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FRICTION THE HOTG-KONG 1967.
The conflict which developed in Hong-Kong in the spring and summer of 1967 can best be regarded as a situation of friction rather than a dispute. The issues involved were largely symbolic. Chinese Communists exploited labour grievances in an attempt to get the Hong-Kong authorities to show deference to the people's Republic of Chine.
The steady deterioration in Anglo-Chinese relations formed the background to the situation. The position of Hong-Kong, a British Crown Colony, has historically appeared acceptable to peking, provided it maintained a neutral position in the affairs of South East Asia. This criterion was fulfilled during the Korean War in spite of the United Kingdom's involvements. British support for the general aims of mited States policy in Vietnam and, more important, the use of Hong-Kong as a "Relief and Recreation Centre" for the United States Seventh Fleet engaged in Vietnam, were scen by the Communists as threatening Hong-Kong's neutral status. The crisis of May-August 1967 has been seen as a Chinese warning against any further involvement of Hong-Kong in the Vietnam War.
The primary cause of the crisis, however, lay in the political situation within Communist China and in the "Cultural Revolution" which had been sweeping the country. The origins of this lay in intra-party developments and in Mao Tse Tungis doctrine of a "permanent revolution" to prevent the Chinese Communist Party committing Russian bourgeois errors. By April 1967, it seems that this Revolution was losing momentum and a new "object of struggle" seemed necessary. Previously the "top people in authority taking the Capitalist road" had fulfilled this scaneroat role.
British Imperialism in Hong-Kong seemed an obvious supplement, for to Red Guards "there was nothing so stimulating to self-righteous
1 anger as a chance to humiliate a live Imperialist.
1. The Times. 20th May, 1967.
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