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 ================================================================================ 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 9 Hong 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 By 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, Such 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 10 CHAN KIT-CHENG had, 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 Britain'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 It 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 Hornbeck'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 + + + + ================================================================================ 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 17 ◄ Hornbeck to Cordell Hull, secretary of state, 20 May 1942, Hornbeck Papers (Hoover Institute, Stanford University), box 465. * 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. • 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. 'Hornbeck's memorandum, 20 May 1942, op. cit. 8 The two sets of statistics are available in Hornbeck Papers, box 466 and box 467 respectively. "Thorne, op. cit., pp. 175-6. 1o 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. 11 Hornbeck's autobiography, Hornbeck Papers, box 497. 12 For more details, see US and China, p. 37, 1a 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. 14 For text of the relevant treaty between the United States and China, see US and China, pp. 514-7. 15 For more details, see ibid., p. 37. 1 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. 17 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. 18 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. 19 Thorne, op. cit., p. 195. 20 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. 21 Thorne, op. cit., p. 161. 22 "The Hong Kong Question during the Pacific War (1941-45)", p. 58. ================================================================================