Hong Kong, Empire and the Anglo-American Alliance At War, 1941-45 (Contemporary History in Context)

279 Pages·2001·1.11 MB·English

by  Andrew J. Whitfield

Hong Kong, Empire and
the Anglo-American
Alliance at War, 1941–45
Andrew J. Whitfield
whitfield/96409/crc 6/6/01 11:05 am Page 1
Contemporary History in Context Series
General Editor: Peter Catterall, Lecturer, Department of History, Queen Mary
and Westfield College, University of London
What do they know of the contemporary, who only the contemporary know?
How, without some historical context, can you tell whether what you are
observing is genuinely novel, and how can you understand how it has
developed? It was, not least, to guard against the unconscious and ahistorical
Whiggery of much contemporary comment that this series was conceived. The
series takes important events or historical debates from the post-war years and,
by bringing new archival evidence and historical insights to bear, seeks to re-
examine and reinterpret these matters. Most of the books will have a significant
international dimension, dealing with diplomatic, economic or cultural relations
across borders. in the process the object will be to challenge orthodoxies and to
cast new light upon major aspects of post-war history.
Titles include:
Oliver Bange
THE EEC CRISIS OF 1963
Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict
Christopher Brady
UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS CAMBODIA, 1977–92
Roger Broad
LABOUR’S EUROPEAN DILEMMAS
From Bevin to Blair
Peter Catterall and Sean McDougall (editors)
THE NORTHERN IRELAND QUESTION IN BRITISH POLITICS
Peter Catterall, Colin Seymour-Ure and Adrian Smith (editors)
NORTHCLIFFE’S LEGACY
Aspects of the British Popular Press, 1896–1996
James Ellison
THREATENING EUROPE
Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955–58
Helen Fawcett and Rodney Lowe (editors)
WELFARE POLICY IN BRITAIN
The Road from 1945
Jonathan Hollowell (editor)
TWENTIETH-CENTURY ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS
Simon James and Virginia Preston (editors)
BRITISH POLITICS SINCE 1945
The Dynamics of Historical Change
Harriet Jones and Michael Kandiah (editors)
THE MYTH OF CONSENSUS
New Views on British History, 1945–64
whitfield/96409/crc 6/6/01 11:05 am Page 2
Wolfram Kaiser
USING EUROPE, ABUSING THE EUROPEANS
Britain and European Integration, 1945–63
Keith Kyle
THE POLITICS OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF KENYA
Adam Lent
BRITISH SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SINCE 1945
Sex, Colour, Peace and Power
Spencer Mawby
CONTAINING GERMANY
Britain and the Arming of the Federal Republic
Jeffrey Pickering
BRITAIN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM EAST OF SUEZ
The Politics of Retrenchment
Peter Rose
HOW THE TROUBLES CAME TO NORTHERN IRELAND
L. V. Scott
MACMILLAN, KENNEDY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
Political, Military and Intelligence Aspects
Paul Sharp
THATCHER’S DIPLOMACY
The Revival of British Foreign Policy
Andrew J. Whitfield
HONG KONG, EMPIRE AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE AT WAR,
1941–45
Contemporary History in Context
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Hong Kong, Empire and
the Anglo-American
Alliance at War, 1941–45
Andrew J. Whitfield
whitfield/96409/crc 6/6/01 11:05 am Page 4
© Andrew J.Whitfield 2001
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of
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First published 2001 by
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A catalogue record for this book is available
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Whitfield,Andrew J.,1973–
Hong Kong,Empire and the Anglo-American alliance at war,
1941–1945 / by Andrew J.Whitfield.
p.cm.— (Contemporary history in context series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–333–79333–1
1.World War,1939–1945—China—Hong Kong.2.Hong Kong
(China)—History—20th century.3.United States—Military
relations—Great Britain.4.Great Britain—Military relations–
–United States.I.Title.II.Contemporary history in context series
(Palgrave (Firm))
D767 .W45 2001
940.53’5’5125—dc21
2001021750
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd,Chippenham,Wiltshire
HKEPR 5/31/2001 4:35 PM Page v
Contents
General Editor’s Preface vi
Acknowledgements viii
List of Abbreviations ix
Chronology x
Maps xi
Introduction 1
1 Return and Departure: the Fall and Recapture of
Hong Kong, 1941 and 1945 5
2 The Meaning of Empire: Imperial Consensus,
Whitehall and Hong Kong 16
3 The Anglo-American Relationship at War, 1941–45 40
4 An Empire Brought into Question, 1942 61
5 China Claims Hong Kong, 1942–43 85
6 London’s Hong Kong Planning, 1943–44 107
7 Anglo-American Military Strategy in the Far East,
1942–44 125
8 The Cairo Conference 150
9 Hard Choices: Yalta, the Death of a President and
San Francisco, November 1944–June 1945 163
10 Return of the Empire: the Defeat of Japan,
July–September 1945 186
Conclusion 212
Epilogue 217
Notes 222
Bibliography 246
Index 252
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General Editor’s Preface
In a lecture in May 1943 Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, Clement
Attlee, reflected that the US should learn to appreciate that states which
ape their constitution are not necessarily democracies: ‘A study of the
history of Central and South America should help this process.’ He went
on to observe that while US Secretary of State Cordell Hull seemed
blithely to assume that all colonies were anxiously awaiting their
version of 1776 and self-determination, many were small and, certainly
at the time, were seen by the British as unlikely to prove viable on their
own.
One such small colony which, in the way it became something of
a political football, well illustrates these differing attitudes towards
Empire, and also China, of the British and Americans during the Second
World War was Hong Kong. Under Japanese occupation from Christmas
1941, the issue of the future of the colony was, as Andrew Whitfield
shows, a running sore in Anglo-American relations in the Far East
theatre. It even became a matter of debate in the corridors of White-
hall. Despite the disparity in power between the two Allies, however, it
was the British who won out.
Roosevelt may have favoured the return of the colony to China on
grounds of visceral anti-imperialism, a fairly crude Wilsonian view of
the world that assumed long before Francis Fukuyama came along that
American-style liberal democracy and self-determination was the end to
which all peoples were tending, and the expectation that this would
materially benefit US trade by turning Hong Kong into a free port. He
could, however, be challenged on all of these counts. Attlee was not the
only British minister to hint that a glance at American history would
suggest that the Americans were pots calling the kettle from whence
they sprang black. And as Whitfield demonstrates, American attempts
to portray Chiang Kai-shek as a democrat were at best wishful thinking,
while on the last point they were mistaken, as Hong Kong was already
a free port. That the British thought Roosevelt was wrong did not,
however, mean that they were going to win the argument.
In explaining how and why they did so Andrew Whitfield provides a
detailed, entertaining and persuasive account of a relatively neglected
aspect of the Second World War. Analyses of the wartime alliance tend
to focus on the European theatre. China has usually been portrayed as
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General Editor’s Preface vii
an essentially American show. To a considerable extent it was. However,
as this book points out, the Americans did not get things all their own
way. This had significant long-term consequences. Had Hong Kong been
incorporated into Chiang’s China it would have gone with the rest of
the mainland in 1949. This would have deprived the West of a window
on China, deprived Hong Kong itself of its post-war prosperity and
helped to ensure that China was more isolated than was in any event
the case. These realisations were to dawn upon American policymakers
themselves come the 1950s. By then, however, they were already having
to come to terms with the consequences of the failure of their wartime
strategy in China. Truman may have been the first President to suffer
the effects of the ‘Who lost China?’ syndrome that was subsequently to
haunt Washington and play a major role in shaping the mentalities of
the cold war. As Whitfield eloquently shows, the seeds of this failure
had, however, already been sown by his predecessor.
PETER CATTERALL
London
HKEPR 5/31/2001 4:35 PM Page viii
Acknowledgements
Many people have helped in the writing of this book. In particular,
Trish & Gess, Richard Robinson, Alex Marshall, Adam Dunning, my
colleagues (you know who you are) and my family, especially, Susanna.
Research was conducted with financial assistance provided by the
Humanities Research Board of the British Academy and the University
of Birmingham. Special thanks to the Public Records Office, Kew, and
the Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park. The final credit is to Scott Lucas,
without which none of this would have been possible.
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List of Abbreviations
BAAG British Army Aid Group
BOT Board of Trade
CA China Association
CO Colonial Office
COS Chiefs of Staff
FO Foreign Office
HK Hong Kong
HKPU Hong Kong Planning Unit
KMT Kuomintang, Chinese Nationalist Party
OSS Office of Strategic Services
OWI Office of War Information
PM Prime Minister
SD State Department
SOE Special Operations Executive
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