RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938
16

CHAN KIT-CHENG

American and British representatives would be invited to participate. After the surrender he would authorize the British to land troops for the reoccupation of Hong Kong.37 In a private letter in reply to Chiang, Truman reiterated that his decision was in no way related to the question of British sovereignty in Hong Kong.68

Chiang Kai-shek remained reluctant to concede the main point. However, he realized that he needed American aid in getting his forces to Hong Kong. Consequently, he communicated a further compromise to Truman on 23 August: he had notified the British that, as supreme commander of the China theatre, he agreed to delegate his authority to a British commander to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in Hong Kong.69 Although Truman regarded Chiang's concession as "quite reasonable" and hoped that it would settle the matter,70 it was not acceptable to Britain. While he deplored the Sino-British friction, Truman clearly did not contemplate taking further action.71 It was therefore a relief both to Britain and the United States that Chiang eventually accepted Britain's revised offer that Harcourt accept Japan's surrender on behalf of both Britain and Chiang as supreme commander of the China theatre.72

Hong Kong was thus reverted to British rule, much as the Americans, both in official and unofficial circles, had clamoured against during the Pacific War. Such clamouring, especially during the first half of the war, no doubt troubled the British and encouraged the Chinese. But, in the main, American wartime policy, if one can at all speak of a conscious and consistent policy, regarding the postwar status of Hong Kong had been characterized by much talk and little action. "Hopes", "wishes", "opinions", "views" were abundantly expressed to Britain, but little can be said of direct and persistent American pressure on the subject.

NOTES

1 Author's article, "The Question of Hong Kong during the Pacific War, (1941-45)”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, II, no. 1 (October 1973), pp. 56-78.

2 C. Thorne, Allies of a Kind (London, 1978), p. 156.

3 Thorne, ibid., pp. 172-3, referring to opinions cited in the New York Times, the Chicago Daily News, and the Christian Science Monitor.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p
117

Li Yunchang, "The Role of Chinese Lawyers," Beijing Review, 1980, 46 (Nov. 27) 24-25.

For a translation of the original Decision see Jerome Cohen, The Criminal Process in the People's Republic of China, 1949-63 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 249-50. For a translation of the 1979 resolution see "Supplementary Regulations of the State Council on Rehabilitation Through Labor," Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: PRC, Nov. 30, 1979.

15 For a rather favorable report on one aspect of the programme, see Wei Min, “Reforming Criminals,” Beijing Review, 1981, No. 8 (Feb. 23), 22-29.

16 See Bryan Johnson, "China Dissidents Fall through Crack in New Legal Code," Christian Science Monitor, Jun. 18, 1979: 1, Jay Mathews, "Chinese revive labor camps for youthful dissidents," Washington Post, Jun. 1, 1980, Al and Fox Butterfield, "Hundreds of Thousands Toil in Chinese Labor Camps," New York Times, Jan. 3, 1981, 1,4.

17 According to a New China News Agency report at the time of the conviction of the dissident Wei Jingsheng in October 1979, one of the charges levelled against him is that he had violated these specific provisions of the Constitution. See US, China Review, 4.2 (Mar-Apr. 1980), 8.

18 The Chinese text of the new Constitution was published in the Renmin ribao, Dec. 5, 1982. For a translation see Beijing Review, 1982, 50 (Dec. 27), 10-29.

20 Peng Zhen, "Report on the Draft of the Revised Constitution of the People's Republic of China," Beijing Review, 1982, 50 (Dec. 13), 10-11.
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