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History
laissez-faire, treating Hong Kong as a marketplace open to all and where the government held the scales impartially.
Public and utility services developed - the Hong Kong and China Gas Company in 1861, the Peak Tram in 1885, the Hongkong Electric Company in 1889, China Light and Power in 1903, electric tramways in 1904 and the Kowloon-Canton Railway, completed in 1910. Successive reclamations began in 1851, notably one completed in 1904 in Central District which produced Chater Road, Connaught Road and Des Voeux Road, and another in Wan Chai between 1921 and 1929.
Public education began in 1847 with grants to Chinese vernacular schools. In 1873, the voluntary schools, run mainly by missionaries, were included in a grant scheme. The College of Medicine for the Chinese, founded in 1887 with Sun Yat Sen as one of its first two students, developed into the University of Hong Kong in 1911 and offered arts, engineering and medical faculties.
After the Chinese revolution of 1911 overthrew the Qing dynasty, China underwent a long period of unrest and many people found shelter in Hong Kong. Agitation continued after Chinese participation in World War I brought in its wake strong nationalist sentiment, inspired both by disappointment over failure at the Versailles peace conference to regain the German. concessions in Shantung (Shandong) and by the post-war radicalism of the Kuomintang.
The Chinese authorities sought to abolish all foreign treaty privileges in China. Foreign goods were boycotted and the unrest spread to Hong Kong, where a seamen's strike in 1922 was followed by a serious general strike in 1925-26 arising from an incident in Canton, Britain was at that time a main target of anti-foreign sentiment, but Japan soon replaced it.
The 1930s and World War II
During World War I, Japan presented '21 demands' to China. In 1931, Japan occupied Manchuria and tried to detach China's northern provinces, leading to Japan's full-scale invasion of China in 1937. Canton fell to the Japanese in 1938, resulting in an exodus to Hong Kong. It was estimated that some 100,000 refugees entered in 1937, 500,000 in 1938 and 150,000 in 1939, bringing Hong Kong's population at the outbreak of World War II to an estimated 1.6 million. It was thought that at the height of the influx, about 500,000 people were sleeping in the streets.
Japan entered World War II on 7 December 1941, when it bombed United States warships at Pearl Harbour. At about the same time (8 December 1941, Hong Kong time), Japanese armed forces attacked Hong Kong. They invaded the city across the border from China and pushed the British from the New Territories and Kowloon onto Hong Kong Island.
After a week of stubborn resistance on Hong Kong Island, the defenders, including the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, were overwhelmed and Hong Kong surrendered on Christmas Day.
The Japanese occupation lasted for three years and eight months. Trade virtually disappeared, currency lost its value, food supplies were disrupted, and government services and public
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