Hong Kong's Missing History
Kate Lowe on Hong Kong's forgotten anniversary.
Apartments in Hong Kong in 1965This year Hong Kong might have celebrated its 150th anniversary of British ownership. That it did not is an indication of how sensitive the British government is about offending China in the run up to 1997. Hong Kong's history has always been controversial and looks set to remain so. The historical legacy is a tricky one for both China and Britain, the two nations who have maintained control over the area, have left and continue to leave much to be desired in their dealings with the people of Hong Kong and with each other. Both countries have episodes in Hong Kong history which they would prefer to be forgotten.
A major stumbling block to a joint interpretation of Hong Kong's history is the diverging views on possession of the territory and its inhabitants held by the British and Chinese authorities. The present situation, whereby a colony is handed over to another country rather than being granted independence, is unique in Britain's twentieth-century decolonisation process. Hong Kong's return to China was negotiated by Britain and China without reference to the wishes of the people of Hong Kong, thus continuing the trend begun by Britain in 1841.
There has never been consensus between Britain and China over China's relationship to Hong Kong, China maintains that the 1841 Convention of Chuenpi (later repudiated), by which Hong Kong was ceded to Britain, the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, which allowed the foundation of a colony in Hong Kong, and the two Conventions of Peking of 1860 and 1898, which respectively ceded Kowloon in perpetuity and the New Territories for ninety-nine years, were all signed under duress due to superior British force of arms. Of these, only the British occupation of the New Territories in 1899 met with opposition from the indigenous Chinese themselves, China has always felt that Hong Kong's sovereignty had been temporarily usurped by Britain, and that sooner or later the island and its territory would revert to Chinese ownership. It is even unclear, due to difficulties in precise translation between the Chinese and English languages, whether the two sides were in agreement as to what arrangements had been made. Nor did the central government in Peking always approve of, or ratify, the conventions agreed upon by the provincial government in Canton.
The early unequal treaties were of little interest to the Chinese because Hong Kong's status as a part of China was inalienable; and in the post-war years they became an embarrassment for Britain as they were a direct consequence of the imperial policy behind the morally indefensible opium wars. As soon as the treaties could be discarded, Britain’s claim to Hong Kong collapsed. Due to Hong Kong's geographical proximity to China, the vexed question of loyalty in the case of war in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the colonial elite's reluctance to share power, no democracy had been introduced into the colony and Hong Kongers lacked legitimate channels through which to voice their opinions. The people of Hong Kong were ignored by the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 which, instead, negotiated the return of the land from one power to another; at no point was it seriously suggested that this economic miracle with more than six million inhabitants could declare independence. Britain's collusion in this hand-over and its refusal to face up to its responsibilities in providing a safe haven for Hong Kongers who fled the People's Republic of China as political refugees, increase its reluctance to probe beneath the surface of its past.
So who is to write the history of Hong Kong and of what will it consist? Will it be a history of its land, its rulers, its institutions or its people? All of these are controversial subjects, both from the British point of view (because of Hong Kong's colonial past and its soon to be Communist future), and from China's (on account of Chinese loss of face engendered by parting with the territory in the first place, and because of its hardline Marxist ideology).
The big caesura in Britain's hold on Hong Kong came in 1945 when it was not deemed automatic that the colony would revert to its pre-war status, as the United States would have preferred Britain to renounce its colonies, From that point onwards, one after the other former colonies were granted independence. Instead, especially after 1949 and Mao's accession to power, conviction grew in China that Hong Kong must be returned to the motherland, and its life apart should once more be subsumed into the general life of the whole country. The history of the territory would therefore become the history of one small part of southern Guangdong.
Moments at which a colonial history could have been constructed without causing offence or annoyance to China were scarce, and were most likely during the boom years of the 1960s before the civil disturbances of 1966 and 1967. G.B. Endacott's two worksA History of Hong Kong (1958) andGovernment and People in Hong Kong, 1841-1962 (1964) fit neatly into this period. These are histories exclusively dealing with colonial governments and colonial institutions. Despite Endacott's disclaimer in the preface to the first: 'This book is an introduction to the History of Hong Kong. It does not claim to be definitive', as a piece of colonial history it has not been superceded, and it is unlikely that it will be before the end of the century. Any publications now which reassess Hong Kong's early British history are felt to be potentially detrimental to Sino-British relations.
It is of course absurd to talk in terms of a definitive history of the British in the colony, but even more absurd is the notion that there could be a definitive version of the whole of Hong Kong history. When two former chief secretaries of the colony were asked about the lack of observance of the 150th anniversary of British Hong Kong they suggested as possible commemorative acts the commissioning of 'a definitive book of the history', the setting up of an educational trust fund or the issuing of special stamps. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of book they envisaged.
Recollections (and at best reconstructions) of British expatriate life will continue to be written because the materials for such studies are to be found mostly in private papers in Britain and America, but these are stories of people passing through Hong Kong rather than of Hong Kongers themselves. Hong Kong's history before the arrival of the British, which Chinese scholars have been happily excavating, is a history of the land rather than the people and does not stand on its own outside the history of the region as a whole. The history of the Hong Kong Chinese has been woefully ignored, and only now are Cantonese-speaking historians such as Carl Smith and Elizabeth Sinn attempting to recreate the networks and feelings of the Chinese in the colony, either through wholly Chinese institutions like the Tung Wah Hospital or through Western imports such as the Church. A paucity of Chinese historical documentation exacerbates the difficulties of writing this type of history.
Non-Chinese communities or groups such as the Parsees, the Sikhs or the Jews who have played a disproportionately large part in the history of the colony in relation to their numbers have also suffered from a lack of historical attention. Many of these will become stateless persons after 1997 as only those of Chinese race can be Chinese nationals, even though members of their community witnessed the possession of the island in 1841, and contributed to the colony in such obvious ways as by staffing the early police force and by putting up the money for the foundation of the University of Hong Kong in 19l0. Such forgotten histories are now in danger of being lost altogether.
So what history will be written in and of Hong Kong after 1997? Will the situation deteriorate still further, with emphasis being firmly placed upon Hong Kong's role in Chinese affairs? In part this has already happened. But what of all the other areas of its past, for example, the history of Chinese representation? It is unlikely that this will be considered an appropriate topic for research. Amnesia in relation to the British past by the new owners will be made easier by the fact that nearly all Hong Kong's colonial memorials have already been demolished in the interests of financial gain as space is at a premium. A foretaste of what is to come has been illustrated by two brushes between Britain and China in 1991. In the first, Britain out of deference to China decided not to mark the 150th anniversary of British possession. China has for many years forced the cancellation of similar commemorations in Macau, stressing the inappropriateness of these on its doorstep.
More importantly, in the second, the Sino-British memorandum of understanding on the airport, agreed in July and signed by John Major and Li Peng in September, China effectively made clear that the colonial government has no legitimacy and that China alone represents the interests of post-1997 Hong Kong. Britain's request for a consideration of human rights in China was countered by a denunciation of Britain's record on human rights in the history of Hong Kong. This type of exchange is exactly what Britain wishes to avoid by adopting a low profile in relation to Hong Kong's colonial past. The people of the territory were once again excluded by and from the memorandum of understanding. No representative of the Hong Kong government participated in the final negotiations and there will be no Hong Kong representation on the airport committee.
One colonial legacy which looks set to be continued under the new Chinese ownership is that it is the land and not the people who count, and as a consequence history must accept a subordinate role torealpolitik. Contemporary and future events will persist in shaping the past in Hong Kong.
