A Failed New Deal in Hong Kong: From Constitution to Repression, 1946–1949

Abstract

Between 1946 and early 1949, Hong Kong witnessed two significant transformations, both of which were caused by the change in governorship in 1947. Governor Young’s proposed constitutional reform and identification of KMT as the primary troublemaker soon gave way to Grantham’s rejection of major reform and introduction of counter-CCP policies. By 1948, the Hong Kong government decided to take action against the CCP’s infiltration and control of several important areas of the colony’s cultural, political, and economic life. By mid-1949, according to the Hong Kong Police Special Branch, the CCP had infiltrated ‘nearly all the important unions, schools, singing groups, cultural associations, etc.’ and had become ‘menacing and powerful’.¹ Furthermore, the turmoil in surrounding territories such as Malaya and Korea and the wider British conflict with the USSR created problems for Hong Kong’s open immigration policy, especially regarding the movement of communist revolutionaries and Soviet propaganda.