1945: An International History (Routledge, 2012). He has published arti-
cles in Diplomatic History, Cold War History, Modern Asian Studies, the Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History, and other journals.
David R. Meyer is senior lecturer in management at the Olin Business School of

Washington University in St. Louis, teaching international business, with a focus
on Asia. Prior to this, he was professor of sociology and urban studies at Brown
University. His publications include ive books and monographs and more than ity
articles and book chapters. His book Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis (Cambridge
University Press, 2000) interpreted that city as the pivot of Asian business networks.
More recent publications deal with the transformation of Hong Kong as a inancial
center, job mobility of inanciers coming to Hong Kong, network governance at the
State Banks of China, the banking networks of Asian inancial centers, and private
wealth management in Asia. His coauthored study of global exchanges in the high-
frequency trading (HFT) nexus was published in the Handbook of High Frequency
Trading (Academic Press, 2015), and his research on Shenzhen in China’s inancial
center networks is forthcoming in the journal Growth and Change. His current
research focuses on HFT in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Contributors 241
Glen Peterson is professor of history at the University of British Columbia. He is

the author of numerous books and articles on the modern history of South China,
Chinese migration (especially to Southeast Asia), and the history of refugee move-
ments into and out of the People’s Republic of China. His most recent book is Overseas
Chinese in the People’s Republic of China (Routledge, 2012).
Priscilla Roberts is associate professor of history at the University of Hong Kong,

where she has taught since 1984, and is also honorary director of the university’s
Centre of American Studies. She has published numerous articles on twentieth-cen-
tury diplomatic and international history, with a special interest in Anglo-American
relations and Asian-Western relations. She is the author, editor, or coeditor of twenty-
four books, including he Cold War (Sutton, 2000), Window on the Forbidden City:
he Chinese Diaries of David Bruce, 1973–1974 (Centre of Asian Studies, University
of Hong Kong, 2001), Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the World
beyond Asia (Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2006), and Lord
Lothian and Anglo-American Relations, 1900–1940 (Republic of Letters Press, 2010).
She is currently completing a monograph on Anglo-American think tanks and China
policy, 1950–95.
Tracy Steele received her BA from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown
University and a PhD from the London School of Economics. She pursued postdoc-
toral studies at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, the University of Jordan,
and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She taught at Jiangsu Technical Teachers
University in the People’s Republic of China, the Lahore College of Arts and Sciences
in Lahore, Pakistan, and the London School of Economics, before joining the History
Department of Sam Houston State University in 1992. She spent the following
twenty-three years in the department, ending her career there as an associate profes-
sor. A highly productive academic and enthusiastic researcher in libraries across Asia,
the United States, and Europe, she published more than twenty-ive articles and book
chapters in American, Asian, and world history and diplomacy, and delivered papers
at numerous international conferences. She was also an outstanding and popular
teacher. Following a lengthy illness, Tracy Steele died in February 2015, at the age of
ity-four.
Wang Gungwu is university professor at the National University of Singapore and

emeritus professor of the Australian National University. His most recent books are
Renewal: he Chinese State and the New Global History (Chinese University Press,
2013), Another China Cycle: Committing to Reform (World Scientiic, 2014), he
Eurasian Core and Its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World
(by Ooi Kee Beng, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015), and˪厗Ṣ冯ᷕ⚳烉
䌳岉㬎冒怠普˫(2013). Professor Wang received BA (Hons.) and MA degrees from
242 Contributors
the University of Malaya in Singapore, and his PhD from the University of London
(1957). He taught at the University of Malaya from 1957 to 1968 and the Australian
National University from 1968 to 1986. From 1986 to 1995, he was vice-chancellor of
the University of Hong Kong.
Index
Abbas, Ackbar, 219–20 Asian Development Bank (ADB), 223

Acheson, Dean, 21, 147, 152 Asian inancial crisis (1997–98), 83–84, 86
Aden, 222 220
Admiralty, Hong Kong, 236 Asian Migrants Centre, 226
Africa, 5, 32, 63, 143 Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body
Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals (ARCI), (AMCB), 226–27
45–46, 127, 132, 134, 142, 144, 146–58 Asian Socialist Conference, 126
Air Hostess (ilm), 196 Asian Student Association (ASA), 226
Allen, William Denis, 104 Asia Paciic Mission for Migrants (APMM),
American Committee on Liberation from 226
Bolshevism (Amcomlib), 146–47 Asia Pictures, 43, 195
American International Travel Service, 177 Asia Press, 43
American Society of Travel Agents, 164 Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Amery, Leo, 20 (ASEAN), 223–24
Angkor Wat, 223 Australasia, 3
Anglo-American relations, 6, 35–38, 40–47, Australia, 17, 75, 176, 219
93, 96–115, 117–19, 122–23, 138–39,
152–53, 157, 168–73, 179, 195 Bai Chongxi, 156
anticolonialism, 18, 20–21, 34, 172 Bandung Conference (Afro-Asian
anti-communism, 7, 35–36, 38–47, 52–53, Conference) (1955), 40, 103, 105, 121
56, 118–21, 123, 127–39, 142, 144–58, Bangkok, 136, 179
194–96 Banking Ordinance, Hong Kong (1964), 81
Anzaldua, Gloria, 187–88 Bank of America, 49, 66
Article 23, 220, 225. See also National Bank of China, 66
Security Law Bank of East Asia, 66
Asaoka, Yukiji, 183–85 banks, Hong Kong, 63–67, 70–73, 78
Asia, 1, 3, 5, 8, 11–12, 16–20, 26–27, 32, 38, Baohuang Hui (Society for the Protection of
42, 44, 47, 61–67, 71–76, 79–80, 83–86, the Emperor), 3
92, 98, 122, 126, 128–30, 135, 137, 138, Barnett, A. Doak, 44
143, 145–46, 148, 150, 154, 155, 164, Basic Law, Hong Kong, 76, 86, 220, 235
167, 178, 179, 184–87, 189–95, 206, 207, Beg, Aisa, 156
208, 211, 216, 221–27 Beijing (Peking), 2, 6, 52, 67, 74, 81, 110,
Asia Foundation, 43, 46–47, 195 236
Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC), Berlin, 28, 212
226 Bermuda Conference (1957), 107
244 Index
Between Tears and Laughter (ilm), 196–98, Chang, Grace (Ge Lan), 183–87, 191, 197
201–3, 206 Chang, Eileen (Zhang Ailing), 52–54, 186,
Black, Sir Robert, 113–14 203–4
Bollywood, 226 Chang, Kuosin, 43, 195
Bombay, 63. See also Mumbai Changchun Railway, 126
border, China–Hong Kong, 22, 53–55, 82, Chartered Bank, 65, 80–81. See also Standard
99–100, 110, 175, 206, 232–33 Chartered Bank
“borderlands” (concept), 183, 187–92. See Chen Liushi. See Tan Lark Sye
also frontier; liminality Chennault, Claire, 149
Boxer indemnity, 20 Chiang Kai-shek, 18, 20–22, 35, 47, 92, 95,
Boxer rebellion, 2 100–101, 112, 149, 154–56
Bren, Frank, 183, 188, 197, 208 Chiangmai initiative, 223
British Empire, 1, 3, 16–19, 191, 222 Chiao Hung, Roy, 201
British Government Communication Chile, 224
Headquarters, 41 China, 1–12, 15–23, 26–56, 60–61, 63–67,
British Overseas Airways Company, 175 71–82, 84–86, 117–28, 136, 138–39,
Brunei, 233 183, 186–88, 191, 206, 211, 219–26,
Brunger, Harry, 150 232–37
Bughra, Mohammad Imin, 156 China, People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 82
Burma (Myanmar), 126, 134, 137 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 5–12,
Burton, Antoinette, 192 23, 26–49, 52–56, 85, 92–95, 92–97,
Butterield & Swire, 164 99–101, 103–5, 107–15, 141–42, 156,
161–62, 169–72, 178, 186, 191, 195, 205,
California, 17, 195 206, 212, 214, 220, 222–26, 228, 232–37
Camranh Bay, Vietnam, 41 Ministry of Foreign Afairs, 94
Canada, 17, 176, 219 China, Republic of (ROC), 5–8, 35–36,
Canadian Paciic Airways, 164 38–42, 47, 92, 95, 92, 95, 115, 144, 150,
Canton. See Guangzhou 195. See also Taiwan
Cantonese culture, 215 China Doll (ilm), 184
Caritas Internationalis, 143 China Labor Bulletin, 226
Carnegie Corporation, 44 China lobby, 45, 155
Carroll, John M., 16, 218, 239 China Merchants Bank, 67
Cathay Hotel, Shanghai, 48 China Merchants Group, 67
Cathay Paciic Airways, 164, 176 China National Aviation Council (CNAC),
Cathay Studios (MP & GI), 183–208, 214 36, 118, 138
Catron, Gary, 110 China Products Stores, 30
Center for Human Rights and Democracy, Chinese Civil War (1945–49), 21, 35, 40, 118
226 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 4–5, 7, 18,
Central Air Transport Corporation (CATC), 21–23, 85, 92, 118, 120, 131, 195
118, 138 Chinese Confession Program, 128, 138
Central Intelligence Agency, United States Chinese Trade Diferential (China List), 96,
(CIA), 41–43, 45–47, 126, 147–48, 151, 108–9
153 Chinese University of Hong Kong, 9, 46–47,
Chan, Anson, 231 214
Chan, Jackie, 183, 215 Chinese Youth Party, 122
Chan, Peter Ho-Sun, 219, 225 Choi Yuen Tsuen village, 221
Chang, Carson. See Zhang Chunmai Christian activism, 222–23
Index 245
Christian Conference of Asia: Urban Rural Da Gong Bao (newspaper). See Ta Kung Pao
Mission (CCA-URM), 226 Dairen (Dalian), 126
Chung Nan Daily (newspaper), 135 Daodehui, 222
Churchill, Winston, 64 Darwin, John, 30
civic activism, Hong Kong, 211, 220–21, Dejiao, 222
226–28, 231–32 Deng Xiaoping, 10, 66, 69, 76, 85, 222
Clarke, Robert J., 128 Detroit, 150
Clubb, O. Edmund, 156 devaluation, sterling, 233
Coalition for Migrants Rights (CMR), 226 Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), 66
Cohen, Jerome, 44 Dewey, George, 17
Cold War, 2, 5, 6–10, 12, 15–16, 20, 23, Dewey, John, 136
26–33, 35–56, 61, 64, 68, 70, 72–73, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands demonstrations
79–83, 92–93, 98, 117–19, 122–23, (1996), 235
138, 142, 145–53, 158, 162, 183–84, diaspora, Chinese, 183, 190, 194–95, 208,
186, 188–91, 193–95, 201, 203, 206–8, 215
211–12, 215–16, 226, 231, 235 Dietrich, Marlene, 198
colonialism, 7, 16–20, 44, 168, 215–17 Documentation for Action Groups in Asia
Columbia University, 44 (DAGA), 226
Comintern (hird International), 18 Donovan, William J., 36, 118
Comité Internationale pour le Placement Drumright, Everett F., 121, 127, 138
d’Intellectuels Refugiés, 144 Duara, Prasenjit, 1, 52, 55, 190–91, 197, 231,
Committee for Free Asia, 43, 132, 194–95 235–37, 239
Committee of One Million, 127 Dulles, John Foster, 103, 107–8, 112, 127
Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1968), 233
Communist revolution (1949), 2, 19, 52 East Asia, 5, 17, 115, 117, 126, 137–38, 144,
Comrades, Almost a Love Story (ilm), 219 165, 183, 195, 225
concubinage, 205 East China Sea, 235
Confucianism, 190, 211, 213–15 Eastern Europe, 143, 147–48
Confucian Religious Studies Association East River Brigade, 20, 22
(Kongliao xuehui), 222 Eden, Anthony, 20, 95, 100, 102–3, 105–6
containment strategy, 147, 152, 194 Education, 4, 7, 19–20, 34, 39, 46–47, 54,
Convention of Peking (1860), 104 113, 120–21, 123, 129, 143, 156–57, 192,
Council on Foreign Relations, 37–38 213–14, 224–25, 228, 237
covert operations, 41–42, 56, 215 Edwards, Louise, 197–98
Coward, Noel, 48 Eighteen Springs (novel), 52
cultural diplomacy, 42–48, 117, 122–24, Eighth Route Army, 18
128–39, 146–47, 153, 184–85 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 44, 101, 103, 106–7,
Cultural Revolution, 6–7, 10, 23, 34, 51, 160, 110, 137, 147
168, 171, 178, 218 Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced
Culture and the Politics of Disappearance Scholars, 144
(book) 219 Enoch, John, 125
Cumings, Bruce, 27 Erroll, Frederick, 109–10
Esquire (magazine), 165–66
Dachen (Tachen) islands, 102. See also Eurasians, 234
Mazu (Matsu) island; ofshore islands; Europe, 60, 63, 65–66, 68, 70, 73, 75–76, 81,
Pescadores (Penghu) islands; Quemoy 143
(Jinmen) island European Union, 75, 223
246 Index
export controls, 29–31, 64–65, 79–80, 93, Gao Gang, 131

96, 98, 101, 107–9, 119, 127, 136, 138, Gardner, Ava, 198
212 Garland, Judy, 197
Express Rail Link, 221 Garside, B. A., 154
Gash, Jonathan, 51
Far Eastern Economic Review (magazine), Gates, Philippa, 187–89
195 Ge Lan. See Chan, Grace
Far East Overseas Nepalese Association gender, 55, 183–90, 197–208
Hong Kong (FEONA-HK), 226–27 Germany, 75
Father Takes a Bride (ilm), 196, 198, 203–5 Germany, East (People’s Democratic
Faure, David, 219 Republic of Germany), 28
Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Germany, West (Federal Republic of
175–77 Germany), 28
Federation of Trade Unions, 81 globalization, 1–12, 16–20, 26–27, 60–86,
feminism, transnational (“hird Wave”), 160, 162–64, 178–79, 208, 211–12,
188, 205 215–18, 221–28
Fith Chinese Daughter (memoir), 136 Goodstadt, Leo, 80
ilm industry, Hong Kong, 55–56, 183–208, Grantham, Sir Alexander, 36–38, 41, 43,
213–15, 218–19, 225–26 104–6, 110, 129
New Wave, 189 Great Britain (see also United Kingdom),
Second Wave, 189 4, 6, 12, 15–23, 26, 28–49, 56, 63, 75,
ilms, Hong Kong, 50–51, 183–208, 218–19 92–115, 146, 168–70, 176, 212, 233–34,
ilm noir, 189 235
kung fu ilms, 183, 215, 218–19 Great Britain, Board of Trade, 109–10
romance-cum-melodrama, 189, 196–208 Great Britain, Colonial Oice, 98, 156, 233
Wong Fei-hung ilm series, 215 Great Britain, Defence Department, 37
Finland, 28 Great Britain, Foreign Oice, 18, 21, 49, 97,
First World War, 67 100–101, 106, 115, 156, 170
Fitch, George, 154 Great Britain, Treasury, 233
“Five-Antis” campaign, 120, 125 Great Famine, 48, 124
For Better, for Worse (ilm), 196, 198–202 Great Leap Forward, 7, 110
Ford, Stacilee, 54–55, 239–40 Grew, Joseph, 147
Ford Foundation, 46, 152, 156 Gropius, Walter, 150
Foreign Correspondents Club, 51 Guam, 17
Formosa. See Taiwan Guangdong Province, China, 18, 67, 69, 76,
Fortune (magazine), 165 82, 109, 142–43, 226
Four Seas (magazine), 134–35 Guangzhou (Canton), 3, 16, 30, 48, 74, 81,
France, 75 109–10, 120, 221
Free China Relief Association (FCRA), 39,
144 Hall, H. P., 97–98
Frillmann, Paul W., 128 Hambro, Edvard, 155
Fröhlich, homas, 213 Hamilton, Peter, 49, 231
frontier, 211–15, 224–28. See also Hang Seng Bank, 64–67, 71, 81
“borderlands” (concept); liminality Han Suyin, 50–52, 214
Fu, Poshek, 188, 192–94, 208 Harvard University, 44
Funnell, Lisa, 187–88 Harvard-Yenching, 46
Fuzhou, 102 Hayworth, Rita, 198
Index 247
Hegde, Radha, 192 Hong Kong–Shanghai Connect, 79

Henders, Susan, 184 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Herter, Christian A., 114 (HKSAR), 60, 76, 220, 225, 228
Hilton, Conrad, 149 Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA), 49,
Hilton Hotel, 165, 173–74, 177 164, 166, 168, 174, 176–79
Himalayas, 223 Hong Kong Trade Development Council,
Ho Chi Minh, 18 176
Holden, William, 50, 214, 219 Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 222
Hollywood, 184–91, 193–94, 196–98, 205, Honourable Schoolboy, he (novel), 51
207, 208, 214 Hsia Hsiao-chuan, 227
Hong Kong, 1–12, 15–23, 26–56, 92–115, Hsu, Madeline, 153
117–39, 141–44, 146, 148–54, 157–58, Hu Shi, 150
160–79, 183–208, 211–28, 231–37 humanitarian diplomacy, 142–58
economic role, 2–3, 5–6, 11–12, 16–17, 22, Hummel, Arthur W., Jr., 128, 130, 137
30–32, 38, 60–86, 93, 96–98, 109–10, Hung, Ho-fung, 226
119, 160, 162–69, 172, 174, 178,
215–18, 222–25 Iceland, 111
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking identity, Chinese, 213–15, 218–19
Corporation (HSBC), 17, 63–67, 71, 77, identity, Hong Kong, 6–7, 11, 53–55, 189,
80–81, 233 192, 218–21, 223, 227–28, 231–32
Hong Kong Chinese, 2–12, 117–22, 128–30, imperialism, 1–3, 16–18, 48, 52, 127, 152,
134–36, 141–43, 218–21, 223, 226–28, 187, 191, 212, 213, 215
231, 234–37 Independent Commission Against
Hong Kong Equal Opportunities Corruption (ICAC), Hong Kong. See
Commission, 205 Hong Kong, Independent Commission
Hong Kong Exchanges, 60, 76, 79, 84–85 Against Corruption (ICAC)
Hong Kong Family Planning Association, India, 63, 95, 223
205 Indochina, 18
Hong Kong government, 6–7, 9, 17–18, 20, Indonesia, 83, 121, 134, 137, 145, 155, 227
22, 33–49, 55–56, 81–82, 97–98, 105–6, Indonesian Migrant Workers Union
110, 115, 118–23, 129, 138, 143, 152–54, (IMWU), 227
164, 169–70, 173–79, 195, 205, 216–18, industrialization, Hong Kong, 31, 60, 67–73,
220, 225, 232–36 217
Hong Kong Independent Commission Institute of Paciic Relations, 19
Against Corruption (ICAC), 236 intelligence gathering and operations, 6, 32,
Hong Kong Indonesian Migrant Workers 36–38, 40–44, 123–28, 212, 215
Organization (KOTKIHO), 227 International Scientiic Commission, 125
Hong Kong International Film Festival International Union of Oicial Travel
(HKIFF), 187 Organizations (IUOTU), 163–64
Hong Kong Joint Committee on Equal Pay Ip Iam-chong, 226
for Equal Work, 205 Italy, 75
Hong Kong Legislative Council, 234, 237 It’s Always Spring (ilm), 206
Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA),
83–84 Jade Woman (novel), 51
Hong Kong People’s Alliance, 226 Japan, 3, 19–21, 23, 27, 32, 48, 65, 74, 84, 95,
Hong Kong Rennie’s Mill Refugee Camp 163, 165, 176, 194, 223, 224, 225, 235
Relief Committee (HKRMRC), 39, 154 Japan Airlines, 164
248 Index
Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, 5 Kuomintang (KMT), 4–6, 39, 47, 118, 121,
Jardine Matheson, 165–66 154, 215. See also Nationalists
Jiang Menglin, 150 Kwan Tak Hing, 215
Jinmen island. See Quemoy island Kwong On Bank, 64–67, 71
Jin Yong (Louis Cha), 218
Johnson, Lyndon B., 48, 168–69 Lai, Jimmy, 236
Johnson, Nelson, 149 Lai Chin, Kelly, 203
Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, Lam, Derek, 186, 187, 204
150 Laos, 145
Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, Latin America, 5, 32, 76
Sino-British (1984), 10, 86, 234 Law Kar, 183, 187, 188, 197, 206, 208
Judd, Walter H., 45, 126–27, 134, 148, Law Yuk-fun, 44
150–51 le Carré, John, 51
June 1989 political demonstrations, Leary, Charles, 194–95
Hong Kong, 234 Lee, Bruce, 215
June Bride (ilm), 196 Lee Ang, 203
Jung, Carl, 150 Lee Kong Chian, 146
Lee Wai-tong, 130
kaifong associations, 143 Lennox-Boyd, Alan, 106
Kai Tak airport, Hong Kong, 40, 105, Leung Ping-kwan, 192
164–65, 206 Li Bingheng, 156
Kanejiro, Takeshi, 225 Li Huang, 122
Kang Youwei, 3 Li Lihua, 184, 198
Kao Tsiang, 201 Li Mei, Helen, 199, 201
Kashmir Princess, 40, 105, 121, 138 Li Shifang, 130
Kennan, George F., 147 liminality, 211–28. See also “borderlands”
Khan, Farah, 226 (concept); frontier
Khoo, Olivia, 185 Lin Biao, 51
Khrushchev, Nikita, 23 Lin Cui, Jeanette, 197
King, Frank H. H., 17 Linglong (magazine), 197
King, Hu, 215 linkages, 3–8, 10–12, 15–17, 31–32, 61–76,
King and I, he (musical), 184–85 84–86, 191, 216–18, 221–28. See also
Klein, Christina, 183–84 networks
Kniss, Paul, 125 Little Moe (cartoon), 135
Korea, South (Republic of Korea), 83, 95, Little Sai Wan Station, 41
194, 216, 223, 224, 225 Liu, Gordon, 215
Korean War (1950–53), 23, 26, 30–31, 39, 50, Liu Chong Hing Bank, 80
70, 72, 92, 94–96, 110, 119–20, 125–26, Liu Hong, 26, 190
168, 212 Liu Qianmeng, 199
Kowloon, 40, 81, 104, 128–29, 131, 165–66, Liu Shaoqi, 93
171, 199, 205, 231 Liu Xiaobo, 221, 226
Kowloon riots (October 1956), 41–42, 54, Lloyd, Selwyn, 107
121, 233 Loescher, Gil, 157
Kowloon Wharf & Godown Company, 166 Loke Wan ho, 193–94, 208
Kresge, S. S., 149 Loke Yew, 193
Kuala Lumpur, 136, 146 London, 73, 78, 85, 191
Kuo, Karen, 194, 198 Louis, Wm. Roger, 104
Index 249
Love Is a Many-Splendored hing (ilm), 50, migrant workers, 226–27

190, 198, 214, 219 migration to Hong Kong, 2, 44–45, 54–55,
Lo Wu border crossing, 53 110, 141–43, 191–92, 224, 226–27,
Luce, Henry R., 149 232–33
Lugard, Sir Frederick, 19 Miramar Hotel, 165, 177, 179
Lust Caution (ilm), 54, 203 Mirs Bay, 17
Lust Caution (novella), 52, 54, 203 missionaries, 19, 143, 222–23
Lutheran World Federation, 143 modernity, 184, 187, 193
Lu Xun, 30, 31, 35, 40, 194, 240 modernity, communitarian Confucian,
213–14
Ma, Pufang, 156 modernity, Hong Kong, 197–98, 201, 208
Macau, 23, 32, 48, 52, 80, 99–100, 107, 119, “modernity, moderate Chinese,” 197–98,
132, 134, 137, 217 200, 208
MacLehose, Sir Murray, 34, 232–33 Moscow, 118
Macmillan, Harold, 29, 106–13, 115 Mount Davis Road, 39
Malaya, 96, 145–46, 155, 157 Mumbai, 226. See also Bombay
Malaysia, 66, 83 Munich, Germany, 147
Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, 164 Mutual Defense Treaty, US-China (ROC)
Mambo Girl (ilm), 183, 191, 196 (1955), 95
Manchu dynasty, 3, 17 Myanmar. See Burma
Mandarin Hotel, Hong Kong, 165
Manila, 17, 145, 179 Naked Earth (novel), 52
manufacturing industry, Hong Kong, 67–73 Nanjing, China, 4–6
Many-Splendoured hing, A (novel), 50–52, Nanyang Chinese, 222, 226
214 Nanyang Commercial Bank, 66
Mao Zedong, 21, 23, 52, 92, 94, 110, 118, Nanyang University, 157
161–62, 172 Nash, Walter, 108
Marchetti, Gina, 184–85, 187 Nathan Road, 49
Mark, Chi-Kwan, 15, 28, 29, 35, 48–49, 106, National Committee for a Free Europe
122, 146, 152, 240 (NCFE), 45, 147–48
Marshall, George C., 149 Nationalists, 4–6, 20–23, 35–36, 38–43, 92,
Mason, Richard, 50, 166 94, 99–105, 118, 121, 144, 149, 154–56.
Mature, Victor, 184 See also Kuomintang (KMT)
May, Elaine Tyler, 206 National Security Law, 220, 235. See also
May Fourth movement (1919), 23 Article 23
Mazu (Matsu) island, 92, 102. See also nation-state, 216–18
Dachen (Tachen) islands; ofshore Needham, Joseph, 125
islands; Pescadores (Penghu) islands; Nepal, 227
Quemoy (Jinmen) island Netherlands, 75
McCarthy, Richard M., 52, 128, 133–34 networks, 1, 3–8, 10–12, 16–19, 31–32,
McNutt, Paul, 149 61–76, 162–63, 197, 222–25. See also
Mekong river, 223 linkages
Mencius Education Foundation, 47 capital networks, 61–76, 84–86, 222,
Mercantile Bank, 65 224–25
Mercosur, 223 religious networks, 222–23
Meyer, David R., 17, 31, 240 trade networks, 222
Middle East, 63, 76, 176 New, Christopher, 51
250 Index
New Asia College, 47, 214 Paris Peace Conference (1919), 23

New Territories, 30, 39, 104, 121 Patten, Chris, 234
New York City, 37, 73, 85, 146, 149–50, 155, Pearl River, 4
176, 219 Penang, 136
New York Times, 124, 150, 164, 174–75 Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong, 48, 165
New Zealand, 108, 176 Perhaps Love (ilm), 225–26
Nigeria, 224 Perry, Matthew, 17
Nimitz, Chester, 149 Pescadores (Penghu) islands, 103. See also
Nixon, Richard M., 126–27 Dachen (Tachen) islands; Mazu (Matsu)
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), island; ofshore islands; Quemoy
142–58, 226–28 (Jinmen) island
North America, 3, 60, 63, 66, 68, 70, 73, Peterson, Glen, 45–46, 127, 241
75–76, 81, 143, 165, 195, 214 Philippines, 17–18, 63, 66, 83, 137, 149, 155,
North American Free Trade Association 194, 223, 224, 227
(NAFTA), 223 Philippines Domestic Helpers General
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 35 Union (PDHGU), 227
North Borneo, 155 political unrest, Hong Kong, 29, 34, 36,
Northwest Orient, 164 38–39, 41–42, 49, 54, 81–82, 84–86,
NSC 5717, 43, 107, 123–24, 138 106, 121, 160, 171–75, 179, 220–21, 228,
NSC 6007 and 6007/1, 40, 43, 138 232, 235–37
NSC Action Memorandum 256, 107 polygamy, 205
Port Arthur, 126
Occupy Central movement (2014), 84–86, Po Sang Bank, 66
228, 236–37 propaganda, cultural, 42–44, 117, 119–24,
Ocean Terminal, 166 128–39, 194–95
ofshore islands, 92, 95, 102. See also Dachen Propaganda Review, 124–25
(Tachen) islands; Mazu (Matsu) island; protests, Hong Kong, 84–86, 220–21, 228,
Pescadores (Penghu) islands; Quemoy 232, 235–37
(Jinmen) island psychological warfare, 122–23, 128–39,
O’Neal, Floyd, 125 144–58
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 150
Oram, Harold, 150 Qianhai special zone, 76, 85
Orientalism, 184–85 Qian Mu, 213
Osgood, Kenneth, 145 Qiao Guanhua, 22
“other diplomacy,” 184–87, 190, 193, 201, Qing empire, 2–3, 17, 30
202, 204, 206, 208 Quanzhou, 222
overseas Chinese, 2, 4–8, 11, 16, 19, 27, 32, Queen’s Pier, 221
42, 45–47, 55, 117, 120, 128, 131–33, Quemoy (Jinmen) island, 92, 102, 112. See
137–38, 145–46, 155–57, 162, 183, 195, also Dachen (Tachen) island; Mazu
214 (Matsu) island; ofshore islands;
Pescadores (Penghu) islands
P & O Company, 166, 175 Quinn, John, 125
Paciic Area Travel Association, 164, 167
Paciic Ocean, 5, 17, 19, 41, 184–85, 195, 197, Radford, Arthur, 104
202, 205, 207 Radio Free Asia, 42
Pai Lu-ming, Christine, 197 Radio Hong Kong, 123
Pan American World, 164 Radio Liberation, 146–47
Index 251
Radio Villa Verde, 132 Shaw Brothers, 187, 192–94, 197, 208,
Rangoon (Yangon), 126, 136 214–15
Rankin, Karl, 103 Shek Kip Mei ire (1953), 33, 43
Read, James M., 141 Shen Shuang, 54
Red Guards, 172 Shenzhen, China, 67, 76–77, 85
refugees, 5–6, 19, 28, 33, 35, 38–40, 44–46, Shenzhen–Hong Kong Connect, 79
118, 127, 131, 141–44, 147–48, 150, Shive, Glenn, 225
153–58 shopping, Hong Kong, 165–67, 206–7
regionalism, Asian, 223–26 Shore, Dinah, 183–86, 202
renminbi trading, 78, 85, 224–25 Singapore, 32, 61, 63, 65–66, 73–74, 78, 84,
Rennie’s Mill (Tiu Keng Leng), 39–40, 154 92, 136–37, 146, 155, 157, 191, 193, 197,
Reynolds, Debbie, 197 206, 207
Rice-Sprout Song, he (novel), 52 Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), 4
Richer, Linda K., 161 Sino-Soviet split, 23, 118, 126, 170
Ride, Sir Lindsay, 20, 46 So, Alvin, 220
riots, Hong Kong (1967), 34, 49, 81–82, 86, social reforms, Hong Kong, 34–35, 54–55,
160, 162, 172–75, 178, 232 191, 218, 232
Rizal, José, 18 sot power, 184–85
Roberts, Priscilla, 241 Soldier of Fortune (ilm), 184
Robertson, Walter, 112 Soong Qingling (Madame Sun Yat-sen), 18
Rockefeller, Nelson A., 145 South Africa, 3, 17
Rockefeller Foundation, 19, 152 South Asia, 17, 65
Rodriguez, Hector, 215 Southeast Asia, 3–5, 17, 20, 32, 37, 45–46,
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 20–22 64–66, 73–74, 84, 115, 117, 130, 132,
rule of law, 234, 236 134, 136–37, 144–46, 154–57, 186, 191,
Rusk, Dean, 150 193–95, 214, 215
Russell, Bertrand, 150 Soviet Union, 8–9, 16, 18–19, 23, 27–28, 30,
Russia, 16, 19. See also Soviet Union 35, 38, 41, 56, 64, 92, 93, 96, 109, 118,
124, 126, 142, 145–47, 150, 157. See also
Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), 132, 134 Russia
San Francisco, 156, 176, 197, 207 Spain, 17–18
SARS crisis (2003), 220 squatter settlements, Hong Kong, 33, 141
Sasek, Miroslav, 176 Stalin, Joseph, 118, 145
Saudi Arabia, 224 Standard Chartered Bank, 77. See also
Sayles, V. George, 124 Chartered Bank
Schenk, Catherine, 217 Stanley, Oliver, 20
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., 150 Stanley Fort Satellite Station, 41
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Sr., 150 Stanwyck, Barbara, 198
Screen International (magazine), 191 Star Ferry, 221
Second World War, 5, 8–10, 20, 23, 54, Star Ferry riots (1966), 34, 218, 232
64–65, 67, 72, 142–43, 145, 165, 216, Stark, Ray, 166
228 Steele, Tracy, 30, 35–36, 40, 44, 241
Shanghai, 6, 8, 17, 22, 48, 52, 52, 61, 63, 67, sterling exchange, 80, 216–18, 233
71, 74, 76, 84–86, 92, 102, 132, 191, St. John’s University, 132
197–98, 207, 213, 214, 216 Stone, C. Y., 150
Shanghai Yue Opera Company, 48 Stuart, John Leighton, 21, 149
Share, Michael, 16 Suez Canal, 233
252 Index
Suez Crisis (1956), 106–9 Tsim Sha Tsui, 231

Sun Yat-sen, 3, 17–18, 222 Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf, 16, 31
Sun Yat-sen, Madame. See Soong Qingling Tung Chee-hwa, 225
Switzerland, 75 Tung Wah Hospital, 143
Sydney, Australia, 78 Tu Weiming, 214
Szonyi, Michael, 26, 190 Twitter, 226
Tachen islands. See Dachen islands Union Film Enterprise Ltd., 186
Taipei, Taiwan, 95, 121, 135, 139, 144, 207 United Kingdom (see also Great Britain),
Taiwan, 6–9, 11, 39–40, 42, 45–47, 53, 74, 78, 93–94, 97, 104–5, 107, 217
92, 95, 101, 103–4, 107, 110–14, 121, United Nations, 29, 35, 54, 94, 96, 97, 102–3,
126, 134–35, 137, 144, 150, 153–54, 156, 107–9, 127, 163, 212, 216
191, 223, 225. See also China, Republic United Nations High Commissioner for
of (ROC) Refugees (UNHCR), 141–42, 148, 155,
Taiwan Straits Crisis (1954–55), 92, 102–5 157
Taiwan Straits Crisis (1958), 92, 111–13 United States, 5, 9–12, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29–31,
Ta Kung Pao (Da Gong Bao) (newspaper), 35–37, 40–41, 43–44, 46, 48–50, 56, 64,
32–33, 120 79–80, 82, 86, 92–93, 95–98, 100–115,
Tamsui, Taiwan, 95, 101–2, 112 117–19, 121–39, 142, 145–52, 162–63,
Tang, James T. H., 96, 109 168–71, 174, 176, 178–79, 184–88, 191,
Tang Junyi, 213 194–96, 206, 212, 216, 235
Tan Lark Sye (Chen Liushi), 146, 157 United States, Consulate General,
Tat Tak College, 120 Hong Kong, 40–42, 97–98, 121–22,
Taylor, Elizabeth, 197 124–28, 130, 134–36, 139, 152, 155,
Teng, Teresa, 219 169–71
Teo, Stephen, 187, 194, 226 United States, Department of State, 29, 45,
territorial limits, Chinese, 111–12 112, 122, 125, 127–28, 145, 147, 149,
hailand, 63, 66, 83, 137, 145, 227 151–53, 155, 156
hird Force, 121–22, 156 United States, Immigration and
hird International. See Comintern Naturalization Service, 127–28
“hree-Antis” campaign, 120, 125 United States Information Agency (USIA),
Tiananmen Square student demonstrations 145
(1989), 10–11, 52, 220, 234, 235, 236 United States Information Service (USIS),
Tianjin, China, 2 42, 46, 46, 49, 52–53, 122–26, 128–39,
Tiger Balm Gardens, 166 145, 150, 154
Timor, 154–55 United States, Mutual Security Agency, 148,
Ting Chun Chun, 220–21 151–52
Ting Hao, Kitty, 201 Escapee Program, 148, 151–52
Tokyo, 65, 73–74, 78, 84–85, 136 United States, National Security Council, 40,
Tongmeng Hui (Revolutionary League), 3 43, 107, 122
tourism, 48–49, 51, 160–79 United States, Oice of Strategic Services
tourist industry, Hong Kong, 160, 162–79 (OSS), 36, 118
Treaty of Nanking (1842), 63, 104 United States Seventh Fleet, 95, 101, 105–6,
Trench, Sir David, 81–82, 169–70, 173, 175 114, 168
Trocki, Carl, 146 Universities Service Centre, 43–44
Truman, Harry, 21, 31, 95, 101, 119, 145 University of Hong Kong, 4, 8–9, 12, 16,
Tsang, Steve, 16, 18, 35, 233–34 19–20, 44, 46, 51–52, 121
Index 253
Veitch, Allan, 112 World Refugee Year (1959–60), 54

Vietnam, 18, 26–27, 41, 44, 48, 52, 132, 134, World Today (magazine), 133–35
137, 145, 155 World War I. See First World War
Vietnam War, 23, 26–27, 29, 41, 48–49, 51, World War II. See Second World War
160–63, 168–71, 178–79, 231 Wu Liande, 126
Vladivostok, 41
Vogel, Ezra, 44 Xiamen, 102
Voice of America (VOA), 123–24, 131–32 Xiantiandao, 222
Vu, Tuong, 27 “Xiao’ai” (story), 52
Xiao Shuo Bao (Hsia Shuo Pao) (newspaper),
Wah Kiu Yat Pao (newspaper), 134 133
Wanchai, Hong Kong, 50–51, 166, 168 Xinhua News Agency, 28, 32, 152
Wang Gungwu, 16, 236–37, 241–42 Xu Jiatun, 32
Wang Lai, 201, 203
Wang Yan, 203 Yale-China, 46–47
Washington agreement (1957), 108, 112 Yang Chang, 199
Water Margin, he (novel), 215 Yang, Dominic, 154
Wedemeyer, Albert, 149 Yangon. See Rangoon
Welsh, Frank, 16 Yangzi River, 8
Wen Wei Po (newspaper), 32–33 Yan Xishan, 156
West, he (Western powers), 5, 10, 12, Year of the Woman, he (novel), 51
16–21, 23, 27, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 38, 44, Yeh Feng, Julie, 197, 206
49, 51–52, 55, 83, 96, 107–8, 117, 188, Yokohama, 63
132, 167–68, 179, 183, 186–87, 197, 206, Yonghua Studios, 193
211, 215, 222 Young, Sir Mark, 165
Westernization, 190–92, 201 Young, Mary, 184
Wild, Wild Rose, he (ilm), 213 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA),
Wilder, hornton, 150 129, 150
Wilson, Sir Duncan, 110 Yu Ming, Lucilla, 197, 203
Wilson, Harold, 29, 48 Yu Ta-wai (Yu Dawei), 102
Wing Lung Bank, 64–67, 71
women, images of, 55, 166, 183–208 Zhang Ailing. See Chang, Eileen
Wong, Jade Snow, 136 Zhang Chunmai (Carson Chang), 156
Wong Tin-lam, 213 Zhang Guotao, 131, 156
Woo, John, 183 Zhang Tiankai, 156
Wood, Natalie, 197 Zhang Xueliang, 156
Wordsworth, William, 2 Zhou Enlai, 40, 42, 52, 103, 109–10, 121,
World Council of Churches, 143 161–62, 172
World of Suzie Wong, he (novel), 50–51, 166 Zhou Xun, 225
World of Suzie Wong, he (ilm), 50–51, 166,
190, 198

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© 2016 Hong Kong University Press

ISBN 978-988-8208-00-5 (Hardback)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Hong Kong’s Twentieth Century: he Global Setting 1

List of Contributors 239

0.1 Lok Ma Chau border crossing, 1966 22

2.1 Manufacturing in Hong Kong, 1950–85 68

2.1 Regional headquarters by region and country/territory of parent

he Soviet Union collapsed within two years of Tiananmen. By bringing to an end

———.“Lack of Means or Loss of Will? he United Kingdom and the Decolonization of

centuries, Hong Kong was something of an inspiration, ofering a working model of

14. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, 73–84.

struggles for women’s liberation, revolution, nationalism, decolonization and post-

he Acrobatics of Multiple Balancing

by the budget-conscious Department of Defence to close all British naval facilities in

Hong Kong’s Cultural Cold War

the establishment in Hong Kong of Chinese-language colleges that would provide

Cold War Hong Kong: Images and Identities

69. Mark, “Vietnam War Tourists,” 4–5.

Decision-Making, Management Center

headquarters of noninancial irms (the senior management); and corporate services

10. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 28–77.

he Transformation of Hong Kong during the Cold War

Banking in Hong Kong

18. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre, 18–43.

ten. he Southeast Asian banks primarily consisted of Chinese banks headquartered

he Industrial Grat and Its Financing

32. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 150–78.

twenty-irst century, the number employed in manufacturing had fallen to 103,683

Hong Kong’s Contemporary Status

Current assessments of Hong Kong’s importance as a global inancial center rank it

42. Meyer, Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis, 228–33.

44. For example, see http://www.australianbusinessasia.org/home; http://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/asialink_

Enhanced Integration with Mainland China

he government of China granted Hong Kong the status of a special administra-

Qianhai Special Zone

he Shenzhen government proposed the development of the Shenzhen–Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s Leadership in Renminbi Trading

Stock Exchange Connections

hreats to Hong Kong

he Cold War Years

67. Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre, 18–43.

he Post–Cold War Years

he 1954–1955 Taiwan Straits Crisis and Ater

47. Biggs minute, January 29, 1954, FO371/110309 FC1261/24, TNA.

Hong Kong is a British territory by virtue of treaties which are internationally

Allied and Interdependent: Post-Suez Anglo-American Relations and

could accelerate the process by assuming additional responsibilities for defending

Communist China is committed to the ultimate incorporation of Hong Kong

75. Sebald to Reinhardt, April 5, 1957, 611.41/4-557, RG59, NA.

Britain and Trade: A Window of Opportunity in 1957

85. Tang, “From Empire Defence to Imperial Retreat,” 331.

he 1958 Ofshore Islands Crisis and Hong Kong

98. Ledward minute, December 1, 1958, FO371/133322 F1353/1, TNA.

Whither the Anglo-American Study for the Defense of Hong Kong?

he 1957 Anglo-American agreement between Macmillan and Eisenhower to under-

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