SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF HONG KONG SOCIETY SUMMER INSTITUTE 2015 ASIA AS THE GLOBAL FUTURE JUNE 30, 2015

Dr. Denise Tse-Shang Tang (Sociology, HKU)

A British colony, a Chinese community, and a regional (even global) city.

Inhabited largely by Chinese immigrants who maintained close cultural, economic and political ties with the mainland and strong business networks in Southeast Asia.

Chinese merchants, workers, revolutionaries and reformers came to seek better economic opportunities or to further their political causes.

The Cold War & the coming to power of the Chinese Communists in 1949 After the defeat of Japan and the resumption of British

rule in 1945, Hong Kong once again became a place for Chinese migration from the mainland, now engulfed in a civil war.

By the end of 1946, the Hong Kong population was restored to the prewar number of 1,600,000; by 1950 = 2,360,000. By the end of 1956 = over 2.5 million, approximately one third of which were refugees.

The ‘Problem of People’

Consequences of excess population on finance, housing, education, medical services, social welfare, industry, commerce and even political relations and the law.

When addressing the Legislative Council in early 1957, the Hong Kong Governor, Alexander Grantham, spoke of this ‘human problem, a problem of ordinary men, women and children’.

Illegal immigrants vs. Refugees

Official public discourse substituted the term ‘illegal immigrants’ for ‘refugees’, their main difference being that, unlike the latter, the former were escaping out of economic (not political) reasons and thus should not be allowed to stay in Hong Kong.

Government’s policy of ‘turning back’ illegal immigrants from China in May 1962

It’s not our problem… … …

At first, Governor Grantham believed—though wrongly—that the

movement of Chinese was neither a one-way phenomenon nor a permanent problem.

Strongly opposed provision of large scale relief measures As he put it in 1952, there was ‘no reason for turning Hong Kong

into a glorified soup kitchen for refugees from all over China’.

Squatter Fire in Shek Kip Mei (December 1953) With more than 50,000 persons being made homeless, the government decided in

1954 to relocate all squatters in multi-storey resettlement estates. A breeding ground for fire and disease A great risk to public health and public order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-9gAoamk-A

Seeking International Assistance

Chinese refugees should not be seen as a transient population, but as a settled people.

Housing, but also medical services, water, education and social welfare—in short, their full integration into the community.

A heavy burden for the government and voluntary agencies alone to bear

Perspective of the Chinese Communists

British administration of Hong Kong as temporary Hong Kong was always part of China, and its residents were

all Chinese nationals. Beijing felt that it had the sovereign right and responsibility

to protect the ‘well-being’ of the Chinese nationals there—refugees and indigenous residents alike.

Fears from the Communist Government

Perceived Nationalist and American use of Hong Kong as a base of subversion against China.

Feared that Nationalist agents and American officials in Hong Kong, probably with British toleration, would manipulate the plight of the Chinese refugees in the Cold War struggle.

But…fled the Mainland for fear of communism…

What Beijing did was primarily to employ its massive propaganda machine to win over the hearts and minds of the ‘Overseas Chinese’. It would exploit every possible chance to twist events in such a way that maintained an image of ‘motherland’ in the minds of the people of Hong Kong.

Relied on local communist supporters to infiltrate labour unions, schools and film and publishing industries.

Supplied sufficient and cheap foodstuff, raw materials and water.

Perspective of the Chinese Nationalists

Escape of so many Chinese to capitalist Hong Kong was illustrative of the tyranny of the People’s Republic, and the plight of these anti-communist refugees should be the concern of the ‘FreeWorld’.

In 1950, the Free China Relief Association was set up in Taiwan to focus on the relief and resettlement of Chinese refugees throughout the world.

Rennie’s Mill (Tiu Keng Leng) Camp Refugees Relief Committee

Rennie’s Mill (Tiu Keng Leng) was a remote and isolated site at Junk Bay where the Hong Kong government, for political reasons, relocated disabled former Nationalist soldiers and other pro-Taipei refugees in 1950.

http://evideo.lib.hku.hk/play.php?vid=4593310

Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Psychological warfare = US Cold War policy.

Provision of aid to selected refugees in Hong Kong would result in ‘the advancement of political, psychological warfare and intelligence objectives of the United States in the Far East.’

Help counter the communist propaganda allegation that the United States cared only about the white race and discriminated against Asian peoples, while demonstrating the sympathy and concern of the American people.

International involvement in the Chinese refugee problem As Grantham told the Colonial Office: ‘We shall

obviously lay ourselves open to Communist propaganda attacks if relief supplies from China are suppressed at the same time as arrangements are being made for Nationalist refugees in the Colony to receive assistance from American sources.’

Hong Kong should not become so attractive a place that refugees would want to come—and stay—and any massive relief work carried out there would only contribute to that outcome.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees

As a result of continuous lobbying and pressure from the Chinese Nationalist government, the Free China Relief Association and other interested parties, UNHCR agreed to give formal consideration of the Chinese refugee problem in 1954.

Eligibility for UN Assistance

Resettlement in Taiwan & other places

Between 1949 and mid-1954, through the efforts of the Free China Relief Association, ARCI and other voluntary organizations, approximately 125,000 refugees were admitted to Taiwan from Hong Kong.

Unwilling to accept more refugees due to its political security concern—fear of possible infiltration by communist ‘fifth columnists’—and economic reasons—the island’s growing population and financial difficulties.

Apart from Taiwan, Southeast Asian countries, the traditional hosts of the Chinese diaspora, offered some emigration opportunities for the refugees.

1956 Riot over Guomindang flags

On 10 October, riots broke out in Kowloon and Tsuen Wan as a result of disputes over the display of Guomindang flags in resettlement estates.

Left more than fifty dead, with the latter suffering more from the rioting.

Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai warned that the People’s Republic ‘could not permit further Hong Kong disorders on the doorstep of China’, and it had ‘a duty to protect the Chinese nationals’ there.

Potential of giving China a pretext for intervention to protect the Hong Kong people

What is better than…a World Refugee Year!!!

Within Britain, the refugee problem was occasionally raised by members of Parliament partly to embarrass the government. Against this background, in 1958 three British private citizens came up with the idea of a ‘world refugee year’, an idea which was later endorsed by the British government.

World Refugee Year

The Chinese refugees in Hong Kong, estimated to be one million by 1960, also benefited from this highly publicized worldwide effort.

A total of US$ 4.5 million was donated to Hong Kong by various governments, voluntary associations and individual citizens.

Six four-storey community centres and additional primary schools in or near the resettlement estates, medical facilities for tuberculosis, reception centres for children in need of care, and the like.

Korean War embargoes on China

Experienced and well-off entrepreneurs from Shanghai and their less resourceful counterparts from Guangdong adapted to the situation by developing light manufacturing industries, especially textiles.

Development of Hong Kong’s export-oriented, labour-intensive industrial economy

The Great Leap Forward in China

Resistance of the urban residents to work in the countryside, the Guangdong authorities’ deliberate removal of exit controls in order to ease their economic problems, etc. - from mid-1961 onwards Chinese refugees began to enter the Colony through a number of exit points.

Any illegal immigrants who were arrested at the border would not be permitted to enter the Colony, and by implication persons who had escaped detection and made their way to the urban areas were not affected.

Adopting a low-key approach

Avoid direct intervention by any of the great powers

Only through a low-key approach could the day-to-day issues between the Hong Kong and Guangdong authorities, such as the movement of people, be resolved in a practical manner.

Thus, when the Hong Kong government ‘turned back’ illegal immigrants, the Guangdong authorities were cooperative to accept their return.

Brewing Problems: 1960s HK was not a melting pot Arriving migrants were not

quickly assimilated Notion of citizenship did

not exist A shelter for temporary

residence rather than a home they could identify with

1961 census = 79% usual language of Cantonese but ethnic groups remain speaking different Chinese dialects (Chiu Chau, Fukienese & Shanghainese) & English.

The 1966-1967 Riots

April 1966: Star Ferry fare increase. Few nights of rioting. May – December 1967: Prolonged period of demonstrations, violence, and

bombings. For 1966: Governor appointed Commission of Inquiry: Shortcomings in the

government’s policies, in its relationships with non-elites, over-centralised structures.

For 1967: More organized violence, with political objectives & fuelled by the Cultural Revolution.

http://evideo.lib.hku.hk/play.php?vid=3879231

Who are the Rioters?

1966: Young males. Poorest section of the population. Not earning very much (60-70 hours, overcrowded). Alienated from family. Fed up with police corruption.

1967: Communist workers & supporters.

Rapid Industrialization

Hong Kong export-driven industrialization – global capitalist economy

Women as relatively inexpensive labour Factories from South Korea to Taiwan, the Philippines,

Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand

Profile of Hong Kong Working Daughters

Densely settled housing estates & educated in overcrowded primary schools Worked on factory assembly lines. 10 year or longer factory term. Starts at age

13 Susceptible to layoffs and firings due to international consumer demands Join nonfamilial social groups Differences: Socioeconomic attributes, daughter’s birth order, position of females in

the Chinese patriarchy.

Janet Salaff’s research on Hong Kong Working Daughters

Working-class respondents entered labour force between ages 12 – 14. Upper-WC & Lower-MC at 16 (lower secondary school).

Chinese-language primary schools Semi-skilled, mass process, assembling. Limited promotion. Only took evening courses or English-language clubs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8g1-chayPM

Factory Work & Family Structure

Break apart kinship structures Free from parental control Develop a life apart from their families, especially with their age-peers A school of modernity: productivity, profitability and efficiency Behavioral implications for contemporary family life Family wage economy 陳寶珠 郎如春日風 (工廠妹萬歲)

A Decade of Political & Economic Stability

Governor MacLehose (1971): Reform civil service, improve quality of life & rid the police of corruption.

Neither Britain / China: Too busy with home affairs (Aftermath of Cultural Revolution & Lesser Imperial Obligations)

Growth of a middle class Before 1970s: Living in HK = a Means of Existence In the 1970s: No longer transients. Prosperous future.

Combating Corruption

Expatriate Police Officer Peter Godber (deputy district police commander in Kowloon): remitted sums of money abroad. 6 times his salary.

Existence of an earlier Ordinance (1971). The Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.

The Blair-Kerr report: 1st Report states no obstruction to justice. 2nd Report states ineffectual government efforts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ww-0kHvb8

Setting Up of ICAC

Anti-Corruption Office in the police force or a new institution?

Public confidence = a new Commission

Complaints, setting up procedures for prevention, civic education. Began work in February 1974.

Arrests of Police Officers

Major cases against 2 police officers, a sergeant and against a driving test examiner (exceeding $1 million).

Conviction of Godber in January 1975 Payment of commissions in the private sector By 1977, 145 out of 272 policepersons

prosecuted…arrested 140…storming of the ICAC headquarters and injuring some staff members.

Partial Amnesty by MacLehose

Not acting on complaints before January 1977. Covered serving policemen but left ICAC free to

chase the ones who had fled overseas. Setting up of the Crane Commission (October 1977) Complaints dropped for one year but came back

up in the next year.

Provision of Public Goods & Services

300,000 people in squatter huts / temporary housing = housing and the new towns policy

1) Increasing demand for better facilities & upgrading of existing units

2) Less land in urban areas = new estates pushed to the periphery

Public Housing

“the inadequacy and scarcity of housing and all that this implies, and the harsh situations that result from it, is one of the major and most constant sources of friction and unhappiness between Government and the population. It offends alike our humanity, our civic pride and our political good sense.”

Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun & Shatin. Ambitious, Difficult to Coordinate, Immigrants.

Education & Social Welfare

In 1971, over 35% of the population was under the age of 15.

Increased in education expenditure. Central direction & ‘top-down’ implementation Free and Compulsory Education for 9 years

(children of relevant ages)

The MTR

Politics as a Factor

Political uncertainty = short-term vision 1970s investors have been refugees / migrants “Get-rich-quick” mentality “flexibility-within-fluctuations” Manufacturing industry moving to the Mainland =

“creative destruction” in capitalism Great disparities of wealth does not equal to envy of

the affluent then. A belief in “Rags to Riches”. Role-models in communities. Monetary rewards higher than job satisfaction Seize the opportunity