bourgeois ethos of the mid-Victorian era still permeated the island nation, and he left England in 1882 (with medical and law degrees), just before laissez-faire liberalism began to face the serious challenge of trade unions and socialist movements. Impressed by Britain's wealth and power. Ho Kai came to value Britain's liberal tradition, which stressed individual rights, free trade, industrialism, and con stitutionalism.
Hu Li-yüan, a bicultural scholar-merchant, was inspired by the same tradition of Western classical liberalism. Though he did not go to England, he acquired a mastery of the English language in Hong Kong, writing excellent English.29 He served from 1879 to 1881 on the translating staff of Wang T'ao's newspaper Hsun-hmn jih-pao. In 1885 he assisted the comprador Lo Hok Pang to found the journal Yiieh-pao. In his Chinese writings we find references to Western personalities like Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Isaac Newton, Mon tesquieu, Immanuel Kant, Queen Victoria, and "eminent Victorians" such as Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, and William Gladstone.30
In short, both Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan found inspiration in classical liberalism, which was believed to be the foundation of Britain's wealth and power. Another scholar steeped in the British tradition of classi cal liberalism was Yen Fu, who expressed similar liberal reformist thought. Yen Fu had studied in England, had access to British politi cal writings, and was able to come up with similar views about the "people's rights" and parliamentary government. Yet, Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan, living in Hong Kong, had opportunities to experience liberal political philosophy in action, which made liberal government more reed in Hong Kong than in China. As a legislative councillor for fourteen years. Ho Kai had a singular opportunity to actively partici pate in the free discussion and debate on numerous issues presented before the "law-making" legislative council. With business experi ence in Hong Kong, the Chinese businessmen tended to conceive of the polity of an organized state as something similar to a joint-stock company, in which important decisions were made by shareholders in a democratic way. All these deepened the Hong Kong liberal reformers' conviction about the soundness of the liberal democratic principle.
In the late Ch'ing period the intellectuals who had lived in Hong
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 157
Kong were among the first Chinese to acquire new Western knowl edge. Personal experiences in Hong Kong provided the shock of self- discovery that made Wang T'ao, Cheng Kuan-ying, Ho Kai, and Hu Li-yüan pioneers of modem Chinese thinking. Their contact with modem Western culture stimulated them to critically reexamine some elements of Chinese culture and traditions. They provided much information about Western learning for other Chinese reformers like K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao who had scant knowledge of the English language.
Life-long residence in Hong Kong made Ho Kai's and Hu Li- yüan's reformist thought representative of a Hong Kong commercial perspective. Classical liberalism appealed to Ho and Hu not only because of its intrinsic value. It was also congenial to their commer cial and professional interests and aspirations. Living in the bour geoning dty of Hong Kong, the Westernized banister and doctor Ho Kai and the scholar-merchant Hu Li-yüan fared well under the pro tection of British colonial government. They came to admire and advocate British liberal political institutions and capitalist economic system as models for China. They found Lockeian liberal thought (with its emphasis on man's "natural rights" to life, liberty, and property) particularly congenial to their tastes and interests.
Ho Kai and Hu Li-yiian as Spokesmen for Patriotic Merchants in Hong Kong and Overseas
During the eventful years of 1898-1900, Ho and Hu coauthored seven more reformist essays. In 1901 their collected works were reprinted in Shanghai, entitled Hsin-cheng chen-ch'iian (The true meaning of the new government). The two essayists from Hong Kong helped to promote the Chinese reform movement. They ex posed the corruption, inefficiency, and oppression of China's gentry- dominated ruling bureaucracy. They insisted that merchants and businessmen were the backbone of the nation, commercialism the road to the nation's wealth and power, and capitalist private enter prise the best way to develop China's economy. Thus, they equated the merchants' interest with the nation's interest—what was best for the merchants was best for the state. They advocated a thorough reorganization of China's government, with a ministry of commerce
158 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
taking the leading position. They demanded that merchants and overseas Chinese businessmen should have the right to serve as government officials and the people's representatives.31
Ho and Hu's essays represented a commercial perspective from Hong Kong. In expressing the merchants' political demands, Ho's and Hu's reformist ideas were more explicit and undisguised than Cheng Kuan-ying's, which similarly "reflected the views of the newly emerged merchants in the treaty ports."32It was characteristic of the Western-oriented intelligentsia from the commercial background in late Ch'ing times to assert the merchants' social and political de mands in the name of patriotism. In advocating parliamentary de mocracy and commercial capitalism, they were motivated by both a public, nationalist concern for China's wealth and power, and a private concern for the merchants' interests. They wished to change the existing sociopolitical order dominated by the gentry-scholar- officials who represented the bureaucratic state, and to promote si multaneously the national interests and merchants' interests.
Ho and Hu had to contend with Governor General Chang Chih- tung, who, in his famous work Ch'üan-hsüeh p'ien (Exhortation to learning, 1898), denounced the "people's rights" as incompatible with the Confudan ethics of "three bonds" and "five constant vir tues." 3The radical doctrine of the people's rights and parliamentary government challenged the existing social and political order domi nated by the established gentry-scholar-offidals who held a privi leged position sanctioned by dassics and history. Chang Chih-tung and other members of the established elite (such as the famous dassidst Wang Hsien-ch'ien, 1842-1918, and his disdple Yeh Te- hui), sought to defend the Confudan "three bonds" and "five con stant virtures"; these ethics served to prop up the existing order, thereby safeguarding their established interests, which they, too, equated with the nation's interests.34 "The old [Chinese] learning as the foundation, the new [Western] learning for practical use." This famous maxim proposed by Chang Chih-tung served as an ideologi cal basis of the "self-strengthening" and moderate reform move ment, which aimed at strengthening China while preserving the existing Confudan order dominated by the established bureaucratic elite.
The Chinese patriots from Hong Kong, Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan, wrote a "Review of Ch'üan-hsüeh p'ien" in 1899, to refute Chang Chih-
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 159
tang's ideological assumptions. They argued: “Where the people's rights flourish, the country is strong; where the people's rights de cline, the country is weak." People valued their “natural" and “ina lienable" rights to life, liberty and property; if the state allowed them to exercise their rights, they would rise with one heart to protect the state; and if the state should deny them their rights, "the people would rise in anger to destroy the state.“ 35 The people's "natural rights" took precedence over the state. This reflected the Western liberal nationalism that inspired Ho and Hu. As Hans Kohn has observed, in Western Europe since the eighteenth century individual freedom had "activated the people, giving them a new interest and stake in their government, and giving the government a new vital ity"; the authority of government had gained a new and stronger legitimacy as the nation's servant.36 According to Ho and Hu, Chang Chib-tang's fear that the people's rights would diminish the govern ment's power was unfounded. They asserted that Chang's defense of the "old [Chinese] learning" was basically flawed.
It is important to note that what Ho and Hu referred to as the "people's rights" basically meant the "merchants' rights." Rarely were they concerned about the rights of the peasants who consti tuted the great majority of the people in China. Despite their talk about the people's rights. Ho and Hu's program remained basically an elitist political thought.
The distinctiveness of Ho and Hu as spokesmen of the Hong Kong Chinese merchants became more evident when compared with other reformers of their day like K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. Al though they all shared some general reformist ideas (such as the "people's rights" and parliamentary government). Ho and Hu scorned K'ang Yu-wei and his associates for their lack of knowledge of for eign languages, their reliance on Chinese translations of Western works, and hence their superficial understanding of Western culture and traditions. Ho and Hu believed that an important reason for the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform in 1898 was the reformers' unfamiliarity with Western learning; for reform to succeed, "those who had mastered the Western learning" and "foreign specialists of good reputation" must be placed in responsible positions in govern ment.37 Ironically, Ho and Hu's reformist essays "were read with avidity by K'ang Yu-wei and his disciples."38
A striking characteristic of Ho's and Hu's reform program was its
160 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
equation of the merchants' interests with the nation's interests, its strong emphasis on the development of commercial capitalism as the road to the nation's wealth and power, and its demands of political power for the merchants and overseas Chinese businessmen. This has led one Marxist historian to conclude that if K'ang Yu-wei's ideas could be regarded as the "reformist thought of the 'national essence' and bureaucratism," Ho's and Hu's ideas could be called the "refor mist thought of comprador commercialism," for "their ultimate goal was to reorganize the bureaucratic system with the commercial capi talist class as its core, and to protect the interests of that dass."39 Their ultimate goal was a rich and strong Chinese nation under the hegemony of the merchants.
Another striking characteristic of Ho and Hu's reform program was its collaborationist thought. Patriotism and collaboration with foreign power were not necessarily mutually exdusive. A patriot could collaborate with the imperialists at the sacrifice of some sover eign rights in the hope of eventually building a strong nation to resist imperialist aggression. Collaborationist patriotism of the Chinese merchants in Hong Kong was dearly revealed in their enthusiastic support for the "open door" policy advocated by the British states man Lord Charles Beresford.
"Open Door” Policy: Lord Charles Beresford and the Chinese Merchants' "Collaborationist Patriotism"
In 1898-99 Lord Beresford was touring the major Chinese dties and Hong Kong on behalf of Britain's Associated Chambers of Com merce, propagating the "open door" policy. During his stay in Hong Kong a meeting was held at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, January 22, 1899, attended by fifteen hundred Chinese compradors, merchants, finanders, businessmen, traders, and other residents in the colony interested in trade. 40 Eight prominent Chinese addressed the meeting, induding Ho Tung (a comprador). Ho Kai (a barrister), and Ho Amei (an insurance company manager). All speakers empha sized the development of commerce as a means to strengthen China against foreign powers; all acdaimed the "open door" policy, the "friendship" between China and Britain, and the "identical interests" of the two countries. Five speakers spedfically stressed the need to ask Britain to help reorganize China's army and navy in order to
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 161
better protect Chinese merchants and strengthen China against the incursion of other powers such as Russia and France. 41
In his speech Robert Ho Tung warned that the Russians "have approached within dangerous proximity to Peking, and the comple tion of their great Trans-Siberian Railroad may augur the advent of many evils political and commercial. The integrity of the Chinese empire may be imperilled." Robert Ho Tung, a collaborationist pa triot in Hong Kong, stressed the "identical interests" of England and China:
If England suffers, the greatest volume of our trade being with that country, we shall be sufferers to the same extent. Now is our opportunity . . . to ward off the impending evil. We know from all these years of our residence in Hong Kong what the benefits of an unrestricted and unhampered trade means. It means profit with safety to those engaged in it; it means occupation and the means of livelihood to the people, and its inevitable result—happiness to the masses.42
This was exactly what Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan had asserted in their reformist essays: commercial capitalism was the road to develop China's economy; it would bring prosperity to the merchants and happiness to the whole nation. Robert Ho Tung continued:
We must admit, however reluctantly, the weakness and inability of China by herself to reorganize her fragmentary army In sug
gesting therefore that China's army should be organized under the English, I think that it will be seen that, apart from the nation's friendliness, they have furnished examples both of India and Egypt that should have satisfied even the most sceptic minds [This
is] for China's good, for the good of the country and its people.43
Here is a classic case of collaborationist patriotism.
At the end of the public meeting at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce resolutions were passed by acclamation expressing full confidence in Lord Beresford and enthusiastic support for the "open door" policy, and urging "the reorganization of the Chinese army under the British." The local English press was delighted that the Chinese had "resolved to join hands with the British commercial classes in an effort to bring about a Chinese Millennium." 4
On his return to England, Lord Beresford received a long letter
162 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
written by Ho Kai and Wei Yuk (two legislative councillors appointed by the governor), which read in part:
Great Britain requires in China the "Open Door" and not a "Sphere of Influence," and China needs radical reform and not absorption by any foreign Power or Powers. But it is quite apparent immediate reformation must be inaugurated. Without reformation the admin istration of the Chinese Empire will speedily become impossible; partition will become inevitable; and Great Britain will have no choice but to join the international scramble for "Sphere of Influ ence." It is also clear that without external aid or pressure China is unable to effect her own regeneration. For obvious reasons—per sonal gain and aggrandizement—those who hold high office, those who constitute her ruling class, do not desire Reform; those in humble life, forming her masses, wish Reform, but are powerless to attain it. In this predicament, we venture to think that England, having the predominant interest in China, and being the country most looked up to and trusted by the Chinese, should come for ward and furnish the assistance and apply the requisite pressure.
. . . When we recall the magnificent successes achieved in India, and in Eqypt, and other parts of the world, we are confident that even greater succeses will crown British effort and energy in China.45
Thus, as Chinese "patriots," Ho Kai and Wei Yuk were worried about the possible partition of China and her "absorption by any foreign Power or Powers"; so they wished for reform in China. But, as members of the marginal intelligentsia and merchant class in Hong Kong on the periphery of China, they were "powerless to attain it." Therefore, they turned to Great Britain, the predominant imperialist power that had joined in the scramble for concessions, for help to "regenerate" China.46 This was a great paradox of collaborationist patriotism.
Ho Kai and Wei Yuk recall Dr. Veraswami of George Orwell's Burmese Days. The Indian doctor "had a passionate admiration for the English, which a thousand snubs from Englishmen had not shaken," believing that the British brought modem civilization and progress to India.47
Different historical circumstances produced different collabora tionist patriots. In 1940-45 Wang Ching-wei was forced by circum stances of Japanese invasion of China to collaborate reluctantly with the invaders, hoping to mitigate the suffering of the Chinese in the
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 163
areas under Japanese occupation. In contrast, a number of Hong Kong Chinese merchants and professionals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries positively pushed for collaboration with Britain to help “regenerate" China. They conceived of Britain as a "benign," liberal imperialist power interested only in promoting in ternational trade that would benefit both the British and Chinese. As Ho Tung clearly stated, "We know from all these years of our resi dence in Hong Kong what the benefits of an unrestricted and un hampered trade means," emphasizing the "identical interests" of England and China. But many other Chinese patriots would dispute this peculiar collaborationist patriotism. K'ang Yu-wei, for one, scorned the Westernized Hong Kong Chinese for their servile attitude toward the British.
British Acquisition of the New Territories
In fact, Britain had forced the Chinese government to sign the Con vention of Peking, on June 6,1898, by which 356 square miles of land to be known as the New Territories were leased to Britain for ninety- nine years and added to the colony of Hong Kong. The two Chinese members of the legislative council. Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, approved of the British acquisition of that land. They looked forward to the day when it would "become enlightened and prosperous like Hong Kong."48Meanwhile, Robert Ho Tung helped the colonial authorities to collect information about the situations in the New Territories to facilitate the British takeover. A Hong Kong land investment com pany sent agents to the New Territories to buy up title deeds at low prices at selected places that might appreciate in value under British jurisdiction. To persuade the reluctant owners to sell their land, they allegedly used unscrupulous methods, such as spreading rumors about the Hong Kong government's intention to impose high taxes and to expropriate privately owned land. It was said that the leaders of the land company were none other than the Honorable Dr. Ho Kai and the Honorable Mr. Wei Yuk.49
Such rumors spread by the "land jobbers" aggravated the local inhabitants' fear that the British government might interfere with their established rights and customs. The gentry and lineage leaders also feared for their positions of power and privilege. And the peas ants dreaded the foreign rulers' interference with their traditional
164 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
ways of livelihood and with feng-shui. Rumors spread that "cattle and swine would be taxed," "women would be violated," and "fishing and wood cutting would be prohibited."50 Therefore, when the Brit ish forces sought to take over the New Territories in late March 1899 they encountered popular resistance under the leadership of the gentry and lineage leaders. Organized resistance, however, was sub dued by April 18. The British proceeded to occupy and set up an administration over the New Territories.51 Assured that local interest and customs would be respected, the gentry and village leaders submitted themselves to the foreign rule, their petitions couched in respectful Confurian terms.52 These events in the rural New Territo ries had little direct effect on the populace in the dty of Victoria and Kowloon, preoccupied as they were with their everyday struggle to make a living.
But during these years of wars and foreign incursions some young men from the intelligentsia had become revolutionaries, using Hong Kong as a base to conspire and plot for uprisings on mainland China.
Hong Kong as a Revolutionary Base
The Hong Kong Hsing-Chung-hui (society to restore China's pros perity) was founded on February 21, 1895, by about a dozen revolu tionaries, including Sun Yat-sen, Yang Ch'ü-yün, Tse Tsan Tai, Ch'en Shao-pai, Cheng Shih-liang, Lu Hao-tung, Huang Yung-shang, and others. Most of them had received a Western-style education in Hong Kong. They immediately sought to take advantage of the social un rest in Kwangtung in a plot to seize power in Canton. They readily won Ho Kai's support. Sun Yat-sen was a former student of Dr. Ho Kai's at fire Hong Kong Medical College for the Chinese, and was much inspired by the Westernized doctor's liberal ideas. The revolu tionaries also won the sympathy of some British journalists in the colony. Ho Kai and Thomas H. Reid (editor of the China Mail) worked closely in 1895 to help the revolutionaries, hoping that a new China would adopt a more pro-Western stand in the future. The Hsing- Chung-hui proclamation to foreign powers on the eve of the Canton plot scheduled for October 1895 was reportedly drafted by Thomas Reid and T. Gowen (Hong Kong Telegraph subeditor) and then revised by Ho Kai and Tse Tsan Tai. But the conspiracy was discovered by Hong Kong officials, who notified the Canton government. Poor
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 165
coordination led to the suppression of the Canton plot, dealing a severe blow to the Hsing-Chung-hui in Hong Kong. Most of its leaders including Sun Yat-sen were banished from the colony.53
The revolutionaries had attempted to align themselves with K'ang Yu-wei's group of constitutional monarchists. But the scholar-gentry K'ang Yu-wei rejected the idea, looking with disdain and incompre hension at the Westernized Hsing-Chung-hui revolutionaries; he scorned the servile attitude of Britain's Chinese subjects in Hong Kong. With the abrupt end in September 1898 of his Hundred Days' Reform, however, he had to flee to Hong Kong with the help of the British authorities, ironically as a guest of the wealthy comprador and collaborationist patriot Robert Ho Tung.54 In October K'ang started on a tour of Japan, Canada, and America, and founded a society to protect the emperor (Pao-huang-hui), competing with the revolution aries for financial and moral support from the Chinese communities overseas. In October 1899 K'ang returned to Hong Kong, where he stayed until January 30, 1900, leaving at that time for Singapore. Meanwhile, the Hsing-Chung-hui revolutionary organization was reactivated in Hong Kong with the founding of the China Daily News (Chung-kuo jih-pao) in January 1900 by Ch'en Shao-pai, to propagate revolution and to counter the influence of K'ang's Pao-huang-hui group of contitutional monarchists.
In 1900 eight foreign powers sent expeditions to North China to suppress the Boxer uprising. The revolutionaries in Hong Kong sought to take advantage of this opportunity to stage a coup d'etat in south China. Sun Yat-sen had been in contact with Liu Hsüeh-hsün (a subordinate of Governor General Li Hung-chang of Kwangtung and Kwanghsi) about the possibility of declaring the independence of the two provinces with Sun's cooperation and British protection. The Imperial Court, in flight at Sian, had asked Li Hung-chang to go to Peking to negotiate with the expedition powers, and Li was to pass through Hong Kong on July 16 on his way to the capital. Ho Kai became involved in the revolutionaries' attempt to use the good offices of Governor Henry Blake of Hong Kong to persuade Li to declare the independence of the two provinces in the south. Con cerned that Li's departure might bring chaos to the south. Governor Blake was eager to cooperate with the revolutionaries in their plan for the negotiated seizure of the southern provinces, but instructions from London were cautious, forbidding the use of any forcible means
166 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
to prevent Li from going north. In the end the plan did not material ize. 5
Still hoping to use the crisis in North China to their advantage, the revolutionaries sought to obtain the friendly support of Britain and the foreign powers for their cause. Acting as their spokesman. Ho Kai drafted, on July 24, 1900, a proclamation to foreign countries entitled the "Regulations for Peaceful Rule," which was signed by Sun Yat-sen, Yang Ch'ü-yün, Tse Tsan Tai, and other revolutionary leaders, to be presented to Governor Blake. The proclamation was expressly designed to win the approval of foreign powers, especially Britain. It condemned the Manchu government for its corruption and inefficiency, its inability to fulfill the treaty obligations in protecting foreign merchants in China, its attempt to seize the foreign legations in violation of international law, and its ingratitude to Britain, which had helped to prevent China's partition by other powers. The proc lamation besought Britain's help to reconstruct China for the mutual benefit of the Chinese and foreigners. Specifically, it outlined a pro gram to set up a parliamentary government under a constitution, and to request foreign ambassadors to form a temporary advisory body to the central government, and foreign consuls general to form an advisory body to the provincial governments. Under such a gov ernment foreign missionaries would be protected; China would be opened to foreign commercial and industrial interests; foreign coun tries would be consulted in matters concerning any change in cus toms duties; a new school system would be set up, and a Western ized code of law adopted.56
What characterized this Hsing-Chung-hui program drafted by Ho Kai was its pro-Western stand, its subservience to Western powers, and its reliance on foreign tutelage to remake China in the image of the West. What was Governor Blake's response to this program? He seemed sympathetic, but again instructions from London ordered him to clamp down on agitators like Sun Yat-sen and K'ang Yu-wei, who might bring violence to the south. Thus, the negotiations of July and August 1900 for foreign support to "reconstruct" China failed.
Ho Kai's Open Letter to John Bull
As it has been justly stated. Ho Kai "was essentially a conditional revolutionary, who could not conceive of activism except when sup-
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 167
ported by British gunboats."57While Sun Yat-sen proceeded with his war plan for the Waichow (Hui-chou) uprising. Ho Kai still insisted on collaborating with foreign powers to "regenerate" China. He thought that the foreign powers' military occupation of Peking in the wake of the Boxer uprising was a golden opportunity to intro duce reforms to China, an opportunity to be seized with both hands. In a remarkable "Open Letter on the Situation" published in The China Mail on August 22, 1900, he addressed "John Bull" as fol lows.
[Y]ou must capture not only Peking, but also the lawless band of mandarins and their confederates the leading Boxers. I take it
that you are well agreed upon the principles so fearlessly pro pounded by your Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs that China shall be for the Chinese, and there will be no partition of the Middle Kingdom by the Foreign Powers. The Indianising of China you will not have, but then you must not go to the other extreme to leave China severely alone and permit her to get along as before.
. . . The present rotten and corrupt system of government must go and radical reforms should be introduced Pray remember that
Manchus are not Chinese, and it will only be fair to leave China for the Chinese and Manchuria for the Manchus. All the enlightened sons of China are earnestly looking to . . . Great Britain and the United States of America for deliverance from the yoke of an op pressive and corrupt Government.
Ho Kai reminded John Bull that China's regeneration would benefit both the Chinese and the British, for the British trade with China "could only be materially developed by increasing the prosperity and welfare of the Chinese people." Ho Kai asserted that Britain had the moral obligation to help the Chinese. He assured the imperialist powers that they could count on the collaboration of many "intelli gent and gifted" Chinese to carry out the "much desired reforma tion."58
Thus, Ho Kai wished the imperialist powers to "dictate" the gov ernment of China, "at the point of the bayonet,"59 to carry out reforms along Western lines in order to make China in the image of the West even at the price of compromising China's sovereignty. But the expedition powers, beset with mutual suspicion and confronted with a sea of hostile Chinese masses, would disappoint Ho Kai. They did what he entreated them not to do—leaving the Manchu govern-
168 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
ment as it was, after suppressing the Boxers and exacting a huge indemnity of four hundred and fifty million taels.
A Gap Between Elitist Nationalists and Coolies
So far we have discussed the nationalist responses of the Hong Kong Chinese merchants and intelligentsia to the important events that took place in China from 1887 to 1900. What about the responses of the colony's populace? During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 the Hua-tzu jih-pao offices were "wrecked by an infuriated mass of Chinese, because the paper published the first-hand information about the loss of the Chinese fleet in the China Sea, the surrender of Port Arthur, and the defeat of the Chinese army near Korea."60 I cannot find detailed sources about this incident in Hong Kong beyond this cursory reference.
There was probably little coordinated nationalist popular response
in Hong Kong to the major events that occurred in China in 1887- 1900. Had there been, the local English press and the colonial gov ernment, extremely sensitive to law and order, would have reported it. The Sino-Japanese War, the Hundred Days' Reform, the Boxer uprising, and the foreign expedition to China, all occurred in North China and hence did not directly affect the livelihood of the populace in Hong Kong. Even British occupation of the New Territories in 1899 and the Chinese villagers' resistance to it did not have direct impact on workers in the dty of Victoria and Kowloon, preoccupied as they were with their daily struggle to make a living.
Nationalism did not merely have political and cultural dimensions; it had economic dimensions as well. A nationalist program that sought to enhance people's livelihood would be better able to win popular support. But Chinese elitist nationalists in modem times often de manded that a citizen must put his top priority on devotion to the state above all other concerns, and that he must be "selfless" and "disinterested," transcending and even sacrificing his self-interest for the common good of the nation. Such a disinterested and tran scendental concept of nationalism had little appeal to the common people. In fact, it was a "mystification" of nationalism, to use Peter Worsley's term. "All nationalisms are mystifications in that they postulate the immanent and absolute priority of the interests of the whole, usually defined by those who dominate society, over any
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 169
merely sectional interest."61 Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan mystified na tionalism by equating merchants' interest with the nation's interest, seeking to advance merchants' interest in a society dominated by the gentry-scholar-officials. Ho's and Hu's ultimate ideal was a strong and prosperous China under the hegemony of a merchant elite.
The elitist nationalists themselves were not always "disinterested." In her study of class and national consciousness in Georgian Britain from 1750 to 1830 Linda Colley reveals that "almost all sectional interest groups in Britain resorted to nationalist language and ac tivism to advance their claims to wider civic recognition" and that "patriotic initiatives were ideal vehicles for sectional self- assertion."62 Such a marriage of patriotism and self-interest was also prevalent in China. Conservative gentry-scholars like Wang Hsien- ch'ien and Yeh Te-hui; "self-strengtheners" like Li Hung-chang and Shen Pao-chen; bureaucratic nationalists like Chang Chih-tung; Con- fucian cultural nationalists like K'ang Yu-wei; and collaborationist nationalists like Ho Kai, Wei Yuk, Ho Tung, and Hu Li-yüan—all were elitists and all resorted to nationalist language and activism to advance their sectional group interests.
Purporting to bring about national unity and promote national well-being, nationalism was ironically often a divisive force in history causing conflict and dissensions. Patriotism could be expressed in different ways; nationalism took many different forms. As long as there were different views regarding what was in the best interest of the nation, there would be different kinds of patriots and national ists. The most dramatic illustration of nationalism as a divisive force in Chinese history was the war between the right-wing Kuomintang nationalists and the left-wing Communist nationalists (despite their theoretical commitment to internationalism), each side claiming to be the "genuine" nationalists, and each accused the other of attempting to project the "false image" of being nationalists.
At the turn of the twentieth century elitist nationalism as propa gated by the Hong Kong merchants and intelligentsia (like Ho Kai, Hu Li-yüan, Wei Yuk, Robert Ho Tung) and the Hsing-Chung-hui revolutionaries had little appeal to the lower-class working people in Hong Kong, because it was built on a sectional foundation and seldom sought to advance the laborer's interest. Members of the new intelligentsia like Ho Kai and Tse Tsan Tai were alienated from the working coolies in the colony. Ho Kai admitted in public that he
170 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
"had never learned how to go through properly a regular Chinese ceremony" worshipping the god of war Kwan-ti.
The leading Hsing-Chung-hui revolutionaries came mostly from the Westernized intelligentsia, and a number of them were baptized Christians. Rejecting some traditional values and religious customs that had bound the old elite and populace together prior to the mid- 1880s in an integrated Chinese community life, the English-educated new intelligentsia—in a more heterogeneous society after the 1890s— was alienated from the populace. To win over the working people, one had to bum incense with them at the Man Mo Temple and join them in traditional religious processions, but the new intelligentsia looked down upon such old religious customs with disdain. It would take several more years before some republican revolutionaries came to realize that it was necessary for them to "stoop" to work with coolies in order to win them over to the revolutinonaiy camp.
To do the fighting in their organized uprisings against the Man- chus, the revolutionaries did seek to recruit antidynastic secret soci ety members, who, however, were not easily converted into dedi cated republican nationalists. In the abortive Canton uprising of Oc tober 27,1895, some six hundred coolies from Hong Kong, "all of the poorest class," were hired at ten dollars a month by the revolution aries, but the coolies thought that they were engaged as soldiers for the Manchu government! They had no interest in the revolutionary uprising.63 A large gap separated the elitist nationalists from the coolies in the British colony.
The years of elitist nationalists' activism in 1887-1900 witnessed several incidents of coolie unrest, which reflected coolies' own press ing concerns and problems, all related to local issues, not national ism. Coolies were primarily concerned with local issues affecting their daily subsistence, work processes, and religious beliefs. The colony's elitist nationalists, insensitive to coolies' mundane needs, were unable to enlist them for the nationalist causes under their auspices in those years.
The Strike of Cargo Boatmen, 1888
On April 17, 1888, the cargo boat people, who numbered some four thousand, went on strike to protest the government regulations re quiring a license with a photograph and a license fee of twenty-five
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 171
cents per annum for each boatman.64 The government required each license applicant to be photographed, because the practice of person ation was very common among the cargo boat people, by which means licenses were passed from hand to hand and were largely held by people without licenses. The license with a photograph would be useful for the police to check the thefts of cargo that frequently occurred on the cargo boats.
For eleven days, from April 17 through 27, all the cargo boats withdrew into the Chinese waters, bringing almost to a standstill the business of the port of Hong Kong. The loss suffered by the mercan tile community was very great, estimated at not less than fifty thou sand dollars a day. The boat people petitioned the government for the cancellation of the photograph requirement. A similar petition was presented by a number of Chinese merchants who suffered from the strike and sought to smooth things over. Unwilling to yield to pressure which would mean weakness in the eyes of the public, the government posted notices all over the colony urging boat people to return to work first before their petition could be considered.
The boat people, on the other hand, sought to put pressure on the government by calling on other laborers in the colony to join the strike. The cargo boat guild “paid $400 to another guild of labourers to induce them to join in the strike." “Whether from that or some other cause a large number of the dock-labourers had struck, while many others were threatening to do so," reported Governor Des Voeux. On April 25 "a great mob collected on two of the principal streets was stopping all the traffic, and was by threat, and in one or two cases by actual violence, preventing the jinricksha coolies and other labourers from following their occupations." “The concerted cessation from work" of thousands of laborers “constituted a direct coercive measure and a menace to the Government.“ 65
Governor Des Voeux took actions. He proclaimed the Peace Pres ervation Ordinance, stationed a gunboat off the Harbor Office, and sent two companies of troops to parade the Western District of the town. The sight of the troops had "a salutary deterrent effect upon the excited crowds." By the night (of April 25) the crowds had dispersed and the troops returned to their barracks. The excitement calmed down a little the following day. “The traffic was allowed to pass through the streets as usual." By this time, the old rivalry and tensions between Tung-kuan coolies and Sze Yap coolies surfaced
172 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
again, as the colonial government showed no sign of yielding to the boat people's demand and as coolies faced economic hardship after nine days on strike. The striking coolies began to split. The Tung- kuan coolies, numbering some thousands, petitioned the govern ment for protection, saying that "they wished to return to work but were in fear of the cargo coolies." Economic hardship forced the coolies back to work. On the morning of April 28, after eleven days on strike, the boat people went back to work, though scarcely any licenses with photographs had been taken out as required by the government regulations. 6
Displeased with the cargo boat people's persistent defiance of the regulations. Governor Des Voeux summoned the leading Chinese merchants to a meeting in the Government House to consult their views on the matter. As their business was hurt by the coolie strike, the merchants tried to mediate and to smooth things over by sug gesting that the boatmen's "delay in taking out licences was simply due to a feeling of uncertainty as to the final decision of the Govern ment on their representations." Although the governor was some what doubtful as to this view, he deemed it expedient to decide on a compromise solution. The license fee on the ordinary boat people was abolished, and the license with a photograph was to be imposed only on the head in charge of each boat.67
Such a confrontation with the colonial government was an educa tion for the laborers. They came to see that by combination they could achieve their common purpose to defend their common inter ests against the threat of an outside force. The striking cargo boat people used various means (including money payment, intimitation, threat of violence, and appeal to common interests) to induce other coolies to take common actions. And they succeeded in inducing large numbers of coolies to join in the strike. There was a long tradition of coolie resistance to the colonial government's regula tions. But throughout the nineteenth century rivalry and tensions between coolies of different districts and dialect groups were strong, as shown in the coolie feud of 1894; nevertheless, when confronted with the threat of a common foe, many of them would join force again as in the coolie strike of 1895. Let us first look at the 1894 coolie feud.
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 173
Coolie Feud in March 1894
Coolies delighted in religious processions. On such occasions, many coolies were employed to prepare for the carnival; many others joined in it. The great three-day procession in connection with the restora tion of the Man Mo Temple started on March 2, 1894. The streets in the Chinese quarters of the city of Victoria were very crowded; forty thousand visitors arrived from Canton and nearby villages to witness the procession. Police interference with the course of the procession almost gave rise to a riot. Europeans complained about the noisy Chinese crowd in the business quarters.68
The festivity occasioned a collision between coolies of different dialect groups from Tung Kuan and Sze Yap. They had established certain clubs in the colony. "Some of these called Hung Shing Clubs promote the cultivation of the art of boxing, fencing, etc. They are frequented by all the low characters in the Colony as well as by the ordinary working coolies," reported the Police Chief F. Henry May.69 Fencing masters and pugilistic club brothers often played big roles in religious processions by providing dragon and lion dance teams. On March 4 a fight took place in Hollywood Road between Tung Kuan men and Sze Yap men from the Hung Shing Club over the issue of a prize given for the "lions" in the processions. The fight was quickly quelled by the police; five men were arrested and fined four dollars each.
The quarrel was aggravated by a small incident on March 9. Two gangs of the belligerent coolies were employed in unloading a vessel at a wharf. While a man was carrying his load to a warehouse, an oppositon man either accidentally or intentionally knocked the sack from his back. Tension mounted between the two dialect groups of cargo coolies. A fight at Praya West on March 10 and another on the following day were speedily stopped by the police. Extra police pa trolled the streets from 4 to 9 p.m. On March 12 the police arrested seven men (unemployed pugilistic club members) in possesion of deadly weapons such as revolvers, swords, and iron bars. Although there was no rioting or fighting, a series of terrorist, murderous assaults on individauls resulted in two deaths and several injuries.70 On the following day, March 13, a meeting at Tung Wah Hospital was called by the registrar general, Stewart Lockhart. Present were the police chief, F. Henry May, the Chinese justices of the peace.
174 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
some leading Chinese merchants, and sixty coolie representatives, including the heads of the Tung Kuan and Sze Yap coolie houses. These head coolies were urged to state their grievances against each other with a view to arriving at a settlement of the matter in dispute. From the long discussion "it appeared that neither party had had any particular grievance against die other." During the meeting, the sound of sniper gunshots and police whistles was heard outside. It became apparent that by this time "the principal actors in the distur bances were not the coolies who had originally quarrelled but certain members of the pugilistic and other low-class dubs."71
The quarrel had passed out of the coolies' hands into those of the unemployed "professional ruffians." In fact, coolies were afraid to go into the streets, for they did not know who was fighting for them or against them. 72 Coolies of both dialect groups had not turned out as usual for work since March 12. They were "anxious to go back to work, but were deterred from doing so by the fear of being made the objects of attacks by ruffians who had constituted themselves [as] their champions."73Here is another instance of how "sodal bandits" could both help and abuse the poor at the same time.
The police chief was determined "to break up the worst of these [pugilistic] dubs." Police raids at night and in the early hours of the morning resulted in the arrest of seventeen "ruffians" for deporta tion. Nine more were arrested for carrying arms on March 14. These had the effect of dosing down "some of the worst of the dubs," and the disappearance from the colony of some sixty other members of the dubs. Police search of the dubs found a large quantity of ammu nition on March 15. Under police protection, all coolies went back to work on March 16. For the four days from March 12 to 15, it was estimated that twelve thousand coolies were out of work daily, seri ously affecting business in the harbor.74
After the restoration of order. Registrar General Stewart Lockhart and Police Chief F. Henry May each received "A Respectful Letter from the [Chinese] Justices of the Peace and Merchants of Hong Kong" signed by seventy-two leading Chinese, which read in part:
You displayed great resource in the measures you adopted for quieting the recent local disturbances. On that occasion, the rioters spread a rumour that the disturbance was created by Tung Kun and Sz Yap coolies with intent to throw Hong Kong into confusion. But for your earnest efforts and your co-operation with the Justices
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 175
of the Peace in suppressing disorder and restoring peace, there would not have been so speedy an end to the crisis. Now, we Justices and others . . . are grateful and cannot allow this occasion to pass without expressing our united thanks and hope that in case of any future disturbance in Hong Kong, you will again co-operate with us in suppressing the rioters.75
A very informative letter, it showed the Chinese elite's readiness to call on the government to use coercion to suppress the coolie riot, revealing the extent of community disintegration in 1894. In a pro gressively heterogeneous society in the 1890s, the elite found it in creasingly difficult to control the lower class Chinese.
It is significant that in the long meeting at the Tung Wah Hospital, the representatives of the two dialect groups of coolies found that "neither party had had any particular grievance against the other." They were rival groups of coolies competing with each other for work opportunities, for better stations in the street, warehouse, and dock yard. Their differences did not go much beyond this. In fact, they had much in common, participating in the same religious proces sions, frequenting the same kind of pugilistic clubs, and occupying the same lowly position in the relations of production, selling their manual labor to earn a living. Confronted with the threat of an outside force, they could forget their differences and combine to take collective actions to defend their common interest, as in the coolie strike of 1895.
Coolie Strike of 1895
In March 1895 the Hong Kong legislative council passed the lodging house regulations, imposing a number of new restrictions on the coolie houses: at least seven cubic feet must be given to each inhabi tant of the house; certain lavatories must be provided; the keeper of the lodging house "shall cause the windows of each room to be kept open for four hours each day"; he "shall not permit males and females above ten years of age respectively to occupy the same sleeping compartment except in the case of husband and wife"; he "shall not knowingly permit persons of bad character to lodge in his house, and shall also keep a registration of the names of each lodger."76 This was a well-intentioned piece of legislation by the colonial government to improve sanitary conditions and also to safeguard law
176 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
and order in the colony. But coolies were always suspicious of the colonial authorities. They hated government regulation of their lives and work. What concerned the coolies most in the sanitary regulation was the stipulation of seven cubic feet for each coolie tenant of the house; this meant that coolies could no longer crowd fifteen people into a room designed for five, which in turn meant rent increases for coolies.
On March 23, 1895, hundreds of dockyard workers, led by coolie housekeepers, went on strike, protesting the lodging house regula tions. Rumors soon spread that the government would impose on coolies a poll tax and registration fees. The strike spread rapidly within two days, when coal workers and several thousand carrying coolies and stevedore's coolies all joined the strike. Significantly, almost the entire Chinese staff at the Taikoo Sugar Refinery at Quarry Bay (fitters and other Chinese employees), though themselves not affected by the lodging house regulations, came out on a "sympa thetic strike." The laborers at the East Point and Lee Yuen Sugar Refineries also joined the strike, as many cargo boatmen also did. But the street coolies, chair bearers, and ricksha pullers (many of whom were Hoklo and Teochiu people) did not join the movement, nor did the laborers employed by the building contractors. 7 The Swatow coolies did not join the strike, being "under police protec tion."78
Nevertheless, a large proportion of coolies of different occupations and dialect groups joined the movement. By March 29 more than twenty thousand people, including both the Tung Kuan and Sze Yap dialect groups, were on strike. The European and Chinese business interests, especially the shipping trade, were badly hurt. The British naval and civilian authorities could only put about three thousand laborers (sailors, soldiers and convicts) to work as emergency substi tutes. The merchants themselves attempted to telegraph to Amoy, Swatow and Japan for new laborers.79
In the meeting of the legislative council on March 26 Governor William Robinson expressed his surprise and disgust at "the obsti nacy, stupidity and ignorance of the Chinese labourers." He believed that either they were willfully misled by the coolie house keepers, or else they wilfully misunderstood the object of the regulations, which were intended to improve sanitary conditions and not to pave the way for a poll tax. The governor saw the possible effect of the
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 177
regulations causing a rent increase. But he believed that labor wages could be "easily adjusted by the employers." The governor hoped that Ho Kai, who represented the Chinese in the legislative council, "would take the opportunity of conferring with respectable Chinese merchants and would endeavour to persuade the coolies to abandon the foolish and shortsighted policy they have chosen to adopt." The acting attorney general, Mr. Leach, reported to the council that many coolie house keepers had bolted to Canton to avoid prosecution for neglecting to register their houses. He complained that the lower- class Chinese were too much in the habit of thinking that they could coerce the government: "the time has come for the Government to put down its foot and to put it down firmly, and if the coolies do not like the law, the sooner they leave the Colony the better."80
In response. Ho Kai said that he and many other Chinese leaders including Wei Yuk, had for a long time been reasoning with the coolies, and had explained to their headmen that the government had no intention of imposing a poll tax on them. Ho Kai assured the governor and the council:
We, as the leaders of the Chinese and their representatives, will not cease our efforts to bring them [coolies] to reason (applause). We regret they are so pig-headed at this time Your Excellency
can rely upon those Chinese who have come to the help of the Government hitherto giving the Government their strong support on the present occasion (applause).81
But the strike went on.
The Hong Kong [European] Chamber of Commerce called an ur gent public meeting, attended largely by the Europeans, in the City Hall on March 28 to discuss the matter. The speakers urged the government to stand firm against the Chinese, and called upon every European in the colony to support the government. Because of racial tensions, two speakers expressed their suspicion that the "leading Chinese" were "answerable for a great deal of our trouble here." "If the Government did not do what certain Chinese in the Colony wished, they intended to bring out first the carrying coolies, then the rice coolies, then the market coolies, and then the house servants and the ricksha coolies and everything else."82 The Europeans were suspicious of a coalition of the Chinese of all classes to stage a coolie strike in the colony. But this suspicion was unfounded; commercial
178 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
ties between the Chinese merchants and Europeans proved to be too strong and their commercial loses too heavy for the Chinese mer chants to ignore.
Granville Sharp, another speaker in the European public meeting, complained: “When I first came to Hong Kong, the Chinese did not behave as they do now. Every Chinese coolie who met you in the street doffed his hat and stood on one side to allow you to pass. When do you see a coolie do that now?"83 Indeed, through a long series of confrontations with the British authorities and European employers, large numbers of coolies had learned to combine their forces in collective actions to defend their common interests. Gone were the days when the Chinese coolie "doffed his hat and stood on one side to allow you to pass." Much annoyed by the coolie strike, Granville Sharp insisted that a disobedient coolie ought to be "caned without his clothes, and then . . . sent into the street showing his blue and red back." Englishmen must recognize and enforce their "undoubted superiority"; "we must rule by power It is by power
we have ruled the Great Empire of India."84
The speaker was given a loud applause by the excited European audience. Granville Sharp was representative of the British colonists in the non-Westem world. He resembled P. W. Ellis in George Or well's Burmese Days. "Living twenty years in the country without learning a word of the language," Ellis insisted that the natives understood only brute force.85
The Hong Kong European merchants' meeting concluded with the appointment of a committee of six members to meet with their Chinese colleagues and partners, the leading Chinese merchants, to discuss the labor crisis. The committee included Mr. J. J. Keswick (director of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) and other Euro pean businessmen representing powerful firms such as Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Butterfield & Swire Co.86
Meanwhile, the Chinese mercantile community held their own meetings to discuss the labor strike. The compradors met on March 28 in Robert Ho Tung's office at Jardine, Matheson & Co. After a conference with other Chinese merchants they decided to meet their European colleagues and partners. Thus, confronting the coolie strike that threatened the colony's business interests, the Chinese mer chants got together with the European merchants to discuss how to deal with the labor crisis. The meeting took place on March 29, with
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism 179
more than a hundred Chinese merchants present. Appealing to their common interests, hurt by the labor strike, Robert Ho Tung repu diated the English merchants' allegation about certain influential Chinese backing up the coolies. To end the labor strike the Chinese merchants asked the European merchants' committee to guarantee that there would be no imposition of a poll tax. The Europeans readily agreed to issue placards giving coolies “the strongest guaran tees" that the government had absolutely no intention of imposing a poll tax or registration fees.87
The following day, March 30, the committee of the European merchants, accompanied by Ho Kai, waited on the governor to make recommendations concerning the guarantee given to the coolies. Governor Robinson was still uncertain about the best policy to fol low, indicating that any concession to the strikers would be inter preted as a sign of weakness on the part of the government. Refer ring to the European merchants' guarantee to coolies, the governor added: "Your action has placed me in considerable difficulty." 8
Impatient about the labor strike, the European merchant commu nity held another public meeting on April 1 in the City Hall to discuss the crisis. Robert Ho Tung came to give a long talk, saying that he strongly condemned the strikers and strongly admired the govern ment for being firm about the lodging house regulations. He repu diated the allegation that the leading Chinese were supporting the strike: “I appeal to you, as successful business men to think what benefit or what good leading Chinese derive from this strike consid ering the very heavy losses which they have already sustained. . . .
So far we have lost if not more, at least as much as the Europeans." Ho Tung reminded the Europeans that the leading Chinese had given the government the most loyal support whenever they were called upon to do so. He expressed his eagerness to assist the govern ment or any gentlemen who would form a committee to end the strike.89
Listening to Ho Tung's appeal to their common economic interest, the English merchant Granville Sharp was readily convinced. Sharp's aversion to the labor problem was typical of the British merchants in Hong Kong; he warned in graphic terms:
The present position is one of rebellion; it is war. The existence
of a body of 20,000 coolies—lusty coolies—in Hong Kong, disaf-
180 Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism
fected and armed with their formidable bamboo poles . . . is a direct menace to the Colony (laugh and applause) I think we
m ust stand shoulder to shoulder and present an uncompromis
ing front (applause).90
To induce the coolies bade to work, the colonial government fi nally followed the Chinese and European merchants' advice in issu ing a proclamation on April 1, affirming that no poll tax or registra tion fees were to be imposed; it also offered a reward of one thousand dollars to anyone who gave information leading to the arrest of strike agitators.91 Three days later, on April 4, many coolies returned to work, ending the twelve-day labor strike.
Several factors helped to terminate the strike. First, the govern ment had arrested a few strikers and agitators and had denied the rumor about the poll tax and registration fees. Second, over a hundred head coolies had fled Hong Kong, leaving their followers without leadership. Third, thousands of cheap laborers could be recruited easily from Amoy, Swatow, and elsewhere on the mainland.92 Fourth, the Chinese authorities at Kowloon City cooperated with the British colonial government in driving the head coolies out of the dty that had been their place of refuge. Finally, coolies had to work to make a living. A prolonged strike would cause them economic hardship. Many coolies demanded an increase in wages before returning to duty. The demand was not only refused; in many cases their daily wages were reduced from one dollar a day to seventy-five cents.93
The coolie strike of 1895 revealed the social relations and political structure in the colony of Hong Kong. Once again it was demon strated that when their common interest was threatened by govern ment regulations, large numbers of coolies of different occupations and dialect groups joined forces in collective resistance. Dockyard workers, coal workers, carrying coolies, stevedore's coolies, cargo boatpeople and fitters, all came to feel the identity of interest among themselves against a common foe. Workers of the rival dialect groups from Tung Kuan and Sze Yap joined the strike, though the minority groups of Hoklo and Teochiu coolies did not.
Whenever laborers went on strike, the Qiinese and European mercantile communities suffered economic losses. Qiinese mer chants sustained a loss of over two hundred thousand dollars during the first week alone in the 1895 coolie strike.91 The labor strike brought
Coolie Unrest and Elitist Natiotialism 181
together Chinese and European merchants in a cooperative common effort to resolve their common problem. They supported the colonial government, advising it on how to end the labor unrest. While cooperating with the British, the Chinese elite also sought to convey to the government the coolies' apprehension about the rumored poll tax. The Chinese and European merchants, together, pursuaded the colonial government to guarantee against the imposition of such tax on coolies.
The coolie strike took place at the time of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), but it had nothing to do with the war. It was the colonial government's housing regulations (threatening laborers' interests) that aroused the strike. Coolies' concern with a rent increase, a poll tax, and registration fees prompted them to take collective actions. Local issues affecting their daily subsistence were of primary impor tance to the poor laboring class. Living on a bare subsistence wage, coolies had to guard constantly their immediate interest and mun dane needs for food, clothing, and shelter.
The working people would be more inclined to respond to a nationalist appeal if it were fused with an appeal to the enhancement of their livelihood. The elitist nationalism advocated by Ho Kai, Hu Li-yiian, Wei Yuk, Robert Ho Tung, and the Westernized Hsing- Chung-hui revolutionaries held little appeal for the lower-class work ing people because it was built on a sectional foundation. The Chinese patriots from among the merchants and Westernized intelligentsia often failed to address local issues relating to the coolies' pressing social concerns and economic problems. A gap separated the coolies from the Chinese intelligentsia and revolutionaries. So long as the gap remained formidable, the scope and appeal of the social and national movements promoted by the intelligentsia would remain sectional and limited. This helps to explain the limited participation of the Hong Kong coolies in the anti-American boycott of 1905-6.
s
E V E N
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
A new corporate life is being awakened and fostered among the more in telligent of the m aritim e and riverine population.
— China M ail, July 24,1905
Though living in a land under foreign rule, w e shall use the traitors' and public enemies' skulls as vrine vessels in libation.
—Ch'en Ch'ing-ch'en, journalist
In the history of modem China the Chinese frequently resorted to boycott as a means of passive resistance to foreign imperialist en croachment Although the boycott of American goods in 1905-6 has been subject to several studies, many aspects of the boycott in Hong Kong have so far remained uninvestigated. This chapter examines the origins and nature of the boycott and discusses the roles played by the colony's Chinese community in the boycott movement.
Origins and Nature of the Boycott
By a series of exclusion acts—in 1882, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1894— the American government had prohibited the Chinese laborers from entering the United States. This prohibition was extended to include Hawaii in 1898 and the Philippines in 1900. Racial discrimination against the Chinese in America involved not merely a ban on the immigration of Chinese laborers; the "exempted" groups of officials.
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 183
teachers, students, journalists, merchants, and travelers were all sub jected to abuses and mob violence. Numerous racial incidents in volved Chinese of all classes. In one incident, on October 11, 1902, about two hundred and fifty Chinese were arrested by the Boston immigration officers without warrant; only five among the arrested were found to be unlawful residents. One of the innocent victims of the unwarranted raid was Feng Hsia-wei, who later returned to China in distress and wrote a book about his unhappy experience. His feeling against America was so strong that he committed suicide in front of the American consulate in Shanghai on July 16, 1905, and thus became a martyr in the anti-American boycott.1 Outraged by such mistreatment and activated by patriotism, the Chinese of all classes were to join the anti-American boycott. As a Hong Kong Chinese resident maintained, in boycotting American goods, "we are simply exercising our rights as members of the human race."2
The boycott movement reflected not merely such moral outrage but also practical social and economic concerns. It was directed against America's anti-Chinese movement, which threatened the interests and aspirations of all classes of Chinese around the Pacific basin. To ban the Chinese labor immigrants meant to deprive the Chinese lower classes of an opportunity to earn a living abroad in America, Hawaii, and the Philippines. The Chinese would no longer be able to join their friends and relatives already abroad. Family members were separated. Large numbers of Chinese in the Philippines and other regions of Southeast Asia were Fukienese. Both Fukienese and Can tonese were disaffected by the U.S. immigration laws. Racial discrim ination and violence against the "exempted" groups of students, teachers, ministers, journalists, and travelers meant that the Chinese intelligentsia's professional opportunities abroad were threatened. And so were Chinese mercantile interests.
Nationalism as reflected in the anti-American boycott was not purely political; it had broad social and economic dimensions, which accounted for the coalition of all classes in the movement under the leadership of members of the intelligentsia and merchant dass. Na tionalism had a powerful appeal to people when it was fused with their sodal and economic concerns.
In part, the boycott movement reflected the aspiration of the Chinese businessmen to promote their economic rights and independence from foreign capitalist domination and control. Many Chinese mer-
184 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
chants and businessmen sought to take advantage of the boycott to promote their own commercial interests and manufacturing enter prises.
As Linda Pomerantz observes, "The wealthy Chinese merchants in the United States had a vested interest in the development of a large and prosperous community of Chinese workers throughout the western states. The anti-Chinese movement jeopardized this goal
. . . and hampered the merchants in their conduct of international trade"; thus, "the emergence of nationalist ideas [among the Chinese merchants in America] flowed naturally out of specific interests."3 Indeed, the interests of the Chinese communities in the commercial network of the Pacific basin were more or less adversely affected. Hence the nationalistic boycott movement was to spread among the Chinese communities all around the Pacific basin. Nationalism was fused with social and economic concerns to propel the boycott move ment.
It is important to note, however, that the boycott hurt both the
boycotted and the boycotters. Moreover, interests could be differ ently perceived; many people would stress immediate interests and others, long-term interests. From the perspective of long-term inter ests, a well-organized boycott would press the U.S. government to modify its immigration laws in favor of Chinese of all classes. This would in the long run enhance the prosperity of the Chinese com munities in America and in other regions of the Pacific commercial network. From this long-term perspective, the nationalistic boycott movenment was in harmony with people's concern with their eco nomic interests.
From the perspective of the boycott's short-term impact, however, the nationalistic boycott movement may have seemed to be in conflict with individuals' concern for their immediate material interests. The Chinese merchants engaged in the importing and exporting business with America, for instance, would be hurt by the boycott, if they considered only its immediate effect. The Chinese merchants in the Pacific basin had a broad, common goal, to promote their general interest and to compete with foreign capitalism for a greater share in the international trade, but the long-term interest was often remote and uncertain. Therefore, difference in emphasis on either the im mediate or long-term interests caused a split in the Chinese mercan tile community.
In fact, many people were often primarily concerned with the
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 185
boycott's immediate effect on their interests. So, those who were immediately affected by the boycott tended to oppose the boycott; and those who were not immediately affected were more inclined to support it. In particular, the merchants trading with America (deal ers, wholesalers, and detailers of American goods in Hong Kong) would suffer immediate economic losses, so they opposed the boy cott. But those who were exporting goods to supply the Chinese communities in America would support the boycott. And those who were not directly trading with America had more latitude to choose either to support or oppose the boycott.
In addition, the manufacturers who sought to take advantage of the boycott to promote their own enterprises would of course sup port the boycott, but those manufacturers who continued to rely on America for the supply of machines, techniques, and raw materials would soon retreat from the boycott. As for the intelligentsia, Hatano Yoshihiro observes that teachers, students, and journalists who had received a "modem bourgeois education" were the "propelling force" of the boycott.4 But, as Kikuchi Takaharu points out, members of the intelligentsia were also divided in their attitudes, reflecting the im mediate interests of one or another segment of the merchant class.5 Despite its common goal to resist foreign imperialism the disunity
of the Chinese mercantile community was in part due to the om nipresence of foreign capitalism, with which the different segments of the Chinese community had formed economic ties in varying degrees and on which they all depended in varying degrees. The boycott and the concurrent "rights recovery" movement reflected the merchants' and businessmen's common political and economic as piration to free themselves from foreign capitalist domination and control, but their common aspiration was frustrated by the reality of their economic ties with and dependency on foreign capitalism in China. This helps to explain why the boycott began to fade away just a few months after it was launched. With these assumptions in mind, let us proceed to examine the boycott and to test these assumptions.
A Divided Community: Various Responses to the Call for a Boycott
When the 1894 American Exclusion Treaty with China came up for renewal in December 1904, Chinese public opinion pressed the gov ernment to demand a revision of that treaty. On May 11, 1905, the
186 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
Shanghai Chamber of Commerce sent telegrams to the chambers of commerce of twenty-two cities all over China, calling on all Chinese merchants to join in a boycott. In response, the Hong Kong Chinese Commercial Union telegraphed Shanghai to express its approval of the resolution. But the telegraph added that “the matter of boycott had not been discussed due to its incompatibility with the British laws."6
Thus, from the beginning the Chinese Commercial Union in Hong Kong showed its weakness. Constrained by the colony's laws, it was reluctant to assume the leadership of a boycott movement. Without elite leadership, no organized boycott was possible. Chinese mer chants in Shanghai launched a boycott of American goods on July 20 and Canton merchants responded on August 1. But the Hong Kong Commercial Union still remained quiet. The young revolutionary journalist Cheng Kuan-kung grew impatient. He wrote a poem la menting that the colony's merchants were "as quiet as the winter cicadas."7
Only the local Chinese newspapers were engaged in a boycott in words. They propagated the boycott and disseminated the news of nationalistic activities of the Chinese at home and abroad. They called upon the Chinese government to protect the Chinese overseas and to use the threat of a boycott as a means of treaty revision. The Hong Kong Chinese newspapers vied with one another in denounc ing Govomor General Yüan Shih-k'ai for discouraging and suppress ing nationalistic agitations in Chih-li.8
Throughout the boycott the press stood in the forefront of the movement not only in Hong Kong but also in south China. The newspapers published by both revolutionaries (e.g., Chung-kuo jih- pao, Kwangtung jih-pao, Yu-so-wei) and constitutionalists (e.g., Shih- pao, Hsiang-chiang shang-pao,) competed with one another in reporting the progress of the boycott. They published letters from their readers expressing their views on the boycott, they revealed to the public the names of merchants dealing with American goods, and they urged people to join the boycott movement. Hong Kong became a major center of newspaper propaganda throughout the movement.9 Even the conservative paper Hua-tzu jih-pao refused to accept advertise ments of American goods.10
The leading article of the Hua-tzu jih-pao on July 26, entitled "Soli darity but No Rash Violence," blamed the incompetent Manchu gov-
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 187
eminent for the loss of China's sovereign rights and for the enslave ment of her people by other countries. The article credited the mer chants for arousing national consciousness and solidarity in the boycott and in the railroad redemption movements. But it warned against rash violence toward Americans in China, which occurred during the riot in Amoy on July 19, where people allegedly threw dirt into the American consulate, destroyed its flagpole, forced the Chinese em ployees to quit work, and threatened to set fire to the consulate. Such lawless action of the “ignorant people," said the Hua-tzu jih-pao, could cause an international incident and bring calamity to the na tion. In short, it warned against "antiforeignism by barbarous means" (yeh-man p'ai-wai). 1 This was typical of the merchants' attitude towards the boycott. Even the revolutionary boycott activist and journalist Cheng Kuan-kung warned against mob violence of the "ignorant laborers."12
In the increasingly complex and heterogeneous society, which had begun to develop since the mid-1880s, the Tung Wah Hospital's role as an elite institution had gradually declined. By the 1900s it no longer played its earlier preeminent position of community leader ship. The Canton merchants trading with foreign goods in Shanghai telegraphed to inform the Tung Wah Hospital that they had decided to stop ordering American goods. But, unwilling to get itself in volved, the hospital transferred the telegram to the Hong Kong Chinese Commercial Union on August 6.13 The hospital's abdication of social responsibility angered a large section of the colony's Chinese com munity as well as the overseas Chinese.14Later on, when the hospital again received a letter in January 1907 from the Oakland Chinese community soliciting support for an anti-American boycott, the hos pital directorate replied that it would not intervene in any extramed ical matters.15 The Hong Kong Chinese Commercial Union was sup posed to have taken over the responsibilities for such matters.
But the commercial union found itself in a difficult situation. It felt constrained by the colony's laws forbidding an organized boycott while it also felt the pressure of the Chinese compatriots at home and abroad urging an organized boycott. On August 8, 1905, some lead ing merchants of the commercial union (Fung Wah Chuen, Ho Tung, Lau Chu Pak, and Ho Kam Tong) consulted the barrister Mr. Pullok, who counseled against collective actions and public meetings.16 But telegrams urging boycott continued to pour in.
188 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
On account of telegrams received from the Shanghai Boycott Com mittee and from the San Fransisco Chinese mercantile community, the Hong Kong Chinese Commercial Union advertised a public meet ing in the press on August 11 to discuss the boycott, which was to take place on the following day in the premises of the union.17 Even on such short notice the premises were fully crowded long before the appointed hours. Nearly four hundred persons assembled, repre senting all classes of the Chinese community, and another four hundred persons gathered outdoors. To the surprise and dismay of the public, however, the commercial union chairman Fung Wah Chuen opened the proceedings by reading a letter from the colonial authorities stating that "the meeting . . . cannot be held without the Governor's perm it."18An uproar immediately interrupted Fung Wah Chuen's words. It was impossible to restore order, for the whole crowd vied with each other in shouting torrents of angry speech denouncing the uselessness of the commercial union and its manage ment. A voice was raised in vain against the colonial government's ban on public meetings. The frustrated crowd lingered in or around the commercial union premises for nearly an hour before dispers ing.19
Subsequently, the Committee of the Chinese Commercial Union met on August 14, attended by over thirty members. The debate on the boycott revealed the divided opinions of the colony's leading merchants. Ho Kam Tong (comprador to Jardine, Matheson & Co.) suggested a petition to the colonial authorities for permission to hold a merchants' meeting to discuss the boycott issue, saying that if the colony's merchants did not do something about the boycott, they would be censured by their fellow merchants in Shanghai and by the "400 million Chinese compatriots."20
The same concern was expressed by Fung Sau Tin (importer and exporter to California):
In a boycott against American goods, I and my fellow exporters for San Fransisco would be the first to be adversely affected. But the boycott grows out of public indignation. So, if Hong Kong does not join the boycott, we will be blamed by the Chinese in other ports. [However], if the [Hong Kong] Government does not permit [an organized boycott], each firm should follow its own way—no one may force others [to join the boycott].
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 189
This statement by a merchant trading with America is particularly interesting because it revealed his conflicting feelings. He worried about the boycott's effect on his immediate commercial interest, but was also concerned about the "public indignation" of "the Chinese in other ports." Tom between a nationalist cause and a concern with his immediate material interest, Fung Sau Tin vacillated and then leaned towards his commercial interest.
Chan Keng Yu (Ch'en Keng Yu, son of a merchant in Hawaii named Chan Fong, and comprador to the Douglas Lapraik Shipping Co.) was more unequivocal. While believing that the Chinese were justified in staging a boycott to express their national indignation, he was opposed to an organized boycott in Hong Kong. He observed that ever since the coolie strike of 1884 the laws enacted to keep social order would not allow violation. Concerned that the boycott would disrupt the colony's trade, he insisted that each individual should decide for himself what to do and no one should urge others to join the boycott. But boycott sentiment was so strong that the Committee of the Chinese Commercial Union voted to petition the colonial government for permission to hold community meetings to discuss the matter.21
Meanwhile, Governor Matthew Nathan (1904-1907) had discussed
the situation with the Chinese members of the legislative council. Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, who, the governor said, were "strongly opposed to the proposed meetings being allowed and were of the opinion that the 'boycott' was not wanted by any respectable merchant here, and that the proposal to enforce it was due entirely to the difficulty of resisting pressure from Shanghai unless the Government put its face against the movement." The Governor decided to reject the Chinese merchants' petition, stating that the boycott "can only be regarded as an attack on the commerce of a friendly power and . . . would react unfavarourably on the trade of this free trade port." 2
In opposing the boycott the Chinese elite represented by Ho Kai and Wei Yuk spoke only for some segments of the mercantile com munity. They were alienated from other segments of the Chinese community they purported to represent, which reflected the complex and heterogeneous nature of the Chinese community in Hong Kong in the 1900s. It was no longer possible to attain a societal consensus on important issues.
190 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
The commercial union chairman, Fung Wah Chuen, found himself in a difficult situation. In expressing sympathy with Chinese nation alist sentiment against the U.S. exclusion laws and in attempting to call Chinese public meetings to discuss the boycott, Fung Wah Chuen incurred the wrath of the colony's Western community. Yet, in read ily submitting to the colonial government's order to call off the public meeting, he enraged the Chinese public. Anonymous placards were found everywhere, attacking Fung Wah Chuen and other prominent merchants of the commercial union for their inability to lead a boy cott. Fung Wah Chuen also received anonymous threatening let ters.23 He decided to resign his position as chairman of the commer cial union.24 The Committee of the Chinese Commercial Union met on September 19 to elect a new chairman. Recommended by 146 firms. Yip Hoi Shan (a Fukienese) was elected chairman, and Chan Keng Yu, vice-chairman.
Thus, the disunity of the merchant elite in the Chinese Commer cial Union and the government's ban on public meetings frustrated the boycotters and hampered the development of an organized boy cott movement in Hong Kong. The anti-American boycott was left to the unorganized individuals and general public. Journalists, teach ers, and students attempted to activate the boycott, and they were supported by some merchants and businessmen who sought to take advantage of the boycott to promote native enterprises against for eign capitalist economic domination over the Chinese. Business men's sectional self-assertion merged with patriotism in the boycott movement.
Disorganized Boycott Activities in the Colony
Even before the Chinese Commercial Union petitioned the colonial government on August 14, some importing and exporting of Ameri can goods had already been stopped. To avoid violation of the col ony's laws, notices such as the following were posted in some stores: "We regret that owing to no stock of XX we are temporarily unable to supply customers with the stuff."25 Placards and circulars were posted around the walls in the streets warning people against buying or using American products.
Kerosene oil, piece goods, and flour were the three major imports from America. American flour was especially valued for its superior
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 191
quality. Yet a number of bakeries advertised in newspapers that they had “voluntarily substituted the highest rate Chinese and English flour" for American flour.26 The boycott provided an opportunity for trade in Australian flour, and prominent among the firms to benefit were Messrs. Barrette and Co.27 Tang Lap Ting, a California trade merchant, sold his imported American flour at a reduced price, and resolved not to place new orders until the abolition of the exclusion laws. Yeung Wan Po, a broker of flour and sundries for American firms, advertised that "to fulfill a citizen's d u t / ' he was "willing to sacrifice personal interest" and quit his work until the exclusion treaty was revised.28Thus, Tang Lap Ting and Yeung Wan Po chose to sacrifice their immediate interests for the nationalist cause. As a Chinese resident wrote to the South China Morning Post, "The boy cott, then, is the outcome of provocation; it is not a profit-making scheme. In supporting it we have actually to lose our money and risk our lives, but, notwithstanding that, we do so with pleasure."29
But it was easier for consumers to boycott American goods than for merchants who had to sustain economic losses. Not every mer chant was like Tang Lap Ting and Yeung Wan Po, willing to sacrifice immediate interests for long-term interests that were remote and uncertain. Some shopkeepers sought to conceal from the public the true identity of American flour by changing its trademarks. In March 1906 six people were prosecuted for doing so. A similar case occurred as late as August 1, 1906, involving a comprador and some shop keepers.30
On August 16, 1905, the Rice Merchants' Guild in the colony resolved to join the boycott. In supporting the nationalist cause the rice merchants sustained little economic loses, for rice was imported from Southeast Asia, not from America. The export of rice to the United States was little affected by the boycott. In other trades Chan Chen Cheong and Leung Chak Chau, who had relied on American material to operate a match-making company in Hong Kong, decided to close down their business until the exclusion treaty was revised.31 The proprietor of the I-Ching Weaving Company advertised in Au gust 1905 that to fulfill a citizen's duty he used only native material and not the American import.32 Yu-so-wei, a newspaper run by the revolutionaries, refused to publish any commercial advertisement for American goods. 3Feng Hui-ch'en (a clansman of the boycott martyr Feng Hsia-wei, and a merchant in Hong Kong for over ten years)
192 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
resigned his position as an agent for the New York Life Insurance Company, "sacrificing personal interest for the preservation of public good."34
By September 19 the local press had reported "a serious diminu tion in local sales of American goods."35 The British-American To bacco Company was boycotted.36 Many British and European firms in Hong Kong felt obliged to run advertisements in Chinese news papers to remind the public that their goods (flour, cigarettes, yams, doth, shoes, beer, kerosene, and other imports) were manufactured in Europe and not in America. The British insurance companies did similar advertisements.37 An American liner flying a British flag leav ing Manila for Hong Kong was also subjected to boycott: one hundred and twenty out of one hundred and fifty Chinese passengers can celed their ticket reservations.38 And a Chinese dentist confided to a foreign missionary that the public had threatened to boycott him because he had received his education in America.39
Since large numbers of Chinese in the United States came from the district of Hsin-ning in Kwangtung the Hsin-ning Cantonese bacame very active in the boycott movement. Here was an instance of how localism helped to enhance a nationalist cause. The Hong Kong merchants from Hsin-ning organized a commercial office, which collected subscriptions and sent several men back to their native district to propagate the cause. The boycott activist Siu King Chung's speech at the Kwang-hai academy was especially well-received by merchants and students. The activists used plain language, adver tisements, and songs to propagate the boycott among the ordinary men, women, and children.40 The Shih-shih hua-pao, a Canton picto rial, contributed a great deal to popularize the nationalist boycott cause.
Secondary school students in Hong Kong also became politically activated. During an examination in June 1905 at the Queen's College an English composition topic was: 'To boycott American goods would be like cutting one's nose to spite one's face. Discuss the assertion."41 The American Schlitz Beer Company donated a number of dictionar ies to the Queen's College students. On their way home, on Septem ber 9, they tore up numerous such dictionaries to protest the United States exdusion laws.42 When the South China Morning Post editorial called this "wonton mischief," Wai Ting Iu wrote on behalf of the
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 193
students to remonstrate against such a remark.43The Canton pictorial Shih-shih hua-pao quickly picked up the story, publishing pictures of "patriotic students" in Hong Kong tearing up American books. 4
Boycott as a Reflection of Manufacturers' Economic and Political Aspirations
In part, the boycott reflected the aspirations of many Chinese mer chants and businessmen to promote their economic interests against foreign capitalist domination and control. Since 1895, in the after- math of China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese war, the foreign powers had extended their industrial investments in China in railroads, mines, textiles, and other light industries. This gave a strong impetus to the development of a native modem industry. For as soon as the Chinese saw the immense advantage of the modem methods of industry, they began to invest in manufacturing enterprises, and they did so "with great passion" and "in the name of resisting foreign goods."45 Since 1895 Chinese-owned manufacturing enterprises as well as foreign-owned had increased in number.46 Closely connected with the "rights recovery" movement, this passion to set up manufactur ing enterprises was invigorated during and after the anti-American boycott in 1905-6. The historian Chu Shih-chia contends that the boycott resulted from a clash of interest between the Chinese "na tional bourgeoisie" and foreign capitalists. The former sought to use the anti-American boycott as a means to exclude foreign capital and interest from China and to develop Chinese "national industry" and
"national capitalism."47
Kikuchi Takaharu similarly argues that the boycott and the rights recovery movement reflected the emerging national consciousness of China's rising national capitalists, who desired to develop national capitalism and a native modem industry. Kikuchi makes a distinction between commercial capital (shôgyô shihon) and industrial capital (sangyô shihon), with the industrial capitalists more actively supporting the boycott of foreign manufactured goods. Kikuchi further subdivides the commercial capitalists into two groups—those who did not di rectly trade with America and supported the boycott, and those who had close commercial ties with America and were often opposed to the boycott. Kikuchi further points out that even among the indus-
194 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
trial capitalists, those who continued to rely on America for the supply of machines, techniques, and raw materials maintained an ambiguous attitude towards the boycott.48
The works of Chu Shih-chia and Kikuchi Takaharu provide much insight into the anti-American boycott movemnent. But they made too sharp a distinction between national capitalists, comprador capi talists, and bureaucratic capitalists. The capitalists cannot be so neatly classified because of the interpenetration of their capital. Similarly, Kikuchi's categories of commercial capital and industrial capital were in fact often intertwined. Kikuchi concedes the interpenetration and intertwining of these categories, but he asserts that comprador capi talists were more directly and to a larger degree tied to foreign capitalists than national capitalists were. While making these distinc tions, he warns against making sweeping generalizations and em phasizes the need to study individual cases.
Similarly, Wang Ching-yü observes: “Bom under the circum stances of the invasion of foreign capitalism, national capital could not cut itself free from compradore capital. On the contrary, in the incipient stage of Chinese capitalism, large sums of compradore cap ital were transferred into national capital." He cautions that “the emergence of Chinese capitalism was a process full of contradictions and complexities."49
What is important for our purpose here is that in the anti-Ameri can boycott, as Marie-Claire Bergere contends, “the Chinese bour geoisie had consciously asserted itself as a class and given voice to political aims.“ 50 But the boycott did not merely reflect the nascent bourgeoisie's political aspiration to resist imperialism and to recover China's sovereign rights but also its economic aspiration to compete with foreign capitalists for a greater share in international trade and even its aspiration to assert economic independence from foreign capitalist domination and control, however unrealistic this may seem under the circumstances of omnipresent foreign capitalism at the time.
This economic aspiration was shared by the Chinese merchants and businessmen not merely in China's treaty ports but also in the entire commercial network of the Pacific basin. As the Reverend Dr. William D. Noyes (a Presbyterian missionary in Canton) observed: "We see also in the [boycott] movement the power of the Chinese merchants—they are not only in China, but in Japan, Korea, the
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 195
Straits Settlements, Siam, and in all these places they control consid erable trade."51
Many Chinese businessmen sought to take advantage of the boy cott to promote their own manufacturing enterprises. For them na tionalism became a vehicle for sectional self-assertion. Business inter ests were being equated with national interests. The merchants' as piration found rationalization in the leading article of Hua-tzu jih-pao on October 4, 1905, which asserted that Western countries acquired wealth and power by developing their commerce and industry, and in contrast, China lagged far behind, importing cloth from America, "costing the nation more than ten million dollars" each year; that the boycott of American goods was a golden opportunity to promote China's manufacturing enterprise and restore the nation's "interest and rights" (li-ch'äan); as a part of this campaign, the Hua-yang Textile Manufacturing Company was founded in Hong Kong.52 The company produced underwear in the name of patriotism.
The Kwangtung Nanyang Tobacco Company, founded by Kan Chiu Nam (Chien Chao-nan) and Kan Yuk Kai (Chien Yü-chieh) in 1905, advertised in newspapers that each year China's import of foreign cigarettes "cost the nation ten million dollars"; and that the company aimed to help restore China's "interest and rights," while producing for the enjoyment of our compatriots the finest cigarette that "dispelled phlegm" and "stimulated energy."53 Similarly, the Chu Cheong Lan Cigarette Company (based in Macao with offices in Hong Kong, Canton, and Singapore) advertised that it had pros pered due to the patronage of "our fellow compatriots."54The Hong Kong boycott activist and journalist Cheng Kuan-kung was among those invited to speak at the company's founding ceremony.
Still another company, the Kwangtung Cigarette Company, with its general office in Hong Kong, advertised that it had produced the "best quality" cigarette for Chinese compatriots. A special brand of cigarette named after "The Great Man Feng Hsia-wei," the boycott martyr, was on sale to help promote the patriotic boycott move ment. 5 A Sovereign-Rights Restoration Cigarette Factory (Wan-li yen- ch'ang) was founded to serve the compatriots and to help restore China's sovereign rights.56Commercial advertisement was promoted under the name of patriotism.
Chinese merchants in Hong Kong also ventured into the manufac turing of cosmetics. A Hong Kong Double Dragon Company was
196 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
founded by Mok Lai Chi, producing perfume "superior" in quality to the American product.57 The famed Kwong Sang Hong (Kwang Sheng Hang) was founded in 1905 with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, which by 1914 was increased to six hundred thou sand dollars. Its business was expanded to manufacture perfumery, lotions, face creams, powders, and toilet articles of all kinds.58 This success stoiy was the dream of all entrepreneurs in 1905—to take advantage of the boycott to assert their economic rights and indepen dence from foreign capitalist domination and control.
But the prosperous Kwong Sang Hong still had to rely on the foreign capitalists' supplies of machines, techniques, and material. Similarly, the Kwangtung Nanyang Tobacco Company had to rely on Japanese techniques and management and also on American tobacco supplies.59 And the Hua-yang Manufacturing Company's manager, Wu Tung- ch'i (Ng Tung Kai), was an importer and exporter to California.60 With continued commercial ties to America, their participation in the boycott of American goods could only be half-hearted and temporary. In an essay on the 1905 boycott Margaret Field finds a general pattern: 'T he merchants were most prominent in the talking stage, with a marked decline of their participation occurring, except in Canton, once severe economic pressure had been felt."61 Merchants were the first to talk about the patriotic boycott movement and also the first to retreat from it when their economic interest was hurt. The "national bourgeoisie's" economic ties to, and dependency on, the foreign capitalists, predisposed it to vacillate and retreat from the
boycott movement that it had done so much to launch.
Workers' Participation in Boycott: Sporadic and Unorganized
Under the watchful eye of the colonial authorities, the anti-American boycott in Hong Kong remained generally unorganized. It was largely a movement of the Chinese students, teachers, journalists, revolu tionary intelligentsia, and the consumer public, in addition to those merchants and manufacturers who aspired to promote their eco nomic interests against American capitalist competition. The Hong Kong working people's participation in the boycott was limited, al though they were part of the consumer public who refused to buy American goods.
The chair and ricksha coolies disliked their formidable competi-
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 197
tors, the electric trams. Many coolies were arrested by the police for posting wall posters to discourage people from taking trams. One such poster was a caricature featuring trams carrying animal passen gers—monkeys, turtles, horses, rats, snakes, and dogs—implying that only beasts took trams. A coolie was arrested and fined twenty- five dollars for posting a placard stating that the Chinese should not travel by the Electric Tramway as it was run by an American com pany.62 Having some difficulty getting its employees to work,63 the Hongkong Electric Tramway Company had to request the Chinese press to inform the public that all its stocks belonged to the British, none to Americans.64
Some chair coolies willfully refused to serve the visiting American secretary of war William H. Taft and his party. Placards posted around the street walls attacked the Chinese Commercial Union's chairman Fung Wah Chuen for calling off the boycott meeting on August 12. Sin Wa Fung (a piece goods merchant) attempted to soothe him, asking him to ignore the abuses of the anonymous placards posted by “the unreasonable people of the lower-class soci ety" (hsia-liu she-hui).65
At the naval yard a Chinese was given a small tube of rubber mixture and set to repairing a diving suit. He refused to work, saying in pidgin English: “No can, belong American." But the rubber tube was in fact of English manufacture. An English newspaper corre spondent ridiculed this episode as the “blind faith of the illiterate Chinaman." 6
The local Chinese press reported that a head coolie named Liu "secretly sought to imite his fellow coolies . . . to refuse to carry American goods. . . . Many joined him to discuss the boycott." Be lieving that he had achieved his purpose, Liu returned to Canton, where carrying coolies were subsequently organized to engage in a boycott against the Americans.67 But no coolie strike actually took place in Hong Kong. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Naga saki, Japan, sent a letter, dated July 1, to the Hong Kong Chinese Commercial Union, calling on Hong Kong merchants to organize a boycott, and workers to stage a strike against Americans in the colony.68 But to rely on the merchants of the Commercial Union to help promote a workers' strike in Hong Kong was to hope for the impossible. The Chinese commercial elite in the colony desired law and order, which was essential for business interests.
198 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
The Conservatism of the Colony's Business Elite
The most active members of the Chinese Commercial Union at the time consisted of over a dozen wealthy merchants and compradors. They expressed sympathy with Chinese nationalist sentiment against American mistreatment of the Chinese overseas, but for most of them economic consideration often took priority over nationalist sen timent when the two seemed in conflict. With close economic ties to foreign capitalism the wealthy merchants could only be conditional nationalists. A leading article in Hua-tzu jth-pao stated their position frankly: If merchants were forced into boycott against their own interests, it would work only for a moment but not for long. The best way to boycott American goods was to improve China's techniques and manufactures so as to wage a successful "commercial war" against foreign countries. But this would take time, and for the present there was no better way than to consult with the merchants trading in American goods so that they would not be "left out in the cold" while awaiting the actions taken by the American president.69
There were at least two hundred Chinese firms (Kam-shan-chung) in the entrepôt of Hong Kong that traded with America in 1905. Many of them exported goods (such as Chinese food stuffs) to supply the Chinese communities in America—these firms disliked the Amer ican exclusion law (which banned Chinese labor immigrants) and hence were inclined to support the boycott. But many other firms were dealers and traders of imported American goods (such as flour, oil, doth)—these firms were adversely affected by the boycott, so they were opposed to the boycott. But the situation was rendered more complex by the fact that many firms were engaged in both exporting goods to America and importing goods from America— these firms were also adversely affected by the boycott, and were hence inclined to oppose the boycott. Moreover, those firms not directly trading with America were concerned about a rampant boy cott's disrupting of the entrepôts general trade. Thus, with their immediate interest at stake many Hong Kong commercial firms con stituted a powerful, conservative force in the way of boycott. The colonial government's ban on public meetings also made the boycott less pervasive than its supporters had wished.
By comparison, the Chinese community in Thailand, for instance, was more determined and better organized. On August 1 more than
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 199
a thousand people attended the boycott meeting in the T'ien-hua Hospital in Bangkok.70 They sent telegrams to Chinese merchants in Singapore and Hong Kong asking them to stop all shipment of Amer ican goods to Thailand.71 Despite repeated warnings, a vessel from Hong Kong loaded with forty-five hundred bags of American flour, arrived in Bangkok on August 23 and another two thousand bags on August 27, which were refused and returned to Hong Kong. This prompted the Chinese merchant organization in Thailand to write an open letter to Hua-tzu jih-pao in Hong Kong expressing their indigna tion and determination to boycott American goods. They insisted that it was the patriotic duty of every Chinese to join the boycott; they reproved the Hong Kong Chinese merchants for not fulfilling that duty. They seemed to say: We, no less than you, live under the constraints of a foreign government; yet we can do it, why can't you?72
But, unlike Thailand, which was on the receiving end of the trade in American goods, the entrepôt of Hong Kong was a distributing center. The Hong Kong dealers and wholesalers of American goods had a large stock of flour that had to be disposed of. So they shipped several thousand bags of flour to a Chinese firm in Saigon. For accepting the shipment, the firm in Saigon was later said to have voluntarily paid a fine of twenty-eight hundred dollars to the Canton boycott society.73
With vested interest in the colony's entrepôt trade, the Chinese commercial elite took a conservative view of how far the boycott should proceed. Their talk with the American secretary of war Wil liam H. Taft during his visit to China illustrated this conservative stand. Accompanied by six U.S. senators, twenty-two congressmen and the president's daughter, Alice Roosevelt, Secretary Taft arrived in Hong Kong on September 1,1905, from Manila. He met with some “representative Hong Kong Chinese" to hear their views on the exclusion laws in the United States. They included Ho Kai, Wei Yuk, Fung Wah Chuen, Lau Chu Pak, Ku Fai Shan (a California trade merchant), and Leung Pui Chi. Three of these gentlemen were com pradors to foreign firms.
The meeting took place in the presence of Governor Nathan in his office on September 5. The striking thing about this conversation between the Chinese merchant elite and Secretary Taft was their basic agreement regarding the need to remove the abuses in the
200 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
administration of the exclusion laws rather than to abolish those laws. Ho Kai and his colleagues did not question America's exclusion of the Chinese laboring class; rather, they seemed mostly concerned about the mistreatment of Chinese merchants, students, and over seas Chinese gentlemen of wealth and education.74 As an American resident in Hong Kong observed, "the merchants certainly do not care whether the coolie is excluded from America or not, as [they have] nothing in common with the coolie and [have] no regard for his interests."75 This seemed to be a valid description of the Chinese gentlemen who talked with Secretary Taft. They did not speak for large segments of the Chinese community they purported to repre sent. By the 1900s the community had become increasingly complex and heterogeneous, with different attitudes and responses to impor tant issues such as the boycott of American goods.
"Civilized Resistance”: Boycott by "Civilized Means”
The Chinese elite and merchants were always sensitive to social unrest generated from below. During the anti-American boycott, most of the boycott activists from a commercial and intelligentsia background advocated "civilized resistance" (wen-ming ti-chih) and "civilized antiforeignism" (wen-ming p'ai-wai), that is, peaceful boy cott of American goods without riot or violence. They distrusted the "barbarous antiforeignism" (yeh-man p'ai-wai) of the "lower class so ciety" (hsia-liu she-hui).76
In Canton, Governor General Ts'en Ch'un-hsüan repeatedly warned against civil disorder and public agitation. He admonished the boy cott activists in Kwangtung that they could peacefully address the mercantile communities but not "the idle people of the marketplace" (shih-ching yu-min) who might cause disturbances. 7Posting wall posters to insult the party of visiting Americans (Secretary Taft and Alice Roosevelt) was also regarded by the authorities as an "uncivilized act" of the "ignorant" and "lawless people," and was therefore prohibited. One cartoon poster portrayed Miss Alice Roosevelt being carried by four turtles, meaning to induce chair coolies to boycott the Americans.78 When the Hong Kong newspaper Shih-chieh kung-i pao (Commonweal) reprinted the cartoon poster, the colonial govern ment banished its three staff members from Hong Kong for five years. Ho Kai and Wei Yuk told Governor Nathan that the banish-
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 201
ment was fully justified.79 The conservative newspaper Hua-tzu jih- pao insisted on “civilized boycott," calling the posting of the cartoon poster a “nonsensical act."80
Though the colonial government banned public meetings, a me morial service banquet was held in a restaurant on October 28, 1905, in honor of Feng Hsia-wei, the boycott martyr. The banquet was sponsored by the Enlightenment Society (K'ai-chih she) and chaired by Cheng Kuan-kung, a young revolutionary and founder-editor of Kuang-tung jih-pao (Kwangtung daily news).81 More than two hundred people attended the banquet, which featured five speakers who were mostly from commercial and educational circles. Altogether 134 eu logies were received from 119 persons (including at least 8 women), 3 newspapers (Kuang-tung jih-pao, Ch'ün-pao, and Shang-pao, which was published by Hsü Ch'in, a constitutional monarchist and fol lower of K'ang Yu-wei), 4 student bodies, 4 merchants' associations (belonging to the Sze Yap “four districts" of Kwangtung), and 4 civic organizations.82
Some eulogies were composed in a militant tone, such as the one written by a Ya-chou pao journalist Ch'en Ch'ing-ch'en: "Though living in a land under foreign rule, we shall use the traitors' and public enemies' skulls as wine vessels."83 The boycott activists and agitators were to be found from among the eulogy writers, which included students, teachers, and especially journalists and the T'ung- meng Hui revolutionaries (Feng Tzu-yu, Cheng Kuan-kung, Wang Ya-fu, Huang Shih-chung, Wu Yao-t'ing, Ch'en Shu-jen, etc.).
The way in which the memorial service was held (namely, making speeches, attending a banquet, and composing eulogies) revealed the intelligentsia background of the boycott activists; it also illus trated that under the watchful eye of the colonial government they were unable to rally the colony's populace for support in a mass movement. This was a major weakness of the boycott movement in Hong Kong, which was unlike the situation in Canton where the radical activists organized mass boycott demonstrations involving all classes of people. The inability of the Hong Kong activists to organize the masses could be attributed not merely to the colonial authorities' determination to ban it but also to the social conservatism of the colony's leading Chinese merchants.
Toward the end of 1905 some wealthy merchants in Hong Kong founded a boycott society known as the Society to Oppose the U.S.
202 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
Exclusion Treaty Against Chinese Laborers. Promoted by two wealthy businessmen, Li Yü-t'ang and Yang Hsi-yen, the boycott society was a conservative organization that did not worry the colonial authori ties. It enlisted two advisers.84 One was Ch'en Shao-pai, a journalist and revolutionary leader of the Hsing-Chung-hui and then of the T'ung-meng-hui in 1905. Another adviser was none other than Ho Kai, who had opposed die boycott movement. His conservative stand had been revealed in a conversation with William H. Taft in Septem ber and now again in the negotiations between the Chinese and the American merchants in mid-November and December of 1905.
Negotiations Between Chinese and American Merchants
Neither diplomatic pressure nor the threat of American gunboats at Canton could end the boycott in Kwangtung. The frustrated Ameri can merchants in Hong Kong and Canton decided to negotiate di rectly with the boycottera. Ignoring the objection of the Canton American consul, the American merchants asked the Canton boycott society and the Hong Kong commercial guilds to specify their de mands that had to be satisfied before they would call off the boycott. The Canton boycott society, the commercial guilds of Canton and Hong Kong, and the American Association of South China sent delegates to the meetings on Sha-mien and in Canton on November 13-14. The American merchants suggested a joint petition to the
U.S. government. They also requested the Chinese to make a list of demands for conveyance to the American government. The de lighted Canton merchants applauded and treated the American mer chants to refreshment.85
To prepare a list of demands, the Canton boycott society sent delegates to Hong Kong to consult Ho Kai (a barrister), Tso Seen Wan (a barrister), Li Yü-t'ang (a wealthy businessman), Ch'en Shao- pai (a journalist), and Wu Tung-ch'i (a businessman).86 These Hong Kong gentlemen took a conservative stand on the boycott issue. Li Yü-t'ang had business investments in insurance, shipping, banking, manufacturing (flour mill in Canton), and in trading business with America.87 Wu Tung-ch'i was also a California trade merchant, a proprietor of the Kwong Mow Loong. 8 With such close trading relations with America, neither Li Yü-t'ang nor Wu Tung-ch'i wished to see a prolonged boycott. Eager to end the boycott, they were
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 203
willing to accept a compromise settlement—some revisions rather than an abrogation of the exclusion treaty.
Li Yü-t'ang was a promoter of the Society to Oppose the U.S. Exclusion Laws, which enlisted Ch'en Shao-pai and Ho Kai as advis ers. Ho Kai was, from the very beginning, opposed to a boycott in the colony. Ch'en Shao-pai, as a leader of the newly founded T'ung- meng-hui revolutionary organization, was more interested in seeking to channel the boycott towards an anti-Manchu movement than in the boycott itself. All these gentlemen were closely associated with the Tung-meng-hui revolutionary cause. Thus, as the promoters, advisers, and supporters of the Society to Oppose the U.S. Exclusion Laws, these men were waving a boycott flag to stop the boycott. It was with these men that the Canton delegates consulted on the boycott issue. On behalf of the delegates. Ho Kai drafted a list of demands containing fifteen provisions.
On December 5 over a hundred people, including delegates from
various cities, attended the Canton boycott meeting chaired by Cheng Kuan-ying. The Hong Kong merchant Sin Wa Fung took a leading part in discussing the draft. Both the Hong Kong merchants from Hsin-ning and the Macao boycott society expressed dissatisfaction with the draft. Delegates were, therefore, sent to Hong Kong again on December 7 to consult with the barristers Ho Kai and Tso Seen- wan and with the Hong Kong and Macao merchants.89
This consultation produced a revised draft of twelve provisions, which did not substantially differ, in content, from Ho Kai's earlier conversation with Secretary William H. Taft. The draft conceded the exclusion of Chinese unskilled laborers from America, although it demanded that skilled laborers and all employees for commercial stores should not be excluded. It insisted on better treatment by American officials for the Chinese officials, merchants, tourists, and students, as if they were members of a most favored nation. Article 9 of the draft demanded that Chinese laborers must be allowed to enter Hawaii and the Philippines, "provided that the legislature or local authorities of such Islands are willing to admit such laborers" (the American merchants added this condition). The draft also asserted that Chinese residents in America had the right to bring their par ents, spouses, and unmarried children to America.90
This draft was read aloud by Sin Wa Fung in a meeting held in Hong Kong on December 8 attended by over eighty merchants from
204 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
Hong Kong, Macao, and Canton. Different views were voiced con cerning the timing of the reply to American merchants. Hrn-tzu jih- pao reported that no consensus of opinion was reached.91 But accord ing to the South China Morning Post a poll was taken on article 9; forty-seven voted in favor of it, three against, and subsequently the three consented.92
Controversy Over the Reply to American Merchants
Then, it was suddenly revealed to the public that the draft had been handed over to the American merchants in Hong Kong on December 9 without being first submitted as originally planned to Chinese communities in other ports and in San Francisco for approval. To a great number of boycotters, this was both abrupt and unauthorized. A mass meeting of several hundred people was organized by Huang Po-yao and Ch'en Kung-tse in Macao on December 13 condemning the twelve-article draft. The Canton boycott society telegraphed its delegates in Hong Kong to repudiate their unauthorized action. The Chinese community in San Francisco cabled the Canton Kwang-chi Hospital and the Hong Kong Commercial Union to repudiate the draft. The Chinese commercial communities in Hupei, Chekiang, Fukien, Vietnam, India, Australia, and South Africa all expressed their disapproval of the draft.93
A special meeting of the Canton boycott society was held on December 24 attended by more than a thousand people. Practically all present favored the abolition of the exclusion treaty. It was re solved to so inform the American merchants and the Hong Kong barristers Ho Kai and Tso Seen-wan, and to invalidate the draft-reply arbitrarily given to the Americans.94
In Hong Kong, the Chinese newspapers and the general public joined the hue and cry. A Hong Kong resident who had personally collected subscriptions of over six thousand dollars for the Canton boycott society was furious. He sent a long telegraph to the boycott society denouncing the betrayers for conceding the exclusion of Chinese laborers from America. Some members of the Wah On Co. (the California trade Kam-shan-chung General Guild) also cabled the Canton boycott society condemning the "traitors" for betraying fel low compatriots and demanding the expulsion of the draft signato ries from the boycott society.95The Kam-shan-chung merchants were
The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6 205
split into moderate and radical factions, as the Canton boycotters were.
Governor General Ts'en Ch'un-hsüan in Canton supported the moderates. He telegraphed Liang Ch'eng, the Chinese minister in Washington, that if the United States accepted the twelve provisions, he (the governor general) would do his utmost to prohibit the boycott and dose down the boycott sodety. The Hong Kong newspaper Hua- tzu jih-pao warned the governor general to take back his words or face the consequence of a popular revolt.96
The controversy split the boycotters and aggravated the differ ences between some members of the young revolutionary organiza tion, the T'ung-meng-hui. For several years, since 1901, revolution aries in Hong Kong had been split into two factions—one centering around Ch'en Shao-pai, a veteran Hsing-Chung-hui leader, and the other around Cheng Kuan-kung, a young journalist. Ch'en Shao-pai maintained a close relation with the top stratum of the Chinese elite in the colony (such as Ho Kai), while Cheng Kuan-kung had wider contact with merchants, traders, and education cirdes. In these years lack of cooperation among the revolutionaries themselves stood in the way of revolutionary organization, until the autumn of 1905 when Feng Tzu-yu and Li Tzu-chung arrived in Hong Kong from Japan to serve as liaisons between Ch'en Shao-pai and Cheng Kuan- kung, which led to the foundation in October 1905 of the T'ung- meng-hui.97
But in less than two months the controversy over the boycott and
the twelve-artide reply to the American merchants rekindled the difference between Ch'en Shao-pai and Cheng Kuan-kung. As Hong Kong representatives negotiating with American merchants. Ho Kai, Ch'en Shao-pai, Li Yü-Yang, Tso Seen-wan, and Wu Tung-ch'i were responsible for the twelve-artide reply to the Americans, a document that provoked critidsm and condemnations from Chinese communi ties at home and abroad. The newspaper Yu-so-vm, published by Cheng Kuan-kung, joined with others to refute the validity of the unauthorized twelve-artide draft. The Enlightenment Sodety (K'ai- chih she) founded by Cheng Kuan-kung sponsored a Hong Kong- Macao Rectification Sodety (Pu-chiu she) with an aim "to rectify the situation." The conflict ended up with mutual denundation between two revolutionary newspapers, the Yu-so-wei and Chung-kuo jih-pao, until Sun Yat-sen intervened.98
206 The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6
By early 1906, however, the boycott movement quickly lost its momentum, as public attention was diverted to a bitter controversy between the Chinese authorities and the Canton gentry and mer chants over the financing of the construction of the Canton-Hankow railroad. Cheng Kuan-kung died in a plague in Hong Kong in the summer of 1906, aged twenty-six, ending the career of an energetic journalist and revolutionary."
Thus, the great commotion in 1905-6 vividly revealed how much more complex and heterogeneous the Hong Kong Chinese commu nity had become—with heated arguments and conflicting views con cerning the boycott. The Tung Wah Hospital had declined from its earlier preeminent social position of the 1870s and 1880s. In a crisis situation the elite in the commercial union could no longer pretend to represent the consensus of the Chinese community in the colony.
Under the watchful eye of the colonial government, the boycott activists from the intelligentsia were unable to rally the populace in a coordinated mass boycott movement. By early 1906 the anti-Ameri can boycott had quickly spent its force. But another boycott was in the making—the anti-Japanese boycott of 1908.
E I G H T
The Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot
in 1908
The businessman who is engaged in this profession [of manufac turing soap] seeks not merely to gain profit but to help recover the nation's rights and interests.
— Commercial advertisement by Chung Ching-yu, a soap manufacturer, November 7 ,1908
Those who deal clandestinely in foreign [Japanese] articles not only deserved monetary punishment but even the punishment of death was inadequate to the crime.
— Yuan Heung Po, a Canton merchant, August 25 ,1908
China is like a broken bird's nest, and one would be very unlikely to find a good egg in such a nest.
— Cheong To Sang, a sea product merchant, August 25 ,1908
The 1908 anti-Japanese boycott was aroused not merely by political but also by socioeconomic forces. It is important to examine the political and socioeconomic forces promoting the boycott. So far there has been no detailed English-language study on this important boy cott movement.
208 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
Chinese Manufacturing Industry, Rights-Recovery Movement, and Boycotts
The Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) was an important watershed for the development of China's modem industry. The treaty of Shimo- noseki that conduded the war in 1895 granted foreigners the legal right to operate factories with power-driven machinery in the treaty ports. Foreign-owned manufacturing enterprises in China, which had already existed prior to 1895, now began to increase in number; Chinese-owned industrial enterprises did also.
According to an incomplete estimate, in the four years from 1895 to 1898 the Chinese entrepreneurs founded over eighty manufactur ing enterprises, with a capital of Ch.$17,810,000, in such industries as cotton spinning, flour milling, silk reeling, and mining. From 1899 to 1901 thirty more enterprises were set up with a capital of Ch.$5,359,000. More were founded subsequently, so that during the ten years from 1895 to 1904, a total of 168 enterprises were founded with a capital of Ch.$33,971,000. The four years from 1905 to 1908 witnessed even more rapid development of Chinese-owned indus try—138 new enterprises with a capital of Ch.$61,219,000, including thirty-one in mining, six in metal working, over twenty in public utilities (water and electricity), twenty-one in cotton spinning and weaving, and some in silk reeling, flour milling, and in the making of matches, soaps, and so forth.1
These four years (1905-08) of rapid development in Chinese man ufacturing industry also witnessed the rights recovery movement and two major boycott movements—the anti-American boycott of 1905-6, and the anti-Japanese boycott of 1908. Rather than mere coincidence, the development of industry, the rights recovery move ment, and the boycotts were all closely related to one another.
In the aftermath of China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War the foreign powers had engaged in a scramble for railway and mine concessions in China. Accelerated intrusion of foreign capital and thereby foreign control of China's railways, mines, and manufactur ing industry provoked patriotic reactions from the Chinese. The Russo- Japanese War (1904-5) further aroused Chinese nationalism. Russia's defeat by an Eastern country had destroyed the myth of the invinci bility of Western powers. A movement to recover China's sovereign
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 209
rights and to facilitate Chinese control over its railways, mines, and industry, spread throughout the empire.2
In Kwangtung, a patriotic movement errupted in 1905-6 seeking to recover the construction rights over the Canton-Hankow Railway from American and Belgium companies. Led by gentry and merchant leaders in Canton this rights recovery movement appealed to the common people to subscribe capital in order to build and operate their own railways without foreign or state interference.3 National ism was fused with economic interest to motivate large numbers of Chinese to join in the rights recovery movement.
Chinese entrepreneurs sought to obtain the economic right to control China's industry. They supported the anti-American boycott, seeking to take advantage of the boycott to promote their own man ufacturing enterprises. Nationalistic boycott activities became a vehi cle for sectional self-assertion; sectional interest was being equated with national interest. Commercial advertisements abounded with appeals to patriotism. For the Chinese entrepreneur, the founding of an enterprise in pursuit of his own interest was identical with the recovery of the nation's rights and interests. A Hong Kong soap manufacturer declared: "The businessman who is engaged in this profession [of manufacturing soap] seeks not merely to gain profit, but to help recover the nation's rights and interests."4 He operated a soap company in the name of patriotism.
By 1908 the Chinese entrepreneurs' power and influence had grown in proportion to the rapid growth of their number and capital invest ments. The boycott of Japanese goods in 1908, occasioned by the Tatsu Maru incident, became even more strongly than the boycott of 1905 a reflection of Chinese merchants' aspiration to assert their interest against foreign capitalist competition and domination in China. Merchants and businessmen assumed leadership in the boycott movement, calling on the nation to resist foreign political and eco nomic intrusions. Large numbers of the Chinese population re sponded to the call of patriotism, not merely because of moral out rage against the Tatsu Maru incident but also because they had suf fered from Japanese capitalist inroads. Concern with economic interest helped to promote popular nationalism in the anti-Japanese boycott of 1908.
210 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
Japanese Capitalist Inroads: Competition between Chinese and Japanese
Prior to the Sino-Japanese War, in 1883, Japanese trade with China accounted for only 6.37 percent of China's direct foreign trade. At the conclusion of the war, in 1895, it increased to 9.90 percent, and thereafter continued to increase steadily. With her victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan emerged as a dominant power in East Asia. Japanese goods became popular in China and Japanese trade for the year 1906 jumped to 14.19 percent of China's external trade.5
The Chinese tea export trade faced competition from the Japanese. In the season of 1874-75 the United States imported more green tea from Japan (22.3 million pounds) than from China (20 million pounds).6 With Japan's acquisition of Formosa, in 1895, tea from Formosa en tered into competition with the oolong tea from China. The poor quality of Chinese teas made it very difficult for them to compete on the international market with the teas produced in India, Ceylon, or Japan.7 Formosa also produced sugar. The Chinese sugar produced in Hui-chou and Ch'ao-chou in Kwangtung, subjected to high taxes, could not compete with Japanese-made sugar from Formosa on the market in China, thus depriving many Cantonese of much profit.8 Due to the crude and primitive methods of extraction and hence its low quality, Chinese sugar was not popular on the international market.9
Similarly, machine-processed raw silk from Japan often beat Chinese silk in the expanding market in America. During the season of 1877- 78 the raw silk exported from central China amounted to 52 percent of the export of raw silk from the East on the international market, but during the season of 1884-85 it decreased to 26 percent. This decrease of the export of Chinese silk was due to the great growth in the export of raw silk from Japan.10 "The most notable aspect of the world silk trade was Japan's stunning success in capturing the ex panding world market from China," Lillian M. Li has demonstrated. "Starting from a much smaller base, by 1907 Japan had over-taken China as the world's largest silk exporter." 1 In 1913 Japan provided
44.3 percent of the silk supply on the international market, and China 31.1 percent.12 The Cantonese merchants took a strong aver-
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 211
sion to Japanese competition, which adversely affected silk trade in Kwangtung.13
The basic strategy of Japanese capitalism was to use the capital earned by silk exports to finance the import of heavy industrial products (such as steel, machinery, and military equipments), and to develop the cotton textile industry to produce yam and fabrics for export to the vast market of China.14 The machine-made cotton yarn was more regular, stronger, better, and often cheaper than the native yam. "The new and rapidly growing cotton industry in Japan [in 1882-91] was creating a demand for Chinese raw cotton, sending up the price and making it no longer possible for the yam spun from it by primitive methods to compete with the foreign import." The import of Japanese yam made successful competitive inroads in the 1890s and was firmly established in the China market by about 1900.15 China provided a market for 90.3 percent of Japan's total cotton yam exports in 1903, and 87 percent in 1905; then 84.3 percent in 1907,
and 91.2 percent in 1909.16
In addition to tea, sugar, silk, and cotton yam, Japanese porcelain also competed much more favorably with Chinese porcelain on the market, both in China and abroad. The Japanese were the most formidable competitors for the Chinese manufacturers because both were engaged in light industries, producing similar goods. As a result of Japan's economic competition on the market in China and abroad, large numbers of Chinese were adversely affected. Ten mil lion people in Kwangtung and Fukien were more or less involved in sugar production; large numbers of them became idle as a result of the inroads of Japanese sugar.17
In the manufacture of cotton cloth, weavers in Kwangtung were
also affected, as the following report testified:
One of the principal industries in Fat Shan [Foshan] is the manufac ture of cotton cloth. This has been a flourishing industry in that City for several decades and gave employment to thousands of men and women. It is carried on in hand-looms and many of the weavers work in their own houses. Over a million dollars of this textile are annually manufactured and sold in the interior or other provinces. The cloth is chiefly manufactured from imported foreign cotton yam. It is reported that the demand for the native cloth this year [1908] has diminished considerably. Recently almost half the
212 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
number of shops dealing in this article have dosed down, reasons given being dullness of trade, bad harvests, and keen competition of foreign piece goods.18
In Kwangtung this provided the sodoeconomic forces promoting popular nationalism against the Japanese. It is not surprising that when an anti-Japanese boycott was touched off by the Tatsu Maru incident, which also occurred in Kwangtung, the Cantonese became the most active participants in the movement.
Depression in Hong Kong
Hong Kong occupied a position as a trading (rather than consuming) center, a port for landing, storing, and distributing goods intended for South China, Formosa, the Philippines, and other consuming areas in Southeast Asia. But for two or three years, since 1905, there had been decreased activity in trade—a depression. The Chinese yarn, piece goods, and flour merchants bitterly complained of a lack of demand from consuming areas. According to a report made in early spring of 1908 by the Hong Kong branch of the British China Assodation, the Japanese had taken the Newchwang trade, which used to be in Hong Kong hands, and had also taken the trade between Japan and Singapore and the Dutch Indies, with a detrimen tal effect on the Hong Kong sugar trade with Java. Rice now went directly from Siam to Peru instead of through Hong Kong. Kerosene oil was imported to the treaty ports in bulk instead of being distrib uted from Hong Kong. Flour, which used to be imported to Hong Kong and distributed far north and south, was shipped directly to Shanghai, Chefoo, Tientsin, and Vladivostok.19
Hitherto most yam intended for South China had been purchased by Hong Kong dealers and resold to Haiphong, Canton, Swatow, and other ports. But the Japanese had started selling directly to these places, and as their steamers were able to go directly to these ports, Hong Kong also lost the transshipping business. Similarly, piece goods dealers in Hong Kong complained that much of their business had been taken away by direct importations. The Japanese were the most prominent in this direction, their competition being keenest in Swatow and Amoy. Japanese goods cut into the trade of similar British and Indian productions.
In short, with the Japanese and German firms pushing the direct
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 213
business, Hong Kong felt the effects of losing its transshipping and its former position as the distributing center for South China, For mosa, and Southeast Asia.20 In fact, with the rapid expansion of Japan's share in China's foreign trade, Japanese shipping also showed a remarkable expansion. The percentage of Japanese shipping en tered from and cleared to foreign countries at the ports of China increased dramatically from 4.39 percent in 18% to 20.83 percent in 1908, and 21.35 percent in 1909, the year after the boycott.21
It was at this time of economic competition with Japan and depres sion in Hong Kong that the Tatsu Maru incident occurred, touching off the anti-Japanese boycott. The Chinese merchants in Canton quickly seized the opportunity to assume leadership in the boycott, which became widespread in Kwangtung and Hong Kong.
The Tatsu Maru Incident
On February 5, 1908, a Japanese freighter, the Tatsu Maru II, was seized by Chinese gunboats in disputed waters off Macao because it was engaged in smuggling contraband arms and munitions into Kwangtung. The freighter was taken to Whampoa, where it was placed under guard, the Japanese flag being lowered and replaced by a Chinese flag. The Japanese government immediately denounced the seizure of the freighter as illegal, charging that it took place in Portuguese waters and that the captain of a Chinese gunboat had insulted Japan by striking her flag. The incident incensed public opinion in Canton. The Kwangtung Seventy-two Commercial Guilds' Association, headed by Ch'en Hui-p'u (Chan Wai Po), cabled to urge the Chinese foreign ministry to stand firm and protect China's sov ereignty. Altogether 189 members of the gentry, headed by Teng Hua-hsi and Liang Ch'eng, sent a joint letter to Governor General Chang Jen-chün refuting the Japanese account of the Tatsu Maru incident and urging referral of the dispute to international arbitra tion. The governor general approvingly forwarded the gentry's letter to the foreign ministry in Peking for consideration. The Kwangtung and Kwangsi Fellow-Provincials' Association in Shanghai also wired the foreign ministry, requesting it never to compromise China's sov ereign rights. 2
Utterly refusing to compromise and threatening to dispatch war ships to China, the Japanese repeatedly rejected Chinese proposals
214 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
for joint investigation of the incident or arbitration by a third country. The Japanese ultimatum of March 13 demanded from the Chinese government a public apology, an indemnity, the release of the freighter, the punishment of officials responsible for the incident, and the purchase of the cargo of arms and ammunitions.23 Under coercion, the Chinese government decided on March 15 to make a formal apology, to punish the responsible officials, to pay Japan
¥21,400 as an indemnity and remuneration for the arms (ninety-four cases of guns and forty cases of munitions) and an additional ten thousand taels of silver for demurrage.24
The overbearing manner of Japan in dealing with the incident and the Chinese government's humiliating capitulation to her exorbitant demands angered the Chinese people and aroused them to action. The Canton Merchants' Self-Government Society called a mass meet ing on March 18 attended by about twenty-thousand people. The protesters presented a petition to Governor General Chang Jen-chün denouncing Peking's capitulation to the Japanese demands. On March 20, the day following the release of the Tatsu Maru, another mass meeting held in Canton resolved to launch a boycott of Japanese goods. Supported by merchants, gentry, students, women, and the general public of Kwangtung, the boycott soon spread to Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, Honolulu, Sidney, and other cities where Can tonese merchants were engaged in business.25
The Canton Merchants' Self-Government Society
The Canton Merchants' Self-Government Society (Yüeh-shang tzu- chih hui or Kwangtung tzu-chih hui) was first founded in 1907 in response to the Manchu court's promise of constitutional reform and also in opposition to the British naval patrol of the pirate-infested West River. The British acting consul general in Canton, Harry H. Fox, described the Self-Government Society as a "notorious body which, under the cloak of the movement towards constitutional re form and the enlightenment of the Chinese people, carries on active propaganda against foreign interests and enterprise in China." The society "exercises a powerful influence over the Cantonese both in China and in all British colonies where Cantonese are to be found."26 According to the Canton Japanese consul Ueno, the Self-Govern ment Society initially consisted of mainly middle and small mer-
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 215
chants who advocated the national rights recovery against foreign powers. Its members came to include wealthy and reputable mer chants of the Kwangtung Chamber of Commerce and politicians who "played with arguments."27 Chiang K'ung-yin (Kong Hong Yin) was such a politician. He was a member of the upper gentry, being a chin- shih degree holder. But he was also a member of the new intelligent sia who had studied at Hôsei University in Japan and was closely associated with K'ang Yu-wei.28 To enhance his political influence among the populace, the flamboyant Chiang K'ung-yin joined the Merchants' Self-Government Society. But the society's membership consisted mostly of merchants and some modem professional men (such as Lau Tze Kai, an American-educated dentist, and Tse Yam Luk, a pastor affiliated with the London Mission in Canton).29
The Self-Government Society's political activities were frowned upon by most members of the upper gentry in Canton, who set up an exclusive organization called Tzu-chih yen-chiu she (Self-govern ment investigation association), which maintained closer relations with Canton officialdom. Tensions between the upper gentry and the merchants were revealed when the former filed a complaint with the Canton authorities, stating that Ch'en Hui-p'u (Chan Wai Po) and other merchants of the Self-Government Society schemed to use the boycott as a means to advance their private interests.30 In fact, the merchants of the Self-Government Society came to exert more influence (than the upper gentry) over the general public.
The Merchants' Self-Government Society advocated constitutional
reforms and also sought to promote merchants' interests. It was eager to assume leadership in such antiimperialist struggles as the boycott and rights recovery movements. The promotion of mer chants' interests, the development of China's commerce and indus try, and the antiimperialist struggles were all linked together. Lead ership in the antiimperialist movements served to enhance the mer chants' political power and influence; it also afforded them opportunities for economic development.31 As we shall see, they launched a number of commercial and industrial enterprises while engaged in the antiimperialist struggles. The Self-Government Soci ety became the leading organization in the anti-Japanese boycott, sending agents to various places in Kwangtung and Kwangsi to propagate the boycott.32
216 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
Boycott in Hong Kong
The Tatsu Maru incident aroused very bitter feelngs among the Chinese community of Hong Kong.33 As public meetings were forbidden by the colonial authorities, the Chinese Commercial Union did not even attempt to call for meetings. The Chinese merchants could only engage in private communications, which, nevertheless, proved quite effective in enforcing the boycott. Most of the major trade guilds endorsed the boycott. On April 5, 1908, Chinese shippers in the colony resolved to boycott Japanese vessels leaving for Australia and America and to impose a fine of sixty dollars on any violators. As early as April 7 the Japanese insurance business was seriously af fected by the boycott.34 On April 6 the powerful Nam Pak Hong commercial guild resolved to boycott Japanese goods and to cable Chinese merchants in Nagasaki, Kôbe, and Yokohama to stop all shipment of Japanese goods to any firms belonging to the Nam Pak Hong association.35
Representatives of the silk goods firms met on April 8 and decided to stop ordering Japanese products.36 The guilds of rice merchants, porcelain firms, Chinese dispensaries, and dock and watch dealers all endorsed the boycott.37The Hong Kong Cotton Piece Goods Guild also resolved to boycott Japanese goods, shipping, insurance, and money exchange and to expose and report boycott violators to the Canton Merchants' Self-Government Sodety, which had vowed to impose economic sanctions against violators.38 By mid-April leading Japanese firms in Hong Kong had sustained heavy losses, with two insurance companies each losing twenty-thousand dollars a month.39 The Hua-an kung-so (Wah On Co.), a powerful guild of the Kam Shan Chung merchants in Hong Kong trading with America, Aus tralia, and the Strait settlements, also joined the boycott, dealing a direct blow to Japanese shipping companies like Nippon Yûsen Kaisha, Osaka Shôsen, and Tôyô Kisen. This also served to spread anti- Japanese feelings among overseas Chinese communities in the United
States, Canada, Australia, and throughout Southeast Asia.40
Many piece goods and sundry stores in Hong Kong put up posters saying that they sold no Japanese goods.41 A Chinese firm destroyed a quantity of Japanese cigarettes, creating an emotional scene in Queen's Road.42 A Hakka woman was said to have thrown away her Japanese-made clothes, porcelain, and lacquered ware.43 Chinese cooks who served in various business firms decided in a meeting to
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 217
cook no Japanese food.44 To commemorate the "national disgrace" local merchants designed a kind of jewelry to urge Chinese women to support the boycott.45 Envelopes bearing the words "national humiliation" were on sale. Some post carriers in Hong Kong report edly refused to carry letters not contained in these envelopes. The Japanese consul in Canton pressed the Chinese authorities to pro hibit the sale of the "national humiliation envelopes."46
In some ways the boycott was more widespread in Hong Kong than in Canton. Fines were imposed on merchants who violated the boycott resolutions; shipments of Japanese goods were refused and returned to Japan; and a Dare to Die Society threatened punishment for boycott breakers.47 On April 23 the Japanese Chamber of Com merce in Nagasaki reported to Tokyo that the marine product export trade to Kwangtung had completely ceased, with sea products in storehouses; if this was allowed to continue, the livelihood of the Japanese fishermen would become difficult and businessmen would go bankrupt.48
Belatedly, the Japanese sought to mitigate the boycott by making a "goodwill" gesture toward the Chinese. To assist the flood victims in Kwangtung the Japanese government shipped to the Canton vice roy a large amount of relief articles, including seventy-one hundred rolls of cotton piece goods, seven thousand catties of flour, ten thou sand tins of preserved cabbage, and twenty-five thousand bottles of medicine.49At the Chinese bazaar in Hong Kong Japanese merchants contributed liberally in aid of the flood relief fund. But Chinese feeling about the Tatsu Maru incident ran so high that no one would buy the goods contributed by the Japanese. Ultimately they were reportedly purchased for one hundred dollars by two Chinese gentle men who then dumped the Japanese gifts into the sea, in a mock funeral ceremony attended by some invited friends.50 The boycott was not merely a political movement; it also involved a conflict of economic interests that was not easily mitigated by the belated Japa nese gesture of "goodwill."
The Boycott as a Reflection of Merchants' Economic Aspirations
The four years from 1905 to 1908 witnessed the rapid growth of Chinese-owned enterprises in China. It was also during these years that the concurrent nationalist movements broke out—to recover
218 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
"national rights," to promote "national products," and to boycott foreign goods. The anti-Japanese boycott reflected an upsurge of Chinese nationalism against foreign imperialism. It also reflected the aspiration of the Chinese merchants to advance their interests against Japanese capitalist competition and domination in China.
Many merchants in Kwangtung founded new enterprises—in match-making, silk reeling, cotton spinning and weaving, sock-mak ing, and tobacco manufacturing. The Kwang-hua-hsing Textile Com pany and the Yu-i Mortar and Bricks Company were founded at Hua-ti in 1908, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars and three hundred thousand dollars respectively. The Seventy-two Com mercial Guilds of Canton had an ambitious plan to raise a capital of ten million dollars to engage in shipping, manufacturing, and insur ance business.51 The Canton Merchants' Self-Government Society, the leading boycott organization, had sponsored a Liang-Kuang Shipping Corporation (Liang-Kuang yu-ch'uan hui-she), and was prepared to set up "large enterprises in banking, mining, agriculture, dairy farming, and industry."52 In Kwangtung at least eight spinning and weaving companies53 and eight large match factories were started in 1908.54 Their products dealt a great blow to Japanese goods. The South China Morning Post reported that "the boycott was strongly directed against Japanese matches." 5
The founding of the Yuen Hing Shat Yip Company in Ch'ing- yüan, Kwangtung, served to illustrate the Chinese entrepreneur's aspiration. Set up by Chu Kwan Yu, it was a piece goods and dyeing factory "on a very large scale . . . with foreign machines of the latest type." It commenced operations in July 1908 in the midst of the anti- Japanese boycott. It was reported to have turned out very fine speci mens of woolen and cotton cloth. Many dealers said that "the weav ing and the colour of the dyeing are both far superior to those manufactured in Japan." The new factory had received such a large number of orders from dealers that "more machinery has to be ordered at once as the output is not equal to the demand."56 The Chinese manufacturers' aspiration to compete with the Japanese was given encouragement by some of "the most anti-foreign officials" in Canton. On the advice of Taotai Wen Tsung-yao, Viceroy Chang Jen- chün instructed civil and military officials of Kwangtung "to use only native cloth for the uniforms of soldiers and scholars and to strictly prohibit the use of foreign cloth."57
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 219
But the Canton merchants' resort to patriotic political activities as a means to promote native industry and to advance their sectional interests incurred the disapproval and jealousy of Canton's upper gentry members, who filed this complaint against a prominent leader of the Self-Government Society:
This merchant [Chan Wai Po], who willfully owes money to the bank, has floated the [Liang-Kuang] Shipping Corporation. As he himself estimates that he is totally without reputation, he is using the Tatsu Maru incident as a doak for self-advancement, sending telegrams to Chinese in other ports and overseas to vilify the gov ernment. People who were unaware of the truth thought that he was enthusiastic about public welfare; they have, therefore, flocked to buy shares in his business.58
The upper gentry members frowned upon the prominent merchants who used patriotism as a vehide to advance their daim to wider dvic recognition and to assert their sectional interests.
Chinese merchants in Hong Kong also frequently appealed to patriotism while conducting their business. The Japanese vice-consul in Hong Kong reported that a group of Chinese businessmen, includ ing Ma Ying Piu (Ma Ying-piao) of the famed Sincere Company (a modem department store), set up a boycott organization called Shang- wu yen-chiu-she (Commerce investigation sodety) that regularly called business meetings. Speakers in such meetings often advocated the promotion of native industry and "the use of Chinese products by the Chinese," thus secretly adding fuel to the anti-Japanese boycott. They seized the opportunity presented by the boycott to plan a joint- stock company to manufacture fabrics, dothes, and towels.59 This resulted in the founding of the Li Men Hing Kwok (Li-min hsing- kuo) Knitting Factory Company, in June 1908.
The company's founding statement prodaimed that China was weak and her people poor due to the underdevelopment of her industry; the company was set up in order to help enrich the Chinese compatriots and to "recover the nation's interests and rights and restore the country's prosperity (hsing-kuo)"; hence the name of the company, Li-min hsing-kuo, meaning "to benefit the people and restore the country's prosperity." The company was founded both as an act of patriotism and "an act of charity"—to give employment to poor women. The company also offered to sell its shares to the public
220 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
at one dollar each. Eventually it hoped to collect a capital of a million dollars; the largest shareholders (those holding ten thousand shares or more) would run and manage the company.60Merchants resorted to nationalist language and activities to advance their claim to civic recognition. Patriotism became a vehicle for sectional self-assertion. The company's founding members consisted of 108 men, mostly merchants, compradors, journalists, and insurance company man agers. They included at least four active promoters of the anti- Japanese boycott in Hong Kong: Kwok Yik Chi (Kuo i-chih, compra dor of Amhold Kerberg & Co.), Leung Sui Hing (Liang Jui-heng, of Fu-an Insurance Co.), Pun Lan Sz (Pan Lan-shih, Shih-pao editor), and Chiu Shiu Pok (Chao Shao-p'u, of the Kung-ho firm). In addi tion, some other founders of the company were known to be strong boycott supporters, such as Wong Choi Chiu (Huang Tsai-ch'ao, of Sun Kon & Co., a department store)61 and Yip Wai Pak (Yeh Hui-po, of Hua-i Co., a financial interest of the Pao-huang-hui).62 But not all of the company's founders supported the boycott, for they included two merchants connected with the Japan trade: Yu Pun San (Yu Pin- ch'en, of Yung Fung Lung, dealer in medicine) and Chan Ket Chi (Ch'en Chi-chih, of Yung Ch'eng Co., dealer in Japanese sea prod ucts).63 These two men secretly continued to conduct business with the Japanese in violation of the Nam Pak Hong boycott resolution.64 Although the U Men Hing Kwok Knitting Factory Company foun ders hoped to raise one million dollars, its capital remained at one hundred thousand dollars in 1917. By 1915 there were at least seven major clothes knitting companies in Hong Kong that were financed exclusively with Chinese capital.65They competed with Japanese and other foreign imports, although they continued to rely on machines imported from America and England and raw silk materials from
America, England, India, and Japan. 6
As a result of the boycott, the export of Japanese goods to Hong Kong dropped from an amount worth ¥24,384,762 in 1907 to
¥ 18,538,739 in 1908, a decrease of ¥5,846,023, or 23.9 percent.67
Pao-huang-hui Constitutional Monarchists vs. Tung-meng-hui Revolutionaries
The boycott provided the Pao-huang-hui constitutional reformers with an opportunity to expand their influence among the Chinese at
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 221
home and overseas. Addressing boycott meetings of the Chinese communities in Kôbe, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao bitterly denounced Japanese imperialism. Many members of the Pao-huang-hui intelligentsia be came boycott activists. They maintained close relations with the Can ton Merchants' Self-Government Society. Ch'en I-k'an, a journalist and leader of the Pao-huang-hui in Hawaii, returned to Canton to take charge of the official publication of the Merchants' Self-Govern ment Society, the Kuo-shih-pao (National affairs news) that had done so much to propagate the boycott.68 Chiang K'ung-yin, a close asso ciate of K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, was also a boycott activ ist in Canton.69 Based in Hong Kong were two leading Pao-huang- hui boycott activists, Hsü Ch'in and Wu Hsien-tzu, editors of Shang- pao (Sheung Po).70 Three more boycott activists in Hong Kong (Chiu Shiu Pok, Chan Lo Chun, and Kwok Yik Chi) may also be related to the Pao-huang-hui, for they took an active part in the commemora tion of Confucius' Ascension Day on November 4 , 1908.71
In contrast, many T'ung-meng-hui republican revolutionaries were opposed to the boycott. Attempting to counter the Pao-huang-hui influence and to break up the boycott, the Japanese authorities en listed the service of Uchida Ryôhei, who was on dose terms with revolutionaries like Sun Yat-sen. Corresponding with Uchida Ryôhei, Sun Yat-sen cabled from Singapore on April 27, saying that his party "had broken up the anti-Japanese groups in Singapore, Siam and Saigon"; Sun added, however, that he needed three hundred thou sand yen to deal with K'ang Yu-wei's followers Hsu Ch'in and Chiang K'ung-yin, whose anti-Japanese activities were supported by the Canton offidals.72
Induced by Uchida Ryôhei, a meeting of 132 Chinese students was held in Tokyo on April 22 that passed resolutions calling for an end to the boycott because it was said to have hurt the Chinese commu nities in Japan. Such resolutions were cabled to the foreign ministry and various other government offices and the press in China. But the Canton newspapers and the Self-Government Soriety rejected these as false documents originating from some students who were manip ulated by two or three merchant traitors in Japan.73
Again, prearranged by Uchida Ryôhei, an enlarged meeting of the Chinese students in Japan was held in Tokyo on May 10. Of the more than one thousand Chinese students attending the meeting, 60 per cent belonged to the antiboycott faction, 30 percent to the Pao-huang-
222 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
hui boycott faction, with the remaining 10 percent neutral. The revo lutionaries insisted that if there was to be a boycott, it should be directed against the Manchu government. Fistfighting between the two hostile factions resulted in the injury of more than thirty persons and the expulsion of the Pao-huang-hui boycott group from the meeting.74
Subsequently, the Pao-huang-hui boycott activists in Japan began to feel constrained and coerced by the Japanese authorities to restrain their anti-Japanese activities. Moreover, many Chinese merchants in Japan were opposed to the boycott because of its adverse effects on their commercial interests. Under these circumstances, some Pao- huang-hui members in Japan began to disassociate themselves from the boycott movement. Mai Shao-p'eng, for instance, eagerly sought to convince the Japanese authorities that he no longer supported the movement. This was in part due to the loses he had sustained in commercial investment as a result of the boycott.75 However, the Pao-huang-hui activists in Hong Kong and Canton continued to as sume leadership in the anti-Japanese boycott movement.
In contrast, the revolutionaries' newspapers in Hong Kong sought to deprecate the boycott, asserting that the boycott could only do harm to both Chinese merchants trading with Japan and Chinese students studying in Japan. They argued that the best ways to enrich and strengthen China against foreign powers were the pursuit of knowledge, the development of industry, and the promotion of de mocracy and nationalism.76
There were two major reasons why many T'ung-meng-hui revo lutionaries were opposed to the boycott. First, they saw the Pao- huang-hui promotion of boycott as an expansion of the constitutional movement and hence an obstacle to the revolution in China. Second, the revolutionaries had great interest in the Japanese vessels' smug gling of weapons into China. Only a few months earlier, in 1907, the Hong Kong revolutionaries (Feng Tzu-yu, Hu Han-min, and Hsu Hsüeh-ch'iu) had conspired to employ a Japanese vessel named Kôun Maru to smuggle arms to Kwangtung for armed uprisings, although the conspiracy proved abortive in the end. In 1908 the Tatsu Maru was employed by a Macao Chinese merchant to smuggle weapons that he intended to sell for profit. Coveting these weapons, the Hong Kong revolutionaries (Feng Tzu-yu, Wen Tzu-ts'un, and Lin Kua- wu) conspired this time to raid the vessel, but before they could lay
Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 223
their hands on it, the Tatsu Maru incident occurred. At any rate, the boycott of Japanese goods could mean the discontinuation of the smuggling of firearms destined for the revolutionaries, who therefore were opposed to the boycott. 7
But, in opposing the boycott the T'ung-meng-hui revolutionaries actually ran against the major current of the day. Chinese national ism and anti-Japanese feelings were so intense, especially in Kwang tung, that the boycott went on unabated.
Boycott Politics in Hong Kong Mercantile Circles
The Hong Kong Chinese merchants dealing in Japanese goods and their Chinese partners in Japan both suffered severe losses as a result of the boycott. They sought to renew their business. But the boycott activists were on the alert. For importing Japanese ginseng, the firms of Weng Kat On had to pay three hundred dollars and Kwong On Wo two thousand dollars in fines. When investigated by the Hong Kong authorities these firms denied that they had ever been fined. They feared more the economic sanctions of their fellow merchants than government prosecution.78 What sanctions could the Nam Pak Hong commercial association impose on a boycott breaker? First, the boycotters would ask the Chinese banks to stop dealing with him in financial matters. Next, they would ask other merchants to stop doing business with him. Then, fines would be imposed on him. Finally, threat of physical punishment and violence could follow.79 Merchants feared violence and economic sanctions.
Japanese sea product merchants and ginseng merchants and their Chinese business partners in Yokohama were troubled by the lack of orders from Hong Kong. Repeatedly, they shipped in secret thou sands of cutties of ginseng and dried fish to the Chinese dealers in Hong Kong, who, however, dared not accept them and had them returned to Yokohama.80 Many marine product merchants in Japan were on the veige of bankruptcy. In desperation, Japanese and Chinese merchants in Yokohama, Kôbe, and Nagasaki now decided to bet on a forceful joint venture: they willfully shipped to Chinese dealers in Hong Kong two hundred tons of dried sea products on the Kumano Maru, which was due to arrive in Hong Kong on October 27. The Yokohama Sea Products Guild then petitioned the Japanese govern ment in Tokyo requesting it to put pressure on the Chinese authori-
224 Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908
ties to forcefully suppress the Canton boycott organizations. There upon, Tokyo cabled Vice-Consul Funatsu Tatsuichirö in Hong Kong, instructing him to see to it that the Kumano Marti shipment was smoothly landed and transacted.81
While anxiously waiting for the arrival of the Kumano Maru, the Chinese dealers in Hong Kong got together to discuss their strategy to break the boycott. Within the Nam Pak Hong commercial guild there were seven major firms engaged in the import and distribution of Japanese goods (mostly sea products). They had suffered great losses from the boycott. For several months they had almost closed their doors for lack of business. They constituted the core of an antiboycott faction in the Nam Pak Hong guild. But the majority of the Nam Pak Hong firms had no trade relations with Japan, and the majority decision to continue the boycott still prevailed. Neverthe less, the seven firms in desperation were determined to fight an open battle against the boycott. They reasoned that the leading boycott organization (the Canton Merchants' Self-Government Society) had the power to effectively deal with one or two boycott breakers, but confronting the joint actions of the seven major firms in Hong Kong, the Self-Government Society's usual high-handed policy would hardly work—so they hoped. They also calculated that their joint actions would render the economic sanctions of the Nam Pak Hong guild ineffective. The Nam Pak Hong in Hong Kong had served as a barometer of the commercial climate in South China. If its stand on the boycott was shaken merchant organizations in various parts of China would change their attitudes too.82