The Vulnerability of Hong Kong: Chinese
Politics and International Relations
Chi-Kwan MarkSenior Lecturer in International History, Departmentof History, Royal Holloway University of London

1926, CO 129/497

The Vulnerability of Hong Kong: Chinese

Communist Party. With the failure of the Washington

Politics and International Relations

Powers to return, immediately, their leased territories
to China on the one hand and the encouragement of the‘Ever since Hong Kong became a British Crown Colony,

Soviet Union on the other, in 1923 Sun Yat-sen’s

its development trajectory was inextricably linked withKuomintang government, based in Canton, formed a

Chinese politics and international relations in East Asia.

united front with the Chinese Communist Party with a

Britain acquired Hong Kong Island and Kowloon inview to ending Western imperialism in China (Britain andperpetuity in 1842 and 1860 respectively, and obtained aother European Powers did not recognise Sun’sninety-nine year lease of the New Territories in 1898.

government, but the Republican government in Peking).

Although, at the time, no British official might have

Chinese revolutionary nationalism exploded on 30 May

grasped its long-term implications, the lease indeed

1925, when a labour dispute in a Japanese-owned mill inmarked the beginning of the end of the whole of thethe International Settlement of Shanghai turned into acolony of Hong Kong – not just the New Territories. By

nationwide anti-British movement after a British police

drawing on the CO129 files, this essay gives a snapshot

inspector had ordered his Sikh and Chinese officers toof two critical periods in the twentieth century, when theopen fire on the Chinese crowd. The May Thirtiethstatus of British Hong Kong appeared to be at stake. InIncident was followed by the Shakee Incident in Canton

the 1920s, China

on 23 June, when fifty-two Chinese protestors wereexperienced arisingtideofrevolutionary nationalism, targeting Western imperialist

killed by British and French forces.

interests in the country. The rise of Chinese nationalism
also spilled over into Hong Kong, where a territory-wide
strike-cum-boycott broke out and crippled the local
economy. In its aftermath, the Hong Kong Governor
suggested to London the permanent cession to GreatBritain of the New Territories as a solution to Hong
Kong’s vulnerability. The second critical moment camein the 1940s as a result of the Second World War. The
Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, together with the US
President Roosevelt’s clamour for Hong Kong’s returnto China after the war, propelled British ministers and1: Photograph of Shameen and Shakee Street, 1926, CO 129/497

officials to ponder on the future of the Crown Colony.
Supported by the Kuomintang government in Canton and1921 witnessed two important events that were to shapeespecially the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese in

the course of Chinese and indeed Hong Kong history –Hong Kong along with their comrades in Kwangtungthe convening of the Washington Conference, during

launched a general strike and boycott against thewhich the question of China’s sovereignty and leased

British. A Strike Committee was set up to direct theterritories was raised, and the founding of the Chinese

struggle, and hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong

workers left the Colony for Canton. In response, Hongforce, for example) and negotiation with the Canton

Kong Governor Reginald Stubbs, believing that thegovernment (especially after Chiang Kai-shek had

Canton government was under the influence of theoutmanoeuvred his left-wing and right-wing rivals

Soviets, took a hard-line approach by, for example,within Kuomintang). Importantly, by mid-1926, Chiang

invoking emergency powers to deal with the strike-

was about to launch the Northern Expedition against theboycott and even seeking London’s approval to unseat

warlords, and the Hong Kong strike and, for that matter,

the Canton government.

the struggle against British imperialism, was nowideemed a lesser priority. On 10 October, with the Canton
government’s support, the Strike Committee declaredan end to the boycott against British Hong Kong.

ii

The 1925-26 strike was a landmark event in the historyof Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong survived the yearlong challenge, in its aftermath, the colonial government
could not but pay more attention to the Chinese
population, particularly the Chinese elites (for example,by appointing Chow Shouson to the Executive Council, as
its first Chinese member). As for the British homegovernment, the events in Hong Kong were an alarming
manifestation of China’s revolutionary nationalism.
Shortly after the end of the Hong Kong strike, inDecember 1926, the Foreign Office produced amemorandum calling for a new China policy: that Britain
needed to accommodate the rise of Chinese nationalism
by agreeing to renegotiate the ‘unequal treaties’ withChina. In effect, this entailed an orderly retreat fromBritain’s lesser concessions in China, while preserving
its most important interests notably in Shanghai. Guided
by the Foreign Office memorandum, Britain gave up
2: Proclamation of emergency powers by Reginald Stubbs, June 22,Hankow and Kiukiang in 1927, restored China’s full tariff

1925. CO 129/488.

autonomy in 1929, and returned the leased territory ofWeihaiwei to China in 1929. Nevertheless, the Hong

When Cecil Clementi, a Cantonese-speaking former
cadet with a deep knowledge of Chinese culture andpolitics, succeeded Stubbs in October 1925, the Hong
Kong government resorted to a mix of firm measures (anintensified propaganda campaign and a show of naval

Kong Governor had strong reservations about the policyof conciliation as advocated by the Foreign Office. To
Clementi, the stability of Hong Kong depended on
maintaining good relations with the authorities in Cantonratherthanwith

ChiangKai-shek’sNationalistgovernment in Nanking, recognised by Britain in 1929. Infact, during the 1930s, Kwangtung was effectively
outside the control of the Nanking government.
Clementi was eager to deal with the Canton authorities
over such issues as trade, transport, and extradition ofcriminals on a pragmatic basis.

iii

Against the backdrop of political development in China,
Clementi saw the British tenure of the New Territories
as ‘unsatisfactory in the extreme’. In a telegram to theColonial Office on 19 January 1927, two weeks after theChinese seizure of the concession of Hankow, Clementi
warned that in view of ‘the agitation all over China for the3: Peking to Foreign Office, no. 145, 21 January 1927, CO129/503/2

handing back of all leased territories and concessions’and ‘the fact that the handing back of the New Territories

Obviously, the British Minister in China needed towould be fatal to this Colony’, it was ‘of great

consider the wider context of Anglo-Chinese relations,

importance’ that the New Territories ‘should be made a

not just the parochial interests of Hong Kong. The

permanent part of the Colony as soon as possible’. He

Secretary of State for the Colonies, Leo Amery, after

linked the New Territories with the leased territory ofconsultation

Weihaiwei (whose negotiations with the Chinese over its

Chamberlain, could not side with the Hong Kong

rendition were still underway), wondering if it wasGovernor. As Amery confided to Clementi on 18

possible to come to an arrangement for the cession ofFebruary, ‘I fully appreciate that the maintenance of thethe New Territories to Great Britain to be ‘a quid pro quo

New Territories under British administration is vital tofor the unconditional rendition of Weihaiwei’.

Thethe security of Hong Kong … [But] it would be

British Minister in China, Sir Miles Lampson, disagreed.

exceedingly dangerous to call attention to the lease in

In communicating his view to the Foreign Office on 21

view of the strength which the present movement for theJanuary, Lampson argued that ‘these proposals

restoration of Chinese sovereign rights has now

however desirable from the Hongkong point of view areattained.’ The three documents cited here underscore

entirely out of the present picture’. ‘Whole trend of

two points about British policy towards Hong Kong: theChinese thought and national feeling is in exactly

not infrequent divergence of views between the Hongcontrary direction i.e. recovery of territory ceded in theKong Governor and the British diplomats in China,past’, Lampson explained, and any suggestion of a quid

dictated by their respective bureaucratic roles; and thepro quo ‘would merely intensify charges of Imperialism

relative lack of influence of the Colonial Office vis-à-vis

against us’.

the Foreign Office within Whitehall.

viv

with

Foreign

Secretary

Austenvi

If the rise of Chinese revolutionary nationalism had
highlighted Hong Kong’s vulnerability in the 1920s, theoutbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 raised morequestion marks about the future of the Crown Colony. On25 December 1941, Hong Kong fell into Japanese hands,
thus dealing a serious blow to the prestige of the BritishEmpire. With the United States being dragged into theSecond World War following the Pearl Harbour attack,President Franklin Roosevelt looked on China as a key
ally in the defeat of Japan and as a pillar of the post-war
world order. To make a goodwill gesture to Chiang Kai-4: Chungking to Foreign Office, no. 1552, 13 November 1942,

shek, the United States – and Britain – agreed to theCO129/588/23

abrogation of its extra-territorial rights in China. TheCO129

records

show

howtheAnglo-Chinese

negotiations over the rendition of extra-territoriality inChina created an uncertainty over Hong Kong’s status.
In the British draft treaty submitted to the Chinese in late
October 1942, there was no reference to either theColony of Hong Kong or any part of it including the NewTerritories. However, the Chinese counter-draft to thevii

British in November included a clause providing for thetermination of the 1898 Convention for the Extension ofthe Hong Kong Territory (or the New Territories). Theviii

Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs, who handed in theChinese counter-draft, told the British that ‘the Chinese
Government had not raised the question of Hong Kong
but that they felt that 1898 Convention ought certainly to
be dealt with in the present treaty’.

ix

In assessing the inclusion of the New Territories, Sir
Horace Seymour, British Ambassador in Chungking,believed that China ‘acknowledge[d] leased territories
as in the same category of unequal treaty’, and insisted
that ‘no foreign power shall continue to occupy Chineseterritory’. To Seymour, Britain regarded the possessionof the New Territories as ‘vital to Hong Kong’, out of ‘bothcivil and Military considerations’. Ashley Clarke of thexForeign Office commented: ‘The Chinese have not raised
the question of Hong Kong but perhaps calculate that
our rendition of the New Territory would make a usefulstep towards obliging us to give up sovereignty overHong Kong and count on our receiving no support fromthe United States Government in resisting theirproposal.’ As it turned out, the Chinese did not press thexi

issue of the New Territories in connection with theExtra-territoriality Treaty, but registered their desire toraise it after the war. The treaty was signed by Britainand China on 11 January 1943.

xii

During the Second World War, the future of British Hongthe enemy, it is a point of national honour for us toKong was questioned by the United States. At the Cairo

recover it … We therefore regard it as a national duty not

Conference in November 1943, in the absence of British

only to recover the Colony but to restore it to its state ofPrime Minister Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt

order and prosperity.’

told Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would

meeting with General Hurley of the United States in earlysupport Hong Kong’s return to China after the war, ifApril, was firm about the retention of Hong Kong: ‘neverChiang cooperated with the Chinese Communists

would we yield an inch of the territory that was under theagainst Japan and agreed to make Hong Kong a ‘freeBritish Flag.’ British economic interests in China wereport’. During the Yalta Conference in February 1945,

at stake here. A meeting of the War Cabinet Far Eastern

Roosevelt expressed to Joseph Stalin, in a secret

Economic Sub-Committee on 10 May noted that ‘Britishmeeting, his hope that Britain would relinquish its

Colonial interests in China depended on the possession

sovereignty over Hong Kong, which should then becomeof Hongkong’. The planning of the Colonial Office wasan internationalised free port. It is important to point out

based on ‘the assumption that Hongkong would remain

that, when raising the question of Hong Kong, Roosevelt

a British possession’.

xv

Prime Minister Churchill,

xvi

xvii

seemed to have wider strategic considerations in mind –to impress on Chiang and Stalin the importance ofAmerica as an ally in war and peace – rather thanconcern over Hong Kong’s decolonisation per se. Afterall, Roosevelt was a ‘gradualist’ when it came to the endof European empires, regarding independence as theultimate goal after a period of tutelage or ‘trusteeship’for the colonised subjects.

xiii

As the CO129 files reveal, the British began to deliberate
on Hong Kong’s future by forming a Hong Kong Planning
Unit as early as October 1943. On 8 November 1944, theDeputy Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, made astatement on Hong Kong in the House of Commons.
Asked if Hong Kong or any other part of the Empire wasexcluded from his declaration that the government did
not propose to ‘liquidate the British Empire’, Attlee
confirmed:‘NopartoftheBritishEmpireorCommonwealth of Nations is excluded from the scope ofthe declaration.’ As the Pacific War reached its final
xiv

stage, a Foreign Office memorandum of March 1945
wrote of the British position: ‘Having lost Hongkong to5: Note by WSC (Churchill), 11 April 1945, CO 129/592/8

What complicated the British planning for Hong Kong in

By using selected CO129 files to examine the two critical1945 was the race for accepting the surrender ofperiods when Hong Kong’s future was at risk, this essay

Japanese forces in Hong Kong. As the Supremehighlights two themes that run through much of Hong

Commander of the China theatre, Generalissimo Chiang

Kong history. For one, there often existed divergent

Kai-shek had insisted that the surrender of Hong Kong

views between the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office,should be accepted by his representative, not by a British

particularly between the Hong Kong Governor and thecommander as London demanded. At last, however,

British diplomats in China. Whereas the former would

Chiang settled for the Japanese surrender being

inevitably put the survival and stability of Hong Kong

accepted by a British officer on behalf of both Britain andfirst, the latter needed to consider the wider impact ofChina. By September 1945, with the defeat of Japan,

Hong Kong events on Anglo-Chinese bilateral relations.

Chiang’s concern shifted to a possible resumption of theThis brings us to the second theme, which is that thecivil war with the Chinese Communists. Besides, the newhistory

US President, Harry Truman, was less enthusiasticrevolutionary changes in mainland China and the twists

about the decolonisation of Hong Kong than was theand turns of international politics throughout theanti-colonialist Roosevelt, who passed away on 12 April.

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As such, Hong Kong

Realpolitik dictated that Chiang had to leave British

was not just a responsibility of the Colonial Office, but

Hong Kong alone for the time being. In an address to thealso a diplomatic issue as far as the Foreign Office, other

National Defence Council and the Central Executive

Whitehall departments, and Cabinet ministers wereCommittee on 24 August, President Chiang asserted thatconcerned.

ofHongKong

wasentwinedwiththealthough ‘Hong Kong was assigned to [the] China theatre
following [the] outbreak of [the] Pacific war’, China ‘will
not use [the] occasion of Japan’s unconditionalsurrender as a pretext for disregarding international
agreements and infringing upon rights of our allies’.
‘Now that all the leased territories and settlements in
China have been one after another returned to China’,
Chiang continued, ‘the leased territory of Kowloon
should not remain an exception…But China will settlethis last issue through diplomatic talks’ with Britain.

xviii

On 16 September, Admiral Harcourt formally acceptedJapan’s surrender, marking the resumption of Britishcolonial rule in Hong Kong. A greater challenge to Hong
Kong’sstatus

would

come

Communists a few years later.

from

the

ChineseCitation
Chi-Kwan Mark, ‘The Vulnerability of Hong Kong:
Chinese Politics and International Relations’, China andthe Modern World: Hong Kong, Britain and China(1841–1951), Cengage Learning (EMEA) Ltd, 2019

Endnotesxi

See Chan Lau Kit-Ching, China, Britain and Hong Kong, 1895-1945(Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1990), pp. 197-202.

Chungking to Foreign Office, no. 1574, 17 November 1942,

CO129/588/23.
xiii

The unfolding of the strike-boycott and the Hong Kong

government’s responses can be traced from the files ofAshley Clarke (Foreign Office) to W.B.L. Monson (Colonial Office),

25 November 1942, CO129/588/23.
xii

CO129/498/2 through to CO129/498/7.
See Norman J. Miners, ‘From Nationalistic Confrontation toiii

Regional Collaboration: China-Hong Kong-Britain, 1926-41’, inSee Chan Lau-Kit Ching, ‘The Hong Kong Question during thePacific War (1941-45)’, The Journal of Imperial and CommonwealthHistory, vol. II, no. 1 (October 1973); 56-78.
See Wm. Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay: The United States and thexiii

Precarious Balance: Hong Kong between China and Britain, 1842-1992,
ed. Ming K. Chan (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1994),
pp. 59-70.

Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986).
Parliamentary Question and Answer, 8 November 1944, COxiv

Hong Kong Governor to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 19iv

January 1927, CO 129/503/2.

129/592/8.
xvv

Peking to Foreign Office, no. 145, 21 January 1927, CO129/503/2

vi

Secretary of State for the Colonies to Hong Kong Governor, 18

Memorandum by Foreign Office, signed by H. Prideaux-Brune, 31

March 1945, CO 129/592/8.
xvi

Note by WSC (Churchill), 11 April 1945, CO 129/592/8.

xvii

Extract from the minutes of a meeting of the War Cabinet FarFebruary 1927, CO129/503/2.
vii

Foreign Office to Chungking, no. 1353, 18 October 1942,

CO129/588/23, p. 235-40; Foreign Office to Chungking, no. 1368, 22

Eastern Economic Sub-Committee, 10 May 1945, CO 129/592/8.
xviii

October 1942, CO129/588/23.
viii

Chungking to Foreign Office, no. 1550, 13 November 1942,

CO129/588/23.
ix

Chungking to Foreign Office, no. 1552, 13 November 1942,

CO129/588/23

English text of Chinese President’s statement to National Defence

Council and Central Executive Committee on 24 August 1945,
Extract from Chungking to Foreign Office, no. 945, 26 August 1945,
CO 129/592/8.