hong-kong-in-chinese-history-community-and-social-unrest-in-the-british-colony-1842-1913 — Page 1

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Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913



JUNG-FANG TSAI



Columbia University Press New York



Columbia University Press

New York Chichester, West Sussex



Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press All rights reserved

Maps: Hong Kong and the New Territories 1914: adaptation from Directory and Chronicle of China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands, India, Borneo, The Philippines, etc., For the Year 1914, Hong Kong: The Hongkong Daily Press Office, 1914.

City of Victoria, Hong Kong, 1882 (A, B, and C): adaptation from Mr. Chadwick's Reports on the Sanitary Condition of Hong Kong, London: Colonial Office, 1882.

City of Victoria, Hong Kong, 1913 (A, B, and C): adaptation from Directory and Chronicle of China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands, India, Borneo, The Philippines, etc.. For the Year 1914, Hong Kong: The Hongkong Daily Press Office, 1914.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tsai, Jung-fang, 1936-

Hong Kong in Chinese history : community and social unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913 / Jung-fang Tsai,

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-231-07932-X

Hong Kong—History. 2. Hong Kong—Social conditions.

I. Title. DS796.H757T77 1993

951.25—dc20 92-36866

CIP

©

Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.



Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1



To my mother, Ch'ua Ng Luan (Ts'ai Huang Luan),

and in memory of my grandmother, Ch'ua Si K'iugn (1880-1966), and my father, Ch'ua K'im (Ts'ai Chin, 1906-1963).



Contents



A Note on Romanization ix Acknowledgments xi

Maps xv



Introduction 1 ONE Historical Setting: The Making of an Entrepôt 17

TWO

A Frontier Settlement: The Chinese Community

Under Alien Rule, 1840s-1860s

36

THREE

The Chinese Community in a Colonial Situation,

65



the 1870s-1900s





FOUR Coolies in the British Colony

103



FIVE Popular Insurrection in 1884 During the

Sino-French War

124

SIX

Coolie Unrest and Elitist Nationalism, 1887-1900

147



SEVEN The Anti-American Boycott, 1905-6

182

EIGHT The Anti-Japanese Boycott and Riot in 1908 207 NINE Hong Kong in the Chinese Revolution, 1911-12 238

viii Contents



TEN The Boycott of the Hong Kong Tramway, 1912-13 270

Conclusion 288



Notes 297

Character List 335

Selected Bibliography 345

Index 363



A Note on Romanization



In Hong Kong the romanization for Chinese names and terms is primarily based on the Cantonese pronuciation, since most of the Chinese in Hong Kong are Cantonese. Many famous names are known in Cantonese, such as Tung Wah Hospital, Nam Pak Hong, Po Leung Kuk, kaifong, Wing Lok Street, Ko Shing Theater, Saiying- pun (Sei Ying Poon), Wanchai, Sze Yap Association, Taikoo Dock­ yard, Ho Kai, Wei Yuk, Kwok Acheong, Sin Tak Fan, Yuen Fat Hong, and so forth. But the romanization for a few names and terms of Teochiu and Hoklo origins (such as Ko Man Wah, Choa Leep Chee, and Goh Guan Hin) is based on the pronunciation of these respective dialects. An attempt to use standard kuo-yiX (national lan­ guage) for all names and terms would render unfamiliar many fa­ mous names, institutions, and commercial firms traditionally roman- ized according to their respective dialects in official documents and historical records. To use kuo~yii for all names in Hong Kong is just like singing Cantonese tunes in Mandarin, losing the whole feel of the place and its people, losing the delicate flavor and nuance of a distinctive local culture.

Moreover, the local English newspapers and the colonial police records used for this study abound with persons' names in Can­ tonese romanization, without providing Chinese written charac­ ters— names of fishmongers, hawkers, chair bearers, ricksha pullers.

x A Note on Romanization



cargo coolies. Triad members, shophands, shopkeepers, and so on. In short, in writing a social history of Hong Kong dealing with large numbers of the ordinary people it is simply impossible to provide a standard kuo-yil romanization for all names and terms.

In this book, therefore, names pertaining to China and names rarely romanized or printed in the English historical documents are spelled in kuo-yü according to the Wade-Giles system, while those pertaining to Hong Kong are romanized in their respective dialects as they have appeared in official documents, newspapers, and other historical sources.

A character list is provided at the end of the book.



Acknowledgments



Although the idea to write this book was first conceived many years after I left the University of California at Los Angeles, I feel deeply grateful to Dr. Philip C. C. Huang, Dr. Robert A. Wilson, and, especially, the late Dr. David M. Farquhar, from whom I learned a great deal about the craft of the historian and the philosophy of life in ways they might not realize themselves. Professor Farquhar passed away in 1985; his scholarship and selfless devotion as well as the warmth of his friendship had earned him the love and respect of his students, friends, and colleagues.

A number of my friends and colleagues have given me generous help during the course of this study. Peter Yeung, K. C. Fok, Eliza­ beth Sinn, Rev. Carl Smith, and James Hayes have been most helpful in my acquisition of research materials. I learned a great deal about Hong Kong from pleasant conversations (often over lunch) with them and with Ling-yeong Chiu, Gerald H. Choa, Alan Birch, John

D. Young, Lu Yen, Shui Yuen Yim, Lo Hui-min, and Yen Ching- hwang. I wish to express sincere thanks to all of them, particularly for their courtesy and hospitality during my several visits to Hong Kong. I am indebted to Chen Weiming and Ni Junming for assistance in obtaining sources in Guangzhou, and to Sze King Keung of the Hong Kong University Library for photocopy services.

I would also like to thank Hamashita Takeshi, Ikeda On, and my

xii Acknowledgments



old friend and classmate, Cheng Ching-jen, for their help in facilitat­ ing my research at Tôyô Bunka Kenkyûjo at Tokyo University in 1983.1owe a debt of gratitude to the staffs of the last-named institute and to the following—Tôyô Bunko, the National Diet Library, and Gaimushô Gaikô Shiryôkan in Tokyo; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; Academia Sinica in Taipei; Hong Kong University Library and the Public Record Office in Hong Kong; Zhongshan Library in Guangzhou. The staff at the University of Charleston Library have been most gracious and helpful, especially Michael Phillips, Shirley Davidson, and Marlene Bamola.

Generous grants from the American Philosophical Society, the

Southern Regional Education Board, and the University of Charles­ ton (which also granted me a sabbatical in the Fall semester of 1986) allowed me to do research and writing on the subject of Hong Kong. Paul A. Cohen, James B. Leavell, Hillel B. Salomon, Malcolm C. Clark, Clarence B. Davis, and Clark Reynolds wrote letters to support my grant applications. My History Department colleagues at the University of Charleston gave me encouragement and moral sup­ port. I thank them all.

Clark Reynolds, Malcolm Clark, Nan Woodruff, and Chun-tu Hsueh read some chapters, and Tu-hsun Tsai read the entire manuscript. I am grateful to them for their critiques. I alone, of course, am respon­ sible for all shortcomings that still remain. Several chapters in abbre­ viated forms were orally presented at the various regional confer­ ences of the Association for Asian Studies; I am indebted to the panelists (Jonathan Porter, Steven I. Levine, and Stephen Mac­ Kinnon, among others) and audience for their comments on my papers. Acknowledgments are due to the following journals for per­ mission to draw freely on my two articles, 'The Predicament of the Comprador Ideologists: Ho Kai (1859-1914) and Hu Li-yüan (1847- 1916)," in Modern China 7:2 (April 1981), and "The 1884 Hong Kong Insurrection," in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 16:1 (January- March 1984). Above all, I am veiy grateful to the anonymous readers at Columbia University Press for their insightful critiques, to Kate Wittenberg, editor in chief, for her advice and guidance, and to Susan Pensak, manuscript editor, for expert editing.

Because of my heavy teaching load most of the research and writing on this book was done during summer vacations. My inade­ quate knowledge naturally prolonged the writing process. My wife.

Acknowledgments xiii



Mei-hui, cheerfully helped in research while in Taipei and Hong Kong and rendered valuable assistance while in Tokyo and Washing­ ton, D.C. My son, Oliver, now in the sixth grade, has shown great interest in my work. My brothers (Tu-hsün, Tu-hsien, Jung-long, Jung-chung) and sisters (Ts'ai-hsia, Yü-yen, Yü-yun, Ts'ai-yü, Yü- jui) have been waiting for many years, with good humor and great patience, for the completion of this work. I extend my love and gratitude to them all.

This book is dedicated to my mother, Ch'ua Ng Luan (Ts'ai Huang Luan), and in memory of my grandmother, Ch'ua Si K'iugn (1880- 1966), and my father Ch'ua K'im (Ts'ai Chin, 1906-1963, landlord and journalist). They taught me a great deal about the values of loving-kindness, social justice, and empathy with the underclasses— values that transcend ethnic and national boundaries. They con­ tributed significantly to the formation of the thoughts that are ex­ pressed in the chapters that follow.



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Introduction



This book is a study of urban community and social unrest in the British colony of Hong Kong from 1842 to 1913. In it I explore the evolution of a Chinese community under the leadership of a commer­ cial elite and the changing social structure and relations between elite and populace in a society under alien rule. It investigates the rela­ tionships between the Chinese community, colonial authorities, and Chinese officials in Canton. Such relationships were often character­ ized by both harmony and conflict, cooperation and antagonism. This study particularly aims to examine the nature and patterns of social unrest in the colony from its earliest years to the time of the Chinese republican revolution. During this period social unrest took various forms—labor strikes, street riots, boycott movements, row­ dyism, and other acts of civil disobedience. Often imbued with anti- foreignism, popular unrest gradually acquired a nationalistic over­ tone in the late nineteenth century. Chinese antiforeignism in Hong Kong was finally transformed into popular nationalism, which found full expression during the republican revolution of 1911.

As a British colony Hong Kong took its own path of historical development, yet Hong Kong remains distinctly Chinese. By explor­ ing Chinese community aspirations and forms of social interaction in the context of alien rule, I hope this book will provide some insights

2 Introduction



into the enduring structures of Chinese society at home; by examin­ ing the intricate relationship between Chinese and foreigners in the colony, I hope that it will shed some light on the complexities and Janus-faced nature of nationalism in China in modem times.



Historiography on Hong Kong Studies

Hong Kong has played important roles in the history of modem China. As an entrepôt Hong Kong has served as a major center of a flourishing commercial network in the Pacific basin that encompasses China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, and America. A meeting place of Eastern and Western cultures, Hong Kong has been China's window to the outside world—from Hong Kong Western culture and techniques have been disseminated to China; during the late Ch'ing period Hong Kong became a major base for the republican revolu­ tionaries conspiring to overthrow the Manchu dynasty; it was also from Hong Kong that Western capital was channeled to the main­ land.

Despite the importance of Hong Kong in China's economic and political development in modern times, the history of Hong Kong has until recently been badly neglected by the community of schol­ ars. Monographs on the colony's history have been so rare that some British studies published many decades ago are still considered the authoritative standard works on the subject. For instance, E. J. Eitel's Europe in China: The History of Hong Kong from the Beginning to the Year 1882, first published in 1895, was reprinted by Oxford University Press in 1983. This account of the early history of Hong Kong by an old resident, scholar, and official, who observed first-hand many of the events described, remains an indispensable source for historians. But Eitel's basic philosophy of history was informed by racism, im­ perialism, and colonialism. He asserted, for example, that "the peo­ ple of Hongkong are inwardly bound together by a steadily develop­ ing communion of interests and responsibilities: the destiny of the one race is to rule and the fate of the other to be ruled." Eitel insisted on "the natural process of bringing China into subordination to Europe," whose "destiny is to govern Asia" and to open up China "to the civilizing influences of British power."1

James Norton-Kyshe's History of the Laws and Courts of Hongkong

Introduction 3



from the Earliest Period to 1898, first published in 1898, was reissued in Hong Kong in 1971. Compiled by the then registrar of the Supreme Court, this two-volume work is a useful chronology of names and events, but not a work of history. G. R. Sayers Hong Kong 1841- 1862: Birth, Adolescence, and Coming of Age was published in 1937 and reprinted by the Hong Kong University Press in 1980. He wrote another manuscript in 1939 entitled Hong Kong 1862-1919: Years of Discretion, posthumously published by the Hong Kong University Press in 1975. Written by an official in Hong Kong with access to some source materials no longer available to researchers, Sayers books remain useful references. They consist, however, of little more than a chapter-by-chapter account of the various governors' admin­ istrations. This approach was largely followed by W. A. Wood2 and

G. B. Endacott.3

Most of these works were not only dated but were also written from the British colonists' perspective, which was so "heavily West­ ern-centric"4 that there was little room even for a discussion of the prominent Chinese who had played important roles in the politics and economy of the Chinese community in Hong Kong. This was ironic because many of these Chinese were business partners of the Europeans and economically tied to Western capital. Due to the colony's proximity to Canton, they were often politically and economically connected with Canton as well. Relying on Western- centric historiography, one would look in vain for adequate treat­ ment of important personalities in the history of Hong Kong such as Ko Man Wah, Li Tak Cheung, Ho Amei, and Sin Tak Fan, to name only a few. If these prominent Chinese did not find a place in the history written from a Western elitist viewpoint, the Chinese popu­ lace fared even worse. The common people almost always remained anonymous.

The Eurocentric history of Hong Kong is written in the "colonial" tradition, which portrays the colony "from outside" and "from above," that is, from the perspective of the European elite, and which focuses on British policy and administration. In A. C. Milner's words, this approach "is 'colonial' in the sense that it portrays the British as the principal actors in the period, the initiators of action. The develop­ ment and execution of British policy are the main concerns of this history."5 H. J. Lethbridge aptly comments: "The history of Hong

4 Introduction



Kong has been written mainly from a European point of view, with the European community in the centre of the stage and the Chinese, when they are heard at all, making confused noises in the wings."6 Most scholars in Hong Kong studies today are economists, politi­ cal scientists, sociologists and anthropologists. They have written about the colony's economic conditions, government administration, political system, social customs and institutions, and cultural values. But the study of the colony's history has until recently been ne­ glected. A comprehensive bibliography of the history of Hong Kong

would make a short list.

In recent years there have been witnessed several important con­ tributions such as James Hayes's Hong Kong Region 1850-1911: Insti­ tutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Ct.: Shoe String, 1977) and The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes (Oxford University Press, 1983); and David Faure's The Struc­ ture of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong, (Oxford University Press, 1986). But these are largely village studies that hardly deal with urban Hong Kong, where the great majority of the colony's population lived.

Important works on the colony's history also include Carl T. Smith's Chinese Christians, Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1985), a collection of very informative es­ says by a scholar and long-time Hong Kong resident who has an unsurpassed knowledge of the colony's elites and history; Frank H.

H. King's monumental study on The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (Cambridge University Press, 1988-1990);

H. J. Lethbridge's Hong Kong: Stability and Change (Oxford University Press, 1978), a collection of critical and witty interpretative essays on such important historical institutions as the Tung Wah Hospital, Po Leung Kuk, and the District Watch Committee; From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong, edited by David Faure, J. Hayes, and A. Birch (University of Hong Kong Press, 1984); K. C. Fok's Lectures on Hong Kong History: Hong Kong's Role in Modem Chinese History (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1990), which examines some important themes and documents that deserve scholarly attention; and Elizabeth Sinn's Power and Charity: The Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 1989), an engross­ ing study on an important elite institution and the community under its leadership. Wai Kwan Chan's The Making of Hong Kong Society

Introduction 5



(Oxford: Garendon Press, 1991) is also informative. These works examine selected aspects of the colony's history, as do some other titles.7

This brief list, containing a total of less than three dozen books, almost exhausts the published scholarly monograph studies on the one hundred and fifty-year history of Hong Kong.8 Most scholars in Hong Kong studies have stressed the colony's growth, development, stability (as illustrated by H. J. Lethbridge's tide, Hong Kong: Stability and Change), and the alleged political apathy of the Chinese popula­ tion. In contrast, this book seeks to explore not merely the Chinese community structure but also the social crises, tensions, conflicts, and political activism of coolies, merchants, and intelligentsia in the colony.9



Methodology and Contents

Social crises and disturbances often reveal a great deal about the reality of sociopolitical relations between various groups of people in a given society. The French anthropologist George Balandier has observed that social crises enable a student to achieve a comprehen­ sive analysis of the "colonial situation"; since "conflicts expose the totality of relationships between colonial peoples and colonial pow­ ers . . . it is precisely at such moments [of crises and conflict that] we can study the colonial society in terms of the concrete colonial situa­ tion." Balandier defines the "colonial situation" as

the domination imposed by a foreign minority, racially (or ethni­ cally) and culturally different, acting in the name of a racial (or ethnic) and cultural superiority dogmatically affirmed, and impos­ ing itself on an indigenous population constituting a numerical majority but inferior to the dominant group from a material point of view; . . . the fundamentally antagonistic character of the rela­ tionship between these two [groups and] societies resulting from the subservient role to which the colonial people are subjected as "instruments" of the colonial power;. . . [and] the need, in main­ taining this domination, not only to resort to "force," but also to a system of pseudo-justifications and stereotyped behaviors.10

With some qualifications, this definition of the "colonial situation" is largely applicable to Hong Kong during the period under study. A major qualification concerns the relationship between the colonizers

6 Introduction



and the colonized. While Balandier stresses "the fundamentally an­ tagonistic character of the relationship," my study reveals an ambiv­ alent relationship, especially between the British colonists and Chinese merchants—antagonism on the one hand, and partnership on the other—an unequal partnership that caused resentment.

This study is both descriptive and analytical. Description is neces­ sary because many events related to social unrest in Hong Kong in 1842-1913 have not been studied by anyone else before. Detailed description is essential if one wishes to reconstruct a historical event in all its complexities and to reproduce something of people's lives and thoughts of the past. Quantitative statistics do not tell us about the quality of human life. I endeavor to look behind the statistics of trade, shipping and population to see the lives of people at work and at leisure. Of interest to me are not only the wealthy Chinese mer­ chants surrounded by their concubines in their magnificent resi­ dences overlooking Victoria harbor but also a sweating sedan chair coolie bitten by a dog owned by a European, the riotous Chinese crowd spitting on the British imperial troops patrolling the streets of Hong Kong, and a ricksha puller spitting blood at the end of a long hard journey. Detailed description of such events is essential if one wishes to recapture the emotions of men and women as they lived their lives.

In contrast to the "colonial" approach and European elitist per­ spective, I have attempted to explore the social history of Hong Kong from the perspectives of the Chinese people who constituted the overwhelming majority of the colony's population. Such perspectives are greatly needed in Hong Kong studies. While not neglecting the views of the European colonists, my major concerns center on the lives, activities, aspirations and feelings of the great majority of the Chinese population in Hong Kong.

This is a study of "history from below." It seeks to explore the social reality hidden behind a veneer of prosperity, stability, and harmony so often portrayed by the colony's dominant groups and ruling elite. As Barrington Moore justly observes:

In any society the dominant groups are the ones with the most to hide about the way society works. Very often therefore truthful analyses are bound to have a critical ring, to seem like exposures.

. . . For all students of human society, sympathy with the victims

Introduction 7



of historical processes and skepticism about the victors' claims provide essential safeguards against being taken in by the domi­ nant mythology. A scholar who tries to be objective needs these feelings as part of his ordinary working equipment.11

To use critical language and candid, unadorned words to describe social reality does not preclude the attainment of objectivity.

Economic conditions and social structure contributed significantly to the shaping of social movements. The first three chapters, there­ fore, discuss the economic conditions and sociopolitical structure of Hong Kong from the 1840s to the 1910s. Chapter 1 examines the historical development of Hong Kong as an entrepôt from the found­ ing of the colony to the 1910s. It discusses Hong Kong as a major center of a thriving commercial network in the Pacific basin. It inves­ tigates some Chinese commercial firms in Hong Kong to illustrate the close trade relations among Chinese merchants all around the Pacific commercial network. The Chinese community thrived in Hong Kong under British colonial rule. But how did the community originate? Chapter 2 traces the formation of a Chinese community in a frontier settlement from the 1840s to the 1860s. Aspiring Chinese used all resources available to promote their economic power and social influ­ ence in the new settlement. Some emerged as elite to dominate the Chinese community under British rule.

Chapter 3 relates the community structure under the cultural he­

gemony of a merchant elite from the 1870s to the 1880s, and the emergence of a more heterogeneous society from the mid-1880s to the 1900's as a result of population growth and economic expansion. As the colonial society became more heterogeneous, community con­ sensus became more difficult to obtain. A younger generation of merchants, professionals, and intelligentsia emerged, a generation more Western-oriented than the old elite and more inclined to inno­ vations and new commitments. Most of the events discussed in the subsequent chapters took place during this exciting and creative period in the colony's history. It was a time when laborers also increasingly became more politically activated.

The working people played a vital role in the colony's economy by

providing the much needed labor, yet scholarly works on laborers during this period are extremely rare. Chapter 4 examines the wages, cost of living, housing, and general living conditions of the various

8 Introduction



groups of coolies. They were the most numerous elements among the colony's population, and also the most abused, exploited and neglected. This was a major source of tension in colonial society.

The remaining chapters, 5 through 10, analyze the nature and significance of social unrest in Hong Kong—the 1884 popular insur­ rection during the Sino-French War; the coolie disturbances in 1888, 1894, and 1895; the reformist and revolutionary movements of the elitist patriots from among the merchants and intelligentsia; the 1905 anti-American boycott; the 1908 anti-Japanese boycott and riots; the nationalistic activities of the colony's Chinese public, politicized by the 1911 Chinese revolution; the labor strike and civil disobedience, inflamed by the Chinese revolution; and the boycott of the Hong Kong Tramway in 1912-13, also inspired by the Chinese revolution.

Unlike most books on Hong Kong that are too Hong Kong- centered, this is a study of Hong Kong in Chinese history. Events in the British colony are studied in the context of the history of China in modem times. Hence the title of this book, Hong Kong in Chinese History. Since the very beginning the development of the port of Hong Kong has been closely related to the political and socioeco­ nomic conditions of the Chinese mainland and the Sino-foreign rela­ tions. For this reason, Hong Kong cannot be studied in isolation. Constantly subject to the repercussions from the changing political and socioeconomic conditions outside the colony, all major events in Hong Kong have been the results of interactions between local and external forces. In examining the community and social unrest in Hong Kong, this book pursues a number of linkages—between na­ tional politics and local interests, between events in Canton and those in Hong Kong, and between elements of the Chinese diaspora throughout the Pacific basin.



Community: How Was It Held Together?

A major theme of this work deals with how the Chinese community was held together under British colonial rule. In some ways the social history of Hong Kong is very similar to that of other large Chinese cities on the mainland. But it is also very different as a result of Hong Kong's experience with alien colonial rule.

Hong Kong belonged to what Paul A. Cohen calls the littoral, which in the late nineteenth centuiy included cities like Canton,

Introduction 9



Hong Kong, Shanghai, Ningpo, Foochow, and Tientsin. Cohen con­ tends that the littoral acquired a distinctive culture different from the hinterlands. The littoral came under direct Western influence; it was global and outward-looking in orientation; and its economy was geared to Sino-foreign commerce.12 These certainly applied to Hong Kong. But Cohen's characterization of the littoral society as "domi­ nated by the bourgeois values of its Chinese and Western merchant elites" needs very careful qualification. The littoral in fact retained a great deal of traditional values and institutions. This is of great im­ portance to our understanding of society in Hong Kong.

Although living under alien rule, most of Hong Kong's Chinese residents remained strongly committed to traditional Chinese ideas, religions, language, habits, and customs. The Chinese crowds de­ lighted in religious processions featuring dragon and lion dances celebrating the restoration of the Man Mo Temple. Coolies fre­ quented pugilistic clubs cultivating the art of boxing and fencing; many joined the Triad societies. The Chinese burned incense and paper money for their deceased ancestors at family shrines and in temples worshiping Kwan-ti and T'ien-hou. They believed in feng- shui (geomancy) and portents. They consulted fortune-tellers con­ cerning travel, marriage, and business ventures. They took herbal medicine to cure illness. The Chinese remained loyal to their kinsfolk and to their dialect and native district communities. These Chinese traditions were omnipresent in Hong Kong and other "Western beachheads" of the littoral, commanding respect and allegiance of all classes of Chinese, including members of the intelligentsia and mer­ chant class in varying degrees. In fact, the Chinese community in Hong Kong during much of the latter half of the nineteenth century was held together by a commitment to common traditional Chinese values and associations.

In his fascinating study of conflict and community in Hankow from 1796 to 1895, William T. Rowe shows that Chinese cities like Hankow in the nineteenth century had much less disruptive social conflict than occurred in cities like Paris and London in early modem Europe. He attributes this to the cultural hegemony of an activist elite that fostered a social consensus based on Confudan ideals of sodal harmony and elite paternalism. This consensus was main­ tained through processes of accommodation and compromise and the mediation of local elite in major conflict situations. Through

10 Introduction



community service and philanthropy, the elite reconfirmed its claim to social superiority. Yet the "consensus mandated not only recogni­ tion of Confucian social hierarchies...but also a deep respect for popular livelihoods."13

Rowe's concept of cultural hegemony, in large part derived from Antonio Gramsci and E. P. Thompson, seems also useful in under­ standing Hong Kong's Chinese community. In this aspect, Hong Kong in the littoral shows remarkable resemblence to Hankow in the hinterland. In Hong Kong during the period from the 1860s to the 1890s the Chinese merchant elite also endeavored to promote social consensus based on Confucian ideas and values; it sought to estab­ lish its hegemony over the populace by community service, philan­ thropy, mediation in conflict situations, and cultivation of loyalties based on vertical ties of occupation, kinship, and native place. The British segregationist policy allowed the Chinese elite to manage the Chinese community affairs, though in the aftermath of the 1884 insurrection the colonial authorities gradually tightened its direct control over the Chinese.

The merchant elite's management of community affairs in Hong Kong paralleled the gentry elite's management of public affairs in late imperial China. Mary B. Rankin clearly demonstrates that the gentry elite steadily increased its public activities to include manage­ ment of such matters as education, welfare, relief, and taxes.14 And as Philip Kuhn forcefully shows, this trend greatly accelerated during the Taiping rebellion, bringing about widespread local militarization organized by the elite.15

In Hong Kong, however, the merchant elite's public activities were much more constrained by the interventionist colonial authorities; its management of community affairs was not allowed to include taxes and military arms. Colonial experience made it different from elites in China in some important ways. This book will highlight a recur­ ring theme: British colonial rule brought the local elite into a com­ plex, interlocking web of ambivalent relationships between the colo­ nial government, elite, populace, and Chinese officials in Canton.



Social Unrest: Nature, Variations, and Patterns

Another major theme of this work is social unrest, until now a neglected aspect of the colony's history. Unrest took various forms.

Introduction 11



including strikes, riots, boycotts, and acts of civil disobedience. The boycotts of American goods in 1905, of Japanese goods in 1908, and of the Hong Kong tramway in 1912-13, involving merchants, intelli­ gentsia, and populace, should be perceived as resulting from the interactions of local and external forces, including Chinese and inter­ national politics and economy. During the nineteenth century the frequent coolie strikes and riots posed a threat to the colonial order and community peace.

For the working people in Hong Kong their commitment to tradi­ tions worked in different directions—it tended to divide the workers, but under certain circumstances it served to bring them together. The traditional dialect group ties prompted coolies of the same dialect to live together in the same house or area. Coolie house fellowship helped in the competition between rival coolie factions for better working conditions. But when confronted with a common foe coolie houses provided the basis of an organization for the promotion of boycotts and strikes. Coolies congregated in coolie houses—from which they rushed out to attack the police and "foreign devils" during street riots—expressing their displeasure against the colonial authorities.

Recent studies of China's labor history find that working-class

consciousness often coexisted with workers' vertical loyalties. In his absorbing study of Peking local politics in the 1920s David Strand shows that workers used all strategies available, both traditional and modern, to promote their interests. These strategies included hori­ zontal class solidarities and vertical loyalties associated with the au­ thority of patrons, brokers, and bosses.16 Emily Honig also clearly demonstrates that for women workers of Shanghai cotton mills prior to 1949 "class consciousness would not transcend, but would at most coexist with, other loyalties." Honig concludes: "Patterns of localism and traditional hierarchical loyalties are perhaps not as antithetical to working-class consciousness as m any. . . have assumed."17In accor­ dance with changing situations workers used different means and strategies, both traditional and modem, both vertical and horizontal loyalties, to advance and protect their interests. Coolies in Hong Kong conformed to this Chinese labor activity pattem.

E. P. Thompson contends that "class is a relationship, and not a thing," that "class is a cultural as much as an economic formation," and that "class happens when some men, as a result of common

12 Introduction



experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs."18 Class relationships were not an eternally fixed entity; they changed according to changing historical situations. Workers sometimes per­ ceived themselves as belonging to a class with common interests against their employers or rulers, but sometimes they did not, de­ pending on situations. Applying Thompson's assumption to her study of the workers of Tientsin in 1900-49, Gail Hershatter concludes that "this perception of interests as structured by class was situational, and therefore transient in the constantly changing political environ­ ment of Tientsin."19

Thompson's theory is also applicable to coolies in Hong Kong. Traditional dialect group ties often divided coolies into rival groups competing for employment opportunities, but when their interests were threatened by an outside force (usually the colonial govern­ ment's assertion of power to regulate coolies' lives and work), coolies of different dialect groups often came together to take concerted action in protest. Yet as soon as the threat was over rivalry and tensions between coolie dialect groups resumed. Coolie class con­ sciousness was situational; therefore, it was also transient.

During the period under study the coolies employed in the Chinese enterprises rarely took collective actions against their employers, because vertical, paternalistic relationships were often maintained among them. This was especially true from the 1860s to the 1880s, when the Chinese community was held together under the unchal­ lenged cultural hegemony of a merchant elite. Yet Hong Kong had large numbers of cargo coolies employed by foreign companies, pub­ lic chair and ricksha coolies, hawkers, and boatmen. It was these laborers who frequently articulated their common interests against the colonial authorities' regulations and assertion of power. When coolie unrest disrupted trade and hurt commercial interests Chinese merchants (with strong economic ties to foreign capital and moral obligations to lower-class coolies) sought to mediate a settlement and cooperate with the authorities to restore law and order. This was a recurring pattern of social relationships in the colony.

Introduction 13



Popular Unrest: Imperialism, Antiforeignism, and Nationalism

As dass consdousness was situational, so was the effect of imperial­ ism. Again, comparision with situations on the Chinese mainland can be fruitful. Honig's study indicates that women from Su-pei preferred to work in die Japanese mills in Shanghai, which offered better pay and more comfortable working conditions; this in turn increased the Chiang-nan women's contempt for the Su-pei women. Thus, Honig observes, imperialism intensified the division between them rather than bringing them together. This observation is an important corrective to the previously uncritical assessment that "had stressed the cruelty inflicted on Chinese workers by foreign mill owners, and the consequent solidarity and nationalism instilled in the workers."20

In Hong Kong, however, the foreign colonial government's asser­ tion of power frequently served to unify Chinese workers against a common foe. This reminds us of the ambiguity of imperialism's effect on the working people; it could be either divisive or cohesive, de­ pending on a wide variety of situations.

Popular unrest in the colony during the nineteenth century was frequently imbued with antiforeignism, which is defined as feelings of hostility against foreigners and anything foreign. A word of caution is necessary. Antiforeignism must be carefully distinguished from Chinese nationalism or patriotism, defined as a sense of collective identity with and loyalty to China as a sovereign nation-state. Anti­ foreignism did not necessarily entail feelings of patriotic devotion to one's nation-state. It would be grossly uncritical and anachronistic to equate the antiforeignism of the mid-nineteenth century with the Chinese national consciousness that began slowly to develop among the colony's populace in the late nineteenth century. Some signs of popular nationalism began to emerge in Hong Kong in the mid-1880s but did not find full expression until the Chinese republican revolu­ tion in 1911.

In much of this study an attempt is made to examine the complex nature of nationalism—to investigate, particularly, the political, cul­ tural, and socioeconomic dimensions of nationalism, the different forms of nationalism, and the paradox of nationalism as a divisive force in history. The elitist nationalism espoused by the merchants

14 Introduction



and intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century had little appeal to the coolie working people. The workers had their own sense of patriotism, which under certain circumstances took the forms of strikes and riots in the streets. The elitist nationalists, however, refused to accept such popular outbursts as "valid" expressions of patriotism.

During the period under study some social protests were linked to Chinese nationalism and others were not, depending on historical circumstances. Those protests connected to nationalist expressions included the 1884 popular insurrection, the 1895 controversy over the Light and Pass Ordinance, the 1905 anti-American and 1908 anti- Japanese boycotts, the incidents of civil disobedience in 1911-12, and the boycott of the tramway in 1912-13. But in the coolie strikes of 1861, 1863, 1872, 1883, 1888, and 1895, coolies were thinking primar­ ily in terms of how their livelihood was affected by the colonial government regulations, not in terms of Chinese nationalism. Cool­ ies would respond to a nationalist cause when it was fused with an appeal to their immediate interests and mundane social needs.The common people would be more likely to become patriotic if their concerns with local problems and self-interests were fused with na­ tional issues. This fusion would provide a powerful incentive to popular nationalism. In other words, the common people were often conditional patriots.

What about the social elites? Nationalism has a cultural and politi­ cal dimension; it has a socioeconomic dimension too. The responses of the Hong Kong merchants to the antiforeign boycotts, for ex­ ample, suggested that the merchant patriots were motivated by both a private concern for economic interests and a public concern for China as a nation-state. Even patriotic intellectuals like Ho Kai and Hu Li-yüan did not totally transcend the socioeconomic conditions in which they lived. In fact, their experiences in the highly commercial­ ized city of Hong Kong stimulated them to critically examine the elements implied in traditonal Chinese culture and to advocate com­ mercialism as a means to promote the wealth and power of the Chinese nation-state. Nationalism is Janus-faced, taking many differ­ ent forms in accordance with the various circumstances of modem Chinese history.



To summarize, in this book I will explore three main themes concern­ ing the history of Hong Kong—the changing urban community struc-

Introduction 15



ture and relations, the changing forms and patterns of social unrest, and the growth of Chinese nationalism among the merchants, popu­ lace, and intelligentsia under British colonial rule. These themes are analyzed in the context of Chinese history during the seven decades between 1842 and 1913.

O N E

Historical Setting: The Making of an Entrepôt



This Colony . . . commercially is so closely con­ nected with Canton that from that aspect the two cities may be considered to be one.

— Governor F. Henry May



Although the subject of this study is Hong Kong under British colo­ nial rule, a few words must be said about the Canton delta region surrounding Hong Kong in precolonial times. The growth of Hong Kong after 1842 into an entrepôt owed a great deal to the interre­ gional and international trades already developed in the region cen­ turies before the Opium War. In fact, British Hong Kong inherited these trades, which had long been carried on, with Canton and Whampoa as a transshipment port for commodities from various parts of China, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Western world. The historic Nanyang trade figured prominently in the region, with the Teochiu (Ch'ao-chou), Hoklo (Fu-lao, Hokkien, Amoy), and Cantonese merchants taking active parts in it.1 The Nanyang trade loomed large in the background of the flourishing Teochiu and Hoklo business circles in colonial Hong Kong. The sojourning Hoklo mer­ chants who had played important roles in Canton had laid the foun­ dation for later creation of a Hoklo business community in British Hong Kong (which was to gradually replace Canton as the focus of regional and overseas exports).2 In short, underlying Hong Kong's development as an entrepôt was a long history of overseas trade with Canton as a transshipment port.

18 Historical Setting



Since 1759 Canton had been the only port where foreign trade was legally permitted. The foreign sailing ships were familiar with the anchorages around Hong Kong which had provided refuge for them year after year. The Chinese imperial edict of 1800 prohibiting the import of opium caused the growth of the transshipment services around Hong Kong (including such islands as Lintin, Nine Island, Karp Shui Mun, and Lantao, which are within forty miles to the west of Hong Kong). Thereafter ships carrying opium anchored regularly on these islands where they unloaded their cargo of opium into receiving vessels. The ships then sailed up the Pearl River to carry on legitimate trade. The British East India Company's ships also began to anchor in Hong Kong harbor and other anchorages nearby, where their cargoes including cotton and woolen goods were transshipped to Canton under foreign flags, prominently American.3 Thus, on the eve of the Opium War (1839-42) some transshipment services had been done in Hong Kong. It was not accidental for the British to select Hong Kong as its colony at the end of the war in 1842.



The Colony in the Early Years: The 1840s

The Chinese population of the island of Hong Kong (29 square miles) in precolonial days numbered only about four thousand. The arrival of the British fleet in June 1839 and the British occupation of the island during the Opium War attracted many boat people, laborers, artisans and adventurers who profited by furnishing provisions and other services, and who defied the Chinese officials' orders not to have any dealings with the fankwei (foreign devils).4 Captain Charles Elliot (British superintendent of trade) proclaimed in 1841 that all inhabitants of Hong Kong would enjoy full security and protection; that the Chinese inhabitants were free to practice their own religious

, ceremonies, and social customs; and that Hong Kong was a port in which all vessels were free from import and export

duties. This added a powerful incentive to trade.

Conditions in Canton during the Opium War caused a number of European merchants to move their offices from Canton to Hong Kong. Chinese junks from the coast made up their cargoes in Hong Kong rather than going to Canton or Macao. The cargoes consisted of opium, cotton shirtings, woolens, salt, and Straits produce such as pepper, rattans, etc. In February 1842 Sir Henry Pöttinger reaf-

Historical Setting 19



firmed his predecessor Captain Elliot's proclamation of Hong Kong as a free port, and proceeded to remove the whole establishment of the British Superintendency of Trade from Macao to Hong Kong. This further lured some leading British merchants to move their headquarters from Macao and Canton to Hong Kong. Chinese trad­ ers, artisans, and laborers flocked to Hong Kong from all neighboring districts. These were mostly from the lowest elements of Chinese society—the outcaste boat population and laborers from the Hakka dialect group. Poverty prompted these adventurers to work for “for­ eign barbarians" for a few cash, risking the displeasure of the man­ darins. In May 1841 the Chinese population on the island was esti­ mated at 5,650, and by March 1842, it had increased to 12,361, the total population ( including foreign nationalities) being over 15,000.5 At the conclusion of the war the Treaty of Nanking (August 29, 1842) provided for the cession of Hong Kong to Britain in perpetuity. It was widely expected in Hong Kong at the time that the end of war and the opening of five Chinese ports to foreign trade would en­ hance the commercial prospects of Britain's new colony by attracting Chinese and foreigners alike. Buildings of all kinds were erected— commercial establishments, a post office, a record and land office, a jail, and other government offices, private residences, brick ware­ houses, hospitals, churches, markets, and schools. By June 1845 the island's population had increased to 23,817.6 Henceforth the popula­ tion of Hong Kong continued to increase rapidly. The overwhelming majority came from China's Kwangtung province. What made the Cantonese so receptive to Britain's newly acquired colony? What

were the social and economic conditions in Kwangtung?



The Socioeconomic Conditions in Kwangtung

The situation in Hong Kong was closely related to the social and economic conditions in Kwangtung. Several factors must be con­ sidered: population pressure, commercialization of the rural econ­ omy, the Opium Wars and subsequent unequal treaties, social un­ rest, and domestic uprisings. These internal and external factors combined to effect social and economic dislocations in Kwangtung, which were greatly to affect the development of Hong Kong.

Since the introduction of American maize, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, and peanuts into China in the sixteenth century, the Chinese

20 Historical Setting



population had increased rapidly, particularly in the two centuries after 1650, reaching perhaps four hundred and thirty million by 1850. Consequently, China's resources had already become strained by the end of the eighteenth century.7 Kwangtung was no exception. Its population rose from sixteen million in 1787 to twenty-one million in 1819, twenty-six million in 1841, twenty-eight million in 1850, and twenty-nine million in 1855. The ratio of arable land to population in 1812 was only 1.67 mou (about one-quarter of an acre) per person, making Kwangtung among the most land-hungry provinces in China. The Canton region, though fertile, was densely populated and expe­ rienced constant pressure on land and food resources.8

The commercialization of agriculture began in the sixteenth cen­ tury in some areas of south China, particularly Kwangtung and Fukien. Many peasant households abandoned rice planting for cash crops such as sugarcane, fruit, and tobacco. Manufacturing, espe­ cially of textiles, had become commercialized during the mid-Ming period, so that cotton and silk cloth manufactured in Kwangtung was “marketed all over the country," and reed and rush matting “all over south China.“ 9 “In 1819, the mulberry orchards of Shun-te and Nan-hai counties [in Kwangtung] together covered over 15,000 acres, and provided employment for 'several hundred thousand' house­ holds." And in Canton in 1841 “sixty-seven thousand men, women, and children wove cottons, silks, and brocades."10The commerciali­ zation of the rural economy in the nineteenth century made peasants vulnerable to national and international market price fluctuations.

The Treaty of Nanking and subsequent unequal treaties had im­ portant social and economic effects on China. To pay the huge in­ demnities the Manchu government had to increase taxes on the people. In addition, the import of Western manufactured goods hit hard at indigenous handicraft industries located in the treaty port areas. “[Although most of China's peasants continued to wear homespun clothing, many people who were involved in the domestic cloth trade were forced out of business." 1 The importation of for­ eign products protected by a low tariff brought economic disaster to Kwangtung. Low tariffs on foreign cloth forced half of the women weavers in Shun-te out of work in 1853. A similar situation occurred in Fan-yu county in 1870.12 The importation of foreign nails and needles also caused a decline in the iron nail and steel needle produc­ tion in Fatshan (Fo-shan), affecting twenty thousand workers in the

Historical Setting 21



iron works.13 Even though imperialism did not substantially affect the Chinese economy as a whole, it did cause considerable socioeco­ nomic strain and dislocation in the southern provinces, especially in Kwangtung.14

After the Treaty of Nanking "free trade" replaced the earlier le­ gally restrictive Cohong system, and Canton's legal monopoly of foreign trade, dating back to 1759, was ended.15 The newly opened ports of Shanghai, Ningpo, Foochow, and Amoy competed with Canton for China's foreign trade. With the rich Yangtze River valley as its hinterland, Shanghai soon began to fulfill its extraordinary potential as a port of trade. By 1850 the volume of trade in Shanghai had surpassed that of Canton.16 Much of the tea trade and silk trade was diverted away from Canton to Shanghai, causing over one hundred thousand porters and boatmen in Kwangtung to lose their jobs. Many Cantonese junks were driven out of business by the better armed, swifter foreign vessels that entered the Chinese coastal trade after 1842.17

Thus, a large surplus supply of labor was created in the aftermath of the Opium War, consisting of idle weavers, handicraftsmen, iron workers, boatmen, junk crews, and dislocated peasants. Many joined secret societies and bandit gangs; others became pirates along the coast; still others formed urban bands of beggars and thieves.18 Pir­ acy and social unrest mounted in Kwangtung. Riots broke out in villages near Canton, protesting the importation of foreign cloth that deprived women and child weavers of their livelihood.19 The Triad secret societies were especially active in the Canton delta counties, committing robberies, plundering, and looting. The Taiping uprising started in 1850 in neighboring Kwangsi province, rapidly spreading to Kwangtung and other southern provinces. The provincial capital of Canton was threatened by an armed revolt, organized by the society known as the Red Turbans in 1854-55. In 1856 major

g broke out in the Sze Yap (Sz-yi) area between Punti (local Cantonese) and Hakkas over land disputes, claiming many thou­ sands of lives in the prolonged feuds that lasted off and on for twelve years. Constant warfare magnified the consequences of natural disas­ ters such as floods and droughts, causing peasants to face famine and starvation in the late 1840s and 1850s.20

In sum, social and economic dislocations in South China, particu­ larly Kwangtung, were caused by several concurrent factors—popu-

22 Historical Setting



lation pressure, commercialization of agriculture and manufacture, foreign invasions, competition from foreign imports, unequal trea­ ties, land disputes, and domestic uprisings—all combined to create economic depression, mass unemployment, social disorder, insecu­ rity, and starvation. The ground was set for the exodus of Chinese from Kwangtung and Fukien in search of economic opportunities overseas. The development of Hong Kong under the British naturally attracted the Chinese from the nearby districts of Kwangtung prov­ ince.



The 1850s as a Turning Point

During the first ten years of its existence the unsettled conditions in the colony were not conducive to attracting Chinese of substantial means who could strengthen its economy by promoting extensive local and overseas trade. All business in the Chinese community then was in the hands of shopkeepers, compradors, and peddlers whose transactions were on the whole only trifling.21 They hoped "only to make a fast fortune and then return to their native place to live off the results of their succeess." 2 The great majority of the Chinese in the colony left their families behind in their native land.

The 1850s, however, witnessed important changes in the colony's social and economic structure. Socioeconomic dislocations in Kwang­ tung, especially after the outbreak of the Taiping uprising, caused an exodus of Cantonese, including wealthy families, to take refuge in Hong Kong. Reflecting on its effect on the colony during his resi­ dence there, the Reverend Dr. James Legge (of the London Mission­ ary Society) observed: "It has always seemed to me that this was the turning point in the progress of Hongkong . . . Houses were in demand; rents rose; the streets that had been comparatively deserted assumed a crowded appearance; new commercial Chinese firms were founded; the native trade received an impetus."23 In 1848 the Chinese population in Hong Kong numbered 22,496. It rose to 28,297 in 1849, and to 37,536 in 1853. It increased dramatically after 1854 and through the long years of unrest in Kwangtung created by the Triads and the Taipings. By 1865 the Chinese population in Hong Kong had risen to 121,497.24

The influx of Chinese helped to bring about a period of commercial development in the colony from around 1850. Chinese refugees in-

Historical Setting 23



duded wealthy families who brought their capital with them for investment in Hong Kong. Large Chinese commercial establishments (hongs) were set up: thirty-five hongs in 1858, and sixty-five in 1859. Some invested in real estate and became large land proprietors. The famous Li Sing family, for instance, acquired much property and diversified the family interests into the money changing business, commerdal firms, the opium monopoly, and coolie labor broker­ age.25 Increasing prosperity attracted more Chinese to the colony. The future of Hong Kong seemed promising. Many other factors contributed to making it an Eastern entrepôt of Western trade. Its geographic position and its deep, spadous, and sheltered harbor, attracted international shipping. Hong Kong provided the only deep­ water harbor between Singapore and Shanghai. In fact, with seven­ teen square miles of land sheltered water Hong Kong provided one of the world's finest harbors. It gradually superseded Canton as a transshipment port.26 "British merchants enjoyed the benefits of Brit­ ish laws and justice under their own flag, and the prindpal British firms preferred to establish their headquarters there"; therefore "many ships even if destined for ports further north, called for orders." British liberal economic policies of free trade and laissez-faire admin­ istration attracted to the colony merchants of every nationality. Since the treaty ports of China had not developed as expected, cargoes for the less developed ports had to be transshipped at Hong Kong or

Shanghai.27



Chinese Emigration and the Development of Entrepôt Facilities

Contributing most powerfully to Hong Kong's commercial prosperity was the vast Chinese emigration abroad in the latter half of the nineteenth century, from which the European and Chinese mercan­ tile communities in the colony gained great profits. The rapid expan­ sion of capitalism in the West in the nineteenth century and the extension of imperialism and colonialism to the rest of the world, created a great demand for labor—laborers to toil on the cotton and sugar plantations in Cuba, Peru and the West Indies; to work in mining industries, railroad constructions, and land reclamations in the American West, Canada, and Australia; and, in Southeast Asia, to work in the tin mine and rubber plantations of Malaya, the spices

24 Historical Setting



and sugar plantations of Java, and the tobacco and rubber plantations of Sumatra. The African slave trade, which had supplied labor for plantations in the Americas since the sixteenth century, had been gradually abandoned by Britain after 1834 and France after 1848 for both humanitarian and economic reasons. Slavery was extremely inefficient, and the British economy had come to rest on the sale of cotton goods and not that of men and sugar.28 The Western powers now turned to India (a colony) and China (a semicolony) for alterna­ tive sources of cheap labor, giving rise to the notorious coolie trade.29 While emigration to California and Australia involved relatively less coercion due to the popular myth and illusion about the oppor­ tunity of getting rich from the gold mines there, Chinese emigrants to other places were more often forcibly abducted or tricked by the agents of Western firms engaged in the coolie trade and by their Chinese accomplices.30 "Very gross deception was used"—the cool­ ies hired to go to California, for instance, were put on board ships destined for Peru. 31 They were packed crowded together in much the same manner as Africans had been shipped in earlier times. According to an incomplete estimate, the Chinese coolie emigrants from 1851 to 1900 numbered 2,050,000 men.32 The great majority of them came from Kwangtung and Fukien, which had experienced the

greatest social and economic dislocation after the Opium War.

Located on the coast of Kwangtung, Hong Kong became the major center for the vast Chinese emigration abroad. In 1857 alone 17,722 coolies left Hong Kong for Australia. Although their number subse­ quently decreased due to racial tensions, coolie emigrants departing from Hong Kong for Australia during the period 1860-1874 num­ bered another 17,052 men. And 29,133 coolie emigrants embarked in Hong Kong for Canada in the years between 1868 and 1900. 3

Far greater numbers of Chinese departed for the United States, with Hong Kong nearly monopolizing the embarkation of these emi­ grants. In the period 1860-1874, 112,362 Chinese emigrants (a num­ ber of them coolies) left Hong Kong for the United States, not count­ ing the 4,952 women, mostly concubines and prostitutes.34 Accord­ ing to another estimate, during the years between 1848 and 1882 as many as 300,000 Chinese emigrants arrived in the United States.35 Between 1855 and 1900, a total of 1,830,572 Chinese emigrants em­ barked at the port of Hong Kong. In addition, Hong Kong became

Historical Setting 25



the major port for the returning Chinese from abroad. Statistics tell part of the story:36





YEARS

EM BARKATION

IN HONG KONG

DISEM BARKATION

HONG KONG

1855-59

81,053



1860-69

96,096

75,641

1870-79

317,273

343,881

1880-89

657,479

774,355

1890-99

595,028

1,072,305

1900-09

780.360

1,393,757

1910-19

974.360

1,288,973

Hong Kong had become a very busy port.

The emigration business was extremely lucrative for the shipping firms, brokers, and labor recruiters. Western, especially British, American, and French, shipping firms registered great profits. Ac­ cording to E. }. Eitel, “for San Francisco alone as many as 30,000 Chinese embarked in Hong Kong in the year 1852, paying in Hong Kong, in passage money alone, a sum of $1,500,000.“ 37 Charles Denby, ex-U.S. minister (1885-98) to China, observed: 'To bring a Chinaman from Macao or Hong-Kong would cost less than five dol­ lars, but the steamship companies would charge, as they used to, fifty-five dollars. There would be a clear profit of fifty dollars per head."38

In 1860 the average passage money from Hong Kong to San Fran­ cisco was fifty dollars; passage money to Central and South America was seventy dollars. Unable to pay the passage money, many "free" coolie emigrants were given "credit tickets" by the labor broker who did the recruitment on behalf of American shipping firms and em­ ployers. On arrival in America the coolie under his creditor's control was bound to work many years before he could repay his debt, which consisted of the loan for the passage plus interest. As the credit right could be bought and sold, the indebted coolie could be transferred to work for another master creditor. The "free" emigrant under the "credit-ticket system," then, was not free after all; it was in reality a "veiled slave trade."39 Thus, the foreign shipping firms and business creditors made large sums of money from the emigra­ tion business. During the years 1860-1874, the embarkation in Hong Kong of 112,362 emigrants for the United States involved $5,618,100

26 Historical Setting



in passage money alone, not counting high interests added on loans for large numbers of coolies. The Chinese compradors, crimps, and middlemen also made profits from the emigration business.40 The emigration of nearly two million Chinese through Hong Kong in the latter half of the nineteenth century contributed significantly to mak­ ing Hong Kong a major shipping center in South China. Large num­ bers of emigrant ships were fitted, repaired, and provisioned in Hong Kong, stimulating the colony's general economy.41 Large ship­ building companies were established one after another. They were joined by numerous Chinese manufacturers of junks and sampan, numbering 119 by the year 1913.42

Meanwhile Hong Kong developed close commercial relations with neighbouring Amoy, Swatow, Macao, Canton, the Pearl River Delta, and the West River valley, from which came the coastal vessels, river boats, and junks carrying cargoes of passengers and provisions. At the same time the China coastal and international shipping service was provided by a number of companies. Professional services such as medical facilities, marine and property insurance, money ex­ change, and barristers' legal advice and assistance became available. Large international banking institutions were set up one after an­ other. In addition, the Chinese native banks financed trade with China and the Chinese communities overseas. In short, both Euro­ pean and Chinese mercantile communities in Hong Kong prospered by providing commercial, financial and professional services.43



Links with Chinese Abroad: The Pacific Basin Commercial Network

The prosperity of Hong Kong was linked to the Chinese communities overseas, which retained close ties with their homeland in China. "Wherever the Chinese goes he retains his national habits, customs, and solidarity," observed Charles Denby. 4 The Chinese communi­ ties abroad clung to the Chinese way of life, and Hong Kong became the center of an international trade catering to their needs.45 The arrival of large numbers of Chinese immigrants in the United States in the latter half of the nineteenth century created a demand for rice, tea, foodstuffs, drugs, and sundries from China. Hong Kong devel­ oped a flourishing trade with the United States, where a Chinese merchant class prospered by selling Chinese imports. The American

Historical Setting 27



import of rice from China, Hong Kong, and Hawaii rose annually from 18.7 million pounds in 1867 to 59.6 million pounds in 1876, and

61.1 million pounds in 1878. American exports to China included flour, dried fish, and other commodities in exchange. Trade between the United States and China expanded from a value of $11.4 million in 1867 to $26.8 million in 1872.46 Thereafter, the trade between the two countries grew steadily.

Indeed, Hong Kong became the center of a flourishing commercial network encompassing China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Amer­ ica. The trade in rice, a staple food of the vast Chinese population, was of great importance to the Chinese both at home and abroad. As the supplies from the rice fields of southern China were often insuf­ ficient to meet the demands, rice had to be imported from Burma, Vietnam, and especially Siam. In 1875 about 60 percent (2,420,000 piculs) of Siamese rice exports went to China and Hong Kong and 27 percent (1,140,000 piculs) to Singapore; in 1911-12 43 percent (7,545,000 piculs) went to China and Hong Kong and 34 percent (5,975,000 piculs) to Singapore. A part of Singapore's shipments also went to China. In 1899 three-quarters of the total number of rice mills in Bangkok were in Chinese hands. The Chinese merchants' control of most of the Asian rice trade before 1914 extended from the rice milling in Bangkok to the actual sale of the commodity in Singapore and Hong Kong.47 Hong Kong became the distributing center of rice for China, Japan, and the United States.

The sugar produced in Indonesia was another important staple for

the Chinese. In the years 1890-95, China, Hong Kong, and Japan annually shared an average of 31 percent (122,550 tons) of sugar exports from Java, increasing to 46 percent (327,670 tons) for the years 1905-10. "Sugar . . . was exported from Batavia either direct or via Singapore to Hong Kong where, after refinement, cargoes were transshipped to other Chinese ports and to Japan."48



Chinese Merchants in the Pacific Commercial Network

Behind trade figures lie hidden the lives and activities of thriving Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and Canton. A look at some of these men provides insight into the work and leisure of the wealthy in Hong Kong. Choa Chee Bee (Ts'ai Tzu-wei, 1836-1902), a Fu- kienese merchant from Malacca, was comprador to the China Sugar

28 Historical Setting



Refinery Company, Ltd. He acquired much wealth in the sugar trade ü estate, possessing thirteen houses (two in Malacca, four in six in Canton, and six in Hong Kong), in addition to other

property.49 In 1898 his nephew Choa Leep Chee (Ts'ai Li-chih, 1859- 1909) succeeded him as comprador to the refinery. Choa Leep Chee was also a shareholder in other companies, and was heavily involved in the sugar tradi een Java, Hong Kong, and China. He lived at Burnside, no. 47, Robinson Road, "a house delightfully situated, overlooking the harbor . . . [and] surrounded by a very beautiful garden stocked with some hundreds of varieties of English and European flowers." On his death in 1909, at the young age of fifty, his estate was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.50

Ng Li Hing (Goh Li Hing, Wu Li-ch'ing, 1833-1914) came from Fukien in 1878. He was the founder of Goh Guan Hin, a firm of commission agents, rice, and sugar importers, and exporters of ma­ rine edibles. It had "a very large export trade to the Straits Settle­ ments, Java, Philippine Islands, and South China generally."51 Ng Li Hing was also chairman of the Hongkong and Manila Yuen Shing Exchange and Trading Co., Ltd., a financial company that had branches at Manila, Singapore, Shanghai, Amoy, and Penang. He was the proprietor of a brewery at Wongnaichung and was connected with numerous other enterprises in Hong Kong. On his death at eighty in 1914 his personal estate was equal in value to the sum of $281,639, and consisted of houses, fields and lands in Swatow, Amoy, and Cheng-hai, and of shops, houses, property, businesses, shares, moveable property, and moneies in Hong Kong, Canton, and else­ where.52

This description demonstrates the energy, wealth, and way of life of Chinese merchants in Hong Kong who prospered from the col­ ony's entrepôt trade. It illustrates the close commercial relations be­ tween Hong Kong, Canton, and other ports on the China coast as well as the flourishing Pacific commercial network encompassing China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and America.

Large numbers of Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia were Hoklo (Hokkienese or Fukienese) from Fukien province and from Ch'ao- chou prefecture in northeastern Kwangtung province (with Swatow and Cheng-hai as major cities), where people spoke a version of Fukienese dialect called Teochiu. The Teochiu-speaking Chinese be­ came the dominant elements in the large Chinese community in

Historical Setting 29



Siam.53 Thus, much of the trade between Hong Kong and Southeast Asia was in the hands of the merchants from Amoy and Swatow, with a dose commercial relationship developing between Hong Kong, Amoy, and Swatow. Hong Kong served as the center of transship­ ments of a large part of merchandise and passengers in the trade and communications between these regions and Southeast Asia.54

The famous Yuen Fat Hong was founded in Hong Kong in 1853 by Ko Man Wah (Kao Man-hua), a native of Cheng-hai near Swatow. The firm was chiefly engaged in importing and exporting rice as well as large quantities of native produce. It had branches in all the major East Asian ports, induding Singapore. One of the wealthiest Chinese firms in the colony, it owned five rice mills in Bangkok. In 1881 Ko Man Wah was the sixteenth highest rate payer in Hong Kong. When he died in 1882, the value of his estate was estimated at $163,000. 5 Four of Ko Man Wah's nine sons (induding Ko Soon Kam) succeeded him as proprietors of the firm of Yuen Fat Hong, engaging in an extensive business with foreign bankers and merchants. For many years, the business acted as agent for the Scottish Oriental Steamship Company and for the Norddeutscher Lloyd's Bangkok-Hong Kong line of steamers. Managing the prosperous Yuen Fat Hong, Ko Soon Kam was a large property owner and leader of the Swatow commu­ nity in Hong Kong, and chairman of the Man On Insurance Com­ pany. Of his nineteen children, one son was sent to Siam and an­ other to Singapore.56

The history of Yuen Fat Hong illustrated the importance of Hong

Kong in the Nanyang trade between China and Southeast Asia, the tendency of Hong Kong merchants to diversify their commercial interests, the family members' management of businesses, the wealthy merchants' leadership in the Swatow community, and Chinese mer­ chants' economic ties to Western capital.

Although large numbers of Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia were Hoklos from Fukien and Teochiu from Ch'ao-chou, there were significant numbers of Cantonese emigrants to Southeast Asia. Out of five hundred thousand Chinese in Indonesia in the year 1900, half came from Kwangtung.57 And there were many Cantonese among the Chinese population in Singapore.58 They played an important part in the trade with Southeast Asia. For example. Wing Fat Hong was founded in Hong Kong in 1899 by Chan Pek Chun (Ch'en Pi- ch'iian), who came from Canton. As a rice, sugar, and general com-

30 Historical Setting



mission agency, it quickly came into prominence, having by 1917 "a turnover in rice of $2,000,000 and in sugar of $1,500,000." The firm imported produce from Java, Rangoon, Penang, Haiphong, and the Philippines. It also had shipping interests, serving as the agent for a number of steamers. Its office staff numbered forty, and its ware­ houses employed over a hundred men. 9

While much of the rice, sugar, and other produce from Southeast Asia was imported to Hong Kong by the colony's Hokkien and Teochiu merchants, the transshipment to America of these products went largely into the hands of the colony's Cantonese and Western businessmen. As the overwhelming majority of Chinese emigrants to America and Australia were Cantonese, Chinese participation in the trade between Hong Kong, Australia, and America, was nearly monopolized by the Cantonese merchants. The Anglo-Chinese Com­ mercial Directory of Hong Kong of 1915 listed a total of 239 firms in Hong Kong as "exporters and importers to Melbourne, Sydney, San Francisco and Honolulu" who dealt in a great variety of products.

Among the foodstuffs exported on a large scale from Hong Kong

and Canton to America were Chinese delicacies to supply the needs of the Chinese communities and restaurants in the United States. The firm of Cheung Kwong Yuen, founded by Pun Wan Nam (Pan Wan-nan) in 1887, had by 1917 become "one of the most important canning export houses of south China." Lychees, pineapples, ginger, water chestnuts, water lily roots, yuengans, pears, and manis were preserved with sugar syrup. Among the fish exported were the famed flower fish, black fish, eels, and oysters. The firm also exported large amounts of China duck, fried rice birds, and quail. Cheung Kwong Yuen's stores and factories were situated at Canton where the can­ ning, packing, and preparing was done. All the shipping was done at Hong Kong where the firm had a branch.60

A considerable amount of ginger was exported from Hong Kong, once again illustrating the close relations between Canton and Hong Kong. The Choy Fong Ginger Factory, dating back to around 1858, obtained ginger from the Canton district, and processed and pre­ served it in the factory in Hong Kong for export to America, Europe, and Australia. The factory's output during the season in 1908 was about thirty thousand piculs of ginger, a great deal going to the Chinese retail shops in San Francisco. By 1917 there were thirteen

Historical Setting 31



preserved ginger factories in Hong Kong with an annual aggregate business turnover of $25 million.61

The foregoing discussion of some prominent commercial firms testified to six points: (1) the ingenuity, energy, wealth, and the self- indulgent living of the Chinese merchants; (2) the close relationship between Hong Kong and the Teochiu-speaking area of Swatow and the Hokkien-speaking area of Amoy, with the colony's Teochiu and Hokkien merchants playing a vital role in the trade between these areas and Southeast Asia; (3) the merchant leadership in the Teochiu and Hokkienese communities in Hong Kong; (4) the inseparable economic ties between Hong Kong and Canton, with Hong Kong serving as the entrepôt—importing goods for Canton merchants to distribute to the mainland and exporting goods that Canton had collected from inland. As Governor Sir F. Henry May remarked in 1912, "This Colony . . . commercially is so closely connected with Canton that from that aspect the two cities may be considered to be one";62 (5) the flourishing commercial network in the Pacific basin, extending from South China through Hong Kong to Southeast Asia, Australia, and America; and (6) the close commercial ties between Chinese merchants and Western business enterprises.



The Number of Chinese Importing and Exporting Firms

The full scope of Hong Kong's economic development up to the early twentieth century still awaits scholarly study. As a free port Hong Kong kept no customs or shipping records. It published no statistics showing the origin of its imports or the destination of its exports.63 Yet the number of the colony's Chinese firms engaged in interna­ tional trade in 1915 indicates the degree to which Hong Kong was an entrepôt in the commercial network of the Pacific basin in the early twentieth century.

The Anglo-Chinese Commercial Directory of Hong Hong of 1915 listed the number of Chinese firms in Hong Kong as follows.64

Nam Pak Hong (General Exporters and Importers to

Southern & Northern Ports, and to Southeast Asian Ports) 84 Kam Shan Chung (Exporters & Importers to Melbourne,

Sydney, San Francisco, and Honolulu) 239

Exporters & Importers to Peru 4

Havana 3

32 Historical Setting



Panama





2

Spain &







Manila

31





Haiphon

2





Annam

36





Cambodia

1





Siam

19

186

Sandakan

4





Java

5





Penang

15





Singapore

73





Japan





30

Calcutta





1

South Africa





1

Southeast Asia

Thus, Southeast Asia led the way in its share of trade with Chinese firms in Hong Kong, closely followed by America and Australia. Japan's trade with Hong Kong and China substantially accelerated after 1895, as will be seen in chapter 8.

Hong Kong's position as the commercial center for import and export in South China is illustrated by the number of the colony's Chinese firms trading with Chinese cities and regions (other than Canton, with which Hong Kong formed inseparable commercial ties):65

Haikow/ Hainan

Foochow

11

Peihai, Kwangtung

1

Shantung

3

Yün-nan

24

Tientsin

7

Swatow, Ch'ao-chou

12

Hankow

8

Amoy

22

Shanghai

58

As the two foremost distributing centers of China's foreign trade Hong Kong and Shanghai were closely connected in commercial relations, both dealing in Shanghai silks, piece goods, sundries, leather, fruits, rice, shoes, embroideries, etc. There were, in addition, eighty- six Chinese firms in Hong Kong that dealt in Shanghai silk and European piece goods, and fifty-three firms of Soochow-Hangchow and European goods dealers in the colony in 1915. 6 It must be noted