ing and trade operations). This calculation may be correct. But the deduction from this that China does not want to recover Hong Kong because of economic motives strains credulity.
On the purely economic level, several things can be said. First, in the years im- mediately after the victory of the Revolution, Hong Kong, far from being an economic "asset" to the People's Republic, was a huge drain on its resources: almost US$105m in 1950, and US$143m in 1951.101 Second, one of the reasons China presumably does much of its business in and through Hong Kong is because Hong Kong is there; but equally presumably, there is no reason why many of the banking and commercial ac- tivities currently carried on in Hong Kong could not be carried on elsewhere. Third, many of the commodities which China currently exports to Hong Kong could equally well be exported elsewhere: rice, oil, etc., are all in demand and likely to remain so. The "economic" argument ignores two further economic facts: that Hong Kong itself would be quite an asset to the Chinese economy (its foreign exchange earnings through exports are greater than those of the People's Republic); and, by eliminating the profits and waste of capitalism, Hong Kong might well become an even bigger foreign exchange earner under socialism than it is under colonialism.
But all these arguments ignore the basic fact that China's attitude is determined not by economics but by politics. The liberation of Hong Kong is an important objective, but it is part of the wider struggle to re-integrate the whole of China. In 1936, the Chinese Communist party held in their hands the leader of the Kuomin- tang, Chiang Kai-shek. They could have executed him, and many doubtless would have cheered, then as now. The decision not to execute him (or even detain him) was based on wider strategic considerations, involving the need to unite against the Japanese invaders, and to win over the masses then supporting the Nationalist
movement.
This episode (the Sian Incident) may help to illuminate the case of Hong Kong. Obviously, it would be easy for the People's Liberation Army to liberate Hong Kong. But the no. 1 priority at the moment is the recovery of Taiwan, acknow- ledged to be a slow process. After China recovered its UN seat in 1971 and more and more countries broke with Taiwan, the People's Republic stepped up its public campaign to win over waverers in Taiwan. This campaign was echoed in Hong Kong. In 1972 a mass rally to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China in Hong Kong was addressed by the Chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, Yang Kuang, who stated:
"Now there are more and more people who want to know more about our motherland and express their desire to love our motherland. In response to our motherland's call 'patriots belong to one big family', and 'no distinction should be drawn in patriotism between those who come forward first and those later', there are more and more people who wish to do good for the motherland. This has become the main trend in Hong Kong today. As for those with wrongdoings in the past but now standing for the socialist motherland, we will welcome them all" 102
Another indication of China's thinking came after the April (1974) coup in Portu- gal. Since the mass movement against Portuguese colonialism at the time of the Cultural Revolution, Macau has been governed in effect by a pro-Peking group,
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