Leading the Way: The United Kingdom's financial and trade relations with Socialist China, 1949–1966

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERTO PERUZZI
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
British Colony ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThis article aims to deepen scholarly understanding of the special political and economic connection between Britain and Socialist China during the 1950s and the 1960s. After 1949, the British government had substantive reasons to preserve a link with Beijing, despite the unfolding of the Cold War. First, British assets in China were numerous. Second, the Crown colony of Hong Kong was an indispensable strategic enclave, although militarily indefensible. Third, the Foreign Office considered that Asia should represent an exception to unquestioned British loyalty to the Atlantic alliance, since the United Kingdom needed to prove that it was able to represent and preserve Commonwealth interests in the area. The article will point out that the United Kingdom maintained a privileged role as the main trading partner of the People's Republic of China (PRC) outside the Socialist bloc, thanks to the financial and commercial role played by Hong Kong. This is proved through an analysis of the fate of British financial institutions in China, which represented a favourable exception in the bleak scenario of the PRC nationalization process, as well as of the industrial development of the British colony, which was based on importing food and labour from the mainland, while serving as a financial hub in support of the PRC economy.

Destination Hong Kong: The Geopolitics of South Korean Espionage Films in the 1960s

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-364
Author(s):  
Sangjoon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Market Potential ◽  
James Bond ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Developmental States ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract As the apparent progeny of Cold War politics in the West, espionage films witnessed unprecedented popularity around the globe in the 1960s. With the success of Dr. No (1962) and Goldfinger (1964)—along with French, Italian, and German copycats—in Asia, film industries in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea recognized the market potential and embarked on churning out their own James Bond-mimetic espionage films in the late 1960s. Since the regional political sphere has always been multifaceted, however, each country approached genre conventions with its own interpretation. In the US-driven Cold War political, ideological, and economic sphere, developmental states in the region, particularly South Korea and Taiwan, vigorously adopted anti-communist doctrine to guard and uphold their militant dictatorships. Under this political atmosphere in the regional sphere, cultural sectors in each nation-state, including cinema, voluntarily or compulsorily served as an apparatus to strengthen the state’s ideological principles. While the Cold War politics that drive the narrative in the American and European films is conspicuously absent in Hong Kong espionage films, South Korea and Taiwan, on the other hand, explicitly promulgated the ideological principles of their apparent enemies, North Korea and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in their representative espionage films. This article casts a critical eye over South Korea–initiated inter-Asian coproduction of espionage films produced during the time, with particular reference to South Korea–Hong Kong coproduction of SOS Hong Kong (SOS Hongk’ong) and Special Agent X-7 (Sun’gan ŭn yŏngwŏnhi), both produced and released in 1966.

The Hangover after the Handover

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Y.W. Wu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
British Colony ◽  
One Country Two Systems ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

As a former British colony (1842-1997) and now a Special Administrative Region (from 1997 onwards) practicing the “One Country Two Systems” policy with the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong has witnessed at all times how relations are formed, dissolved and refashioned amidst changing powers, identities and narratives. With an eye to real-life events and cultural representations, the book presents an interdisciplinary study of “local relations” through the lens of the things and places that stand or that have once stood for Hong Kong’s “local”. The book argues that the signification of the local and the constellation of local relations embody the continuous acts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization beyond the political arena and through the cultural and social relations formed between cultural icons and urban dwellers. In its post-handover, post-hangover years where Hong Kong’s local multiples by appearance and connotation as in the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill Protests, the book proposes lessons to learn from the city in face of the discourses of nationalism, globalization and localism. As more are to unfold, the book opens up manifold postcolonial perspectives by the agency of both human and nonhuman to confront and interrogate the contemporary experiences—unprecedented since the Cold War era—shared by Hong Kong and the world where established beliefs and systems are continuously challenged in the postmillennial era. After all, what does it mean, or take, to live in post-1997 Hong Kong when the local, global and national are constantly given new meanings?

scholarly journals Influenza B at Christ's Hospital: natural antibody to influenza B estimated by radial haemolysis

1981 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Grilli ◽  
J. R. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Antibody Response ◽  
Primary Infection ◽  
Influenza B Virus ◽  
Influenza B ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
B Virus ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Different Strains

SummaryThe technique of radial haemolysis (SRH) was used to assess the response to infection with different strains of influenza B virus, to determine the persistence of antibody following such infection and to examine sera from boys entering school at age 11 years. The technique detected 95 % of infections and in primary infection the antibody response was mainly to the infecting strain. Re-infections resulted in a broad response, both to the homotypic strain and to strains more distantly related. Antibody to the homotypic strain persisted for at least 3 years but in some individuals the reaction with heterotypic strains tended to become weaker – resulting in zones of incomplete lysis – or was lost. Examination of the sera collected on entry to the school showed that about 60 % of the boys bled before B/Hong Kong became widespread in the United Kingdom had antibody to strains representative of those isolated in the 1960s and few boys had antibody to B/Hong Kong. After 1974 antibody to B/Hong Kong and later strains became more common while antibody to earlier strains was less frequently detected. The significance of the results as an estimate of past experience is discussed.

scholarly journals The Hong Kong Riots and the Sterling Empire Last Stand

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Peruzzi
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Economic Relation ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Economic Future

The years 1966 and 1967 are crucial for British Crown’s Colony of Hong Kong and for United Kingdom’s economic relation with the People’s Republic of China. Few studies on the subject addressed this reality only partially, whereas a thorough vision remains to be achieved. The 1967 left-wing riots marked a point of no return in UK’s perception of the Hong Kong issue from a political standpoint as the events showed the British the exact measurement of their weakness in the area. But while agreeing that UK’s decolonization strategy might have an earlier start, we have to point out that the years 1966 and 1967 need to be studied as crucial dates, which marks the acquisition of a new consciousness by the Hong Kong financial and industrial milieus: from then on, the economic future of the colony will look towards the Mainland and not anymore towards the United Kingdom, thus acknowledging the strong, though not problem-free, links built over the years by the Hong Kong capitalists with the People’s Republic of China establishment.

scholarly journals Hongkong — Specjalny Region Administracyjny Chińskiej Republiki Ludowej i praktyczna realizacja politycznej idei „jedno państwo — dwa systemy”

2020 ◽  
Vol 5(160) ◽  
pp. 153-169
Author(s):  
Agata Wiktoria Ziętek
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
Political Concept

On 1 July 1997, the United Kingdom officially handed over the territory of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. This event had a symbolic meaning. It marked the end of a stage in China’s history which began in the middle of the 19th century and was described as a time of humiliation. Hong Kong was supposed to be an example of practical implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s political concept of “one country, two systems”, which assumed the possibility of functioning of different economic and political systems in one country. Despite the passage of time, questions remain as to what China’s attitude to the regained territory will be; to what extent the provisions of the 1984 agreement signed between the governments of the People’s Republic of China and the United Kingdom and the 1990 Basic Law for the region will be respected by China, and thus what the political, economic and social situation in Hong Kong will look like until its complete reintegration, i.e., by 2047, and what the future of Hong Kong will be.

The American Cold War in Hong Kong, 1949–1960

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Xun
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
British Colony ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Containment Policy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Far Eastern

During the early Cold War years, the United States came to regard the British colony of Hong Kong as an outpost of its own in terms of relations with the People’s Republic of China. Sharing a border with New China, Hong Kong became an arena for both the Cold War between East and West and the conflict between Communist and Nationalist Chinese. By its very existence, it served as an intelligence and propaganda vector for the US Far Eastern containment policy, sometimes at considerable cost to Hong Kong itself. The existing scholarly literature on US policies toward Hong Kong during the 1950s largely focuses upon top-level Anglo-American negotiations, with little consideration of the role of Hong Kong per se as a regional pivot in making and waging the Cold War. This chapter examines those factors that enabled the colony to succeed in surviving the ideological confrontation, while arguing that over time the significance of Hong Kong to American Cold War strategy steadily increased. It scrutinizes in detail US propaganda institutions and programs in Hong Kong that appreciably influenced the overseas Chinese in East and Southeast Asia.

‘Cocked Hats and Swords and Small, Little Garrisons’: Britain, Canada and the Fall of Hong Kong, 1941

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kent Fedorowich
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
South China ◽  
First Impressions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Embassy

Just days before the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, the Foreign Office in London received a letter from Ian Morrison, late Honorary Attaché to the British embassy in Tokyo, who was returning to the United Kingdom via south China. For the past month, Morrison had been enjoying the allure of Hong Kong. Astounded by the bustle and ‘ever-fresh beauty’ of this prosperous corner of empire, one of the first impressions upon his arrival in the colony was its remarkable isolation.

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