TNAG-1235-FCO40-1548-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 78

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Provocation having been started by Parkes, British forces breached and took Guangzhou City at year-end of 1856 but soon retreated because of lack of rei.forcements. In the following year Anglo-French expeditionary forces arrived in China and occupied Guangzhou City in January 1858. Ye Mingchen, Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi, was taken prisoner. (Ye later died in captivity in Calcutta). Bai Qui, Guangdong's Xunfu (chief provincial executive), defected to the enemy camp and became the enemy's puppet. The Anglo-French aggressors set up in the Xunfu Office a three-member committee headed by Parkes, the two other members being British general Straudenzee and French officer Martinean des Chenez. Bai Qui was placed under close supervision and denied of freedom of action. Without the consent of the committee Bai could issue no order. Guangzhou underwent three years of Anglo- French military occupation. On learning that Guangzhou had fallen to the invasion forces the Qing government had the folly to appoint defector Bai Qui acting Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi. After Bai's death Lao Chongguang was transferred from Guangxi to take up office as Guangdong's Xunfu. Later he was appointed acting Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi. Lao, as a regional imperial official stationed in Guangzhou which was under enemy rule, leased Jianshazui (Tsimshatsui) to Britain in March 1860 for an annual rent of five hundred taels of silver under duress from Parkes.

To completely subjugate the Qing government, Britain sent H Grant to China with ten thousand marines. This force arrived in Hong Kong Island in early March. They could find no place to encamp on the island and came ashore at Jianshazui. Parkes was up to his old tricks again when he suggested to Hong Kong governor H Robinson and to Grant leasing Jianshazui from the Guangdong authorities as an encamp- ment base for British troops who were new arrivals. Bobinson then ordered Parkes, accompanied by Grant, to leave for Guangzhou to negotiate with Lao Chongguang. On March 20 Parkes drafted a lease in respect of Jianshazui and, after showing it to Grant, handed it to Lao Chongguang. The pretext employed was that the Kowloon peninsula, a favorite haunt of criminal elements, was posing a seaurity hazard to British interests. There were, according to Parkes, two ways to thoroughly remedy the situation: the first was to drive the thugs away by force through the permanent presence of a military detachment and the second was for the Guangdong authorities to draw a certain boundary on the peninsula south of which would go in cession to Britain in like manner in which Hong Kong Island had been ceded. Parkes added that pending imperial approval of the cession it would suit the regional officials to allow Britain to take possession of the territory first under a lease which arrangement, albeit imperfect, would serve as an effective expedient to control or drive away the thugs before a permanent solution could be worked out. Parkes hoped Lao would accept the arrangement. (Note 23) Parkes was head of the three-member committee overseeing Anglo-French military occupation of Guangzhou and Qing officials in Guangdong were in effect their law enforcement tools. Lao cowered before Parkes' sinister authority. On the following day, as between the two parties, the lease was signed sealed and delivered. It all went according to Parkes' plan. The territory south of a boundary line drawn across Kowloon peninsula extending from a point south of the Kowloon batteries and covering Shijiang Island (Stonecutter's Island) passed into British possession under a lease in total fulfillment of the British demand. After execution of the lease, the euphoric Parkes bragged that he had settled the Kowloon question and was in no doubt that the peninsula (South Kowloon) would in due course become ceded to Britain. Robinson had had certain misgivings about leasing because the Letters Patent had not conferred powers on Hong Kong to lease territories. In a letter of thanks to Parkes, Robinson wrote: "You (Parkes) have made successful arrangements in respect of Kowloon which, short of cession, has placed us in the best attainable rosition. When I submit the formal documents to the Duke of Newcastle (?) (Minister of Colonial Affairs) I shall not forget to mention that it was due to your wit and talent that we managed to clinch the deal" (Note 24)