would be a concrete sign of co-operation and a step towards full
Sino-British diplomatic rela- tions, still stalled after five years at
the chargé level. Governor Grantham disagreed and, in effect, vetoed the
proposal. A Chinese representative would in Grantham's view have such
ill-defined duties, status, and authority that interference in Hong
Kong's internal affairs would be an inevitable result.14
This situation was similar to the refusal to allow a Chinese consul in
Hong Kong in 1870. In both cases the Foreign Office official in Peking
supported Chinese representation in Hong Kong because of its favourable
impact on overall Sino-British relations, while in both instances the
Hong Kong Governor successfully opposed the presence of a Chinese
official on the grounds that an official could not operate as a normal
diplomat." Because the interests of Hong Kong and those of Britain in
their relations with China are not identical there is a built-in
potential for conflict between the colonial government and the Foreign
Office.
After 1949 most functions that an official Chinese mission might per-
form were carried out elsewhere. Consular duties, such as visa and
immigration affairs, were handled by the Bank of China and the China
Travel Service. Some diplomatic communications, such as protests and
explanations of action, were performed by contact between the chargé and
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Peking. Direct talks between Hong
Kong and Kwangtung covered local problems, such as railways and the
water supply.
The colonial authorities were therefore right in their argument that a
C.P.R. mission in the colony was not an absolute necessity. But in re-
fusing the Chinese proposal, the British not only killed a goodwill
gesture but also passed up the chance to establish a formal and direct
channel from Peking to Hong Kong without involving London or Kwangtung.
Such a channel would have given the colony more diplomatic stature
13. Ta Kung Pao, 8 January 1955, in RHKCP, No. 6/55, p. 2. 14. Grantham,
Via Ports, p. 106.
15. Stanley F. Wright, China's Struggle for Tarif Autonomy (Shanghai,
1938, reprinted in Taipei, 1966), pp. 304-5.
409
410
The China Quarterly
and possibly more bargaining leverage as a virtual third party dealing
with both London and Peking.
Governor Grantham himself played a part in an episode which demon-
strated the irregular and cumbersome nature of contact without direct
channels. The Portuguese, without the benefit of even a chargé in Peking
since Lisbon maintained full diplomatic relations with Taipei, planned a
large celebration in November 1955 to commemorate the 400th anniver-
sary of their settlement in Macao, classified by Lisbon as one of its
overseas provinces." China was extremely unhappy about the planned
celebrations, which would not only underline the permanence of Macao as
Portuguese - the reason behind calling Macao a province - but would also
emphasize historical continuity regardless of what regime controlled the
mainland. Peking wanted to let the Portuguese know that the pro- posed
celebrations would be an intolerable insult, but without publicly
backing itself into a corner where direct action would be necessary if
some kind of celebration were held in spite of warnings. The solution,
since the People's Republic had no diplomatic contact with Portugal or
Macao, was to use Governor Grantham as an informal messenger when he
visited Peking in an unofficial capacity in September 1955. Since the
source of the message was Chou En-lai himself, speaking in such strong
terms that Grantham understood that Peking's followers in Macao would
use violence if the celebrations occurred, the Portuguese could not miss
the point or doubt its authority. The celebrations were cancelled in
October, ostensibly on the grounds that the cost was too high."
This incident was followed by one of the strongest public tirades yet
launched by the Chinese against either Macao or Hong Kong. In a series
of articles condemning the Portuguese, the Chinese went beyond the
simple claim that Macao was Chinese territory. "The Chinese people have
never forgotten Macao nor have they forgotten that they have the right
to demand the recovery of this territory from the hands of Portugal.
The fact that Macao has not yet been returned to China does not mean
that the Chinese people can tolerate long continuation of occupa- tion
of Macao.""* The Portuguese, and by implication the British as well,
were thus warned that China's tolerance was limited. Flaunting their
colonial presence would be outside the limits of acceptable behaviour
and might result in loss of the colonies. But this statement, the most
explicit, sober, and credible issued by China up to that time on the
conditions on which the colonies were allowed to exist, and other blasts
charging Macao with assorted crimes, were made after the decision by the
Portuguese to abandon the celebrations. The Chinese used quiet diplomacy
to achieve their aims and the rhetoric of public attacks to record their
position and victory.
The post-Bandung era of goodwill accomplished very little. Talks on
16. Grantham, Via Ports, p. 106.
17. NCNA Peking, 26 October 1955, in SCMP, No. 1159, 27 October 1955, P.
36.
1
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
the railway, the request for a Chinese representative, and the
open-entry experiment all fell through. The one hopeful trend was the
easing of le embargo, that is, the addition of several types of goods
that could be exported to China. While the economic effects were
important for Hong Kong, the decision was made in London in reaction to
an easing international situation, and it did not lead to further
political co-operation between Honk Kong and China. The initiatives
taken by both sides during the era of goodwill had been mere gestures to
be repudiated or dropped when the political atmosphere changed, although
they had some value as signs of relaxation to a city in which confidence
in the future is such a precious commodity.
The Double Ten Riots, 1956
The rioting of 10-12 October 1956 was the worst internal disorder in
Hong Kong from the time of the anti-Japanese riots of 1931 down to the
Cultural Revolution. There had been a small scale battle between
leftists and the police in 1952, but this was an isolated incident and
did not set off further violence. The 1956 riots, however, involved a
temporary breakdown of social order in large parts of the colony for
several days and had deeper roots than the purely political
confrontation in 1952. Surprisingly, the Hong Kong Government and the
People's Republic later agreed, by and large, on the sequence of events
in 1956. The basic dis- agreement concerned why the riots occurred and
who was to blame.
The Double Ten riots started, as disorders in American cities were later
to start in the 1960s, by an otherwise insignificant clash with
authority. In one of the huge low-cost housing estates in Kowloon a
Government-employed manager, a Chinese, tore down a Nationalist flag
placed on the side of the building for the Double Ten celebrations
because regulations prohibited the display of any political symbol in
public areas of the estate. A crowd gathered around the estate demanding
that the flag be allowed to stay, and police were called. By nightfall
burning and looting had started and spread to other parts of Kowloon.
The rioters, who seem to have had a fair representation of all age
groups, instinctively adopted the pattern of urban guerrilla warfare.
Groups were usually small and mobile, often 100 or less, dispersing when
the police moved in and reforming quickly on side streets.
The reaction of the Hong Kong Government seems in retrospect to have
been slow and ineffective. Part of the problem was the lack of equip-
ment, particularly vehicles, which lengthened the reaction time of the
police, and lack of riot training. But there was also a slow reaction
time in decision-making. Force was used sparingly at first; the use of
guns and calling in of army units was not authorized until the night of
11 October. The official explanation was that in dealing with a
population whose co operation was necessary in normal times, the police
had to use a mini- mum of force. The army, however, faced no such
problem, and the South China Morning Post, a conservative English
language paper which
411
412
The China Quarterly
accepted other parts of the official report, said that forces were not
sent quickly enough into the industrial town of Tsuen Wan in the New
Territories." The explanation for initial delay of mobilization may well
have been that in the absence of the Governor, then in Tokyo, the Colon-
ial Secretary hesitated to take such a drastic step if it could be
avoided. The report submitted later by the Government makes it clear
that the decision to delay (a decision the report supported) was made by
the officer in charge and not by the Governor from Tokyo." Governor
Grantham was out of touch with his subordinates to the extent that he
initially blamed rivalry between pro-KMT and pro-CCP factions as the
cause of trouble. The Government in Hong Kong repudiated his statement
the next day.**
There was no doubt as to who provided what leadership there was among
the rioters. The Triads, most notably the "14K" whose connexions with
the KMT dated from the late 1940s, accounted for a fifth of those
arrested for violations more serious than being out after curfew. In
Tsuen Wan groups of rioters had leaders with whistles, identification
armbands, and considerable discipline. There was also no doubt that
Communist organizations were the favourite targets of the rioters when
specific targets were selected. Among other attacks, the new building of
Hsiang Tao school was burned down, the Federation of Trade Unions'
clinic was destroyed, and leftist workers in Tsuen Wan were attacked,
result- ing in three deaths. If the more "official" organizations,
specifically mainland-owned banks and the newspapers, had not been given
per- manent police guards, even more serious attacks might have
occurred.
The riots ended as abruptly as they had begun. After 13 October there
were no major disturbances. There was no way of knowing the total number
of individuals who had joined the rioting, but the largest crowd had
been 2,000 and a total of 5,000 people were arrested. There were 59
dead, including the wife of the Swiss Consul, whose car was burned by a
mob, and H.K. $5 million worth of property damage." All this was
accomplished without firearms, the possession of which carries a maximum
death penalty in Hong Kong.
It has been noted that although the Hong Kong Government and Peking
agreed in principle on the events of the riots, each had its own
explanation of the causes. The Hong Kong authorities in their report
claimed that "there is no evidence whatever to suggest that the riots in
Kowloon were planned beforehand... those taking part were agents of no
one but themselves; people of Nationalist persuasion egged on by
criminals bent on personal power and gain."" A meeting between Hong Kong
Triad leaders and Nationalist officials was going on in
18. South China Morning Post, 3 January 1957, p. 10.
19. Hong Kong Government, Report on the Riots in Kowloon and Tsuen Wan,
October 10 to 12, 1956 (Hong Kong: Government Printer, 1957), p. iii.
20. South China Morning Post, 13 October 1956, p. 18.
21. Hong Kong Government, Report on the Riots, pp. 45-7.
22. Ibid. p. ii.
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
Taiwan when the riots started, but this was simply a coincidence. The
meeting was called to formulate plans for future anti-Communist activity
the Triads in the colony, and did not concern immediate action." The
British therefore emphasized the non-political, criminal feature of the
riots; the pro-KMT leanings of the crowds were treated as incidental.
Peking reacted to the riots with the diplomatic version of fury. The
British chargé in Peking was called on the carpet twice and three formal
protests were made within the first two weeks after 10 October. To the
mainland Chinese there was no question that the rioters were in- spired
and organized by KMT agents for the destruction of the loyal Chinese
organization. The only question was, "what are the exact re- lations
between the KMT agents and the British authorities in Hong Kong? "**
Peking's answer was that, at best, the British were incom. petent and
even cowardly in allowing the riots to run their course. The Hong Kong
authorities were also guilty of wilful misrepresentation in ignoring the
evidence of their own official report that documented the KMT's
leadership of the riots." Another answer, however, was that the British
were actually conniving with the Nationalists under the super- vision of
the U.S., the master of both. The policy of co-operation with the KMT
bandits had been demonstrated before the riots by the Kashmir Princess
incident (the first time China had implicated the British in the
sabotage) and the return to Taiwan of a Nationalist F-86 plane and pilot
in early 1956." After the riots the British had allowed KMT thugs to
escape, covered up KMT involvement, buried bodies in secret so the
casualty figure would be low, and were secretly glad that the
British-KMT common enemy, the ordinary people of Hong Kong and Kowloon,
had been hurt."
This furious rhetoric was accompanied by relatively mild demands for the
arrest and punishment of the KMT agents, compensation, and the assurance
that similar riots would not happen again." There was no mention of the
punishment of negligent British officials or police officers, which
would have been a logical demand if the Chinese had really believed that
the British had looked the other way when violence started. The verbal
overkill, then, may have been a way of emphasizing Peking's concern that
fellow Chinese, for whom it felt some measure of respon- sibility,
should be protected, and a device for prodding the British to
23. W. P. Morgan, Triad Societies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Government
Printer, 1960), p. 87.
24. NCNA Peking, 14 October 1956, in SCMP, No. 1391, 17 October 1956,
pp. 24-5.
25. People's Daily, 25 January 1957, in SCMP, No. 1469, I February 1957,
PP. 39-41.
26 NCNA Peking, 22 January 1957 (Foreign Ministry Statement), în SCMP,
No. 1458, 25 January 1957, pp. 24-5.
27. Kuang-ming Jih-pao, October 28-9 1956, in SCMP, No. 1402, 1 November
1956, pp. 20-4, and Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 30 October 1956, in SCMP, No.
1403, 2 November 1956, p. 27.
28. NCNA Peking, in SCMP, No. 1391, 17 October 1956, pp. 24-5.
413
.
414
The China Quarterly
take more effective measures. Certainly the British had underestimated
the potential danger of the Triads. No special anti-Triad branch of the
Hong Kong police existed until after the riots, and Communists with
especially long memories might have recalled the speed with which an
anti-Communist branch was formed to combat a much smaller CCP threat in
the 1930s. The meeting on Taiwan during the riots, coinci- dence though
it was, illustrated the potential danger of a KMT-Triad alliance aimed
at the Communists. China's signal of alarm, if indeed it was that, had
some foundation.
+
The Aftermath of the Riots and the Taiwan Straits Crisis, 1957-9
The riots in October 1956, whatever their causes, had the effect of
changing the way in which China looked at Hong Kong. From early 1957
until 1959, Peking actively claimed the role of protector of the rights
of the Hong Kong Chinese. The British looked on China's claims as
unjustified interference but could not ignore them. Whether "inter-
fering" or "exercising legitimate rights," China made the task of
govern- ing Hong Kong considerably more difficult.
The first flare-up came in the spring of 1957 over the Hong Kong
Government's plans to move 7,000 people so that the land they were
living on could be cleared for construction of resettlement estates in
the Jyu Yuan (Chuk Yun) area near the airport in Kowloon. The Ministry
of Foreign Affairs protested on the grounds that the residents were
unwilling to move, that people were dragged out of their homes, and that
no compensation was planned. The NCNA release reporting the protest also
quoted "people familiar with the conditions there" (i.e., the Hong Kong
leftist press, which had reported the first clearance efforts) to the
effect that other land was available for genuine develop- ment. The real
motive behind the clearance, NCNA charged, might be extension of the
airport for military reasons.**
The British replied that the Chinese were wrong about the numbers
involved (7,000 as opposed to 60,000 cited in the protest), and about
the lack of compensation and the alleged hidden motive. The clearance
was, in any event, no business of China's. Her Majesty's Government
regret- ted that the Chinese "have seen fit to intervene in this way in
the internal affairs of another Government and to give currency to the
fallacious and mischievous stories which have been circulated within
Hong Kong by certain newspapers and by a small group of discredited
agitators, mainly landlords."**
Peking could not, of course, allow that dismissal to pass unchallenged.
29. NCNA Peking, 24 July 1957, in SCMP, No. 1529, 29 July 1957, pp.
26-7. 30. Hong Kong Government Information Service, Daily Information
Bulletin, 7 August 1957, n.p.
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
415
**
A second diplomatic protest was made in which China expressed its
extreme wrath." The British note was not only a distortion of truth
even worse, had tried "to deny the Chinese government its legiti mate
rights to protect from infringement the legitimate interests of the
Chinese residents of Hong Kong and Kowloon." The "extreme wrath" seems
to have been directed more at British impertinence than at the removal
itself; the Chinese demands were only that fair compensation be paid and
forceful eviction be abandoned. Cancellation of the entire project was
not suggested."1
The British won the area was cleared - but there were indications that
1957 might be only the first round. China's first protest had inspired
the inhabitants opposed to moving (the landlords, according to the
British) to form a group which China proclaimed the genuine represen-
tative of the residents." Local ad hoc interest groups, therefore, had
an example of Peking's willingness to champion non-leftist causes
against the local authorities. The second Chinese protest also referred
to the "traditional rights" of Chinese in Kowloon, which were not
defined further. Many other problems could easily fall into this broad
area in which China claimed the right of protection for Chinese
residents. The British realized the potential for future conflict over
similar issues, and in 1959 started a test case in the courts concerning
the Walled City of Kowloon, an area in which China's residual rights
were unclear. In 1957 the British had been reminded that China was
looking over the shoulder of the Hong Kong Government.
Explicit comparisons between the social evils of capitalism in Hong Kong
and the marvels of socialism in China began to appear in the local
leftist and mainland press in 1957, as they had in 1952. The colony was
shown to be a pit of vice, poverty, crime, and cultural degeneracy. One
in three children was said to be a delinquent (or ah fei, a teddy boy),
and the American cultural influence was also blamed along with capi-
talism." The proof of the superiority of socialism, according to Wen Hui
Pao, was that the police records for the fiscal year 1955-6 showed
19,000 more people leaving the colony for China than entering from the
mainland." This figure was indeed accurate, and the large excess of
departures in the early part of the fiscal year was probably one reason
why the British decided to ease border controls. Wen Hui Pao did not,
however, mention either illegal immigration into the colony or the
56,000 people Hong Kong gained from China in the six months (most of
which were not in the fiscal year 1955-6) during which the quota system
was relaxed.
31. NCNA Peking, 10 September 1956, in SCMP, No. 1609, 13 September
1957, PP. 41-2.
32. NCNA Hong Kong, 26 July 1957, in SCMP, No. 1581, 31 July 1957, pp.
26-7.
33. NCNA Hong Kong in Ta Kung Pao, 9 November 1957, in RHKCP, No.
210/57, p. 2.
34. Wen Hui Poo, 19 May 1957, in RHKCP, No. 87/57, p. 4.
+
· 416
The China Quarterly
Another charge revived in 1957 was that of collaboration between the
British and the KMT. The visit of a KMT official ("Chiang's chief secret
agent") in connexion with Taiwan's programme of accepting selected
mainland refugees from Hong Kong was viewed not only as evidence of a
two-China plot but also as proof of a conspiracy of espionage and
sabotage in which the British Governor himself was in- volved." This
tirade was very different from China's reaction in March 1956, to the
forced landing of a KMT fighter in Hong Kong after a mission over the
mainland, when it was said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
"believes that the British authorities will not allow Hong Kong to be
used as a base and a place of refuge for carrying out destructive
military activities against China." China had also circulated the
British reply declaring that abuse of Hong Kong's facilities would not
be tolera- ted."
These two incidents, the landing of the KMT plane and the visit of a
Taiwan official, were separated by a year and a half during which not
only the riots but also a basic shift in Chinese foreign policy line
took place. The hardening of the Chinese position, generally seen as a
response to both the Hundred Flowers episode and the Russian missile
success in late 1957, seems to have been responsible for the charges of
British collaboration with the KMT. But Hong Kong was already on
Peking's blacklist after the riots, and the change in the foreign policy
line seems to have intensified rather than inspired Peking's hostility
towards the British authorities. An example of the way that external
policy considerations served to complicate an already existing local
issue was the fishing rights controversy of 1958.
Fishing rights along the Chinese coast and in Chinese waters involved
practical and immediate interests rather than principles. From the
Chinese perspective, there were two related problems. One was the ease
and regularity with which fishermen escaped from China to Hong Kong,
where there were higher market prices in addition to whatever political
attractions the refugee might see. When fishermen fled, the Chinese not
only lost the family, all of whom usually worked on the boat, but also
capital in the form of the boat itself. Second, and worse, these refugee
fishermen joined with local Hong Kong boats to compete for catches with
mainland fishing fleets.
Disputes over fishing territory were not new. Fishermen in South China
had fought for centuries either among themselves (particularly over the
raiding of fixed oyster beds) or with various governments try- ing to
regulate and tax them. Moreover, the majority of fishermen along the
Kwangtung coast were Tankas, with little regard for outside authority,
Chinese or British. The Communists had already tried in the early 1950s
to curb what they considered to be poaching by Hong Kong boats by
35. NCNA Hong Kong, 17 December 1957, in SCMP, No. 1676, 20 December
1957, p. 82.
36. NCNA Peking, 16 March 1956, in SCMP, No. 1251, 21 March 1956, pp.
20-2.
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
denying the mainland market to all fish products from Hong Kong. To make
matters worse, the Hong Kong Government tolerated refugee fishermen who,
even though they were technically illegal immigrants, were not forced to
return to China because they were no expense to the colony.
The failure of previous enforcement was evident by 1958. In 1956-7, a
total of 1,000 boats, a respectable fleet in itself, came to Hong Kong
to escape the early stages of collectivization." Consequently, in June
1958 new regulations were put into effect requiring that a quota of the
catch of Hong Kong boats fishing in Chinese waters should be sold to
main- land co-operatives, at Chinese prices instead of the higher Hong
Kong rates. If poaching could not be stopped, it could at least be
channelled. To enforce the new rules, the Chinese levied fines of
several hundred Hong Kong dollars, towed away boats, and, according to
the appeal for help by the Hong Kong Commercial Fishing Association to
the colonial authorities, harassed Hong Kong boats on the high seas.
The problem was compounded by the formation of fishermen's com- munes in
August 1958, and China's claim in September to a 12-mile instead of a
three-mile limit to her territorial waters." The 1958 collecti- vization
drive caused an even larger number of fishermen to flee to Hong Kong;
over 1,900 families registered with the Fishermen's Aid Organi- zation
as refugees in the first two weeks of August." Furthermore, the British
did not recognize the 12-mile limit, and there was an overlap of claims
to territorial waters. The danger was that Chinese patrol boats would
chase escaping fishing boats or Hong Kong boats evading fines and meet
Hong Kong patrol boats in waters where the colonial authori- ties
claimed jurisdiction.
Shooting incidents did not occur, as they had in the early 1950s, but
the lack of such incidents was due to luck rather than a backing down by
either side. The Hong Kong Government began to send armed patrol boats
out with its fishing fleet to protect it from increasingly aggressive
Chinese patrols. Although the expansion of their claim to territorial
waters was connected with the Quemoy crisis, the Chinese were serious
about their rights near Hong Kong; according to the British there were
at least four seizures of boats within the colony's waters in late 1958
and 1959 before the Chinese were satisfied that the situation had im-
proved." There were no official protests on either side despite the risk
each was willing to take. This certainly does not mean that protests
were exchanged only on issues of marginal interest and that serious
interests were backed by force instead of rhetoric. Rather, the lack of
publicity from China illustrates that there were issues on which the
interests of China did not coincide with those of the Chinese residents
in
37. Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), 1 May 1958, p. 565. 38. Hsing
Tao Jih Pao, 16 June 1958.
39. FEER, 14 August 1958, p. 216.
40. FEER, 21 August 1958, p. 244.
41. New York Times, 18 May 1959, p. 10.
417
418
The China Quarterly
Hong Kong whose protector Peking claimed to be, and that the Com-
munists felt it unwise to emphasize the discrepancy.
The Impact of the Taiwan Straits Crisis
The relationship between China's Hong Kong policy and its other foreign
interests was at no time better illustrated than during the second
Taiwan Straits crisis, which reached its high point in August and Sep-
tember 1958. The Chinese claim for a 12-mile limit to its territorial
waters was made with the object of including Quemoy and Matsu in those
waters, but it complicated, as we have seen, the issue of fishing rights
around Hong Kong. The claim for the extension would also have blocked
some access routes to Hong Kong since China occupied several islands
around the colony, but China gave no indication of pushing its claim to
the extent of cutting off the colony's communications.
China also started an unusually hostile campaign against the British.
Official protests and articles in both the mainland and Hong Kong press
charged the British with almost every conceivable crime a government can
commit: brutality, censorship, repression of legitimate rights of
patriotism, and the promotion of decadence and selfishness in their
educational system. One Ministry of Foreign Affairs protest over the
local authorities' temporary closing of a leftist school for building
re- pairs was representative; the Hong Kong Government was said to be
systematically persecuting patriotic education and promoting a two-
China plot by encouraging KMT schools, texts, and agents. The protest
demanded the re-opening of the school, compensation, punishment for
those responsible for a scuffle that broke out when students who refused
to leave the building were evicted, and the banning of KMT schools in
the colony.**
Although the Chinese charges that the British were brutally and syste-
matically suppressing patriotic, ie., leftist education were clearly
exag- gerated, the dispute over political education in the colony was
not invented by the C.P.R. The British, concerned with the widespread
use of com- munist books by schools in defiance of the education
ordinances, had deported the principal of another leftist school shortly
before the build- ing repair controversy. The C.P.R. was in part simply
exercising what it saw as its right to be the protector and spokesman
for Chinese who would someday be reunited with the mainland.
The Chinese, however, did not limit their protests to the relevant issue
of education and were clearly interested in more than local issues. The
agitation appears to have been used, in Harold Hinton's phrase, as a
means of reminding the British of their vulnerability and the necessity
for good behaviour."* China felt it necessary to give such a reminder,
42. NCNA Peking, 27 August 1958, in SCMP, No. 1844, 2 September 1958,
pp. 35-6.
43. Hinton, Communist China in World Politics, p. 147.
L
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
nce it was itself in some measure vulnerable because of the foreign
cupation of Hong Kong. The residents of Kwangtung are often told that
because of the presence of the colony they are on the front lines of the
battle to combat capitalist ideology, but in a confrontation involving
the United States in South China, Kwangtung was likely to become a front
line in a real battle, with Hong Kong as an enemy airbase. National- ist
planes had made emergency landings in Hong Kong in 1956 and 1958 after
flying over the mainland, and China apparently wanted to remind the
British of the dangers of allowing hostile planes to use the colony's
airports. This seems to have been the purpose of a Chinese protest in
August 1958 concerning supposed British military flights violating
Chinese airspace. The People's Republic linked these flights with the
Taiwan Straits trouble because, the Chinese claimed, the British were
carrying out reconnaissance for the United States and the KMT." These
protests, and the agitation throughout the summer, were diplo- matic
versions of "pointing at the (British) ash and reviling the (Ameri- can
or KMT) birch."
London certainly saw the Chinese broadsides and agitation against the
colony as involving more than local issues. The military command in
London announced in early September, before the crisis passed, that the
Hong Kong garrison, generally considered adequate for dealing with
internal disorder, would receive another battalion, and that the fleet
in Hong Kong waters would be increased."
The Economic "Offensive"
There was a 23 per cent. increase in 1958 over 1957 in the total value
of Chinese goods exported to Hong Kong. Since this was accompanied by
decreases in prices ranging from 10 to 30 per cent, and coincided with
the political campaign in the late summer of 1958, a wide variety of
Chinese and British commentators in Hong Kong saw the Communists as
starting a systematic attempt to undermine the colony using both
political and economic weapons. The Reform Club, composed largely of
barristers and other like-minded professionals who were still very much
part of the European establishment, complained that the Chinese
"dumping" of goods on the one hand and withholding of goods, especially
livestock on the other, was meant to ruin Hong Kong food producers and
thus eliminate competition." The Tiger-Standard, owned and managed by
pillars of the anti-Communist Chinese com- munity, viewed the "dumping"
as only one part of a long-range political plan to consolidate Peking's
position in the colony, and the liberal
44. NCNA Peking, 27 August 1958, in SCMP, No. 1844, 2 September 1958, p.
34.
45. UPI London, 4 September 1958, in Tiger Standard, 5 September 1958.
46. FEER, 21 August 1958, p. 245.
419
420
The China Quarterly
Chinese-language magazine Democratic Front agreed." Even the For Eastern
Economic Review, which had been optimistic and generous in its
assessment of China in 1949-50, was uneasy about Communist inten- tions
and policies in 1958. The Review worried that, besides political and
economic pressure, the Great Leap might also lead to population pressure
and a new flood of refugees because increased population was regarded as
an advantage on the mainland." Charges of dumping were so common in the
non-Communist Chinese press that the Chinese Re- form Association,
sympathetic to the People's Republic, and the leftist press felt the
need to defend the price cuts and increased exports to the colony on the
grounds that lower prices gave a higher standard of living to Hong Kong
workers and demonstrated the superiority of social- ism."
It seems clear that both the critics and the defenders missed the point.
The export spurt in 1958 was not intended to undermine the colony's
economy any more than it was motivated by concern for the living
standard of the Hong Kong workers. China was in part responding to the
challenge of foreign, not Hong Kong, competition and in part follow- ing
economically "rational" trends already established. The price of Chinese
rolled steel, which Hong Kong did not produce, was pegged at 10 per
cent. below that of the Japanese product,** and the 20 per cent.
decrease in the price of live pigs, a trade of considerable importance
in Hong Kong, was aimed successfully at blocking the 1958 attempt by
Taiwan to enter the Hong Kong market." Moreover, there had been an
increase in the Chinese export of manufactured goods, particularly tex-
tiles, for at least two years before 1958, and exports of these
continued to rise in response to increased output after agricultural
production and exports fell during 1959-60.** China, then, exported what
was available, increasing exports of goods whose production had
increased and de- creasing exports of goods whose production fell. A
consistent effort at undermining the colonial economy would demand a
continued rise in exports at very low prices regardless of domestic
production.
Relaxation and Co-operation, 1959-60
In 1959 there were indications that China's Hong Kong policies were
changing. Agitation over the school incidents in the summer and autumn
47. Tiger Standard, 3 August 1958, p. 4, and Democratic Front, 26
January 1959, in RHKCP, No. 2459, pp. 4-6.
48. FEER, 28 August 1958, p. 277.
49. Hsin Wan Pao, 22 August 1958, in RHKCP, No. 158/58, p. 3.
50. Hong Kong University, "Hong Kong's trade with mainland China," in
Hong Kong Economic Papers, No. 1, June 1961, p. 72.
31. New York Times, 5 December 1958, p. 3.
$2. "Hong Kong's trade with mainland China," p. 72.
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
of 1958 was dropped in February 1959. There was no lengthy campaign n
the local press and no official complaints at all from Peking concern-
ing the deportation of two leaders of a radical farmers' organization in
March and the withdrawal of a Government subsidy to leftist schools in
June. A more positive and official signal of a possible new era of co-
operation was given by Tao Chu in a speech to a group of Hong Kong
Chinese tourists in February 1959. Although his speech was couched in
terms of China's feelings of responsibility for their compatriots, T'ao
let it be known that China would supply water to Hong Kong on the same
basis as water was already being supplied to Macao." This was a generous
offer, for China had just built a reservoir to supply water to Macao
free of charge under an agreement reached with Macao's water works'
general manager Ho Hsien (who also wore the hat of Chairman of the
Chamber of Commerce).
The Chinese again raised the question of water for Hong Kong in direct
contacts at the border in January 1960, when plans for new reser- voirs
were being made. In February Governor Black in an official address
indicated his desire for talks, and in April bargaining started in the
railway station on the border, alternating between the Hong Kong and
Chinese waiting rooms." An agreement allowing Hong Kong to buy
5,000,000,000 gallons or a little over 20 per cent. of its annual needs
at the time was finally reached in November 1960. The length of time
involved in this process, including more than half a year of
negotiations, and even the meeting arrangements, indicate the caution
with which the contracts were made, but the course of China-Hong Kong
relations after 1960 showed that despite initial caution the year 1959
did mark the start of a new period of co-operation and Chinese
restraint.
The Hong Kong Tiger-Standard argued that the deflation of Chinese
rhetoric and pressure in early 1959 was an outcome of the moderate line
laid down at the Sixth Plenum of the CCP in Wuhan in December 1958." The
trouble with assuming such a direct link between domestic policy cause
and foreign policy effect is that there was no corresponding shift in
foreign policy after the return to more radical domestic politics after
the Lushan Plenum in August 1959.
A second possible explanation for the apparent shift in 1959-60 is that
the Chinese, in the face of mounting economic crisis, wanted the maximum
economic benefit from the colony, and for that end normal relations were
desirable. Certainly the size of the economic contribution that the
colony made to China's wealth was already impressive in 1959- before the
trade increase in the early 1960s that made Hong Kong
53. Ta Kung Pao, 11 February 1959, in SCMP, No. 1958, 20 February 1959,
p. 24.
54. Hong Kong Government Information Service, Daily Information
Bulletin, 15 November 1960.
55. Tiger Standard, 15 February 1959.
421
422
The China Quarterly
China's biggest customer. Added to the large favourable balance of trade
with the colony that China enjoyed-H.K. $920 million in 1959 and H.K.
$1,066 million in 1960-and the remittance channel through local banks,
was the large number of two-pound food parcels from Hong Kong. These
parcels numbered 870,000 in 1959 and 3-7 million in 1960.** The trouble
with linking post-1958 Chinese policy too closely with the need for
resources in the face of economic disaster is that the first firm
indication of change, T'ao Chu's speech, came in February 1959 close on
the heels of the bumper harvest of 1958. T'ao even offered to in- crease
food shipments from Kwangtung to Hong Kong. The agricul- tural crisis
was not evident until after the harvest of late 1959, so the beginning
of relaxation could not have been a direct response to changes in
economic conditions. Moreover, China was not economically "rational" in
the sense of maximizing profits at the expense of politics. From the
autumn of 1959 to the summer of 1960, China contributed 730 tons of rice
to flood victims in the colony, a contribution that equalled 15 per
cent, of the total food in parcels sent from the colony to the mainland
for the entire 1959-60 period.**
In fact, China's motivation in allowing Hong Kong to remain British was
only partly economic. The original Communist decision to leave Hong Kong
in peace was made at a time when the colony was a large drain on China's
foreign exchange almost U.S. $105 million in 1950, $143 million in
1951.** The colony was a convenient economic outlet to the world, but
the embargo on goods enacted by the western allies after the PLA
intervened in Korea not only restricted the colony's use- fulness to
China but also called into doubt Hong Kong's own economic future. Before
Hong Kong emerged as a source of profit, therefore, the Communists
indicated a willingness to live and let live, apparently in order to
avoid a political and military confrontation with the British and to
help divide Britain from the United States on the China issue. At least
before the 1960s, careful calculations of profit and loss were not the
con- trolling factors in every Chinese decision concerning Hong Kong.
It seems possible, therefore, that the relaxation in 1959 was not the
result of a new and positive Chinese policy, but an end, a fizzling-out
instead of an abrupt termination, of a period of tense relations. The
tension had started after the October 1956 riots and peaked during the
Taiwan Straits crisis, after which Hong Kong, previously a danger spot
of KMT influence as shown by the riots, or else a potential enemy stag-
ing area, faded into the background. Until 1962 or 1963 China did not
engage in any active variety of diplomacy but chose to leave well alone.
56. FEER Yearbook, 1962 (Hong Kong: FEER, 1963), p. 67.
57. Wen Hui Pao, 21 July 1959 in RHKCP, No. 35/59, p. 5, and Ta Kung
Pao, 22 June 1960, in RHKCP, No. 90/60, p. 3.
58. Alexander Eckstein, Communist China's Economic Growth and Foreign
Trade (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 198.
:
"
·
Hong Kong and Chinese Foreign Policy, 1955-60
423
L
J
Conclusion
Two points should stand out in this account of China's relations with
Hong Kong from 1955 to 1960. The first is that there is no one-to-one
correlation between the Communists' Hong Kong policy and either their
overall foreign policy orientation, or their specific policy in areas
such as the Taiwan Straits.
Certainly Hong Kong has at times been both a beneficiary of and a
hostage to broad trends in China's reaction to the outside world. In
1955-6 the general benevolence of the Bandung spirit was an advantage
for Hong Kong and helped minimize the consequences of a serious in-
cident, the sabotage of the Kashmir Princess, within the colony.
However, there was an important exception to Hong Kong's connexion with
China's general policy. The charges levelled at the British after the
October 1956 riots continued and expanded throughout 1957, while the
Bandung era did not finally end until late 1957 after the Soviet missile
success. The timing here is less important than the substance; China in
some measure held the British responsible for the intensity if not the
provocation of the Double Ten riots, and relations afterwards were
soured.
A connexion between China's policy towards Hong Kong and its policy
towards other specific areas is valid for 1958, when Hong Kong suffered
the consequences of the Taiwan Straits trouble in which the colony had
no direct part. This was by contrast with the first Straits crisis in
1954 which did not produce major agitation in Hong Kong or a cam- paign
by the mainland press. The different treatment may be largely accounted
for by events that occurred in the interval: the Kashmir Princess
episode, the 1956 riots, and the British return to Taiwan of two
Nationalist planes that were forced down in Hong Kong. The first two
events, and especially the riots, demonstrated the strength and
potential for mischief of the KMT in the colony, while the return of KMT
planes underlined the possible military use of the colony by hostile
forces. Also the difference between the repercussions of the 1954 and
1958 troubles may have been partly based on the Chinese calculation of
the actual dangers of conflict. The more serious the danger, the more
need for warning bystanders to remain absolutely uninvolved.
Hong Kong, then, can act as an "independent" factor in Chinese policy.
That is, the treatment of the colony must be considered along with
general trends and specific areas, but China's reactions to Hong Kong
cannot necessarily be predicted from other aspects of Chinese policy.
China, like other nations, is at times forced to react to situations on
an ad hoc basis in a manner that may be out of tune with the general
drift of policy.
Hong Kong, of course, is not unique in receiving special treatment at
times. For example, the deterioration of China's relations with India in
1959-62 took place at a time of improved relations with other third
world countries, and the list of exceptions could be expanded. India,
424
The China Quarterly
however, is a sovereign nation and occupies a sub-continent; Hong Kong,
by contrast, is small, dependent, and vulnerable. A special position is
thus understandable for India because of its size, but not for Hong
Kong.
The reason for this independence of Hong Kong in Chinese policy is a
basic one. Hong Kong is, along with Macao, peculiar in being at once a
foreign policy problem and a domestic problem. The interde- pendence of
nations, the adaptation and blending of domestic with foreign policies
is common in international relations, but the degree of intimacy with
the two colonies is unprecedented for China and unusual in any area of
the world.
This duality is reflected in a number of ways. Organizationally, Chinese
concern for Hong Kong is shared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
provincial Government of Kwangtung, and the CCP itself, with 11,000
members in the colony according to one estimate."" Moreover, Hong Kong
Chinese are neither fully fledged citizens nor hua ch'iao (overseas
Chinese) but belong to the special category of t'ung pao (com-
patriots).
-
Diplomatically, China has acted as the self-appointed spokesman for the
interests of the residents of the colony to an even greater extent than
for overseas Chinese. Although Chinese protests have often been intem-
perate in language and based on exaggerations, the British objection
con- cerns not so much the substance of protests but the fact that they
were made at all, since Hong Kong is not China's concern. Between the
two ex- tremes the C.P.R. view that it has great responsibility
concerning the rights of Hong Kong Chinese and the British view that any
outside pressure is meddling a balance in actual practice has been
reached. In education, for example, the British do not strictly enforce
ordinances forbidding political education, but occasionally, as in the
deportation of the school principal in 1958, indicate some limits. China
tolerates those limits but signals concerns and warnings to avoid real
suppres. sion. Therefore, despite changes in general foreign policy
including periods of harshness, the C.P.R. has been flexible enough to
work out, for political as well as economic reasons, a stable
relationship with the colony of a western power.
-
59. United States Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and
Research, World Strength of the Communist Party Organization, 20th
Annual Report (Washington: Department of Stato, 1968), p. 81.
Reference
Miss P.M. Kelly, Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department,
CONSULAR RELATIONS IN DISPUTED TERRITORIES
Consulate-General in Gibralter
-
78A
Work of the Spanish
13/9
To Clark (FED)
талабала
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To
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*/
1. At the time of the closure of the Consulate-General in Gibraltar
(May 1954) it was suggested by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
that the Consulate was "unjustified" as "there were no Spaniards
resident in Gibraltar whom he wished to protect". However the Consul-
General, in conversation with the British Colonial Secretary, expressed
doubt on this although he admitted that in view of the fact that
the Spanish colony in Gibraltar was non-existent he was not called
upon to discharge normal consular functions on their behalf. He did,
however, look after the interests of Spaniards working but not living
in Gibraltar.
2.
Foreign Office minuting at the time said "Spanish workers will now lose
a convenient means of negotiating on wages and conditions and a channel
of protest". It was further said "we have so far
insisted that the Spanish Consul-General should be the channel for
communicating Spanish representations on wages and conditions of
employment to the Gibraltar Government. This local settlement of
differences has, in general, worked well over the years ...; if the
Spaniards now wish to deprive themselves of this convenient method
that is not our business. But they cannot also claim that Spanish
workers in Gibraltar will be left without representation, not only can
these Spanish workers make their complaints known through the Gibraltar
trade unions but the Spanish Government can, on their
behalf, raise any matters either through H.M. Embassy Madrid or through
the Vice Consulates at La Linea and Algeciras. But hhe C.O. will have to
give careful thought to a new procedure for recruiting Spanish workers;
all negotiations have so far taken place through the Consulate..."
3.
Apart from this work for Spaniards employed in Gibraltar the Spanish
Consulate-General in Gibraltar was also responsible for issuing
six-monthly visas to residents of the colony.
11/9
6 September 1973
semse mills
Denise Hills,
Westem & Southern Suropean Section
Research Department