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Text/Kuang Jianming (Chief Editor of Taiwan Monsoon Belt Culture)
▌Tennessee Valley Authority Model——USAThe past and present of international influence
The Cold War era is an important background for the cross-business story in this book. In addition to cross-business, another important element of the story is the foreign aid provided by the United States through non-state organization channels. Although the Cold War situation was an important reason for the United States to use it as the backbone of its international foreign policy, this strategic thinking on international relations took shape as early as the 1930s. Here is a brief introduction to American historian David Ekbladh’s book The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order, to provide more context for understanding the United States’ influence on Hong Kong and even “HongkongThe composition of “pattern”.
▌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”. It is continued from the previous article: “Introduction to “Made in Hong Kong” (Part 1): The “cross-businessmen” who led Hong Kong into the global capitalist system>
As early as the 1930s, the United States had begun to think about how to use a new type of “modern” development discourse to guard the borders of the “free world” and counter the international expansion of totalitarian forces. The international trend of thought at that time began to regard fascism and communism, which advocated manipulation, as the best political and social organizational models. American libertarians then believe that a third way needs to be opened between laissez-faire (laissez-faire) and illiberal fascism and communism in order to restore public opinion’s confidence in the governance ability of the free world.
The famous Jewish sociologist Karl Mannheim actually once said that from now on there will be no difference between planned development and laissez-faire, only good and bad planning. In this context, the Tennessee Valley Authority model in the southern United States is regarded as a demonstration case of the third way.
The Tennessee Valley Authority model is regarded as a development model that belongs to the free world, is driven by the government from top to bottom, and can maintain people’s freedom at the same time. This model began when the Great Depression broke out in 1933 as part of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “first New Deal”, with the goal of We hope that through the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government agency, we can supervise and implement various new policies to solve the social poverty problem in the southern United States.
The New Deal includes building dams to control floods and generate electricity, promote agricultural development, improve public health care, and promote education. Three points of this model are particularly worth mentioning: First, the model attaches great importance to education because education is regarded as a medium for shaping the healthy character of citizens and can also improve the knowledge and even productivity of workers. Two of the policies are to distribute more than 200,000 books to nearly 7,000 people in the valley every year, and to sponsor all sports, drama and other community activities; the second is to counteract the totalitarian state planning models of Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union. The difference is that the Tennessee Valley Authority model emphasizes public-private partnership to realize the planning vision. In the development process, local governments, business circles, and civil society organizations are all involved; thirdly, in the United States, this top-down planning and development model will naturally arouse disputes over the decentralization of powers between local and central governments.
In this regard, David E. Lilienthal is a key figure. He was appointed by the President of the United States to lead the Tennessee Valley Authority. In order to resolve disputes, Lilienthal actively promotes decentralization to ensure that universities, local governments, and grassroots can influence planning decisions and ensure that planning content focuses on local needs.
American economist Eugene Staley later established the foreign policy framework of liberal internationalism for the United States, paving the way for the United States to export the Tennessee Valley Authority model. He believes that it is necessary to distinguish between the “power economy” and the “welfare economy” internationally. According to their point of view, the former focuses on expanding military power, while the latter is determined to improve the overall quality of life of the people. To improve people’s quality of life, allowing the free flow of raw materials, capital, population, and knowledge is a prerequisite.
In 1954, Stanley published The Future of Underdeveloped Countries, further outlining what he saw as a roadmap for a non-communist development model. This roadmap can be divided into three steps: first, increase people’s income; second, promote democratic autonomy; third, establish democratic values in the community. The purpose of these three steps is to reduce the influence of the totalitarian model of communism.
Within this diplomatic thinking framework, as early as the 1930s, the American organization Rockefeller Foundation had been actively promoting the Tennessee Valley Authority model in China. During World War II, in 1945, the Office of War Information (OWI) published more than 140,000 books promoting the Tennessee Valley Authority model internationally in multiple languages as propaganda. The famous sinologist John King Fairbank was one of the officials of the United States War Information Bureau at that time. After World War II, during the Cold War, the Truman administration of the United States proposed the Point Four Program as a foreign policy to counter communism. This plan advocates sharing American technological achievements with the world to support developing regions and promote their development.
When President Truman promoted this new aid diplomacy, he specifically mentioned the Tennessee Valley Authority model. Secretary of State Dean Acheson called on non-governmental organizations to participate in the implementation of the fourth point plan, which corresponds to one of the characteristics of the Tennessee Valley Authority model mentioned above. Participating organizations include the International Rescue Committee, the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), etc. Some organizations have also become the basis for Hong Kong’s cross-business stories. a part. The assistance provided by these organizations includes employment training and the provision of education.
▌Research features of “Made in Hong Kong”
The history of the origin and export of the Tennessee Valley Authority model to the world can be extended to three points in this book:
First, this book is not written with the United States as the center. It can just add the details of the implementation of the Tennessee Valley Authority model exported by the United States. Hong Kong’s development experience described in this book is not without the characteristics of the Tennessee Valley Authority model in the United States. For example, after American missionaries received American resources, they actively promoted community building. They established rooftop schools, children’s organizations, libraries, community centers and even private resettlement areas (Wesley Estate on Hong Kong Island and Asili Estate in Tsuen Wan, New Territories are examples).
Furthermore, NGOs play an important role in Hong Kong’s cross-business story. In the process of relieving Hong Kong refugees, the above-mentioned organizations called by US Secretary of State Acheson (such as the International Rescue Committee and the National Catholic Welfare Committee) also participated. During the establishment of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, resources from American non-governmental organizations were an extremely important influencing factor. This confirms the characteristics of the Tennessee Valley Authority model mentioned above.
However, a U.S.-centered perspective cannot explain how the Tennessee Valley Authority model is connected to the mainland and exerts influence after it is exported to other places. This is where the research value of this book lies. Here are two points to illustrate:
(1) Hong Kong’s cross-business intermediaries have affected the effectiveness of the Tennessee Valley Authority model in the United States. Take the establishment process of Chung Chi College of Chinese University of Science and Technology as an example. Its building and library collection resources mainly come from American organizations, while its campus land requires the cooperation of British Hong Kong government officials. In the process, Ou Weiguo, one of the characters in this book and Chung Chi leader, is a key figure. On the one hand, American organizations had no intention of becoming major supporters of Chung Chi because from their perspective, Hong Kong would soon be invaded by the People’s Republic of China. Ou Weiguo helped reverse the situation with his skills. On the other hand, Ou Weiguo also relied on social capital to obtain the support of British Hong Kong government officials to find a school site for Chung Chi.
(2) The influence of the United States is not limited to the ideological level. The origin and even export of the Tennessee Valley Authority model in the United States are related to international ideological confrontation. But in Hong Kong, the impact goes beyond this ideological confrontation. A major theme of this book is that Hong Kong cross-businessmen, who were deeply influenced by the United States, used Hong Kong resources to promote China’s reform toward the world and facilitated ice-breaking cooperation between China and the United States. One example is Hu Yingxiang. When he was young, he studied in the United States. The education and even the scale of construction in the United States left a good and deep impression on him. The English name he gave his eldest son Thomas Jefferson was enough to prove this.
Wu Yingxiang later became a Hong Kong construction tycoon. He fought for highway development projects in China, which became an important project in China’s reform in the 1980s. However, the project encountered repeated obstacles. One of Hu Yingxiang’s responses was to send six Guangdong officials to California to let them experience the development of American highways and share the shock that Hu Yingxiang felt in the United States thirty years ago. Hu Yingxiang specially bought a car, drove it himself, and took officials around. At that time, the deputy mayor of Guangzhou was writing a diary in the car. He said that this kind of experience is difficult to have on the roads of the People’s Republic of China. This is one of the moments in the process of Communist China facing the world and integrating into the global capitalist system of the United States.
Second, this book emphasizes the need to write global history using port cities. In recent years, in the field of global history, the influence and strategic significance of port cities have received increasing attention. British historian John Darwin’s recent book “Unlocking The World: Port Cities and Globalization in the Age of Steam (1830-1930)” explores this point. According to Darwin’s understanding, the meaning of globalization is the long-distance exchange of people, goods, money, technology, ideas, beliefs, and even living things (animals, plants and microorganisms), and this long-distance exchange takes place through port cities. , global connections were born.
The subtitle of the original book “Made in Hong Kong: Trans-Pacific Networks and a New History of Globalization” contains the term “new history of globalization”. The author says in the prologue: “Without Hong Kong as the center, Hong Kong’s unique historical experience, and even the global history that radiates from Hong Kong and intersects with the world, will be difficult to restore. To sort out the traces of the historical agency of the Hong Kong people in history , not only helps us understand the economic evolution and experience under continued colonialism, but also helps us explore the origins of the huge commercial and educational network between China and the United States.”
The final chapter of the book compares the historical port cities of Genoa and Hong Kong. What the two have in common is their initiative to change the regional situation. The author concludes this way: “The cross-business strategy of Hong Kong elites is comparable to the experience of Genoa. After the outbreak of World War II and when the United States and China and the Soviet Union were wrestling with each other, the United States adopted the Marshall Plan (Marshall Plan). 1948-1951), the occupation of Japan (1949-1952), and the expansion of the Bretton Woods Agreement to promote global trade and financial development. For Hong Kong, these developments add instability to the future.”
“Hong Kong was subordinate to the British Empire rather than Washington and could not automatically benefit from U.S. aid or receive U.S. protection. Furthermore, from 1950 to 1951, the United States and the United Nations implemented a trade embargo against China , the traditional entrepot economy of British Hong Kong was affected, just as Genoa’s trade was frustrated in the fourteenth century. Hong Kong also had other assets and advantages before the collapse of its traditional trade. There are two advantages: first, the knowledge, capital, and network of elite immigrants; second, the low-cost labor provided by tens of thousands of ordinary immigrants. The result of this advantage is the rapid development of Hong Kong’s industry and its proximity to the American market. It’s the Asian version of Genoa turning to Spain.”
Third, this book re-examines the “Hong Kong Model”. General public opinion believes that, at least during the British rule, the “Hong Kong model” was characterized by its active non-intervention policy. This is not necessarily the whole story of Hong Kong. In the Hong Kong cross-business story in this book, it is not difficult to find the Tennessee Valley Authority model in the United States. The origin of this model lies between the laissez-faire development model and the totalitarian planned economic model. In the meantime, find a third way. One way to realize this third way is to make good use of the collaborative efforts of non-governmental organizations. In the context of Hong Kong, the initiative of cross-business is an important enabler for this third road to connect with the mainland. As for why this period has been forgotten in Hong Kong’s historical memory, it is an interesting subject.
Regarding this point, the author has analyzed this in the book: “The materialism and pragmatism of cross-business strategies can help explain why the above history is not taken seriously by the public and scholars. The views in the book should surprise most Hong Kong people This period of trans-Pacific history is little known, I think, for four reasons: First, due to the influence of colonial rule, the production of knowledge relied on preconceptions, and archives and memories that could be used to support opinions were buried. Furthermore, local history is rarely taught in Hong Kong schools, and most China studies scholars pay little attention to Hong Kong based on the “Greater Central Plains mentality” (Fu Baoshi’s words). Second, these strategies come from a small group of elites, and their scale is through education. Expansion. As a result, cross-business strategies have gradually become common sense, and Hong Kong people have come to regard studying in the United States as a natural goal. This is evident in the “New Wave” movies.
“Third, trans-Pacific networks and strategies often lead to immigration. Most of the descendants of the people discussed in this book no longer live in Hong Kong, so the memory of this period of history has been scattered. Fourth, rapid economic changes, the Tiananmen Incident of 1989 , the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 all triggered major changes in Hong Kong’s culture and identity, and cross-business strategies became more complex and changeable. For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, the accumulation of social capital in the United States. has received much attention, but since then, it has become a fad to obtain Canadian, New Zealand, Australian and other passports. I will point out that this history has been rooted in today’s public memory. Today, Hong Kong residents regard themselves as international citizens. It comes from nowhere. The analysis of cross-business strategies is to deconstruct “common sense” and restore the original appearance of strategic vision that has been forgotten in the early days.”
“Made in Hong Kong: A New History of Trans-Pacific Networks and Globalization” is actually a work that rewrites the history of the Pacific with Hong Kong as the center. It is a classic that reflects the dual aspects of local and international relations. In the future, this is an important study that cannot be ignored in Hong Kong studies and even international relations studies. After all, it is necessary and valuable to write local stories from a cross-domain perspective.
“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.
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