RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653
GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN HONG KONG 1841 1962 97

public eye the cases of those who might otherwise have no idea how to put their case before the Government. But it remains true, as Mr. Endacott implicitly concedes, that Government has only a general idea of the currents of opinion at the lower end of the social scale.

It is generally assumed that the vast majority of Chinese are more concerned with making a regular living than with politics, and the negative evidence (for there is little positive) confirms it; but it could be that people are simply unaware of how to make their demands and needs felt and in general prefer not to tangle with officialdom. In the New Territories the representation system, the District Offices, and the relative smallness of the population means that Government and people are reasonably in touch; in town there is scarcely any way for the man in the street to make his needs and aspirations felt.

And yet, the fact is that it does seem to work. Policy-makers in the Administration do seem by and large to be aware that colonialism is an anachronism, and their attitudes are modified accordingly. Expatriate civil servants are not immune to the currents of thought prevalent in the nineteen sixties, and for the most part are young enough to take for granted in their own country the universal franchise, compulsory free education for all, extensive social services and very considerable personal freedom. And these are generally regarded as the ideal, if unlikely ever to be possible in the context of Hong Kong. Post-war trends of thought have produced a rather different type of colonial bureaucrat from those who, for instance, reserved The Peak exclusively for European habitation.

Constitutional advance in Hong Kong was originally scheduled to keep pace, more or less, with what the British Government intended in other colonies. The war would have hastened on the process, had there been no change of government in China. The U.S. Government would have preferred Hong Kong to be restored to Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese themselves hoped that this might be the case. In the event, the surrender was accepted by both Chinese and British, but Britain, under the Charter of the United Nations, was committed to leading colonial territories towards self-government. It is rather a pity that no
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
228 

MAURICE FREEDMAN 

a stretch of water (the sea). The Green Dragon is satisfactory, but the White Tiger is imperfect; there is a break in the line of the hills through which too much wind can pass; so that the whole configuration, while being good, falls short of being a perfect embrace. For that reason Sun enjoyed power but not for long. A stream runs obliquely across the valley robbing the grave of its virtue in respect of money; Sun was poor. In the sea below there are several small islands which are to be taken as warships, some of them sailing out into the open sea, showing Sun's desertion by his armed forces. Finally, there appears in the distance just over the line of the White Tiger, the peak of another hill; such a feature means robbery-Sun was kidnapped. The site explains Sun's career (or some version of it) and justifies the geomancer who predicted that Mrs. Sun's son would be a king. 

This simple case illustrates two systems of analysis being employed together; the system of metaphysical forces composing a site, and the system of resemblances, the latter being invoked to interpret the islands. But the chief interest of the case lies in the example it offers of retrospective interpretation. Geomancy is a self-reinforcing system of ideas. What is predicted must always come true, because what is foretold is vague, or inevitable, or subject to frustrations which deny a part of the system or the competence of a particular practitioner without damaging the system as a whole. Retrospectively it can be demonstrated to be valid because the material can be read in a number of different ways to justify any collection of events. Moreover, the existence of prosperity by itself presupposes that it has been produced by fung shui, and failure to detect the precise reasons why the fung shui has operated so well leaves it in the realm of knowledge which in principle can be obtained but for the moment, because of lack of expertise, remains inaccessible. (One geomancer told me that Mr. Mao Tse-tung's mother is buried in a good fung shui. And he added, perhaps for political symmetry, that General Chiang Kai-shek also enjoys geomantic benefits, the fall in his fortunes being due to the operation of the cycle which governs all affairs. Retrospective fung shui is illustrated also in the traditions of the Tang clan. When the Sung princess who married a Tang in the twelfth century became old a famous geomancer chose a fung shui for her which resembled a lion, asking her whether she preferred to be buried in the lion's head or tail. 'She asked what difference it would make, and she was told that if
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938
THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45

15

urgent consent of the United States Chiefs of Staff to detach a British naval force from the British Pacific Fleet to accept Japan's surrender and assume full powers of military administration in the colony.63 The Japanese accepted defeat on 14 August. However, the British Pacific Fleet assigned for service at Hong Kong, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt, did not arrive until 30 August. During this interval of a fortnight, the question of Hong Kong sorely tried the British government and placed the United States government in an uncomfortable position.

Hong Kong again became a serious point of contention between Britain and China. This time the argument was not whose sovereignty was to be set up but who was to receive Japan's surrender there. Despite the assurances given by Chiang Kai-shek on 16 August, and repeated on 24 August, that China had "no territorial ambitions" in Hong Kong and regarded it "as a matter which would require eventual settlement through diplomatic channel", the British Foreign and Colonial Offices insisted that Sir Cecil Harcourt receive Japan's surrender on behalf of Britain by virtue of her sovereignty over Hong Kong.64

The prime minister, now C.R. Attlee, appealed to the American president for assistance. Fortunately for Britain, Truman, who had assumed the presidency on Roosevelt's death in April, was in favour of a cautious policy. While being conscious of his predecessor's views regarding the future status of Hong Kong, he, however, decided to adhere to the "recognition of the established rights", although he told both Britain and China that such recognition "did not in any way represent U.S. views regarding the future status of Hong Kong." General Douglas MacArthur was therefore instructed to arrange for the surrender of Hong Kong to the British commander.65 Again fortunately for Britain, MacArthur was known for "his support for the cause of the British Empire in the Far East." In fact in October 1944 he had specifically expressed that he "fully appreciated the need for British forces to recapture Hong Kong."66

Chiang Kai-shek, on the other hand, insisted on his right to accept Japan's surrender at Hong Kong as commander-in-chief of the China theatre. He was therefore most distressed by Truman's agreement with the British. To avoid embarrassing Truman, Chiang now suggested that the Japanese forces in Hong Kong should surrender to his representative in a ceremony in which both
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938
2

CHAN KIT-CHENG

The 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.

On 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.

M4

On 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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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938
THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45

Far 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

Under 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.

It 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,

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CHAN KIT-CHENG

Cairo Conference at the end of 1943, Roosevelt offered Chiang Kai-shek, behind Churchill's back, American support in preventing Britain from getting back Hong Kong if Chiang would cooperate with the communists in fighting against Japan and establish a representative government in China. Roosevelt's idea was that on regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong, Chiang should "make a grand gesture and make it a free port."49 At Teheran in November 1943, during a break in the Cairo Conference, Roosevelt raised with Churchill the question of the possible return of Hong Kong to China, and the latter refused even to discuss the question.50

At his secret meeting with Stalin during the Yalta Conference, on 8 February 1945, Roosevelt again mentioned his hope "that the British would give back the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China and that it would then become an internationalized free port." He added, however, that he knew Churchill "would have strong objections to this suggestion.” At the conference proper, however, Roosevelt did not raise the question of Britain's return of Hong Kong, although references were made to the colony on several occasions.52 Later, in the spring of 1945, Roosevelt used Bernard Baruch, a financier and a friend of both Roosevelt and Churchill, as a messenger to press the British prime minister on the matter of Hong Kong. Roosevelt was now additionally concerned that the Soviet Union might make use of Britain's presence in Hong Kong as an argument for opening a port of her own in China.53 In April 1945 when General Patrick J. Hurley was sent by Roosevelt to talk with Churchill over the retrocession of Hong Kong to China, among other subjects, the latter replied that the colony would not be yielded "over [his] dead body."54 The truth is that already by 1944 Roosevelt had become increasingly reluctant to offend the sensitivity of Churchill who by then was no longer "subservient to the friendly strength of the United States" as he clearly had been in 1941-42.55

Britain was not slow to perceive the American weakness. Moreover, by 1944 American enthusiasm about China and Chiang Kai-shek had somewhat cooled down. Roosevelt, as it has been mentioned, had for some time been troubled by the disunity between the nationalists and the communists, and by growing criticism of the autocracy of the Chiang regime. Discussion and criticism of the Chungking government and its conduct of the war increased remarkably in the United States following the American recall of General Joseph Stilwell under pressure from Chiang Kai-shek,56
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
126

D.L. MICHALK

by governors and generals striving to grasp independent power, and China was plunged into bloody civil war. Guangdong Province, the birth-place of the republican movement, immediately proclaimed itself independent. Sun Yat-sen, the "Father of the Republic", was elected generalissimo, and in 1924 the Kuomintang (the People's Party) was formed. Upon the death of Dr. Sun in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek, backed by his modernized army, emerged as the Kuomintang (KMT) leader, and with assistance from Communist factions began campaigns against the north which culminated in the fall of Shanghai in 1927.

Choosing not to expropriate the capitalist bankers in Shanghai as demanded by the Communists, the KMT and Communists became bitter rivals which re-ignited armed struggle in south China. Fuelled by Communist propaganda, there came a genuine uprising of the peasantry against the KMT for failure to deliver promised tax and land reforms throughout the southern provinces. As part of this general uprising, the first group of “freedom fighters" appeared on Hainan in 1927 and staged guerilla warfare on the island until Liberation, twenty-three years later (Fairfax-Cholmeley, 1963).

Although armed conflicts between Peking and southern forces had occurred previously on Hainan such as those which led to the capitulation of General Lung's army in 1918 (Moninger, 1919), fighting was confined to the soldiery. However, the Communist tactics brought the conflict to the common citizens by inciting peasants to take up arms against the oppressive gentry and greedy merchants. The effects of lightning raids caused havoc in northern Hainan: numerous villages were abandoned, others sacked and reduced to ash-strewn rubble, and large tracts of farming land were deserted (McClure, 1934b).

In fact, the revolutionary play, Red Detachment of Women, was loosely based on incidents which occurred in Hainan in 1931. At a bridge about one kilometre south of the present Xinglong Overseas Chinese State Farm, a guerilla band led by Hong Chang-qing assassinated Nan Ba-tian, a cruel landlord. In reprisal, the landlord's forces captured and executed the guerilla leader. However, a slave girl, Wu Qing-hua, took his place as commander and
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h
64

on earth had induced me to make such an appalling selection of colours. When I explained that the selection had very kindly been made by Mrs. L..... the temperature quickly rose to boiling point. As the ladies said, "Why, Mrs. L. . . . hardly ever comes to the Club; and she never plays bridge". I beat a hasty retreat to drown my sorrows at the bar, and soon after found it convenient to give up bridge altogether.

In the Club the consumption of liquids, refreshing or otherwise, varied. Sometimes it led to peculiar situations. There was the occasion in 1924 I think when late one night the two other members of the Municipal Council, by which the small affairs of the Concession were managed, took offence at the vinous truculence of their Chairman, and called in the police to remove him to cool his heels in the cells. Unfortunately the two strong-minded, but junior, members of the Council on the following morning, when they awoke refreshed by a night of comfort at home in bed, had quite forgotten the events of the previous evening; and it was not till later in the day, after he had himself come to, that they received a plaintive reminder from their Chairman requesting that he might be released from his own police cells.

Throughout the period of 1911-1926 the Treaty Ports, such as Kiu Kiang, provided harbours of refuge, to whose security hundreds of thousands of Chinese threatened by the tide of civil war, fled.

Kiu Kiang had had its share of recent disturbances. For Sun Yat Sen, having applied to British officials for help and having met with a refusal, based on the correct British attitude of non-interference in the internal affairs of a friendly country, had turned to Russia. Michael Borodin with a group of Bolshevik advisers had consequently proceeded to Canton to advise the Kuo Min Tang Revolutionary Party and there, with consummate skill, had created the intellectual cohesion necessary to the effort of unifying China. Borodin appealed to the deep-seated exclusive instincts of the sons of Han, the inhabitants of a kingdom, which from time immemorial had been called the Middle Kingdom, because all other peoples existed only in outer darkness.

The instrument was the Chinese Revolutionary Army, led by officers indoctrinated with Kuo Min Tang ideology at the Whampoa Military Academy, of which General Chiang Kai Shek was principal. By October of 1926 this army, fighting staunchly through incredible hardships against
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989
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74

Concession". We even opened offices on board and transacted business, which for the most part was concerned with collecting monies due against outstanding accounts. A large proportion of the foreign import trade with China was done on a basis whereby credit was allowed to the Chinese merchant, until he in his turn had time to collect the proceeds of the sale from the final customer or consumer. The foreigner thus injected into the stream of Chinese trade a stimulant, which was certainly not without advantage to the recipient.

The disturbances at Kiu Kiang and Hankow received world-wide publicity, and led to the Chen-O'Malley negotiations under which it was agreed to return these two Concessions to China. Photographs had been taken of the looted interiors of the houses in Kiu Kiang, providing evidence, which could not be refuted, of the damage; and the new Chinese government of General Chiang Kai Shek agreed to pay compensation of 40,000 dollars, Chinese currency,

On March 24th part of the Revolutionary Army under General Cheng Chien entered Nanking, and there looted and committed excesses, which included the murder of several American and British subjects, the violating of women, and the wounding of the British consul. To cover the escape of the remaining foreigners, who were being attacked in a house on Socony ridge, British and American cruisers, from the river, put down a barrage round the hill. These demonstrations of uncivilised behaviour, coming on top of the incidents at Kiu Kiang and Hankow, caused the Revolutionary Government a severe loss of face.

A few days after, a split occurred between the conservative wing of the Kuo Min Tang party, led by Chiang Kai Shek, and the Russian influenced Communist elements. In Shanghai some thousands of Communists, who had provided the spearhead for the almost bloodless occupation of the Chinese city, were executed or murdered through the agency of two powerful secret societies, the Green "tong" and the Red "tong", with whom Chiang Kai Shek appears to have had a close affiliation.

Other members of the Kuo Min Tang, who had remained with the seat of government at Hankow, where Russian influence was strongest, declared their wing of the Kuo Min Tang to be the only legitimate one, and they proceeded to expel Chiang Kai Shek from its ranks. They were, however, unable to carry the army with them, and by July the situation
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
89

CHINA ON THE BRINK OF WAR*

Nanking 1937

P. H. MUNRO-FAURE

In 1937 my business took me to Nanking, to which the government of General Chiang Kai Shek had some time previously removed the capital. His government was now known as the "Central" government, not so much to distinguish it from other governments which might pretend to a share of control at the fringes, but rather to identify it with all China; for the character "chung", which in the past had been translated "middle", as in "Middle Kingdom", was used by the Chinese to represent their country. Thus historically the translation "China" government would have been more accurate than "Central" government.

This government in the ten short years from 1927 had achieved the most astonishing improvements. It had certainly not attained standards of nation-wide control, justice, individual freedom, fair taxation, or even public works, of the excellence taken for granted in the more advanced democracies of the west, but it had given ample proof of a capacity for progress.

One weakness in the Chinese administrative system had been the failure to separate the judicature from the executive. The magistrate who tried a case also prosecuted, and then carried out the sentence. The system, of course, gave rise to many abuses. But now a beginning was made with the establishment of independent courts, known as "Modern" courts, whose officials had purely judicial functions. These courts were still few in number, the judges were inexperienced, and because they were very poorly paid they were open to corruption; but it was a sound beginning.

Similarly the lack of a stable civil service had meant that whenever an official was changed, whether, for instance, the magistrate of a country district, or the Commissioner in charge of the former Concession at Kiu Kiang, or the Minister for War, the new man

* This is the second extract of Col. P.H. Munro-Faure's Memoirs. See the Editor's Note at p 61, Vol. 29. [Editor]
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993
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++

Very often, we designate terms such as “family”, “social class”, "teachers", "experts”, “democrats”, “Tibetans”, “Chinese”, “Americans” etc to delineate a social aggregate. It is because members in a group share some functional commonality, ascribed or achieved. They share some norms and beliefs which bind them together. They hence behave in a way as expected from a member in that particular group. If face is bounded by the three elements of status, role performance and moral conduct, then there is no reason why a group cannot have the right to a face basing on the status, role performance and moral conduct of its members in general.

Furthermore, if members in the family share the same properties, status, prestige, outlook, surname, moral codes and a face in an ascribed manner, then there is no reason why members in a nation, sharing the land, the physical features, the economic achievement, political rights and so on, cannot share a face as well. The picture seems that there can hardly be any argument against leaving open the limit to the size and scope of a social aggregate within which its members can share a face. Face, theoretically speaking, can be societal, racial, national, continental and if interaction opens up among planets, planetary.

While a global face may appear surreal, the hypothesis upon the presence of a nation's face may not. In fact, some scholars have found that an individual's sense of self may vary according to the prosperity or poverty of the nation to which the individual belongs (Volkan, 1985: 231). If an individual's face correlates with an image of self, as in Goffman's definition, then there is reason to believe in a relation between an individual's face with the fortunes of the nation in which he is embedded.

People may share a sense of self, rising and falling, insofar as their nation does so. People may share a face, prestigious or notorious, dignified or unscrupulous, if that is what their nation appears. Images of nations are nothing new in the social sciences. Many scholars have already studied them. What is awaited from scholars is the research on a nation's image with a focus on the concept of face.

Moreover, a nation's face does not seem to be an irrelevant topic of study and particularly regarding China. King and Myers have pointed out that the primary source of identity of people in the country has gradually shifted from family or village to nation. They have reported Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek as speaking of a nation's face and the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
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192

funded for the temple.

A logical progression, though always thought impossible in Mainland China, has been the deification of the late Chairman Mao. In Taiwan we have seen images of Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen on altars, revered as are the scores of historical worthies and heroes, but the thought that one day an image of Mao Tse-tung would grace the altar of a Chinese temple was so far fetched as to be ludicrous. None the less, Reuters printed a picture of a peasant in a rural temple in northern Shansi in early 1996 standing before a life-size image of Mao on the altar. Another sighting, of the small white bust of Mao on a household altar in a village on the banks of a river in the upper reaches of Yünnan province during the summer of 1997, was easily explained. The altar bore no other images and it was through this village and across the village's bridge, during the Long March, that the Chinese Red Army passed leaving behind a strong folk memory.

Mao, it must be remembered, was revered as a god in his lifetime, with cadres and Red Guards bowing before his image during the Cultural Revolution, and reporting the day's activities. And it has not been uncommon for taxi drivers in some of the major cities during the late 1980s and early 1990s to carry pictures of Mao suspended from their rear-view mirror as a protective amulet, though this has been more of a gimmick, but the idea of a statue of Mao on the altar in present day China is still astounding.

What is less strange, perhaps, is the description of a Mao image being carried at the head of a religious procession in Fukien province, providing "legality" for this ritual procession of deities. Posters portraying the main Central political leaders were also borne aloft at the head of the procession.3

No doubt there have been zealous cadres carrying out the anti-feudal, iconoclastic purges following the party line and, recalling the clue provided in the report on Hupei, it would seem more than likely that the large number of illegal temples and shrines destroyed are in fact the small rural shrines dedicated to the Earth God which farmers have in their fields. By and large, it has been quite obvious that in general people will continue to go to temples to offer prayers and incense, and that temples and the deities will thrive, or possibly simply survive.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000
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29

not only by the white races but the coloured ones as well. Being by birth Eurasian, she made an only too easy and vulnerable target from both sides. In volume three of her epic autobiographical/historical cycle, Birdless Summer, explicit and abundant evidence is provided of almost unsurpassable difficulties in her first marriage to a Chinese aristocrat, chauvinist and Chiang Kai Shek general, due to her half-European roots. Let us quote just a short and very mild passage from Chapter Four, introducing us to this serious and later on gradually growing problem:

It was on this journey that Pao's [the Chinese husband's] friends began to tease him about me. When we stopped at night they would comment about my looks... "There is foreign blood in her, one can see that..."

“Not at all, she is pure Chinese," retorted Pao. As if it was not written on my face that I was a Eurasian!

The greatest resonance of Han Suyin's artistic prose, echoed in the field of film-making also, was attained by a tragic love story, entitled A Many-Splendoured Thing (later made into the motion picture Love is a Many Splendored Thing by Twentieth Century Fox with Jennifer Jones and William Holden in the leading roles). It describes a great love affair between the author (then a medical doctor in Hong Kong) and Ian Morrison, a foreign correspondent of the London Times. This sublime love affair, perhaps the greatest in the whole of Han Suyin's life, lasted several months only and was tragically ended by Ian's front-line death in Korea, when reporting on the Korean war. The love affair was also a scandal in Hong Kong society of the early fifties, when interracial amorous ties were still considered improper and an attempt on the divine social order. Where they occurred, they were rationalised as the virtuous white man, assiduously corrupted by a sly coloured female of loose conduct.

Han Suyin can indisputably be regarded as a reliable eye-witness and a true expert in the most subtle and often confounding issues arising from colonialism. Her painfully sober judgement is highly impressive. I myself very frequently return to fragments of Chapter Ten from The Crippled Tree, very eloquent about the colonial powers' cunning attempts to win ‘native' hearts and minds. Here is one fragment:
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laconically states that, even on what was actually his honeymoon visit, Boxer had not lost his 'powers of observation.' 

In accordance with the policy of withdrawing resources to Singapore, supposedly an impregnable fortress, the FECB was downscaled and most of its men and resources moved. Boxer was promoted to Major, with a small staff, which included his close friend and best man, Alf Bennett. Ironically, this gave him greater flexibility to use his own initiative. 

4 

Unable to make much headway with London, Boxer flew to Chongqing to see the British Ambassador, Sir Alexander Clarke-Kerr. Boxer then made contacts with key figures in the Chinese military. He was received by none other than General Dai Li, head of the formidable Juntong or Bureau of Statistics and Military Intelligence. After the Generalissimo himself, to whom his loyalty was almost feudal, General Dai was perhaps the most powerful man in China. An extremely shrewd strategic thinker, he was in many ways the power behind the throne. His organisation, fiercely secretive and ruthless, has been described as a sort of Chinese Gestapo, prepared to use any means, including murder, to achieve its aims. Dai was fanatically devoted to Chiang Kai Shek, and shaped the Juntong to be a dreaded political as well as military machine, spying on all perceived enemies of the state, Communists and fellow Guomindang as well as Japanese. The Juntong organisation was highly effective, operating through cells united by family and social bonds, whose members were expected to subsume all private needs to the pursuance of state aims, however lethal. It has been demonstrated that General Dai and his followers modelled themselves on folk heroes from Chinese history who operated through secret societies and who believed that extreme action such as assassination, was justified in the interests of the common good. Dai was known to be anti-western, for he believed that western countries with their imperialist policies were the cause of China's humiliation, and were exploiting its weakness for their own aims. Many assumed that Dai's anti-British stance was on the personal embarrassment of having been mysteriously arrested in Hong Kong, thus conveniently sidestepping questions raised by decades of opium and gunboats. Dai also believed that any western country operating in China should function under Chinese control, an idea anathema to westerners used to extraterritoriality and getting their own terms. Boxer, however, found Dai co-operative and willing to ...

based
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talk, but was well aware of Dai's sinister "Blueshirts," and thought it wise to return somewhat evasive and non-committal replies since terrorist activities would only be a source of embarrassment to us at present. Still, he held open the prospect that Dai's 'local agents may come in useful later as a check on fifth columnists and pro-Wang Ching Wei activists.'*

Boxer also met a Chinese general whom he described as an 'exceptionally well-educated and much travelled individual who speaks fluent German and English in addition to being a famous classical scholar.' This was General Yu Ta Wei, who had amassed a huge store of ordnance seized from the Japanese, photos of Japanese weapons and bases, other material both of a military and intelligence nature, and chillingly, evidence that the Japanese were using chemical warfare against the Chinese. This he candidly showed Boxer, who was concerned enough to recommend that a British technical officer be sent out to examine them. General Yu, a more cosmopolitan man than Dai, had been trained in the Prussian military academy and was an urbane, well-read man, up to date with the latest developments in Europe. He wanted to develop a munitions industry in China and needed foreign help. Boxer was meeting two of the most influential men in the Chinese hierarchy.

On the evening of 10th October 1939, the Double Tenth, that most sacred celebration in the KMT calendar, a date chosen deliberately to signal how the Chinese viewed the meeting, Boxer was ushered into the presence of the Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek. This was an important meeting, for it was perhaps the first sign that the British were making a concerted effort to help the Chinese in their long struggle with the Japanese. Boxer proposed that the Chinese and British set up a joint intelligence network to get a quicker and more efficient system of exchanging information. He proposed that a network of wireless stations be set up all along the Chinese coast from Hainan to Taiwan. Moreover, it would be financed by the British, but independently operated by Chinese to monitor Japanese troop movements. All information was to be 'equally at the disposal of Chinese and British staff,' although the Chinese could not enter the British military code system. He compounded the tribute to the Chinese war effort by suggesting that Hong Kong could learn from the efficient Chinese system of predicting air raids, whereby agents reported bombers taking
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off from distant airfields and alerted possible targets. Previously the British had depended on runners and letters delivered by junk: the advantages of tapping on to the Chinese system were obvious.

Chiang was enthusiastic, and eager to talk. British policy seemed engineered towards appeasing the Japanese. Protecting trade and British economic interests were paramount, and the fate of China and its people were seen only in the light of that primary concern. In the deafening silence of British efforts to help the Chinese, Boxer's visit, and the recent reopening of the Burma Road, must have seemed like a breakthrough in British attitudes. Boxer sensed that Chiang was 'apparently envisaging a great deal wider form of liaison than we actually had in mind.' Later, British organisations were to claim that it was Chinese hostility and the Americans who stymied their efforts in China. There is plenty to negate this assumption. Dai Li, a shrewd judge of character and not a man to suffer fools, undoubtedly had had Boxer closely observed, and would have smoothed the way for his introduction to Chiang Kai Shek. The warmth of Boxer's reception shows the Chinese were not implacably opposed to the British. Indeed, far from being anti-western per se, General Dai gave enthusiastic support later to Americans such as Captain Miles, and indeed some British SOE related agencies, who were prepared to work with the Chinese on Chinese terms.

The wireless sets were duly sent to China and installed by a Cantonese speaking SOE officer, Major Hector Chauvin, who had been attached to Boxer in December 1939 for this purpose. Chauvin travelled extensively in China setting up the stations and meeting the Chinese personnel involved. This network was a prototype. It was the first serious intelligence system in the Hong Kong region. Most importantly, the arrangement was based on trust: the Chinese had full operational control. Although the Chinese might have a different agenda to the British, it was an implicit acknowledgement that, in China, the Chinese were paramount, and that Chinese could and did run a most efficient system. The arrangement worked: The evening before the Japanese attacked Kai Tak, Phyllis Harrop, a civilian police adviser, was at a dinner party with British intelligence personnel. At 10:30 hours, they were interrupted by a sudden telephone call, advising all staff to return immediately to headquarters. Major L left immediately and Captain Bush half an hour later. Bush was an expert on extremist secret
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political understanding. Boxer's approaches to Chiang Kai Shek came at an opportune time, and might have developed into more, had circumstances so evolved. By spiriting Admiral Chan right from under the noses of the Japanese the British were making a political statement that they, too, could deliver. This was important as the Chinese had perfectly effective escape and intelligence systems of their own: General SK Yee, for example, was able to escape from Apleichau Island, even though the Japanese were almost certainly hot in pursuit and there appeared to be no means of escape for him when he was left behind, believed killed, as the two MTBs flotilla sailed away. Nonetheless to retain their credibility and their claim on Hong Kong, the British had to demonstrate their own ability to create a functional resistance and gain the respect of the Chinese.

Being realistic about defeat meant that British military strategists could plan pragmatically for occupation and resistance. It was those who clung to colonialist values who could not envisage that there might in fact be quite sophisticated planning behind the scenes. Quietly and unobtrusively, the British developed a comprehensive and effective network ready to activate as soon as the Japanese attacked. They were not "caught on the hop" by defeat by any means, nor unprepared. The groundwork was developed and networks in place and in some cases already operating. Support was brokered with the Chinese National Government and also with the Communists, and with the influential left wing faction of the KMT as well. The hinterland behind Hong Kong had been surveyed and alliances were in place to support any resistance in occupied Hong Kong. The British military may have surrendered Hong Kong on Christmas Day, but the next phase, war by other means, was poised and ready to unfold.

Change of direction

Just as refugees had poured into Hong Kong to escape the Japanese conquest of south and central China, refugees began pouring out of Hong Kong within days of the Japanese attack. Throughout January 1942, people were pouring out of Hong Kong by any form of transport they could find: some villagers reported 100 or more passing through each day. At first, the Japanese neither had the inclination to stop them, nor the apparatus in hand to organise an orderly evacuation. Even in POW camps it was easy enough even for men to discreetly remove
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trouble in Hankow might be expected, the unrest in the Atlantic Fleet, the Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and the change of Sterling from a gold basis, with its serious effect on ships' companies paid in silver, were events all calling for the closest attention.

On 18th September 1931 the Japanese Kwantung army in Manchuria, Lieut. General Shigeru Honjo, staged an incident which enabled them to allege that the Japanese owned South Manchuria Railway had been dynamited north of Mukden. Armed with this excuse, a premeditated assault was launched by them against the city of Mukden itself.

At the time the local Chinese war lord was a protégé of Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Hsueh-liang or the 'Young Marshal'. In June 1928 his father, Chang Tso-lin, the 'Old Marshal,' had been assassinated by the Japanese.

Unfortunately as a consequence of his internal conflict with the Chinese communists, Chiang Kai-shek had decided on a policy of first conquering the bandits and rebels, his euphemism for the communists. He reasoned that with these left wing groups eradicated then later he would be able to deal with the foreign, or Japanese, invaders. So it was that in order to limit the extent of what he saw as merely being an incident, he ordered the 'Young Marshal' not to actively resist the Japanese move against Mukden.

In short order the Japanese army went on to occupy the remainder of that large and rich province of Manchuria. Thus was established the region later to become their puppet state of Manchukuo.

There were two important results.

First, by their action in Manchuria, which certainly had not been sanctioned by the civilian government of Japan, the army established itself as a power within the government. No longer was every aspect of government under civilian control.

Secondly within China the people saw that China as represented by Chiang Kai-shek, had permitted Japan to occupy a part of their country. By not attempting to eject the Japanese, and so endeavouring to rally all
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