CENTRE OF ASIAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
CANTON DELTA SEMINAR
British's Policy towards Hong Kong during the Pacific War (1941-45)
Summary
K. C. Chan
with o
Between 1937 and the end of 1941 Britain followed what was essentially a dual policy: assisting the Chinese as far as possible to maintain and defend Britain's position in China while making adjustment with the Japanese with the earnest desire of avoiding war with them. Unfortunately, the outworking of the British Far Eastern policy in this period was a mass of inconsistencies' which naturally pleased neither China nor Japan. Hong Kong, the nearest British imperial possession to China and Japan no doubt reflected something of the motivation and general nature of the British behaviour towards the two East Asian com- batants during the period. Pearl Harbour abruptly changed the pattern of Anglo-Chinese-Japanese relations which had existed since 1937. The paper seeks to understand the question of Hong Kong as a diplomatic issue between Britain and China between 1941 and 1945 when the two countries were allies against Japan.
What the question of Hong Kong boiled down to during the Pacific War was the future of Hong Kong after the successful expulsion of the Japanese from the place. Consideration of the matter was done essentially by the Foreign Office which regarded
it as
a thorny problem not only in Britain's relations with China but also with the United States who, on the one hand, was Britain's most valuable ally in both Europe and Asia and, on the other hand,
In de- entertained extreme intolerance of British imperialism. fending her post-war position in Hong Kong, Britain had in general. to defend her imperial and colonial practice which came under increasing censure in the United States. The question of the future of Hong Kong as in 1941-45, therefore is not merely an