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Crisis or Opportunity? Britain, China, and the Decolonization of Hong Kong in the Long 1970s

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China, Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s: Global Perspectives

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

Abstract

Once relations between Britain and China had recovered from the shocks of the late 1960s, the riots in Hong Kong and the sacking of the British mission in Beijing, and diplomatic ties were upgraded with the exchange of full ambassadors, two issues came to the fore. One was the intensification of Hong Kong’s economic ties with China, as the city served as the conduit, gateway, and portal for much of the steadily growing outside investment in China—from Hong Kong, overseas Chinese, and others across Asia and the West. The second was the issue of Hong Kong’s future status. With 1997 and the end of the lease on the New Territories inexorably approaching, Chinese and British officials were forced to turn their minds to devising a solution that would allow Hong Kong to maintain its special status and thereby provide a still nominally communist China with the continuing benefits of access to the global capitalist system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Alwyn W. Turner, Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s (London: Aurum Press Ltd, 2013), 275.

  2. 2.

    Niall Ferguson, Charles S. Maier, Erez Manela, and Daniel J. Sargent, eds., The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); and Thomas Borstelmann, The 1970s: A New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).

  3. 3.

    Memorandum by Stewart for Ministerial Committee on Hong Kong (hereafter MCHK), K(69)1, “Hong Kong: Long Term Study,” March 28, 1969, CAB 134/2945, The National Archives (hereafter TNA), Kew, Surrey, United Kingdom.

  4. 4.

    Chi-kwan Mark, “Lack of Means or Loss of Will? The United Kingdom and the Decolonization of Hong Kong, 1957–1967,” The International History Review 31:1 (March 2009), 45–71; and Chi-kwan Mark, “Development without Decolonisation? Hong Kong’s Future and Relations with Britain and China, 1967–1972,” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24:2 (2014), 315–335.

  5. 5.

    Gary Ka-wai Cheung, Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009).

  6. 6.

    Note by Secretary of MCHK, K(67)1, July 14, 1967, CAB 134/2945, TNA.

  7. 7.

    Interim Report for MCHK, K(67)2, July 21, 1967, CAB 134/2945; and Minutes of MCHK, K(67)1st meeting, July 24, 1967, ibid., TNA.

  8. 8.

    Memorandum by Stewart for MCHK, K(69)1, “Hong Kong: Long Term Study,” March 28, 1969, CAB 134/2945, TNA.

  9. 9.

    Beijing to FCO, no. 1076, October 19, 1971, FCO 21/855, TNA.

  10. 10.

    Memorandum by Douglas-Home, DOP(71)83, December 13, 1971, CAB 148/117, TNA.

  11. 11.

    Roberts to Barrington, January 3, 1972, PREM 15/1626, TNA.

  12. 12.

    Hua Huang, Qinli yu Jianwen: Huang Hua Huiyilu (Experience and Observation: Memoir of Huang Hua) (Beijing: Shiji Zhishi Chubanshe, 2007), 193.

  13. 13.

    CM(72)50th Conclusions, November 7, 1972, CAB 128/50, TNA.

  14. 14.

    Wang Weimin, Bainian Zhongying Guanxi (A Century of Sino-British Relations) (Beijing: Shiji Zhishi Chubanshe, 2006), 277–286; and Priscilla Roberts, “Rebuilding a Relationship: British Cultural Diplomacy Towards China, 1967–80,” in British Propaganda and Wars of Empire: Influencing Friend and Foe 1900–2010, eds. Greg Kennedy and Christopher Tuck (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 191–218.

  15. 15.

    Memorandum by Douglas-Home, DOP(73)4, January 18, 1973, PREM 15/1626; Memorandum, Trend to Heath, January 25, 1973, ibid.; and Memorandum, Bridges to Trend, January 26, 1973, ibid., TNA.

  16. 16.

    MacLehose to Home, no. 519/73, October 11, 1973, FCO 40/439, TNA.

  17. 17.

    Addis to Douglas-Home, “China: Annual Review for 1973,” FEC1/3, December 31, 1973, FCO 21/1226, TNA.

  18. 18.

    Memorandum, Stuart to Youde/Watson, November 21, 1973, FCO 40/439, TNA.

  19. 19.

    Addis to Callaghan, No. 285/74, June 14, 1974, FCO 21/1239, TNA; and Edward Heath, The Course of My Life: My Autobiography (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1999), 629–641.

  20. 20.

    Jianguo Yilai Mao Zedong Wengao (Mao Zedong Manuscripts since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China), vol. 13 (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1998), 390.

  21. 21.

    Memorandum, Cortazzi to O’Keeffe, January 8, 1976, FCO 40/713, TNA.

  22. 22.

    Note of meeting, January 9, 1976, FCO 40/701, TNA.

  23. 23.

    Planning Paper on Hong Kong, enclosed in Memorandum by Rycroft for Permanent Under-Secretary’s Planning Committee, March 5, 1976, FCO 40/701, TNA.

  24. 24.

    Minutes of the 82nd meeting of the Permanent Under-Secretary’s Planning Committee, March 11, 1976, FCO 40/702, TNA.

  25. 25.

    Record of meeting, May 5, 1976, FCO 21/1504; and FCO to overseas missions, No. 96, May 24, 1976, FCO 21/1505, TNA.

  26. 26.

    Memorandum, O’Keeffe to Cortazzi, July 14, 1976, FCO 40/711; and MacLehose to Cortazzi, July 2, 1976, ibid., TNA.

  27. 27.

    Youde to Crosland, “China: Annual Review for 1976,” January 7, 1977, FCO 21/1555, TNA.

  28. 28.

    MacLehose to Douglas-Home, “Annual Despatch for 1972: Hong Kong,” January 1, 1973, FCO 40/440, TNA.

  29. 29.

    Planning Paper on Hong Kong, enclosed in Memorandum by Rycroft for Permanent Under-Secretary’s Planning Committee, March 5, 1976, FCO 40/701, TNA.

  30. 30.

    Robert Taylor, The Fifth Estate: Britain’s Unions in the Seventies (London: Routledge, 1978), 37; and Dominic Sandbrook, Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979 (London: Penguin Books, 2013), 43–44, 182–183.

  31. 31.

    I.C.6/5, March 3, 1975, Trades Union Congress, MSS.292D/951.5/3, Modern Records Centre (hereafter MRC), University of Warwick, Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.

  32. 32.

    Callaghan to Murray, September 18, 1975, Trades Union Congress, MSS.292D/951.5/3; and McNally to Hargreaves, October 20, 1975, ibid., MRC.

  33. 33.

    Note of meeting at Congress House, December 3, 1975, enclosed in Memorandum, Hurst to O’Keeffe, December 3, 1975, FCO 40/613, TNA.

  34. 34.

    See Note by Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department, March 23, 1976, attached in Memorandum, O‘Keeffe to Cortazzi, March 23, 1976, FCO 40/702; and FCO Note, “Comparative Study of the Terms of the Governor’s Address to the Hong Kong Legislative Council on 6 October and the Planning Paper on Hong Kong,” undated, FCO 40/706, TNA.

  35. 35.

    Record of meeting, July 22, 1976, FCO 40/711, TNA.

  36. 36.

    Minutes of the First Quarterly Meeting of the Standing Committee to monitor the Hong Kong Planning Paper, October 21, 1976, enclosed in Memorandum, Stewart to Male and Goronwy-Roberts, October 28, 1976, FCO 40/706, TNA.

  37. 37.

    Record of meeting, July 22, 1976, FCO 40/711, TNA.

  38. 38.

    MacLehose to Callaghan, March 6, 1976, FCO 40/701, TNA.

  39. 39.

    See Edward K. Y. Chen, “The Economic Setting,” in The Business Environment in Hong Kong, 3rd edition, eds. David G. Lethbridge and Ng Sek Hong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995), 34–40; Benjamin K. P. Leung, Perspectives on Hong Kong Society (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996), 115–122; and David W. Clayton, “From Laissez-faire to ‘Positive Non-Interventionism’: The Colonial State in Hong Kong Studies,” Social Transformations in Chinese Societies 9:1 (2013), 1–20.

  40. 40.

    Annual Report for the Year 1976 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Press, 1977), 11.

  41. 41.

    “The 1976–77 Budget: Speech by the Financial Secretary, concluding the Debate on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill, 1976” (April 7, 1976), 16–17.

  42. 42.

    Leo F. Goodstadt, Uneasy Partners: The Conflict between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), 118-122.

  43. 43.

    Leo F. Goodstadt, “Sir Charles Philip Haddon-Cave,” in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, eds. May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 169.

  44. 44.

    David G. Lethbridge and Ng Sek Hong, “Labour and Employment,” in The Business Environment in Hong Kong, eds. Lethbridge and Ng, 74–75. For a more critical view, see Joe England and John Rear, Industrial Relations and Law in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1981), 360–382.

  45. 45.

    Transcript of interviews with Lord MacLehose by Steve Tsang, MSS.Ind.Ocn.s.377, p.125, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

  46. 46.

    Federation of Hong Kong Industries Annual Report 1974, 2, 21; Lu Dong Qing and Lu Shou Cai, Xianggang Jingji Shi (A History of the Hong Kong Economy) (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd., 2002), 165.

  47. 47.

    Y. C. Jao, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Evolution, Prospects and Policies (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 1997), 25; and Feng Bangyan, Xianggang Jinrongye Bainian (A Century of the Hong Kong Financial Industry) (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., 2002), 124–125, 211.

  48. 48.

    Lu and Lu, Xianggang Jingji Shi, 172.

  49. 49.

    Daniel J. Sargent, A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).

  50. 50.

    James E. Cronin, Global Rules: America, Britain and a Disordered World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).

  51. 51.

    Catherine Schenk, Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre: Emergence and Development, 1945–65 (London: Routledge, 2001), 159.

  52. 52.

    Feng, Xianggang Jinrongye Bainian, 125.

  53. 53.

    Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 394–406.

  54. 54.

    Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi, ed., Deng Xiaoping Nianpu, 1975–1997 (The Chronicle of Deng Xiaoping, 1975–1997), vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 2004), 298.

  55. 55.

    Wilson to Samuel, December 21, 1978, FCO 21/1634; and Wilson to Samuel, December 29, 1978, ibid., TNA.

  56. 56.

    Memorandum, McLaren to Murray, January 29, 1979, FCO 21/1734; and Memorandum, McLaren to Murray, March 2, 1979, ibid., TNA.

  57. 57.

    Record of conversation, March 29, 1979, FCO 40/1050, TNA; and Deng Xiaoping Nianpu, 1975–1997, vol. 1, 500–501.

  58. 58.

    Robert Saunders, “‘Crisis? What Crisis?’ Thatcherism and the Seventies,” in Making Thatcher’s Britain, eds. Ben Jackson and Robert Saunders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 25–42.

  59. 59.

    John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 2: The Iron Lady (London: Jonathan Cape, 2003), 315.

  60. 60.

    Memorandum, Coles to Holmes, September 13, 1982, PREM 19/790 Part 2; and Note of meeting, July 28, 1982, PREM 19/789 Part 1, TNA.

  61. 61.

    Record of conversation, September 23, 1982, PREM 19/962 Part 2, TNA.

  62. 62.

    Record of meeting, September 24, 1982, PREM 19/962 Part 2, TNA.

  63. 63.

    John Darwin, “Hong Kong in British Decolonisation,” in Hong Kong’s Transitions, 1842–1997, eds. Judith Brown and Rosemary Foot (London: Macmillan, 1997), 16.

  64. 64.

    Tai-Lok Lui and Ray Yep, “Revisiting the Golden Era of MacLehose and the Dynamics of Social Reforms,” China Information 24:3 (November 2010), 249–272.

  65. 65.

    MacLehose to Douglas-Home, May 5, 1972, FCO 21/1023, TNA.

  66. 66.

    Stewart to MacLehose, January 19, 1977, FCO 40/758, TNA.

  67. 67.

    Yun-Wing Sung, The China–Hong Kong Connection: The Key to China’s Open-Door Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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  1. Royal Holloway College, University of London, London, UK

    Chi-Kwan Mark

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  1. City University of Macau, Taipa, Macao

    Priscilla Roberts

  2. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Odd Arne Westad

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Mark, CK. (2017). Crisis or Opportunity? Britain, China, and the Decolonization of Hong Kong in the Long 1970s. In: Roberts, P., Westad, O. (eds) China, Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s: Global Perspectives. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51250-1_11

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