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HISTORY
Colony surrendered on Christmas Day. The Japanese occupation lasted three years and seven months.
British civilians were interned at Stanley under harsh conditions, while prisoners of war fared even worse. The Chinese population and neutrals also suffered under steadily deteriorating conditions. Trade virtually disappeared, the currency lost its value, food supply was disrupted and government services and public utilities were seriously impaired. Many moved to Macau, the Portuguese Colony hospitably opening its doors to them. Towards the latter part of the occupation, the Japanese sought to ease the food problems by organising mass deportations. In the face of increasing oppression the bulk of the community remained loyal to the allied cause: Chinese guerillas operated in the New Territories and allied personnel escaping were assisted by the rural population.
Soon after the news of the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945, was received a provisional government was set up by the Colonial Secretary, Mr (later Sir) F. Gimson, until Rear Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt arrived on August 30 with units of the British Pacific Fleet to establish a temporary military government. Civil government was formally restored on May 1, 1946, when Sir Mark Young resumed his interrupted governorship.
THE POST-WAR YEARS
From the moment of liberation, Hong Kong began a spectacular recovery. The Chinese returned at a rate approaching 100,000 a month and the population, which by August 1945 had been reduced to about 600,000, rose by the end of 1947 to an estimated 1,800,000. Then in the period 1948-9, as the forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government began to face defeat in civil war at the hands of the communists, the Colony received an influx of people unparalleled in its history. About three quarters of a million, mainly from Kwang- tung province, Shanghai and other commercial centres, entered the Colony during 1949 and the spring of 1950. By the end of 1950 the population was estimated to be 2,360,000. Since then it has continued to rise. The 1971 census put the population at 3,948,179.
After a period of economic stagnation, caused by American trade barriers against China which applied temporarily to Hong Kong, and by further sanctions against China resulting from the Korean War of 1951, Hong Kong entered an era of industrialisation. As an entrepôt, the Colony had earned a livelihood by a service she alone could perform: now she found herself directly competing with other manufacturing centres.