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    {
        "id": 208572,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 29,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "2\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nThe American sense of guilt was largely attributable to three factors: United States' military defeats in Southeast Asia, the American commitment to the policy of defeating Germany first before concentrating on Japan, and the American failure in delivering the bulk of lend-lease and other war materials promised to China. On the first point, according to Stanley K. Hornbeck who was political adviser to the Department of State, reports from American sources from or through Chungking indicated that the American defeat in the Philippines, together with the rapid collapse of the British position in Southeast Asia, had bred \"a sense of frustration and defeatism” among the Chinese.4 To be fair, however, one must add that China had been vastly more appalled and disillusioned by, and consequently more contemptuous of, the British performance.\n\nOn the second point, it was only natural that China was disappointed and embittered by the American policy of “Germany First”. Support for this order of priority was by no means unanimous within American government circles. Admirals Ernest J. King and William D. Leahy, General Douglas MacArthur (at his new headquarters in Australia), and Stanley Hornbeck, to give some examples, all expressed doubt about it and urged that a greater military effort should be directed against Japan. While President Roosevelt was firm on his decision to stand by the agreement reached at the 'Arcadia” Conference it did not mean that he was entirely free from embarrassment when faced with his Far Eastern ally, Chiang Kai-shek.\n\nM4\n\nOn the third point, immediately after Pearl Harbour, President Roosevelt had been generous in promising China war materials, including planes, mainly through lend-lease channels. However, the Americans soon realized that it was easier to make the promise than to implement it. Two difficulties were involved. The first was the problem of transport. After the fall of Burma and the seizure of the southern part of the Burma Road by the Japanese early in 1942, air transport became the only feasible means of getting supplies into China. Until the opening of the well-known Ledo Road (later on re-named Stilwell Road) early in 1945, the bulk of the supplies flown from India to China was transported by the Tenth United States Air Force between April and December 1942, and thereafter by the United States Air Transport Command in what Joseph W. Ballantine, who became director of the Office of",
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    {
        "id": 208573,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 30,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\nFar Eastern Affairs in the Department of State in 1944, terms “the most difficult supply operation of the entire war\" over the towering hump of the Himalayas. The second difficulty was connected with the priority given to the European theatre. The result was that much of the promised materials to China was often diverted, much to the distress of Hornbeck and others, from its original destination for the European fronts.? Speaking in more specific terms, by late September 1942, US$3.1 billion worth of lend-lease materials were sent to the British Empire, $750 million to Russia, and only $112 million to China. The disparity became even more remarkable by early June: $7,030,000,000 to the British Empire, $1,899,000,000 to Russia, and only $133,000,000 to China.8\n\nUnder the circumstances, it is understandable that the United States should entertain grave anxiety regarding China, especially over a possible collapse of Chinese resistance against Japan. This concern, which the Chinese did everything to keep alive, was universally shared by senior men in the Washington government, including the president himself, H. L. Stimson, then secretary of war, Henry Morgenthau, secretary of the Treasury, Leahy, and many involved in Far Eastern affairs in the Department of State, principally Hornbeck.9 While some doubt was expressed as to how much China could and was willing to contribute to the war effort in the east, the consensus was that her collapse would be a fatal blow to the United Nations, especially the United States, in the Pacific theatre. This event, therefore, must be prevented at all cost.\n\nIt was only natural that the United States, torn by anxiety, should be obsessed with the desire to compensate China as best she could. Consequently, the American government announced at the beginning of 1942 a loan of 500 million dollars to China, with next to no strings attached.10 Meanwhile, the move to push for the allies' recognition of China as one of the great powers, of which Hornbeck claimed himself to be the originator, became increasingly prominent in the American government.11 The outcome was the American insistence that China be included as a signatory, together with Britain, the U.S.S.R., and the United States, of the Declaration of Four Nations on General Security, signed in Moscow on 30 December 1943, and that Chiang Kai-shek, together with Roosevelt and Churchill, be a party to the Cairo Declaration, issued on 1 December 1943.12 The American eagerness to compensate naturally did not allow Madame Chiang Kai-shek's visit to the United States,\n\nPage 30\nPage 31",
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    {
        "id": 208579,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 36,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n9\n\nHong Kong, stated without authorization but from his \"knowledge of the movement of opinion in England\", he felt confident that when the time came to deal with Hong Kong, the Chinese would be completely satisfied.\" The Foreign Office was naturally most displeased by such an utterance,36\n\nBy contrast, the American behaviour at the conference was dis-coordinated. While much of the criticism of British imperialism and skepticism regarding the British attitude and intention in respect to the Atlantic Charter were expressed by the American participants, and while they generally supported the Chinese stand on Hong Kong, the pressure they succeeded in exerting was considerably discounted because they failed to function as a closely coordinated team. Stanley Hornbeck, a delegate to the conference, commented specifically on the organization of the American group in a memorandum on his observations of the conference: \"It needs to be kept in mind with regard to I.P.R. Conferences that, whereas, as a rule, the Groups from most countries... attend and function as “delegations” (with a certain amount of guidance if not definite instructions from their Governments), the members of the American Group attend the function simply as members (without a \"group\" organization and without express guidance and with no instructions from their Government.)\" This disjointed approach was to largely characterize the American stand regarding the question of Hong Kong during the war,\n\nSuch an approach did not long escape Britain's attention. In March 1943 Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, paid a visit to Washington, apparently on Churchill's prompting. Eden's conversations with Roosevelt and senior American officials only \"provided an exchange of views with regard to such matters as cooperation between the Governments with respect to political questions arising in connection with the prosecution of the war\"; there was no intention of commitment on either side.38 Early in Eden's visit Harry Hopkins, special assistant to Roosevelt, made the general remark, in front of the president, to the British visitor that he \"thought no useful purpose would be served at this stage of the war, and surely no useful purpose at the Peace Table, by Great Britain and [the United States] having no knowledge of [their] differences of opinion” regarding Hong Kong, Malayan Straits, and India.39 Eden could do no harm in agreeing to this comment.40 Roosevelt, however, was much more direct about Hong Kong. He",
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    {
        "id": 208580,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "10\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nhad, according to Hopkins, urged Britain on more than one occasion to give up Hong Kong as a gesture of “good will”. To this suggestion Eden, who had originally objected to agreeing to the return of the New Territories on terms after the war in connection with the extraterritoriality negotiations with China but eventually bowed to the majority opinion of the Foreign Office, returned a cold shoulder.41\n\nBritain's attitude regarding Hong Kong steadily stiffened in the course of 1943. She talked less and less about returning the colony on terms. It was partly because pressure from China decreased markedly since the beginning of the year, presumably because she assumed the retrocession of Hong Kong as a matter of course judging from Britain's behaviour in the extraterritoriality negotiations and at the Institute of Pacific Relations' Conference. More significantly, perhaps, Britain became increasingly confident in her relations with the United States and China with the improvement in the European war situation. By the end of the year a final Allied victory in Europe was no longer seriously in doubt.42\n\nIt was under such circumstances that Stanley Hornbeck's visit to London, as a return gesture to Ashley Clarke's visit to Washington the previous year, took place in November 1943. Hornbeck spent much of his time in London on consultation with the Foreign Office and other offices concerned with Far Eastern affairs. At the final conference at which most interested British officials were present, Hornbeck, “entirely on his own responsibility”,43 remarked as follows: \"I felt that we had covered much ground and had explored a good many subjects, [but] there was one additional matter to which we perhaps might need, not at the moment but as the situation unfolded, to give thought. That matter was ... the future of Hong Kong.\" \"The effect was electrifying\", observed Hornbeck. He immediately regretted it: \"I had had no thought of injecting a discordant note. I felt at once that discretion in that context would be the better part of valour.”44\n\nHornbeck's regret came too late. That very evening the British arranged that he would, before his departure for home, call on Churchill the following morning. At the meeting Hornbeck received a long and emphatic lecture from the Prime Minister on Hong Kong: \"What about Hong Kong? I will tell you. [The rest retold in Hornbeck's words] He then described the acquisition by Great\n\n+ + + +",
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    {
        "id": 208581,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 38,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n11\n\nBritain of Hong Kong, and the development by Great Britain of a great port which he felt had benefited the whole world. He said that it was British territory and he saw no good reason why it should cease to be such. He went on to say that perhaps some arrangement could be made with the Chinese whereby the question of sovereignty could be adjusted but the political control and administrative responsibility remain with Great Britain. He referred to public utterances of his own to the effect that he was not Prime Minister for the purpose of being a party to a liquidation of the British Empire. He said that he had convictions on that subject and that he was perfectly willing to say so frankly to anybody.\"45\n\nIt might well have been his own weak performance in London, among other things, which prompted Hornbeck early in January 1944 to urge the Secretary of State not to repeat Woodrow Wilson's mistake in being too much of a \"gentleman\". The American government must obtain from Britain agreement and cooperation in any reasonable course of action upon which the United States might choose to insist, especially in relation to colonial matters, before the defeat of Germany when Britain still depended on the Americans for their preservation.46\n\nThe Secretary's reaction to the advice is not known. But it appears from his memoirs that he was not in favour of coercion in dealing with the Anglo-American differences, and specifically with the question of Hong Kong.47 In any case, the Department of State had become less and less consulted by the President with regard to general war and foreign policies. The War and Navy Departments and the Treasury were far more important in the President's mind. On the personal level, moreover, Hull was certainly not one of Roosevelt's trusted few. Hull himself was conscious and sensitive of the truth: that FDR was his own Secretary of State.\"48 In fact, many of Roosevelt's utterances at the major Allied conferences, beginning with the Cairo Conference late in 1943, were made without prior reference to and consultation with the Department of State. Hull resigned late in 1944, frustrated and in poor health.\n\nDespite Roosevelt's well-known anti-imperialist and anti-colonial stand and his interest in Hong Kong, his behaviour regarding the future of the British colony was generally characterized by weakness and the lack of persistent and direct pressure on Britain. At the",
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    {
        "id": 208587,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 44,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n17\n\n◄ Hornbeck to Cordell Hull, secretary of state, 20 May 1942, Hornbeck Papers (Hoover Institute, Stanford University), box 465.\n\n* Generally see Thorne, op. cit., p. 163, and note 51 on pp. 168-9, referring to Leahy's diary and the King Papers. Also Hornbeck's memorandum, 3 October 1942, Hornbeck Papers, box 180.\n\n• Ballantine's diary in Ballantine Papers (Hoover Institute, Stanford University), box 1. Also see Tung Hsien-kuang, Chiang Tsung-t'ung ch’uan (Biography of Chiang Kai-shek; Taipei, 1954), II, pp. 343-4; and B. W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 (New York, 1971), p. 352.\n\n'Hornbeck's memorandum, 20 May 1942, op. cit.\n\n8 The two sets of statistics are available in Hornbeck Papers, box 466 and box 467 respectively.\n\n\"Thorne, op. cit., pp. 175-6.\n\n1o Announcement of the loan was made on 1 February, but the agreement was not signed until 21 March. For details of the loan and its use during subsequent years, see Department of State, United States Relations with China (hereafter US and China; Washington, 1949), pp. 470-71.\n\n11 Hornbeck's autobiography, Hornbeck Papers, box 497.\n\n12 For more details, see US and China, p. 37,\n\n1a Madame Chiang, however, was intensely disliked by Roosevelt's household staff at Hyde Park who found her \"arrogant and overbearing\", W. D. Hassett, then aide to President Roosevelt, Off the Record with F.D.R. (Rutgers University Press, 1958), pp. 181-2, 288.\n\n14 For text of the relevant treaty between the United States and China, see US and China, pp. 514-7.\n\n15 For more details, see ibid., p. 37.\n\n1 Chinese leaders freely expressed their anti-British sentiments to the Americans; see, for example, H. Morgenthan, Morgenthau Diary (China; Washington, 1965), II, pp. 862-895.\n\n17 Minute of Sir John Brenan, a veteran official in the Far Eastern Department of the British Foreign Office, on Anglo-Chinese relations since the outbreak of the Pacific War, 3 November 1942, Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 371/31627.\n\n18 For elaboration on this point, see author's article, \"The Abrogation of British Extraterritoriality in China 1942-43: A Study of Anglo-American Chinese Relations\", Modern Asian Studies, 11, 2 (1977), pp. 262-3.\n\n19 Thorne, op. cit., p. 195.\n\n20 Details of the British discussion leading to the invitation are available in FO 371/31627. The British government was understandably embarrassed by the Chinese response. Ashley Clarke, an official in the Far Eastern Department, confided this point to Stanley Hornbeck, his opposite number in the Department of State. See Hornbeck's attempt to explain for Madame Chiang, Hornbeck to Clarke, strictly confidential, 27 February 1943, Hornbeck Papers, box 467.\n\n21 Thorne, op. cit., p. 161.\n\n22 \"The Hong Kong Question during the Pacific War (1941-45)\", p. 58.",
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    {
        "id": 208588,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 45,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "18\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\n23 W. Range, Franklin D. Roosevelt's World Order (University of Georgia Press; 1959), p. 105.\n\n24 This is according to the observation of Ashley Clarke, head of the Far Eastern Department in the British Foreign Office, during his one month visit to the Department of State early in the summer of 1942; see his report on his visit to A. Eden, secretary of state for foreign affairs, 11 June 1942, FO371/31804. See also Ministry of Information to Colonial Office, 22 October 1942, communicated to the Foreign Office, FO371/31774.\n\n25 \"The Abrogation of British Extraterritoriality in China 1942-43: A Study of Anglo-American-Chinese Relations\", pp. 266-272.\n\n26 Brenan's minute, 3 December, on J. G. Winant, American ambassador to London, to Eden, 2 December 1942, FO371/31664.\n\n27 Eden to Winant, 7 December 1942, in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), China, 1942 (Washington, 1956), p. 390.\n\n28 \"The Abrogation of British Extraterritoriality in China 1942-43: A Study of Anglo-American-Chinese Relations\", op. cit., pp. 284-5.\n\n29 Ibid., pp. 287-8.\n\n30 Ibid., pp. 288-9.\n\n31 War cabinet conclusions 173 (42), 28 December 1942, Cab65/28. Also Eden to Winant, 29 December; and Eden to Lord Halifax, British ambassador to Washington, tel. 8264, immediate, 29 December 1942, FO371/31665.\n\n32 Thorne, op. cit., p. 179, and note 53, p. 198, referring to G. Atcheson to Hornbeck, 29 December 1942, Department of State, Decimal and Other Files, National Archives (Washington D.C.) 793.003/12-2942.\n\n33 W. L. Tung in his book V. K. Wellington Koo and China's Wartime Diplomacy (New York, 1977), based on the Wellington Koo Papers deposited with Columbia University, gives a possible explanation: \"Koo was then Chinese Ambassador to Great Britain and returned to Chungking for consultations. As an experienced diplomat well familiar with the attitude of British official and unofficial circles, he counselled the government to conclude the treaty on the relinquishment of extraterritoriality but reserve the right of later negotiations on the Kowloon question”, p. 53.\n\n34 Halifax to Eden, tel. 6310, immediate, 31 December 1942, FO371/35679.\n\n35 \"The Hong Kong Question during the Pacific War (1941-45)\", pp. 58-68.\n\n34 Ibid., p. 68.\n\n*7 See memorandum in Hornbeck Papers, box 466.\n\n** Cordell Hull, secretary of state, to United States chargé d'affaires in London, tel., 4 April 1943, in FRUS, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, The Far East, 1943 (Washington, 1963), III, pp. 46-7. Also see R. E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York, 1948), p. 707.\n\n30 For American interest in India, especially early in the war, see for example, M. S. Venkatramani and B. K. Shrivastava, \"The United States and the Cripps Mission\", India Quarterly, XIX, no. 3 (July-September, 1963), pp. 214-65. See also author's article, \"Britain's Reaction to Chiang\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46",
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    {
        "id": 208589,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "page_number": 46,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n19\n\nK'ai-shek's Visit to India, February 1942\", The Australian Journal of History and Political Science, XXI, no. 2 (1975), pp. 52-61, in which the American attitude is discussed.\n\n40 Memorandum by Hopkins, 15 March 1943, in FRUS, the British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, 1943, III, p. 17.\n\n41 Sherwood, op. cit., p. 719, and H. C. Allen, Great Britain and the United States (London, 1954), p. 828.\n\n42 For a summary of the allied military situation at the end of 1943, see J. M. Burns, Roosevelt: the Lion and the Fox (New York, 1956), p. 464. **Hornbeck to Ashley Clarke, 16 December 1943(?), in Hornbeck Papers, box 469.\n\n44 Hornbeck's autobiography, op. cit.\n\n46 Hornbeck's memorandum, 15 November, on his conversation with Churchill, Hornbeck Papers, box 468.\n\n10\n\n16 Hornbeck to Hull, 3 January 1944; also see Hornbeck's memorandum, 3 December 1943, Hornbeck Papers, box 181.\n\n47 C. Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York, 1948), II, p. 1599, 4 Hornbeck's autobiography, op. cit., and J. Bishop, FDR's Last Year (New York, 1974), p. 40.\n\n**E. Roosevelt, As He Saw It (New York, 1946), pp. 163-4, 203-4, 249-50; J. T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth (New York, 1948), p. 349; Hull, op. cit., II, p. 1596; and T. H. White (ed.), The Stilwell Papers (New York, 1976), p. 252. Stilwell was summoned to the conference to discuss China.\n\n50 See SWNCC III, secret, 17 April 1945, in ABC 014 Japan (13 April 44) see 32, National Archives.\n\n01 See minutes of the meeting in FRUS, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945 (Washington, 1955), p. 769. Also F. L. Loewenheim (ed.), Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (New York, 1975), p. 656.\n\n52 FRUS, ibid., pp. 664-5, 676.\n\n53\n\n58 Thorne, op. cit., p. 549.\n\n54 Tung, op. cit., p. 61.\n\n55 Bishop, op. cit., p. 95.\n\n56 Division of Public Liaison and Office of Public Information, Department of State, \"Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion on International Affairs\", Survey no. 13, confidential, 18 October, Survey no. 14, confidential, 6 November, and Survey no. 15, confidential, 20 November 1944.\n\n57 Examples of these booklets are: \"The British Commonwealth and Empire\" (May 1944), and \"Britain and Japan\" (June 1944).\n\n**See paragraph six of the Chapter of the Combined Civil Affairs Committee at Washington, FO371/46251.\n\n**SWNCC 111, 17 April 1945, op. cit.\n\nSWNCC 111, 17 April 1945, ibid.\n\n61 SWNCC 111/2, top secret, 14 June 1945, in ABC 014 Japan (13 April 44) see 32.",
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