86
ELIZABETH SINN
anti-Imperial struggle, and published fragments of the Shu pao he found to throw light on these events.
A year later, Li Ming-jen claimed that it was the first large-scale strike in China with political overtones and so saw it in terms of the history of labour movements in China.80 These events have also been described by a Western historian to illustrate anti-foreignism in 19th Century China.81
More recently, we have a work dealing with the 1884 events in relation to the development of Chinese nationalism. At the same time, its author, Chere, calls attention to the lack of scholarly interest in these events, and challenges the historian in Hong Kong to re-examine them by using more extensive source materials.82
In fact, we should bring the strike and riot of 1884 back into a Hong Kong perspective since they do highlight important features of Hong Kong society and history.
They highlight the problems of a society composed of a native population governed by a foreign power; a society whose loyalty was, at the best of times, divided. The political and emotional orientation of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong was toward Mainland China. Even while more and more Chinese households were being established in Hong Kong, nonetheless, in times of emergency the entire household could be transferred to Macao or Canton. It seems almost incidental that some families did settle in Hong Kong permanently at all. Family, business, property and political ties with China continued to be strong, with the result that events in China had very strong bearings upon those in Hong Kong.
This means that on the one hand, Chinese officials could bully residents in Hong Kong into carrying out orders or seduce them with rewards; sometimes this could be done simply by appealing to their patriotism. The result was a general feeling of suspicion between the Government and people of Hong Kong which explains why any local disturbance caused the Government to panic. Understandably, things became very complicated whenever China was at war with Britain. In 1857, during the Arrow War for instance, the deterioration of relations between
86
ELIZABETH SINN
anti-Imperial struggle, and published fragments of the Shu pao
#he found to throw light on these events.
A year later, Li Ming-jen claimed that it was the first large-scale strike in China with political overtones and so saw it in terms of the history of labour movements in China.80 These events have also been described by a Western historian to illustrate anti-foreignism in 19th Century China.81
More recently, we have a work dealing with the 1884 events in relation to the development of Chinese nationalism. At the same time, its author, Chere, calls attention to the lack of scholarly interest in these events, and challenges the historian in Hong Kong to re-examine them by using more extensive source materials, 82
In fact, we should bring the strike and riot of 1884 back into a Hong Kong perspective since they do highlight important features of Hong Kong society and history.
They highlight the problems of a society composed of a native population governed by a foreign power; a society whose loyalty was, at the best of times, divided. The political and emotional orientation of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong was toward Mainland China. Even while more and more Chinese households were being established in Hong Kong, none- theless, in times of emergency the entire household could be transferred to Macao or Canton. It seems almost incidental that some families did settle in Hong Kong permanently at all. Family, business, property and political ties with China continued to be strong, with the result that events in China had very strong bearings upon those in Hong Kong.
This means that on the one hand, Chinese officials could bully residents in Hong Kong into carrying out orders or seduce them with rewards; sometimes this could be done simply by appealing to their patriotism. The result was a general feeling of suspicion between the Government and people of Hong Kong which explains why any local disturbance caused the Government to panic. Understandably, things became very complicated whenever China was at war with Britain. In 1857, during the Arrow War for instance, the deterioration of relations between
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