Going out under the shadow of Red China: the geopolitical origin of Hong Kong's international status (original) (raw)
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The 1967 Riots and Hong Kong's Tortuous Internationalization
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region enjoys an inexplicable high degree of external autonomy. However, few scholars provide satisfactory answers to the origin and development of it. To fill this gap, this historical case study traces the process of how did Hong Kong develop its external autonomy. It proposes that making Hong Kong externally autonomous was a deliberate but bitter choice of the British to maintain the business confidence of Hong Kong after the 1967 riots. By bolstering up Hong Kong's international status, not only the British but also the PRC government could enjoy economically, such that it could fend off the possible geopolitical pressure from the PRC government. In the 1970s, wider geopolitical context such as Hong Kong's decolonization and changing UK-Hong Kong relations facilitated and reinforced the earlier decision of raising Hong Kong international standing so that an unprecedented degree of external autonomy could be developed. This study echoes on recent studies of the 1967 riots by putting the event in a broader international context and proposes some new directions of research regarding the external relations of Hong Kong in the late colonial era.
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The Cold War was a distinct and crucial period in Hong Kong's evolution and in its relations with China and the rest of the world. Hong Kong was a window through which the West could monitor what was happening in China and an outlet that China could use to keep in touch with the outside world. Exploring the many complexities of Cold War politics from a global and interdisciplinary perspective, Hong Kong in the Cold War shows how Hong Kong attained and honed a pragmatic tradition that bridged the abyss between such opposite ideas as capitalism and communism, thus maintaining a compromise between China and the rest of the world. The chapters are written by nine leading international scholars and address issues of diplomacy and politics, finance and economics, intelligence and propaganda, refugees and humanitarianism, tourism and popular culture, and their lasting impact on Hong Kong. Far from simply describing a historical period, these essays show that Hong Kong's unique Cold War experience may provide a viable blueprint for modern-day China to develop a similar model of good governance and may in fact hold the key to the successful implementation of the One Country Two Systems idea. Hong Kong’s Twentieth Century: The Global Setting Wang Gungwu Prologue Cold War Hong Kong: The Foundations Priscilla Roberts Chapter 1 Cold War Hong Kong: Juggling Opposing Forces and Identities Priscilla Roberts Chapter 2 Hong Kong’s Enduring Global Business Relations David R. Meyer Chapter 3 Hong Kong and the Cold War in the 1950s Tracy Steele Chapter 4 The American Cold War in Hong Kong, 1949-1960: Intelligence and Propaganda Lu Xun Chapter 5 Crisis and Opportunity: The Work of Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals Inc. (ARCI) in Hong Kong and Beyond Glen Peterson Chapter 6 Hong Kong as an International Tourism Space: The Politics of American Tourism in the 1960s Chi-Kwan Mark Chapter 7 “Reel Sisters” and Other Diplomacy: Cathay Studios and Cold War Cultural Production Stacilee Ford Chapter 8 Hong Kong as a Global Frontier: Between China, Asia, and the World Prasenjit Duara Afterword Cold War Hong Kong: A Path to the Future? Priscilla Roberts Index
The External Relations of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2000
The post-Cold War international system has been characterized by the coexistence and interplay of contradictory centrifugal and centripetal forces both at the political level (where there are manifestations of unipolarity but at the same time the emergence of the PRC as a new global power prepared to challenge in the future the current US monopoly) and at the economic level, where the intensification and acceleration of globalization coexists with the expansion and consolidation of regionalism.
Clash of Worlds: The Comintern, British Hong Kong and Chinese Nationalism, 1921 – 1927
Europe-Asia Studies, 2005
MICHAEL SHARE NEWLY RELEASED SOVIET DOCUMENTS reveal that during the 1920s the Soviet Foreign Ministry East Asian specialists assigned growing significance to the British crown colony of Hong Kong. One may credibly argue that, at least in Britain's case, Cold War conflicts with the Soviet Union for influence over existing colonies, for example, Hong Kong, and in such developing countries as China, began in 1920. This article examines the interactions and issues generated by the collision of British Hong Kong, the Soviet Union and China during the 1920s. It investigates the extent of Soviet involvement in Hong Kong and South China, the reasons why the communist movement collapsed so drastically in both places by the late 1920s, divisions between Comintern and Soviet Foreign Ministry (MID) officials over Soviet policy toward the area, and Hong Kong's significance in Soviet policies toward both China and colonial empires overall. The 1920s were a crucial period for Soviet diplomatic and revolutionary activities, which often but not invariably coincided. The Soviet Union and its international agent, the Comintern, forged an alliance with the Chinese Nationalist Guomindang (GMD), then allied in a 'united front' with China's new but fast developing Communist Party. Developments in Hong Kong and GMD-controlled but chaotic South China increasingly intersected with and affected each other. The Comintern promoted the radicalisation and militarisation of the Chinese nationalist movement while encouraging strikes intended to weaken British colonial rule in Hong Kong. Though ultimately unsuccessful in this purpose, labour unrest distracted British attention from Comintern and Soviet activities in China, particularly the neighbouring South Chinese city of Guangzhou (Canton). With a population of somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 then, only a fraction of its current size, Hong Kong was the largest port in East Asia, located on the increasingly important Pacific Ocean, and by far the most advantageous Western vantage point from which to observe the course of civil war and revolution in rapidly changing China. Hong Kong also possessed Asia's largest and most conscious working class, whose existence the new Soviet government perceived as affording potential for socialist revolution in a bastion of the world's greatest capitalist empire.
Special Issue on ‘Hong Kong: Identity, Intellectual History and Culture’
China Report
It is now just over two decades since the former British Crown colony of Hong Kong was returned to China, thus bringing to an end the 'century of humiliation' that has scarred the Chinese psyche and energised China's quest for regaining its legitimate role in the scripting of world history. Over the years, China Report has carried numerous articles on Hong Kong, both its internal politics and the politics of its return to mainland control, as well as its critical role in enabling China's 'going out' strategy of economic reform. More recently, world attention has focused on the demand for the genuine devolution of power, on the youthful popular uprising signified in the spectacle of the 2014 'umbrella movement', and on the future of Hong Kong in the context of the 'One Country Two Systems' framework for China's reunification. This special issue's focus on the complexities of 'Hongkongese' identity, compiled and edited by political psychologist Shih Chih-yu, steps back somewhat from the immediacy of contemporary events to speculate, on a broader canvas and in a longer historical frame, on the identity challenges of being simultaneously 'Hongkongese' and 'Chinese'. For the moment, the default geo-political/geo-strategic framework is kept somewhat (though not completely) aside. So is the rather wishful 'geo-civilisational' perspective that assumes a shared Asian ethic shaped by Buddhism and by millennia of trade and pre-modern cultural interactions. Instead, Shih proposes what he calls a 'geo-cultural' perspective that links the China mainland with its ethnic diasporas in a broad culture region cemented by the ethic of Confucianism. In so doing, the British colony of Hong Kong-now the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
CHINA, HONG KONG, AND THE LONG 1970S: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES Edited by Priscilla Roberts and Odd Arne Westad CONTENTS Preface Notes on Contributors List of Figures and Tables Introduction: China and the Long 1970s: The Great Transformation Priscilla Roberts This book explores the forces that impelled China, the world’s largest socialist state, to make massive changes in its domestic and international stance during the long 1970s. Fourteen distinguished scholars investigate the special, perhaps crucial part that the territory of Hong Kong played in encouraging and midwifing China’s relationship with the non-Communist world. The Long 1970s were the years when China moved dramatically and decisively toward much closer relations with the non-Communist world. In the late 1970s, China also embarked on major economic reforms, designed to win it great power status by the early twenty-first centuries. The volume addresses the long-term implications of China’s choices for the outcome of the Cold War and in steering the global international outlook toward free-market capitalism. Decisions made in the 1970s are key to understanding the nature and policies of the Chinese state today and the worldview of current Chinese leaders. Chapter 1: Untrusting and Untrusted: Mao’s China at the Crossroads, 1969 Sergey Radchenko Chapter 2: Building China’s 1970s Green Revolution: Commune Responses to Population Growth, Decreasing Arable Land, and Capital Depreciation Joshua Eisenman Chapter 3: China and South Asia in the 1970s: Contrasting Trajectories Jon Wilson Chapter 4: Reimagining and Repositioning China in International Politics: The Role of Sports in China’s Long 1970s Xu Guoqi Chapter 5: From China’s “Barefoot Doctor” to Alma Ata: The Primary Health Care Movement in the Long 1970s Zhou Xun Chapter 6: China’s Economic Statecraft During the 1970s Shu Guang Zhang Chapter 7: The Roots of a Globalized Relationship: Western Knowledge of the Chinese Economy and US-China Relations in the Long 1970s Federico Pachetti Chapter 8: Sino-Australian Relations in the Long 1970s Nicholas Thomas Chapter 9: 1967 as the Turning Point in Hong Kong-British-PRC Relations Valeria Zanier and Roberto Peruzzi Chapter 10: Crisis or Opportunity? Britain, China, and the Decolonization of Hong Kong in the Long 1970s Chi-kwan Mark Chapter 11: “Bat lau dung laai”: Shifting Hong Kong Perspectives Towards the Vietnamese Boat People John D. Wong Chapter 12: Bringing the Chinese Back In: The Role of Quasi-Private Institutions in Britain and the United States Priscilla Roberts Conclusion: China and the Long 1970s as a Field of Research Odd Arne Westad