Introduction to “Made in Hong Kong” (Part 1): The “cross-businessmen” who lead Hong Kong into the global capitalist system | Cultural Perspective | udn Global

Text/Kuang Jianming (Chief Editor of Taiwan Monsoon Belt Culture)

Discussions on Hong Kong history are mostly centered on China and Britain. This is natural. After all, Hong Kong was once a British colony for more than a hundred years. In 1997, Hong Kong’s sovereignty was transferred from the United Kingdom to China. As for the impact of the United States on the development of Hong Kong (especially after World War II) and the relationship between the United States and Hong Kong, relatively little attention has been paid to them.

▌This article is the introduction written by Kwong Kin-ming for “Made in Hong Kong: Trans-Pacific Network and a New History of Globalization”. The original title is “Supplement to Hong Kong Historical Research – The Past and Present of the Relations between the United States and Hong Kong”

▌Informal decolonization in the era of the United States and Hong Kong

When discussing the role of the United States, most commentators will focus on the cultural impact of the United States on Hong Kong during the Cold War. Examples mentioned include “Children’s Paradise” and Zhang Ailing. The former was founded in 1953 and published by the League of Friendship. Its chief editor is Luo Guanqiao, an illustrator who graduated from the Guangzhou Municipal Art College. It is the longest-running publication of the League of Friendship. The latter lived in Hong Kong in the 1950s, during which he wrote two works, “Yangge” and “Love in the Red Earth”. What the two have in common is that their cultural production is funded by the United States, and can be classified to some extent as the “dollar culture” of anti-communism during the Cold War.

“Children’s Paradise” and “China Student Weekly”, another publication of Youlian, have had an impact on generations of Hong Kong. Two works, “Yangge” and “Love in the Red Earth,” were included in the book translation project of the United States Information Service. Regarding “Love in the Red Earth”, there is even a theory that the author wrote it according to an external outline. Zhang Ailing is said to have told a friend: “‘Love in the Red Earth’ was written under a ‘commissioned’ condition, so I was very dissatisfied because the outline of the story has been fixed, so what else can the author do?” “

According to this discussion, the United States’ influence on Hong Kong is mostly concentrated in the cultural field and seems to have a relatively weak connection with Hong Kong’s social and even political and economic development. In fact, in the 1960s, when the June 7th riots occurred in Hong Kong under the influence of China’s Cultural Revolution, why and how the United States kept a distance from Hong Kong and adopted a wait-and-see attitude was one of the academic research topics.

“Made In Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization” examines the relationship between the United States and Hong Kong from a completely different perspective. According to the perspective of this book, after World War II, the relationship between Hong Kong and the United States was closer than generally imagined. This book frequently mentions the “informal decolonization” of Hong Kong during the British rule and the Cold War, which can be said to be Americanization in essence.

▌”Cross-business” as a medium connecting the United States and Hong Kong

Hong Kong and the United States have close relations because each can get what they need from each other. After World War II, the United States focused on establishing a global capitalist system centered on it. If Hong Kong’s economy rises with the United States as its hinterland and uses American knowledge and models to do business, this will help radiate the American capitalist system in the Asia-Pacific. international influence among regions. From Hong Kong’s perspective, Hong Kong society is still not wealthy after World War II. If US resources are provided to promote the development of Hong Kong society, it will become possible for Hong Kong to “leap from the third world to the first world.”

The important intermediary linking this relationship between Hong Kong and the United States is “cross-businessmen”, who are the protagonists of this book. The author defines “straddling merchants” in this way: “I will focus particularly on the fluid, pragmatic, and adaptable elite generation of Hong Kong, and call them “straddling merchants.” The first generation of cross-merchants is mainly Chinese banks. Politicians, industrialists, administrators, scholars, and Kuomintang technocrats all fled to Hong Kong from mainland China between 1946 and 1952. In addition to them, there were as many as 700,000 people who arrived in Hong Kong. Elite immigrants lost their material assets when they fled, but unlike the common saying, this does not mean that they lost everything. They had unique social capital based on their family networks, knowledge, and careers, and were able to participate. The new capitalist system led by the United States, and at the same time obtain first-hand intelligence.”

“In order to successfully immigrate to Hong Kong, they adopted new strategies. They used bicultural networks and skills to establish new businesses and businesses, focusing on trans-Pacific network flows, focusing on the US market from the 1950s onwards. Export-oriented development. These cross-business trans-Pacific strategies can not only accumulate wealth, but also create new economic power relations and privileges.”

“This is different from other post-colonial places in the world, where power relations are often intertwined with the nation-state. These transnational businessmen send their sons and daughters to study in the United States and attend American universities, so that they can inherit their intangible assets, and also funded other Hong Kong residents to study in the United States, enabling them to cooperate with the United States’ Cold War projects, and even reshape Hong Kong’s education model in American ways. These activities have led to the rapid growth of Hong Kong’s trans-Pacific educational and business network flows, and Hong Kong’s British name. The colonies were thus able to play an important role in China’s reintegration into the global capitalist system after the restoration of Sino-US trade relations in 1971.”

▌”Cross-business”, social development in the United States and Hong Kong

In short, cross-business was an important driving force behind the Americanization of Hong Kong society during the British rule. They used American connections to introduce American funds and knowledge to help set up schools, build large housing estates and even power plants, support Hong Kong’s industrial development, and even used Hong Kong as the center during the Cold War to connect Sino-US relations and win most-favored-nation status from the United States for Communist China. , to facilitate its integration into the US global capitalist system.

In this process, the American role, through cross-business intermediation, worked with the British Hong Kong government to promote the development of Hong Kong society, just like the second echelon of governance. The origin of cross-commerce can be traced back to the Yangtze River Basin in China in the 19th century. The local missionary schools and the Westernization Movement in China at that time made American education the cradle of a new generation of Chinese elites. The connection with the United States also created career development opportunities for these elites. After the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1949, many Chinese elites moved south to British-ruled Hong Kong to start a new life. They made good use of American connections and resources to rebuild their businesses, and their deeds became the basis for the cross-business story described in this book.

Four of the cases mentioned in this book include: 1. The Kennedy Center in Shawan, Hong Kong Island and the World Rehabilitation Foundation Day Center in Kwun Tong; 2. The establishment and development of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; 3. The origin of Mei Foo Sun Village; 4. Shen Xirui, the first Chinese managing director of HSBC Bank. These four cases all reflect how the United States collaborated with the British Hong Kong government through “cross-business” to participate in Hong Kong’s development and even export Hong Kong’s experience internationally.

The Kennedy Center in Shawan, Hong Kong Island and the World Rehabilitation Foundation Day Center in Kwun Tong also received subsidies from the U.S. Department of State, amounting to US$1.2 million. The Kennedy Center was established in memory of the assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy. This center provides education for special children. The World Rehabilitation Foundation Day Center provides occupational therapy and training to 340 adults with disabilities. These community constructions have two goals: first, to foster a sense of “Hong Kong citizenship” and make Hong Kong people self-reliant; second, to train Hong Kong’s potential industrial workforce and lay the foundation for Hong Kong’s industrial development.

Similar community projects are mostly run by American missionaries and Chinese Christian elites. After the establishment of the Communist Party of China, they immigrated to Hong Kong from mainland China. In fact, Halleck Rose, the local director of the World Rehabilitation Fund, is a retired American diplomat. For British Hong Kong government officials and even the Chinese, these community constructions will help stabilize Hong Kong society, and they are optimistic about the success.

The first president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong was economist Li Cheuk-man. Before taking up his new post in Hong Kong, he studied at the American Missionary School in China and later studied in the United States. He was an official of the Republic of China and worked at the headquarters of the Executive Yuan Relief and Relief Administration, managing U.S. aid resources to China. Later, he taught at the University of the West Coast in the United States, and his research direction also changed to meet the needs of the United States during the Cold War—Li Zhuomin no longer studied international trade, but instead analyzed the economic development of the People’s Republic of China.

During his tenure, many school development funds came from the United States, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) gradually positioned itself as a trans-Pacific university. Its university library management is based on the American rather than the British model. The external reviewers and teachers of CUHK are mainly from the United States rather than the United Kingdom. The academic honor system is also in line with the United States. The school’s “internationalization” policy focuses on the United States. CUHK It also established the first MBA program in East Asia and even Southeast Asia, and the concept of this type of program originated from the United States.

When the project was developed in the 1960s, Mei Foo Sun Estate was the world’s largest private housing estate. Its funding came from the American giant Mobil Oil. It was an unprecedented investment plan for Hong Kong at the time. Mei Foo Sun Village originated from the Kwai Chung Expressway project of the British Hong Kong Government, which involved Mei Foo’s storage land. In order to compensate, the British Hong Kong Government proposed a land exchange proposal, and the development plan of Mei Foo Sun Tsuen was born. The person who facilitated this incident was Song Qiyun, then executive director of Mobil Oil. He moved to Hong Kong from China in 1953. Before that, he lived in Northeast China, attended an American missionary school, and later studied in the United States.

Mei Foo Village is very popular among Hong Kong’s middle class. Due to Hong Kong’s successful experience, Mei Foo established a land development company to expand its global business through real estate development. The Redwood Shores real estate in southern San Francisco is its experimental project.

Before moving to Hong Kong, Shen Xirui studied in the United States and later worked in the Republic of China government in mainland China to handle financial affairs. In the early 1950s, Shen Xirui went south to Hong Kong. When Shen Xirui was working at HSBC, he used his connections to facilitate the Chinese textile elites who also immigrated to Hong Kong to obtain loans so that they could develop the textile industry. These textile merchants later also used their American social capital to make profits using the United States as their main export market. In the late 1970s, Hong Kong scholar Wong Siu-lun interviewed Shen Xirui. His answer reflected how crucial cross-business social capital was to the development of Hong Kong after World War II:

“I… told the textile traders what alternatives there were. I knew them personally and was able to negotiate with HSBC on their behalf. We lobbied HSBC and British Hong Kong government officials to explain how the textile industry would benefit Hong Kong. They did We can also see the economic benefits of the textile industry. After the war, the demand for textiles was very high, so the profits were huge. Basically, the bank would agree to grant the loan as long as it could see profits. I was an informal consultant at the bank, setting up dinners every week, and doing consulting work. Then I became busier, and HSBC said, we need you. As a result, I continued to work as a consultant for the next three years and even now.”

The author of this book specifically mentioned that in fact, there is very little material about Shen Xirui in the HSBC archives, only a few frames of photos remain. This means that neither HSBC nor Shen Xirui are willing to record the details of their actions.

▌Continued from the second part: “Introduction to “Made in Hong Kong” (Part 2): How does Roosevelt’s New Deal “manage” Hong Kong? 〉

“Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization”

author: Peter E. Hamilton

Translator: Kwong Kin Ming

Publisher:Monsoon belt culture

Publication date:2024/02/07

brief introduction:“Made in Hong Kong: A New History of Trans-Pacific Networks and Globalization” takes Hong Kong as the center and rewrites the history of the trans-Pacific. This book mainly talks about two points: first, the social development of Hong Kong after World War II was greatly influenced by the United States. After World War II, Hong Kong society has already begun the process of “informal decolonization” during the British colonial era through “Americanization”. Secondly, Hong Kong’s role is also crucial to the development of the global political and economic system after World War II. The dissemination and application of cutting-edge business knowledge in the United States, the reset of transnational production and supply chains, and even the establishment and stabilization of Sino-US relations have all received the push from Hong Kong. This role of Hong Kong is mostly ignored by commentators. Hong Kong’s key role stems from two major factors: Hong Kong’s “cross-business strategy” and the political and economic needs of the United States during the Cold War. “Made in Hong Kong: A New History of Trans-Pacific Networks and Globalization” is a rare research masterpiece that combines local political and economic development with international relations. It is a model of looking back at local stories from a cross-domain perspective.