[ { "id": 211588, "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", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 3, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Page 8\n\n# ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1989-90\n\n## Summary\n\nThe past year has seen momentous events in China, and in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Those in China naturally concerned us most. The Council met specially to consider and send a letter of concern to the British Government following the Tienanmen Square massacre.\n\nHere in Hong Kong, the Society continued to arrange as many talks and local tours as possible. We know that there is a great demand for places on local tours, and have therefore done our best to arrange events for which there need be no limitation on numbers. These included large-scale visits to places on Hong Kong Island, and to the site of the replacement airport at Tung Chung. On the latter, well over 200 Members, their families and friends were able to participate.\n\nTwo publications have been received from the printer this year. The book, The Turning of the Tide: Religion in China Today, in association with Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, was published at the end of 1989, and Vol. 27 of the Journal is now in print. Our current Hon. Editor, Dr. Patrick Hase, taking over the work already done by Professor David Faure, has promised the 1988 issue over the Summer. A start on the 1989 volume has also been made.\n\nThe Council continues to work through its committees and office bearers. The Activities Committee is the busiest of those established a few years ago, following the 1987 Symposium on the Future of the Society in Hong Kong, but the others are in being and take action as and when appropriate.\n\nMembership continues to grow, and communication becomes increasingly important. Thanks to Anita Wilson, the Newsletter keeps us all in touch with the programmes and provides other information of interest to Members.\n\n## Membership\n\nMrs. Bruce, our Assistant Secretary, tells me that 119 persons have\n\nPage 9", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212404, "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", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 346, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "323\n\nattitudes towards China and Japan is equally poor. He shows little appreciation of the effective American acquiescence in Japanese expansion during most of the 1930s, nor of the manner in which private American investments in and commerce with Japan undercut the professed United States policy of building up China. He gives one little sense of the dynamics of the inter-relationship between domestic American politics and the government's role in the Far East, nor of the manner in which the international crises in Europe and the Pacific were interconnected. To judge by the sources cited in the notes, he did not consult the works of Irvine H. Anderson, Jr., Roberta A. Dayer, Michael H. Hunt, Jerry Israel, David Reynolds, Jonathan G. Utley, or Paul A. Varg, but relied largely on a traditional and dated interpretation of United States policies towards both Japan and China. One hopes that, should a second edition appear, these chapters will be rewritten to take these factors into account.\n\nHappily, Dudden escapes from these doldrums to give a workmanlike account of the familiar territory of the Pacific War, the effect of the developing Cold War, the American occupation of Japan, the Communist takeover of China, and American intervention in Korea and Vietnam. This was the period in which American involvement in the Pacific region increased exponentially, so that by the mid-1950s the United States was the guarantor of the security of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and most of the Southeast Asian nations, and had bases scattered through the Pacific. While he does not, perhaps, bring out the theme of the extent to which American policies in Asia were generated by considerations arising from developments in Europe, his survey is solid and thorough. One may perhaps regret that he apparently did not make use of recent works by such scholars as Bruce Cumings, Rosemary Foot, and Christopher Thorne, but his coverage of the period of maximum American military commitment to Asia is essentially sound.\n\nDudden's final chapter, on the 1970s and 1980s, is inevitably inconclusive. The growing United States tendency to turn inwards and concentrate on the country's own domestic problems; the commercial rivalry with its ally and protégé Japan, and to some extent with South Korea and Taiwan; the love-hate relationship between America and China, particularly since the Tiananmen Square Incident of June 1989; the ambivalent relationship between the United States and the Philippines, still fatally ready to make their old colonial sovereign", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213334, "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", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "138\n\nredevelopment, and spoke to each group in turn on their history and background. The first time around, a small donation had turned away the indignation of an old female resident, who had noisily enquired what we were up to. Also, we were entertained on each occasion by the Kowloon City Kaifong Association in its office inside the City, and given its side of the story.\n\nThe opportunity would not recur. At the time of writing (June 1994), all the buildings within the Walled City boundary (less those of historic interest) have been demolished and their residents compensated and rehoused, and a four-week long archaeological investigation has been completed, uncovering the inscribed granite slab over the old South Gate.25\n\nOther Aspects of the Society\n\nTwo Letters\n\nThe RAS has seldom been politically motivated. On the rare occasions that we have made representations to the authorities, this was done to support some worthy public cause, like the need for a proper Museum of History.26 The only occasion on which the Society has campaigned vigorously on a local issue has been in the past few years, against the government's intended removal of the Public Records of Hong Kong to Tuen Mun New Town, and to press in lieu for a more suitable premises in a convenient location.27\n\nHowever, on two other occasions, in the exceptional circumstances of the time, special representations were made on behalf of the Society, because in both cases Hong Kong's future was seen to be involved. Following the Tiananmen Square incident in mid-1989, which threw Hong Kong into an emotional turmoil the like of which had never been seen, the RAS Council met to discuss the position. It was decided to send a letter to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, urging it to stand firm in its dealings with Beijing, in the interests of Hong Kong and its people. **Sad to say, there was no response; and despite sending a follow-up copy some weeks after, not even so much as an acknowledgment. In the second instance, again in 1989 and just before the period allowed for public comment on the draft Basic Law had elapsed, in my capacity as President of the Society, I sent a personal letter to the Chairman of the Consultative Committee for the Basic Law, Later reproduced in the RAS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]