A Concise History of Hong Kong

Introduction

Early governors
Elliot
Pottinger
Davis
Bonham
Bowring
Robinson

Early govt officials

Treasurer
Colonial Secretary

Hong Kong in History

 Hong Kong (fragrant harbour) refers to Hong Kong island, ceded by the Qing
dynasty to Great Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking
 Hong Kong Island; Kowloon Peninsula (ceded to Britain in 1860 under the
Convention of Peking) and the New Territories (leased to Britain for 99 years in
1898)
 Hong Kong’s colonial administration and the contributions of local Chinese
 Hong Kong was the most important place in China
o Sun Yat-sen was educated in colonial HK
o The father of modern Chinese law, Wu Tingfang, was raised and educated
in HK
o HK served as a haven for Chinese refugees: during the Taiping Rebellion
(1851-1864) after the revolution of 1911 and throughout the 1920s, after
the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 193, and after the Communist
revolution of 1949.
 HK has been China’s most critical link to the rest of the world
o Chinese emigrants went through HK
o Money from overseas Chinese was remitted through HK
o After 1949, HK played an important role in building China’s socialist
economy:
 as a window to the outside world
 As a base for importing goods HK exported goods eg cinema
  Korean War: goods were smuggled in during the embargoes
o HK investors were responsible for China’s economic transformation in the
late 1970s
 Chineseness of HK/Chinese influences
o Geographical location: proximity to China
o Population: overwhelmingly Chinese
o HK’s history was affected primarily by events in China
o Colonial HK contributed to China’s nation-building
 HK as part of British colonial history
o A British colony for 150 years
o Other British colonies, eg Malaya, Borneo, India, Singapore
o In the mid-1800s, HK was tightly connected to India – through trade
(cotton and opium) and by a regular passenger ship service
o Rupee widely used until the 1860s
o The establishment of the HK and Shanghai Bank in 1864
o Indigenous Chinese architecture
o shophouse – imported from Singapore, which was affected by India
 HK influenced by its colonial administrators
o Governors served in other colonies eg Grantham (1947-1957)
o In the 1950s and 1960s – colonial servants transferred from the recently
independent British colonies
o HK’s police force organised along colonial lines
 Senior officers were expatriate veterans from Africa, Malaya and
Palestine
 Junior officers were Chinese
o Cricket
o Rugby
 America had a special interest in HK
o HK as a terminus for America’s trade, importing goods eg ginseng, flour,
lumber, and kerosene and exporting goods eg silk, tea, rattan, and labour
o During the Cold War: colonialism preferable to Communism
 As a listening post on China
 As a base for anti-Communist propaganda
 As a destination for rest and recreation during the KW and the VW
 HK goods eg clothing, plastic flowers, and wigs
 US Chamber of Commerce in 1969
 As a free port with low taxes and minimal govt intervention
 Determined to ensure that the Chinese govt keeps its promise to
 abide by the one country, two systems model
 Until the late 1980s and early 1990s HK had no political parties

 HK as an encounter between China and Britain

o Streets named after British royalty and colonial administrators
o British law, Christianity, and modern Western medicine coexist with
traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese temples, religious festivals and
ceremonies, and feng shui
o Modern Western-style buildings
o Horse racing
 HK identity
o Late 1800s – the order and prosperity VS political chaos and economic
backwardness of China
o The Chinese and the expat live separate lives
o Westerners referred as ‘foreign devils’
 Decolonisation in 1997
o More economically advanced than most independent countries as a major
financial centre
o The main cause for the termination of colonial rule:
 Different than in most colonies
 Neither internal demand nor international pressure
 The decision from the Chinese govt: in 1972 declared HK’s future a
purely internal Chinese matter
 1. Early Colonial Hong Kong
111 BCE Southern Yue Kingdom defeated by Emperor Han Wu Di.
Gradual migration of Han Chinese

1834 End of East India Company’s monopoly

1839 Lin Zexu launches antiopium campaign
1839/11 First Opium War begins
1842 Treaty of Nanking cedes HK Island to Britain
1843 HK declared a British colony

1847 Establishment of Man Mo Temple

1849 Chinese laborers come through HK
1850s dispute over British access to Canton
1851-1864 Taiping Rebellion

1856 Arrow incident and beginning of Second Opium War

1860 Convention of Peking
1861 British occupy Kowloon
1862 Founding of the Central School
1864 Establishment of HK and Shanghai Bank
1869 Formation of Tung Wah Hospital Committee
1880 Ny Choy becomes first Chinese appointed to LegCo
1882 Po Leung Kuk opened
1887 establishment of HK College of Medicine for Chinese 香港華人西醫書
院
1896 founding of HK Chinese Chamber of Commerce 香港中華總商會
1898 Convention of Peking; NT leased to Br for 99 years
Kang Youwei flees to HK after Hundred Days of Reform

Was precolonial HK a ‘barren island’?

 HK has played a vital role in Chinese history
 HK not having any real history until the British arrived
o A tomb uncovered at Lei Cheng Uk from the Han period
o Kowloon where the emperor of the Southern Song dynasty sought refuge
o During the Yuan dynasty, HK was inhabited mainly by farmers, fishermen,
and pirates. Seven large families owned much of the land
 Ming: settlers from Guangdong and Fujian migrated to Kowloon
  Qing: China was ruled by the Manchus, HK became more closely
integrated with China; part of Xin’an county
 Zhang Baozai
 Villages, coastal villages
 Temples – prove that HK was well established in settled
communities before 1841

The West returns to China

 During the Tang (618-907) and Yuan (1276-1368) dynasties, merchants came to
China from Europe via the Silk Road
 Macau (now Macao) became a centre of exchange of goods
o Chinese goods eg silk, tea and porcelain in exchange of silver
o European missionaries eg Ricci
o Macau became a base of Christianity and Western learning
 The British East India Company (EIC) was allowed to open a post in Canton – the
only legal Chinese port for overseas trade
 Whampoa
 The Canton System
o International trade conducted through Chinese hongs (trading firms)
o Britain took HK to protect its commercial interests
 The acquisition of HK
o HK was founded primarily as an imperial outpost and an opium centre
o Elliot was convinced that HK would be the perfect base on the China coast
o Pottinger (governor)
o EIC
o Lord Napier
o Matheson, head of Jardine and Matheson, the largest British firm

Foreign mud: opium and war

 Britain acquired HK during the First Opium War (1839-1842):
o By the late 1700s, trade was tilted in China’s favour. The British had just
silver to offer the Chinese for their silk and tea.
o The British responded by importing opium, grown in India.
o As the demand for opium increased, British merchants became frustrated
with the Canton system and the Qing ban on opium
o EIC’s monopoly ended in 1834
o China: outflow of silver
 In 1839 Lin Zexu launched antiopium campaign
  The Royal Navy blockaded Canton  landed on the northern
shore and raised the British flag at Possession Point  BEF took
formal possession
 In 1841 Elliot tried to attract Chinese and foreign traders with
guarantees of free trade and protection
 Treaty of Nanking signed in 1842
 British granted right of extraterritoriality (British in China
tried by British judges) and the most-favoured-nation
 Canton system abolished
 Known as the first of ‘unequal treaties’ forced on China

Collaboration
 The military victory was made possible by Chinese collaborators
 Chow Shouson, the first Chinese member of the Executive Council
 Resentment of the Manchus/wealth and power
 Loo Aqui (priacy and providing foreign vessels with supplies), a Tanka (minority
ethnic group lived in small boats)
 Kwok Acheong (Tanka boatman) (comprador (buyer) of P&O)
o Competed with HK, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company 省港澳輪船
公司
 Tam Achoy (contractor) – built P&O Building, first Supreme Court, dockyards
 The British offered reward for collaboration: land in the Lower Bazaar,
monopolies (held by local Chinese merchants or contractors)
 Opium monopoly
 Enabled them to achieve social prominence they could not achieve in China
 became prominent members of the Chinese community

Hong Kong’s troubles

 when the British took control of HK in 1841, the northern shore was unoccupied
and consisted of small farming and fishing villages.
 The British occupation made HK into a boomtown
o Drew Chinese from Guangdong and European merchants and missionaries
from Macau
o Official/govt buildings, commercial facilities
 The influx of Chinese and European newcomers
o crime and piracy
o land shortages
o Villagers paying rent also to the Tang family, which owned most land
 The entrepot trade developed slowly
 Malaria
 Trading centre of southern China
o Treaty of Nanking also opened five Chinese ports
o Treaty ports
o British ships – British shipping companies
o The colonial govt could not provide a safe business environment
 Piracy

The Second Opium War

 Another Sino-British conflict?
 Shaped by developments in HK and China and global events that affected the
British Empire
 Treaty of Nanking
o Br: open China to foreign trade; trade concessions and diplomatic rights
o Qing: keep the foreigners at bay
o Throughout the 1850s, Sino-British relations were plagued by the Canton
question and opium trade
o Britain’s global position depended on opium so requested more
concessions (the legalisation of the opium trade, the right to diplomatic
representation in Beijing)
 For Bowring, the Arrow incident is the perfect pretext to solve the remaining
problems from the FOW and to revise the ToN
 Anglo-French forces took Canton
 Convention of Peking 1860
 Global events:
o Crimean War 1853-56, war in Persia (1856-57), riots in Singapore, Penang,
Sarawak, South Africa
o The rising power of the US
o Britain’s failure to open the China and Latin America markets
o Indian Rebellion (Great Mutiny)
 Governor-General Ye’s calls for Chinese in HK to attack their British colonisers
 Tension and insecurity in HK
o Bread-poisoning incident, 1857
o Reservoir was guarded by sentries
o Many Chinese left HK
o Many Chinese collaborated with the British during the war
 Li Sing, Lo Leong (Li brothers)
The Taiping rebellion and Chinese emigration
 The local Chinese population greatly expanded and helped make HK a major
trading centre.
o The opening of Canton and other treaty ports by the Treaty of Nanking
o Taiping Rebellion
o Chinese emigration
o The growth of overseas Chinese communities
 A new Chinese business elite (class of wealthy Chinese) emerged
o Li brothers (brokers of immigrant labour)
 HK’s economic growth attracted new foreign investment
o Douglas Lapraik cofounded first dry dock
o HSBC founded in 1864
 2: State and Society
 The British headquarters for the China trade in silk, tea and opium
 A naval station and the first port of call for European travellers

Economy: opium and emigration

 HK attracted foreign merchants involved in the China trade, international trade,
insurance and shipping.
o British:
 Jardine and Matheson
 Swire (trading, shipping and sugar refining)
o Indian:
 D. Ruttonjee (Parsee)
o Asian headquarters for many British firms
o A base for trade with Southeast Asia
 The HK govt deprived much of its revenue from opium from 1845-1941
 Chinese emigration (eg to California)
o Through opium and Chinese emigration, HK became a nexus of trade
networks

Society
 Multi-ethnic but predominantly Chinese
 Chinese
o One important feature of the Chinese social structure in early HK was
temples eg the Man Mo Temple
o Officials in Beijing relied on loans from HK banks and depended on
weapons and munitions imported through the colony
o Chinese elites developed associations to resolve disputes:
 Man Mo Temple founded in 1847 by Loo Aqui and Lam Achoy
 Became the main social centre and self-managed govt of
the Chinese community
 Nam Pak Hong (Chinese firms) (1868)
 Managing guild activities and ran neighbourhood services
 Chinese participation in the local public sphere
 Tung Wah Hospital (1869)
 Prejudice against Western medicine
 A Chinese hospital
 Medical, social, charitable and community services
  Became the cultural and social centre of the Chinese
community
 Civil disputes settled by the hospital committee
 Managing the Chinese population
 Europeans
o Colonial officials, merchants, professionals and missionaries
 London Missionary Society
 HK and Shanghai Bank
 The Portuguese lived in Kowloon after 1860.
 The British lived on Victoria Peak
 elite clubs eg the HK Club, the Cricket Club, the Jockey Club
excluded Chinese
 Eurasians
o Ho brothers – Robert Ho Tung, Ho Kam Tong, Ho Fook became wealthy
businessmen and leaders of the Chinese business community
 Indians
o Parsee traders, Muslims and Sikhs who came as traders, soldiers,
policemen.

Govt, law and the administration of justice

 HK’s early govt system was organised with developing the China trade
 Until 1860 the governor:
o Negotiating with Chinese authorities ( the Foreign Office)
o Protecting British trade in China ( the Foreign Office)
o Regulating HK’s economy
 Little money for social welfare or education to keep the colony running as cheaply
as possible
 To keep Chinese residents under control

 Constitutional Frameworks
o The governor would administer the colony with a colonial secretary, an
Executive Council and a Legislative Council
o The 2 councils have both official and nonofficial members appointed by
the governor from the British business elite
o Until the 1880s, members of the LegCO were almost all non-Chinese
 Law and the Administration of Justice
 Managing the Chinese
Techniques of control?
 Colonial education
 Policing contagious diseases

1900-1919
1910 Kowloon-Canton Railway
1911 1911 Revolution
1919 May Fourth Movement
Bank of East Asia
1928 Kai Tak
1986 HK joins GATT (WTO)

Hong Kong was founded for trade:

 Firms eg Jardine, Swire
 Services: banking, insurance, shipping
 Kowloon-Canton Railway in 1910
 Sincere Company in 1900
 Wing On Department Store in 1907
 Bank of East Asia in 1919.

Rise of the HK Chinese bourgeois:

 Chinese Chamber of Commerce by merchants and compradors
 Ho Kam Tong (comprador for Jadine), Ho Tung
 Wei yuk (a comprador and entrepreneur)
 China’s foreign trade was with Britain: tea and silk opium

The interwar years

 Washington Treaty of 1922 undermined Britain’s commercial interests in Asia
 Rise of Socialism
 World trade declined.
 Commercial and shipping centre (entrepot)
 A popular tourist destination
 Kai Tak in 1928
 Chinese industry
o Hong Kong-made goods eg Kwong Sang Hong produced cosmetics &
soaps
The Sino-Japanese War (1937-45)
 The J blockaded Shanghai, half of China’s foreign trade was diverted through
HK, making it the exchange banking centre.
 Munitions purchased overseas entered China through the Kowloon-Canton
Railway.
 The influx of refugees from China

HK’s economic recovery

 The abolition of the foreign concessions in China, foreign firms moved
headquarters from China to HK.
 Firms in Shanghai moved to HK.
 HK got its own airline, Cathay Pacific.
 HK’s economy benefited from the Chinese civil war.

1949
 HK’s strategic value: Britain officially recognised the new PRC in 1950.
 For China, HK was a base for importing foreign goods.

The Korean War

 US and UN embargoes encourage shift towards industrialization eg plastic toys,
electronics

1950s post-war boom

 Public housing scheme
 1967 Riots – anti British, against Vietnam War

HK’s rise to a regional financial centre in the late 1960s

 MacLehose’s ‘positive nonintervention’ policy
  Compulsory free education & more social welfare
 GDP grew at 10%
 Chinese firms bought British firms in docks and shipping. (Hutchison-
Whampoa)
1970s to the 1980s
 China’s open door policy helped transform HK from a manufacturing base for
light industrial goods into a financial and service centre.
 GDP had risen by 100%.
 HK factories moved to SSEZ
 MTR in 1975
 First cross-harbour tunnel in 1972
 free to set its own tax policies (exchange rate)

 the world’s busiest container port

 HK provided China its foreign exchange reserves.
 Tourist industry
1900-1919

1904 ‘Peak District Bill’ Peak reserved for Europeans

1912 University of Hong Kong
1914-18 Hong Kong provides laborers for Western Front
1919 May Fourth Movement leads to boycotts in Hong Kong

1922 Seamen’s strike

1926 Chow Shouson becomes first Chinese appointed to Executive
Council

1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria

1933 Roosevelt introduces New Deal
1936 Urban Council established
1937 Start of Sino-Japanese War. Hong Kong becomes haven
1941 Japanese forces invade HK
1945 Japanese surrender

British govt declares intention to keep Hong Kong. Independence of India, Burma,
Malaya, Pakistan
1946 ‘Peak Bill’ repealed
1946 Young plan for constitutional reform
1947-49 Chinese civil war. Shanghai firms move to HK
1949 Establishment of PRC

1950-53 US and UN embargoes during Korean War encourage shift

towards industrialization
1954, 58 Taiwan Strait Crises

1966 Mao launches Cultural Revolution

1966-67 Star Ferry riots. Riots by leftists
1974 ICAC
1975 Communist victory and unification of Vietnam
1976 Death of Mao
1978 Deng becomes leader of China

1984 Signing of Sino-British Joint Declaration

1985 First indirect elections for LEGCO
1988 Indirect elections for 26/57 seats in LEGCO
1989 Deng crushes protests in Tiananmen Square

1991 First direct elections for LEGCO

1992 Martin Lee and Yeung Sum of United Democrats discuss political
reforms in London
Democratic Alliance for Betterment of HK
1993 the first Chinese chief secretary Anson Chan

Chinese participation in the local public sphere through Chinese voluntary

organisations (Man Mo Temple, Nam Pak Hong, Tung Wah Hospital, Po Leung Kuk)
 Political dominance of the British
 Chinese unofficial members of the LEGCO
o Ho Kai, Wei Yuk
o Lau Chu Pak
 Racial discrimination
o No Chinese were to live in Peak
o Chinese barred from Hong Kong Club & Jockey Club
o Courts often presumed Chinese defendants were guilty
o ‘native Chinese Peace Officers’ to settle civil disputes
 The British needed local support after 1945/ HK’s strategic value
😊 ☹
 Young plan  Urban Council the only elected
 Lo Man Kam appointed to the EXCO council (until 1981)
 Chau Tsun Nin appointed to the  Chamber of Commerce European-
LEGCO and EXCOs dominated
 Equal number of Chinese and
European EXCO
 Localization of govt officials
o Paul Tsui became first
Chinese cadet officer
After 1967: reforms under Trench and MacLehose
 Ten Years Housing Scheme  In 1976 unofficial LEGCO members a
 Country parks majority, still appointed
 New towns
 In 1976 unofficial LEGCO members a
majority
 City District Officer system to close
gap between govt & ppl
 District Administration Scheme in
1981 (public consultation)
 District Boards (advisory role)
After 1984: Joint Declaration
 Chris Patten’s reforms
 In 1991, District Board and Urban
Council elections
 1st direct elections to LEGCO, 1991
o United Democrats won
12/18 seats
 Tung Chee-hwa, the first Chinese to
rule HK
 Bill of Rights, 1991

The importance of the peaceful return of HK

 Deng gained international recognition of China’s rights