195
BUSINESS INVESTMENT IN POLITICS: OVERSEAS RETURNED CHINESE, HONG KONG, COMPRADORES AND THE CANTON GOVERNMENT, 1911-1924
CHUNG PO-YIN, STEPHANIE
In the first three decades of this century, at least four attempts were made by competing groups of Chinese settlers in Hong Kong to finance the setting up of regional governments in Canton. An important backdrop to these events was the fact of a politically disintegrated China with a north-south divide between Canton and Beijing. As shall be seen, these endeavours involved not only regionalism as such, but a number of economic calculations on the part of the financiers who, by funding these regional governments, requested control over provincial banks, tax collection, purchases, and the management of public properties in Guangdong.
These incidents highlight what will be a recurring theme in this article - business investments relate closely to politics and in some environments, even politics itself is a kind of business investment. One argument presented in this article is that such an environment can be found in the Republican period Guangdong. The major investors in this political market, however, were the settlers in British Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Society and the National Politics of China
In any discussion of Hong Kong society, I think three major background factors are crucial. They are the British presence, the national politics of China, and the aspirations of different Chinese groups in Hong Kong. Political investments by Hong Kong Chinese in Guangdong serve to illustrate the interaction of these three factors.
Colonial rule created new national and communal identities among the colonized, which affected their political behavior. Many stateless societies, such as India and Africa, eventually became independent states in the process of decolonization as the concept of nationhood was transplanted from Europe. At the communal level, colonial rule brought about a new distribution of power among native groups.
195
BUSINESS INVESTMENT IN POLITICS: OVERSEAS RETURNED CHINESE, HONG KONG, COMPRADORES AND THE CANTON GOVERNMENT, 1911-1924
CHUNG PO-YIN, STEPHANIE
In the first three decades of this century, at least four attempts were made by competing groups of Chinese settlers in Hong Kong to finance the setting up of regional governments in Canton. An important backdrop to these events was the fact of a politically disintegrated China' with a north-south between Canton and Beijing. As shall be seen, these endeavours involved not only regionalism as such, but a number of economic calculations on the part of the financiers who, by funding these regional governments, requested the control over provincial banks, tax collection, purchases and the management of public properties in Guangdong.
These incidents highlight what will be a recurring theme in this article - business investments relate closely to politics and in some environments even politics itself is a kind of business investment. One argument presented in this article is that such an environment can be found in Republican period Guangdong The major investors in this political market, however, were the settlers in British Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Society and the National Politics of China
In any discussion of Hong Kong society, I think three major background factors are crucial They are the British presence, the national politics of China, and the aspirations of different Chinese groups in Hong Kong. Political investments by Hong Kong Chinese in Guangdong serve to illustrate the interaction of these three factors.
Colonial rule created new national and communal identities among the colonized, which affected their political behavior. Many stateless societies, India and Africa, for instance, eventually became independent states in the process of decolonization as the concept of nationhood was transplanted from Europe. At the communal level, colonial rule brought about a new distribution of power among native groups.
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