Making of Hong Kong Chinese

Collaborative Colonial Power
0aPrelim(p.i-v).indd 1 6/11/09 10:47:29 AM

A new series on socio-economic and cultural changes in Hong Kong
HONG KONG CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Series Editors
Tai-lok LUI Department of Sociology,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Gerard A. POSTIGLIONE Faculty of Education,
The University of Hong Kong
Panel of Advisors
Ambrose KING The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Alvin SO The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology
Siu-lun WONG The University of Hong Kong
Other titles in the series
The Dynamics of Social Movements in Hong Kong
edited by Stephen Wing-kai Chiu and Tai-lok Lui
Consuming Hong Kong
edited by Gordon Matthews and Tai-lok Lui
Toward Critical Patriotism: Student Resistance to Political Education
in Hong Kong and China
Gregory P. Fairbrother
At Home With Density
Nuala Rooney
Changing Church and State Relations in Hong Kong, 19502000
Beatrice Leung and Shun-hing Chan
Collaborative Colonial Power
The Making of the Hong Kong Chinese
Law Wing Sang
Hong Kong University Press
14/F Hing Wai Centre
7 Tin Wan Praya Road
Aberdeen
Hong Kong
Hong Kong University Press 2009
Hardback ISBN 978-962-209-929-6
Paperback ISBN 978-962-209-930-2
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Secure On-line Ordering
http://www.hkupress.org
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue copy for this book is available from the British Library
Printed and bound by Caritas Printing Training Centre, Hong Kong, China
For Oi Wah and Yu On
Blank page.indd 31 10/29/07 9:58:28 AM
Contents
Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Coloniality and Hong Kong Chineseness 1
I Collaboration and Institutions
1. Social Fabric of a Collaborative Colonialism 9
2. Cultural Coloniality: The English Language and Schooling 31
3. Pedagogy of Imperialism: Indirect Rule and HKU 57
II. Hong Kong In-Betweens
4. Double Identity of Colonial Intelligentsia: Ho Kai 79
5. Chinese Cultural Nationalism and Southern Localism 103
6. Cultural Cold War and the Diasporic Nation 131
III. Lingering Colonialism
7. Indigenizing Colonial Power and the Return to China 151
8. Northbound Colonialism: Reinventing Hong Kong Chinese 177
Conclusion: Re-theorizing Colonial Power 199
Character List 211
Notes 215
Bibliography 225
Index 259
0bContents(p.vii).indd 7 5/21/09 11:12:43 AM
Series Foreword
M
ost past research on Hong Kong has been generally aimed to inform a
diverse audience about the place and its people. Beginning in the 1950s,
the aim of scholars and journalists who came to Hong Kong was to study China,
which had not yet opened its doors to feldwork by outsiders. Accordingly,
the relevance of Hong Kong was limited to its status as a society adjacent to
mainland China. After the opening of China, research on Hong Kong shifted
focus towards colonial legitimacy and the return of sovereignty. Thus, the
disciplined study of Hong Kong was hindered for almost half a century, and the
richness of a society undergoing dramatic economic, social and political change
within the contemporary world was not suffciently emphasized.
The unfolding of culture and society in Hong Kong is no longer confned
by the 1997 question. New changes are shaped by local history as much as by
the China factor. Rather than being an isolated entity, Hong Kong is an outcome
of interaction among local history, national context, and global linkages. An
understanding of the future development of Hong Kong requires sensitivity to
this contextual complexity.
The volumes in this series are committed to making Hong Kong studies
address key issues and debates in the social sciences. Each volume situates Hong
Kong culture and society within contemporary theoretical discourse. Behind the
descriptions of social and cultural life is a conceptual dialogue between local
agenda, regional issues, and global concerns.
This series focuses on changing socio-economic structures, shifting
political parameters, institutional restructuring, emerging public cultures,
and expanding global linkages. It covers a range of issues, including social
movements, socialization into a national identity, the effect of new immigrants
from the Mainland, social networks of family members in other countries,
the impact of the colonial legacy on the identity of forthcoming generations,
trade union organization within the shifting political landscape, linkages with
0cForeword(p.ix-x).indd 9 3/5/09 12:45:51 PM
Series Foreword x
Southeast Asian societies, Hong Kongs new role between Taiwan and the
Chinese mainland, the transformation of popular culture, the globalization of
social life, and the global engagement of Hong Kongs universities in the face of
national integration.
Gerard A. Postiglione
Tai-lok Lui
Series General Editors
0cForeword(p.ix-x).indd 10 3/5/09 12:45:51 PM
Acknowledgements
T
his book represents a development of research initially undertaken toward
my PhD dissertation in Cultural Studies at the University of Technology,
Sydney (2002). I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Stephen
Muecke for his academic supervision and intellectual guidance over the years.
Without his friendship and assistance this study could not have been completed.
I would also like to thank Professor Meaghan Morris, who has read drafts of this
work and has provided incisive comments and constructive suggestions at the
crucial stage of the project. Their intellectual breadth, earnestness and invaluable
patience have strengthened my interest in cultural studies scholarship. This
work owes much to both of them. I am also deeply grateful to receive helpful
comments from the anonymous reader engaged by Hong Kong University
Press.
Colleagues at the Department of Cultural Studies of Lingnan University
have given me generous support and counsel in one form or another during the
writing of this work. Special thanks are due to Stephen Ching-kiu Chan, Hui Po
Keung, Lau Kin Chi, and Chan Shun Hing, whose friendship and collegiality
contributed invaluable encouragement for me to persist in fnishing the work. I
would also like to extend my appreciation to Lingnan University which granted
me a study leave from April to August 2001 and without which the completion
of this study would have been impossible. My heartfelt gratitude is given to
Chung Hsiu Mei who offered every kind of friendly help in order to facilitate
my completion of this research in Sydney.
Thanks must also go to the group of researchers involved in the Programme
for Hong Kong Cultural Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong from
19941997. The stimulating discussions held in those workshops with Ip Iam
Chong, Hung Ho Fung, Tam Man Kei, Lo Sze Ping, and Mirana May Szeto,
among others, inspired my interest in Hong Kong cultural studies.
0dAcknow(p.xi-xii).indd 11 3/5/09 12:46:08 PM
Acknowledgements xii
I also wish to thank the librarians of Chung Chi College Library, the Hong
Kong Collection of the United College Library, the University Library at The
Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Fischer Library at the University
of Sydney, for their excellent guidance in locating materials useful for this
book. I am also grateful for the support received from the friendly staff in the
Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, during my stay as
Visiting Fellow there in summer 2005.
No words can express my gratitude to my family. Their caring support
and staying power over the years were indispensable for the completion of this
project.
Some sections of Chapter 7 appeared in different form in Kuan-Hsing Chen
(1998) (ed.) Trajectories. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London: Routledge, pp. 109
121 under the title Managerializing Colonialism. An earlier draft of Chapter
8 appeared in Positions. East Asia Cultures Critique, 2000, 8, 1, pp. 201233 under
the title Northbound Colonialism: A Politics of Post-PC Hong Kong. Some
sections of Chapter 1 appeared in an article in Human Rights Global Focus, 2006, 3,
1, pp. 514, under the title The Legacies of Collaborative Colonial Rule in Hong
Kong.
0dAcknow(p.xi-xii).indd 12 3/5/09 12:46:08 PM
Introduction:
Coloniality and Hong Kong Chineseness
B
ritish imperialist forces captured Hong Kong in 1842 and ruled the place
as both a free port and a colony until recently. However, in both popular
and academic discourses, people have almost forgotten Hong Kongs status
as a colonial entity. Liberal-modernist historiographies of Hong Kong usually
tell a romanticized story about the growth of Hong Kong, characterizing it as
a utopia of laissez-faire economics a narrative that, highly sympathetic to
colonial rule, embraces the depiction of Hong Kong as a barren-rock-turned-
capitalist paradise (Endacott 1964; Woronoff 1980; Ngo 1999: 120). It is said that
Hong Kong was a desolate island before the British came but that, thanks to the
benevolent governance and good policy of the colonial state, the barren rock has
been transformed into a capitalist metropolis. This liberal-modernist narrative
peddles the Hong Kong success story and operates under the presumption that
Hong Kong is an economic entity on its own. Screened out from this narrative
are, frst and foremost, the effects of more than 150 years of colonialism in Hong
Kong, and this select screening of information renders Hong Kong colonialism
nothing more than a set of liberal frameworks within which capitalism was
able to fourish. Moreover, this same narrative treats the colonial state as, for
the most part, a non-interventionist power: the British never exploited Hong
Kong economically, and Hong Kong remained not an imperialist-dominated
terrain but a neutral arena where both Western and Eastern cultures could
intermingle.
Ironically, most of the Marxist historians, who, in the past two decades, have
come from mainland China, and who are writing about Hong Kongs pre-1997
history, also like to join the liberal-modernists in unrefectively attributing the
growth of the colony to the free-market economy that fourished under British
colonial rule. Rapidly churned out before 1997 as ideological justifcation of the
moment of return, their writings are never hesitant in making the patriotic
proclamation that Hong Kong had belonged to China since time immemorial.
They rush to identify a few British misdeeds, criticizing some of the old racist
ch.00(p.1-6).indd 1 3/5/09 12:39:02 PM
Collaborative Colonial Power 2

measures and praising mainland Chinas contribution to Hong Kong (Yu and
Liu 1994; Liu 1997). As their political task was only to legitimize the return
of Hong Kong to China under the one country, two systems policy, their anti-
British and pro-China assertions cannot go any further than a highly selective
and superfcial treatment of colonial history. What have turned out are examples
of expedient eclecticism that have transplanted the liberal-modernist narrative
of Hong Kong, faunted in its apologetic defense for British colonialism, upon a
positioned Chinese nationalistic frame.
1
Drawing upon the same liberal-modernist framework, all these historical
writings tell time and again almost the same miraculous success story of Hong
Kong. Despite the interruptions of the Japanese occupation and of Chinese
revolutions and civil wars, Hong Kong stands out as a model case of capitalist
development, with its own formula for initiating the momentum of free-market
growth (Endacott 1964; Miners 1981; Rabushka 1973, 1979).
Bringing Colonialism Back In
Despite the popularity of this Hong Kong success story, there is, however,
little evidence lending support to the assertion that Hong Kong exhibited self-
generating capitalistic growth animated by the sheer entrepreneurial spirit of
a new China-based bourgeoisie (Choi, A.H. 1999). Nor does rigorous factual
substantiation underlie any assertion that Hong Kong economic growth was
autonomous, independent of regional political and economic formations.
Getting beyond these unfounded assertions, recent revisionist historiography
has shifted focus onto the important role of the colonial state, of its relationship
with local society, and of the emergence of a regional economic network. Ngo
Tak Wing and Alex Choi, for instance, argue against the widely held notion that
Hong Kong was ruled by a neutral administrative state that upheld the principle
of non-intervention (Ngo 1999; Choi 1999). They also question whether it is
tenable to depict Hong Kong society as atomistic, its people as apathetic, and
their mentality as functionally ft for bureaucratic colonial governance (e.g. Lau
1982). Put together, the revisionist historiographies of Hong Kong challenge these
somewhat hackneyed perspectives and take the view that Hong Kong society
cannot be understood independently of colonialism. The historiographies begin
with the assumption that Hong Kong was a sui generis colonial city and then
propose to conduct a thorough investigation of the colonial system. By treating
colonialism as primarily a form of politically imposed rule, the historiographies
highlight the active interventions of the colonial state and, in this regard, identify
different strategies of rule for the maintaining of governance. For example, it has
ch.00(p.1-6).indd 2 3/5/09 12:39:02 PM
been shown that, refusing repeated calls for industrial upgrades, the colonial
state privileged pro-British trading and banking interests (Choi 1999; Ngo 1999);
similarly, Munn regards the criminal justice system as a means by which the
colonial state and the ruling Europeans could police the lower class Chinese
inhabitants (Munn 1999, 2001). In short, the authors of these historiographies
refect on the colonial state, re-read Hong Kongs past, and from it, reconstruct the
changing political rationalities of British colonialism in Hong Kong. According
to these revisionist historiographies, Hong Kong is less laissez-faire than it
seems to be. Also, the British presence in Hong Kong was never guaranteed with
harmony and success to the extent that can warrant placing it as an exceptional
case within a long colonial history that featured brutal domination and ferce
resistance.
While I very much agree with these attempts to revisit Hong Kongs colonial
past, particularly with regard to their contribution to found a critical intellectual
project of Hong Kong studies in defance of the hegemonic liberal-modernist
story, I would also like to underscore the need to look further than revealing the
political dimension of colonial rule. As a political critique of colonialism is premised
on a narrow conception of power, which confnes ones attention to uncovering
the changing strategies of colonial rule, it tends to treat colonial power as no
more than an instrument for the willful domination of the colonizers over the
colonized. What is missing is a perspective that can reveal how colonial power
exists and operates as an impersonal force through a multiplicity of sites and
channels, through which the impersonal forces may still linger in the absence
of a discernable colonizer. Failing to conceive of colonial power as a network
of relations, a political critique of colonialism may run the risk of perpetuating
a monolithic, universal defnition of colonialism that can account for neither
related transformations nor spaces of possible resistance.
Malleable Coloniality and the Constitution of Chineseness
The urgent need to develop a critical intellectual project that can go beyond a
mere political critique of colonialism is also prompted by the fact that narratives
of their colonial pasts bear heavily upon how Hong Kong peoples self-
identifcation and how the Chinese in Hong Kong conceive of their Chineseness.
In the nineties, when everybody was taking an interest in observing the fnal
chapter of British imperialism and the handover of Hong Kongs sovereign
power from Britain to China, the notion of Chineseness was thoroughly
interrogated by the emergent cultural studies scholars. For example, informed
by a diasporic perspective, Rey Chow tried to re-imagine the feld of Chinese
ch.00(p.1-6).indd 3 3/5/09 12:39:02 PM

studies (presumably, in America), saying that Chineseness can no longer be
held as a monolithic given tied to the mythic homeland but must rather be
understood as a provisional, open signifer. (Chow 1998b: 24) Conceiving
Chineseness in its plural forms, which could only be re-evaluated in what she put
as the catachrestic modes of its signifcation, Chow called for an investigation
into the very forms of the historical construction of Chineseness. Echoing Chow,
Ien Ang (1998) went one step further by pushing the limits of the diasporic
paradigm in not just pluralizing Chineseness but in allowing the rejection of
Chineseness as defning ones ethnicity, arguing for a more contextualized
assessment of the differential politics of Chineseness. Inspired by both Chow
and Angs critiques of Chineseness, Hong Kong cultural studies, especially in
its period of rapid emergence in the nineties, bolstered cultural criticisms of
all kinds against looming Chinese nationalism. Criticizing the essentializing
tendencies manifested in those Chinese nationalistic discourses, diasporic
cultural studies passionately argue for a kind of post-colonial politics which can
engage battles on two fronts: that is to say, they try to safeguard Hong Kong as a
space for identifcation where both British colonialism and chauvinistic Chinese
nationalisms can be held in check.
However, the limitations of diasporic critiques of Chineseness in offering a
critical perspective for post-1997 cultural politics are also obvious. On the one
hand, generally delegitimizing anti-colonial critiques done under the banner
of Chinese nationalism may risk short-circuiting refections on the colonial
experiences Hong Kong has undergone. On the other hand, overstretching
the methodological principle of anti-essentialism may also impede cultural
resistances that attempt to affrm a distinct cultural identity for Hong Kong. For
example, people may need to look beyond the diasporic anti-nativist critiques
to fnd justifcation for the now growing interest in preserving Hong Kongs
heritage and collective memory. For, the ethics of unanchored cosmopolitanism,
which is often embedded in the diasporic anti-nativism, contribute little to
substantiate the wake of historical consciousness among Hong Kong citizens,
let alone to lend support to the social efforts in defending against the globalist
developmentalist ideologys encroachment on local cultures and communities.
Failing to offer a located intellectual project, the ambivalent posture of this type
of post-identity politics is also attributed to its inability to offer a vantage
point to critically retrieve or re-appraise Hong Kongs colonial past. In short,
what is missing from these cultural studies on Hong Kong is precisely a serious
consideration of Hong Kongs historical past in general, and colonialism in
particular, which gave shape to the present self-representation and identity of
Hong Kong Chinese.
ch.00(p.1-6).indd 4 3/5/09 12:39:03 PM
Another diffculty, which prevents scholars from giving the colonial
experiences of Hong Kong adequate and thorough treatment in their efforts
to deconstruct Chineseness, involves their tendency to conceptualize national
or sub-national identities as standing in opposition to colonialism. It is a kind
of implicit binary framework onto which even the anti-nativist deconstructive
efforts are still clinging. That is to say, even when Chineseness is interrogated by
post-colonial critics, it is still treated as something dissociable from colonialism
and colonial history. The methodological error involved here is that both
nationalism and colonialism are taken out of the regional historical contexts
in which they were indeed deeply interwoven. Hence, a genuinely critical
post-colonial approach can only be possible if it can depart from the narrow
ethnic conception of Chineseness, which takes Chinese as referring only to
certain pre-existent belongingness. On the contrary, the continuous process of
how Chinese identity was constantly disembedded and reintegrated, within
the sites and channels where colonial power effectuated, creating mosaics of
Hong Kong culture, has to be understood. To discern in every turn of these long
processes how pervasive colonial power (either that of the British colonizers
or that of other Western powers) can be is very important since it conditioned
how Chinese identity has been received, perceived, and experienced. Because
those interconnected forms of colonial power always functioned in establishing
discursive and non-discursive possibilities and boundaries for different forms of
Chinese subjectivity to be constituted and negotiated.
By simultaneously engaging with issues of the pervasiveness of colonial
power and the contestable identity of Hong Kong Chinese, this book tries
to go beyond either describing Hong Kong culture as of a hybrid kind or
documenting the existence of collaboration already highlighted by some Hong
Kong historians. Instead, in order to subvert the residual conceptual binarism in
postcolonial cultural studies, the book attempts to give Hong Kong Chineseness
and colonial history a proper treatment in which their interfacings will be laid
bare. In this light, this book seizes upon collaboration as a key to found an
extended analytical framework within which to grasp the power formation of
Hong Kong. It is not to argue that Hong Kong is the only place where colonial
rule relied on collaboration but the existence of pervasive collaborative relations
is taken as providing a convenient but often-neglected access to understanding
the irregularly shaped cultural landscapes of Hong Kong. This book will account
for the large variety of interests and forces involved in order to show the mobility
and the variability these colonial cultural forms (i.e. colonialities) manifested.
Given the rapid reconfguration of power politics in the post-1997 era, I
would consider that the stake is high concerning whether we can intellectually
grasp such malleable but enduring colonialities. For it bears on whether we can
avoid being trapped methodologically by an anti-imperialist logic, which often
5
ch.00(p.1-6).indd 5 3/5/09 12:39:03 PM

operates in complicity with nation-state. Throughout this book, several guiding
questions inform my investigation of Hong Kongs coloniality:
Historically, how did this colonial-power formation come about?
(Chapter 1)
What were the main cultural institutions involved in the power
formation in the early colonial period? (Chapters 2, 3)
How did this power formation operate not just as a political
superstructure that the British imperialist state imposed on the native
Chinese but also as a site of cultural production collaboratively
constituted by the British and the Chinese? (Chapters 3, 4)
How did this particular colonial formation interact with the emerging
project(s) of Chinese nationalism and the Chinese nation-state(s)?
(Chapters 4, 5)
How did this formation give rise to the confguration of Hong Kong as
a new political and cultural entity? (Chapters 5, 6)
Finally, how did this confguration of culture and power continue
to infuence the self-understanding of the people living within the
confguration self-understanding that set the scene for cultural
politics in Hong Kong right up to the eve of its return to China?
(Chapter 7, 8)
Part I (Chapters 1 through 3) of the book focuses on the emergent formation of
collaborative colonialism in the early colonial era: from the First Opium War
(18401842) to the 1911 Republican Revolution. I will closely inspect cultural and
educational institutions and their roles in the collaborative-power formation.
Part II (Chapters 4 through 6) will deal with the cultural politics of Chineseness
in Hong Kong throughout the Republican period, the Cold War, and the years
leading up to 1997; I will examine different modes of Hong Kongs in-between
state to demonstrate the dynamics around the contested cultural and political
constitution of Hong Kong Chineseness. Part III (Chapters 7 and 8) examines the
ideological and cultural transformation that occurred prior to the sovereignty
handover in 1997 and probes into the degree to which colonialism is still a
lingering presence in Hong Kong. The conclusion will deal with the theorization
of colonial power and refects upon certain methodological issues involved.
ch.00(p.1-6).indd 6 3/5/09 12:39:03 PM
I
Collaboration and Institutions
ch.00a(p.7).indd 7 3/5/09 12:39:21 PM
1
Social Fabric of a Collaborative Colonialism
A
Victorian saying went like this: by acquiring Hong Kong, Great Britain
had cut a notch in the body of China as a woodsman cuts a notch in a
great oak he is presently going to fell. As a notch, Hong Kong, seized by the
British navy in the First Opium War (18401842), has possessed a value that can
never be measured in terms of territorial conquest. The British sought a place
where they could establish an independent commercial and military base free
from the bureaucratic Qing government and the Cohong system that restricted
foreign trade to be conducted in Canton only. Hong Kong was chosen for its
offshore location despite it being only a sparsely populated, geographically
barren island. The goal of the British imperialists was to establish their own
judicial system with which to govern the activities of their merchants, under the
military protection of the British navy (Endacott 1964a, b, c; Norton-Kyshe 1971).
It was out of these concerns that Britain was determined not to make Hong Kong
just another Macau, the tiny peninsula that the Portuguese offcially governed
but which the Chinese government kept running as their own. In contrast, the
British exercised truly colonial control over Hong Kong, which stood as a model
for subsequent treaty ports.
The Wests defeat of China in the First Opium War dealt a heavy blow to
the pride of the Qing Empire and to the Chinese gentry; the surging nationalist
movements thereafter all considered the war a historic humiliation for China and
insisted on claiming that the annexation was forced upon the Chinese by what
they saw as an unequal treaty. There is no doubt that Britain accrued enormous
benefts from its possession of this tiny treaty port; however, for more than a
century after its cession as a war indemnity (at least until the 1980s), successive
Chinese governments were equally reluctant to make the reclamation of Hong
Kong a national priority. Therefore, although Chinese nationalist rhetoric always
complained about the loss of Hong Kong, the Chinese had an important stake
in Hong Kong too.
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 9 5/21/09 11:07:45 AM
Collaboration and Institutions 10

However, Chinese interests in Hong Kong have never been adequately
theorized in the present dominant paradigm of Hong Kong studies, which
seldom goes beyond describing the places peculiarity. Works of this trend always
begin with the authors professed fascination with Hong Kong, a fascination
that smacks of a certain exoticism and that usually concerns Hong Kongs
uninterrupted prosperity and protracted political stability; then, the political
analyses will discuss the geo-strategic expediency of the place; the sociologists
will rant about Chinese political apathy; the economists will make a big fuss
about Hong Kongs nearly-perfect market (e.g. Lau, S.K. 1982; King 1972;
Rabushka 1979). These studies invariably assume Hong Kong to be a unique
entity and try to unlock its presumed mystery. They share among themselves
a tendency to abstract Hong Kong from its historical and spatial contexts, in
particular its colonial milieu. They either treat Hong Kong colonial rule as an
exception or turn colonialism into an entirely positive factor, if they do not
totally neglect its presence. All in all, they propose a paradigm of Hong Kong
exceptionalism and thus try to get around the serious theoretical challenges
that require rigorous scholars to give Hong Kong colonialism its due regard. By
treating the Hong Kong colonial government as exceptionally benign, or Hong
Kongs markets as exceptionally perfect, or Hong Kong Chinese as exceptionally
acquiescent, these researchers have seldom probed into Hong Kong colonialism
as colonialism. In short, these researchers treat Hong Kong colonialism as a mere
historical contingency. Consequently, Ackbar Abbass (1997) characterization
of Hong Kong culture as one of reverse hallucination in the sense that
onlookers are not seeing what is there proves to be highly perceptive. Most
of these scholarly works examine the colony while attempting to explain away
Hong Kongs colonialism.
The cost of such intellectual expediency is dire, I must say. In concrete terms,
the exceptionalist paradigm always misses opportunities not only to take up
Hong Kong particularities as contradictions inherent in its colonial rule, but also
to take those alleged anomalies as epistemological challenges to the respective
paradigms of the concerned disciplines. For example, few researchers therein
would make use of Hong Kong as a vantage point from which they would
examine either the theoretical and the empirical problems of colonial studies
or, in terms of the whole Asian political economy, the hegemonic consensus
between the colonizer and the colonized. Nor have these researchers thoroughly
discussed the infuences of this particular colonial formation on China and on
Chinese nationalism.
However, recent exceptions to this trend are evident in the contributions
made by scholars such as John Carroll (2005), Christopher Munn (2001), Hui
Po-keung (1999), and Stephanie Po-yin Chung (1998), each of who follows a
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 10 5/21/09 11:07:45 AM

Social Fabric of a Collaborative Colonialism 11

unique path toward a revision of the Hong Kong studies paradigm. Some of
these scholars raise attention to collaboration, a dimension relatively neglected
in the aforementioned Hong Kong studies; for example, John Carroll (2005)
highlights the collaboration between the British colonists and the Chinese elite,
accounting therein for the rise of Hong Kongs Chinese elite into a full-fedged
bourgeoisie by the late nineteenth ce ntury; Christopher Munn (2001) also takes
advantage of the angle of collaboration but stresses the coercive ways of colonial
governance in the frst three decades after cession. These scholars present and
explore new materials and analytical concepts to redirect approaches to Hong
Kong studies. Indeed, any interested scholars can mobilize new resources from
the research that has been emerging since the late seventies, when studies began
to draw attention to the historical emergence of an Asian regional economy. For
example, migration studies have revealed the great signifcance of Southeast
Asias rapidly developing coastal cities for the formation of a regional trading
network that long pre-dated the Europeans arrival (Chang, P. 1991; Reid 1996;
Mackie 1989; Brown 1994; Wang, G. 1981, 1991). These studies shed light on
the development of Hong Kong and, it is reasonable to argue, open up new
perspectives for the study of contemporary China (Steinberg 1987; Tate 1979).
Glimpses of these new pictures will enable us to see that, before European
expansion into the region, Chinese merchants (particularly those from the
southern provinces like Amoy and Swatow) indeed occupied dominant
economic positions. They actively participated in both tribute and private trade
between China, Java, Siam, Malacca, and the Ryukyuan Kingdom. As sojourning
merchants or settlers, they established close commercial relationships among
these port cities and controlled the vast trade networks of South China, Hong
Kong, and Southeast Asia. Long before the Opium Wars, many coastal Chinese
were already in close contact with Europeans as a result of the latters trading
in commodities such as tea, porcelain, silk, and foodstuffs (e.g. Jansen 1992;
Carroll 1997, 1999; Hui 1999). With commercial activities manifest in the coastal
Chinese regional networks, in Southeast Asian economies, and in the European-
dominated New World, a class of elite transnationals arose around Hong Kong
and exercised considerable economic clout (Mackie 1989; Wang, G. 1981a, b,
1991; Uchida 1959).
Colonialism as Confgured by the Local and the Regional
The rise of European power in the Southeast Asian region went hand in hand
with the Europeans collaboration with the Chinese. The militarily stronger
Europeans, who arrived in full force only in the late nineteenth century, soon
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 11 5/21/09 11:07:45 AM

realized the importance of encouraging the regional trade that was frmly
controlled by the Chinese. The Europeans had to rely on the Chinese business
networks to expand economically and politically into the region, particularly
as the European powers tended to destroy indigenous trading communities in
the region (Hao 1970; Brown 1994; Reid 1990). According to Hui Po-keungs
account, the advantage of the Chinese over the latecomer Europeans lay in the
former groups ability to speak local languages as well as their familiarity with
domestic customs and business practices. According to Hui, the Europeans
chose Chinese merchants as collaborators because
The overseas Chinese were lost children of their imperial court and
a marginal trading minority in Southeast Asia. Not only did they present
no serious political or military threat, but also the colonial powers saw in
them a means to defect anger that might otherwise be directed against
the colonial power, and to control anti-colonial movements centered
in conquered peoples. While the loss of independence for indigenous
states meant that indigenous traders lost military and political support
for their trading activities, as well as access to key trading commodities
such as pepper and weapons for long distance trade, the Chinese, by
contrast, were regarded as suitable partners.
(Hui 1999: 32)
The overall effect of nineteenth-century European colonial expansion on this
region was the inclusion of Chinese merchants in the newly arisen global
networks; yet the dependence of the Europeans on the Chinese also helped boost
the ability of some Chinese merchants to dominate intra-Asian trade, including
trade with Chinas hinterlands. The role of these Chinese collaborators became
even more prominent as late-Qing imperial policy monopolized Chinese trade
and restricted Chinese merchants trade with Europeans to a few coastal ports.
Without the help of the Chinese collaborators, the Europeans would hardly
have been able to reach Chinas vast inland market. Among all the European
competitors, the British distinguished themselves owing to their more effective
and successful use of Chinese networks (Carroll 1997, 1999).
Robinson (1972) considers the Chinese-European collaborations as only
part of a wider process that inaugurated an external or informal stage of
industrial imperialism, in which Ottoman rayahs, Levantine traders, Chinese
Mandarins, Indian Brahmins and African chiefs were gradually turned into
Europeanized collaborators by free trade and Christianity (Robinson 1972:
126130). He focuses on the collaborative systems between Europeans and non-
Europeans in order to uncover the non-European foundations of European
imperialism, which prepared for a distinct stage of Europes expansion. In
short, identifying the existence of collaborative colonial formation can have
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 12 5/21/09 11:07:45 AM


a signifcant theoretical effect on our understanding of the global history of
imperialism and colonialism.
My purpose here is, however, much more self-consciously limited, for it
concerns the features of the distinct regional and local power formation that
resulted from collaboration in Hong Kong. Such a local perspective is important
for Hong Kong studies because it will help put in place a series of new questions
seldom raised. Crucial among them are questions concerning the usual images
that Chinese nationalist historiographers present and that portray Chinese as
occupying a subordinate position in the face of Western superiority. One adverse
consequence of this victim narrative is its fip side: chauvinism. For example,
China subsumes Hong Kong under the conventional East-West paradigm, from
which the conventional modern Chinese nationalist historiographical tradition
derives. Consequently, whatever happens to Hong Kong becomes simply a
sideshow compared with Chinas national-revival struggles. Such a China-
centered narrative would affrm Hong Kong only as the margin and China only
as the center and would, by neglecting the complex regional historical dynamics,
perpetuate both the narrow political defnition of colonialism and the barren
focus on Hong Kong exceptionalism.
At any rate, the regional perspective can help to make a better sense of
one crucial irony that Stephanie Po-yin Chung has succinctly described: As
a British colony, Hong Kong ironically had been colonized by settlers from
South China (Chung 1998: 21). The irony has to be understood in at least
two senses: frst, it was the colonization of Hong Kong that made possible the
large-scale settlement of Chinese in Hong Kong; second, some Chinese were
indeed active upholders of the British colonial enterprise. Yet, the fact that some
Chinese benefted from British expansion might not be that surprising if we
take a regional perspective to consider the long record of collaboration between
Chinese and British powers all over Southeast Asia. The British conquest of
native places, accompanied by a huge infux of Chinese settlers, had indeed
become the normal pattern throughout the eighteenth century and the frst half
of the nineteenth century.
Opium and Coolie; Building and Contracting
During the massive rise in Britains opium sales to China, most Chinese
merchants who joined the British in commercial affairs did so as opium traders
(Beattie 1969; Trocki 1990, 1999; Brook and Wakabayashi 2000). During the war
with China, the collaboration of Chinese merchants with the British ranged
from supplying the British navy to spying for pro-British military purposes.
13
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 13 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM

These collaborators played an important role in the Opium Wars so much so
that Captain Charles Elliot, the British superintendent of trade, argued that the
British crown had an obligation to retain Hong Kong as an act of justice and
protection to the native population upon whom we have been so long dependent
for assistance and supply (CO 129/1, Elliot to Auckland, June 21, 1841, quoted
in Carroll 1999).
Apart from trading in opium, overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia actively
supplied the British with labor for projects such as housing construction.
According to Carroll, it was Chinese contractors, builders, and laborers who
usually undertook, at that time, the major construction works in the European
colonies. Right after the cession of Hong Kong, quite a number of Chinese
focked there to help the British literally build the new colony (Carroll 1999,
2005: Ch. 1; see also Smith 1985: 114116). Although some British offcials still
perceived Hong Kong as a barren rock several years after the cession, Hong Kong
experienced, with the help of the Chinese, a historic building boom during its
frst decade. Not only did the Chinese of the Canton region fock to Hong Kong
to build a colony for the British, but some even returned from other Southeast
Asian European colonies to help with the British colonys coastal projects. After
all, the returning migrants considered the coast their home country and earned
their fortunes in Hong Kong as property speculators. According to Hui, this fast
and highly opportunistic infux of Chinese labor and capital into Hong Kong
was just one case among many that constituted the common pattern of overseas
Chinese merchants movement into and out of China. These migrant Chinese
merchants established residences in all of Southeast Asias important port
cities and moved wherever European expansion led them (Hui 1999: 31). The
few thousand original inhabitants of Hong Kong, who were scattered in a few
villages on the island, might well have attached the label intruders to these
droves of Chinese coming from elsewhere to help the British. Thus Lethbridge
writes, A new settlement of overseas Chinese had been created, which in many
respects had more in common with any Chinese community in Southeast Asia
than with imperial China itself (Lethbridge 1978).
While collaboration between the Chinese and the British was driven by
proft, for some overseas Chinese settlers, the prospect of material gain did not
adequately explain their enthusiasm. These other settlers hoped to use the
British occupation to reverse their fate as socially marginalized persons. For
example, prominent among these collaborators were Loo Aqui and Kwok
Acheong, well-known Chinese opium smugglers, and Tam Achoy, a contractor
who came from Singapore, to where he had earlier migrated illegally. Loo and
Kwok were both Tanka (boat people), a group that had long been outcast by the
inland Han Chinese (Smith 1985). For more than a thousand years, the Tanka
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 14 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM


had been treated as uncivilized people or sea pirates and had been discriminated
against by the landed people (Ward 1954; Kani 1967; Hayes 1977; Hung 1997).
Denied the same rights as landed people, they were prohibited from taking the
civil service examination (ke ju), owning landed property and marrying inland
inhabitants. As a foating population who were not self-suffcient, Tanka had to
trade with landed Han people and to participate in all sort of legal and illegal
trading and smuggling activities at sea. Together with other overseas Chinese
merchants, they formed the backbone of the Chinese who collaborated with
the British to colonize Hong Kong. Collaboration with the Westerners brought
to them not only economic gain but also advancement in political and social
status. In return for their help, the British granted them land, and they were able
to speculate on property and became rich (Carroll 1999). To reverse their fate
of political exclusion, some of those successful under the British rule assumed
the function of leaders of the local gentry, equivalent to traditional literati. The
difference, as I will later show, was only that, under British rule, they did not
have to take the civil service examination and earn imperial degrees in order to
acquire the status of Chinese gentry.
In the very frst decades of this relationship, both Europeans and Chinese
got rich through land speculation or opium trade, although it was not the British
governments original intention to make Hong Kong a new colony whose
chief function would be to accommodate the infamous business. Government
ministers in London tried to control, through legislated prohibitions or heavy
duties, the export of opium from the island at least until legal trade in opium
was agreed to by the Qing government. Commonly bandied about by promoters
of the Opium Wars and the new colony was the claim that, with the opening of a
more general commerce with China, British merchants would quickly see their
dependence on opium shift to a healthier preoccupation with developing British
manufactures. However, for much of the remainder of the century, the shipment
of opium to China continued to be a vital part of the colonys economy (Trocki
1990, 1999; see also Brook and Wakabayashi 2000; Miners 1983). It is estimated
that three-quarters of the entire Indian opium crop was passing through Hong
Kong by the late 1840s (Munn 2000: 107); and Davis, the second governor of
Hong Kong (18441848), reported soon after his arrival that almost every person
possessed of capital who was not connected with government employment was
employed in the opium trade. Munn describes the relationship between opium
and Hong Kong as follows:
The opium trade and Hong Kong are so obviously intertwined that it
is hardly possible to consider the early history of the colony without
some reference to the drug: the colony was founded because of opium;
it survived its diffcult early years because of opium; its principal
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 15 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM

merchants grew rich on opium; and its government subsisted on the
high land rent and other revenue made possible by the opium trade.
Early Chinese traders came to the colony to deal in opium; the drug
became standard currency for remittances from Chinese living in
Hong Kong to their native places on the mainland; pirated or disputed
consignments of opium dominated many judicial proceedings; and
opium balls cluttered the colonys numerous pawnbrokers shops.
(Munn 2000: 107)
In fact, the continued growth of the opium trade in the 1840s actually held back
the development of regular trade between England and China. Some people
thought that the cession of Hong Kong would additionally beneft the British
there by attracting trade previously carried out under Cantons monopoly;
however, the opening of several treaty ports at the same time along the China
coast, ironically, rendered the new colony a less than ideal place for regular legal
trade. Except as an opium depot or as a military base for the widely predicted
second Sino-British war (18581860), Hong Kong had little to offer. If not for its
role as a safe warehouse for the goods coming in from the illicit opium stations
scattered along the coast, the British would have abandoned the colony before
the end of the 1840s. The poppy lords did not allow any such abandonment
to happen, as they always assumed that Hong Kong would be dedicated to the
opium trade and had invested heavily in land and in buildings (Munn 2000: 107
8). The boom of the 1850s helped confrm Hong Kongs status as the chief base
for opium smuggling into China. By 1880, about 45 percent of opium fowing
into China was smuggled through Hong Kong. This incarnation of the opium
business lingered on for the rest of the nineteenth century and only ended in
1909 (Munn 1999).
What really pushed Hong Kong away from its status of being just an opium
depot was the islands reception of the second wave of Chinese immigrants driven
by economic crises and wars. The so-called free trade that the West imposed on
China led to the opening of treaty ports such as Shanghai, Ningpo, Foochow,
and Amoy, and its infuence was deeply felt in southern China; Guangzhou
(Canton) became the hardest-hit place (Hao 1986: 1433; Tsai 1993:21; Ng 1983).
The better-armed, swifter foreign vessels that entered the Chinese coastal trade
drove many Cantonese junks out of business, and industrial products imported
from foreign countries caused serious economic strain and dislocation among
local handicraft industries (Feuerwerker 1969). Adding to the economic hardship
was the Taiping Rebellion, which started in 1850 in neighboring Guangxi and
rapidly spread to Guangdong and other southern provinces. The turmoil, which
lasted for almost two decades, triggered an exodus of Cantonese; they fed the
disorder on the Mainland for the relative order and security of Hong Kong. A
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 16 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM


large surplus of labor was then available in the coastal regions; many of these
potential laborers tried to immigrate to Southeast Asia, sometimes to join secret
societies, bandit gangs, or pirate groups (Tsai 1993). The enormous pressure
to emigrate from China created for Hong Kong not only a massive infux of
population but also an opportunity to thrive on another business: coolie trade
(Campbell 1923; Arensmeyer 1979; Sinn 1995; Yen 1985). James Legge (of the
London Missionary Society) described the 1850s as the turning point in the
progress of Hong Kong (Legge 1971). Between 1855 and 1900, almost 1.8 million
Chinese emigrants embarked at the port of Hong Kong (Sinn 1995; Coolidge
1909; see also Tsai 1993). The high tide of colonial expansion in this period
created a huge demand for contract laborers who would work on the large-scale
rubber plantations and in the tin mines in Southeast Asia, on the construction
of railroads in North America, and in the gold mines of North America and
Australia. The Hong Kong economic base then broadened through the derived
demand for transportation, shipbuilding and ship repairing; coolies remittances
to their families in China also boosted Hong Kongs fnancial sectors (Mei 1979;
Tsai 1993: 26; Yen 1985). As a result, coolie trade, after the opium trade, became
another mainstay of the early colonial Hong Kong economy.
Segregated Rule and the Formation of the Chinese Community
The offcial colonist rhetoric harped on the idea that Hong Kong should be
the great emporium of the China trade; Governor John Bowring (18541859)
vowed to make Hong Kong a model of British good government. Imagined by
the colonists to be an Anglo-China, Hong Kong was supposed to play the role of
a living exhibition of European civilization, a meeting point between east and
west, where the manners, institutions and technologies of both cultures would
engage each other in a productive and benefcial way (Munn, 2001: 2). However,
the chaotic situations that arose during the colonys frst decade rendered the
above political and cultural visions no more than empty words or colonialist
clichs. One important factor that underlay the lack of a stable colonial project
concerns Britains and the Qing governments disagreement over the colonys
political status, particularly with regard to whether Qing offcials in Hong Kong
could exercise their power to the extent that Qing offcials in Macau did (Ting
1989). The Qing government explored every means by which it could maintain
its power over the Chinese population, and in the case of Hong Kong, such
maintenance would symbolize the Qing Emperors sovereignty rights over the
island. However, the British Colonial Offce was frm in marking Hong Kong off
from the Macau model, insisting on the Offces claim to indivisible sovereignty
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 17 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM

under which the British colonial government could exercise full administrative
and judicial powers. Rounds of diplomatic tussles before and after the signing
of the Treaty of Nanking (1842) left many controversial issues unresolved so
that they sprang up time and again for more than a century. Yet all the British
colonial governments generally maintained what Captain Elliot had proclaimed
on February 2, 1841:
The natives of the island of Hong Kong and all natives of China thereto
resorting, shall be governed according to the laws and customs of
China; all British subjects and foreigners residing in, or resorting to, the
island of Hong Kong, shall enjoy full security and protection, according
to the principles and practice of British law.
(Norton-Kyshe 1971: 46)
However, Elliots principle lacked operational details. During the frst few years
that the Treaty of Nanking awaited rectifcation by the British parliament, and
while details had to be negotiated with the Chinese Government, Elliots principle
was a matter of ferce debate among different quarters on the British side.
Many people questioned the viability and the practicality of such an approach,
which placed Hong Kong people into different categories. Some suggested that
the offcial treatment of permanent Chinese residents should differ from the
offcial treatment of temporary Chinese residents; others proposed that, if the
Qings administrative or judicial power were to remain in place, as the Qing
government had been insisting, Hong Kong should allow Chinese residents to
choose whether to be a Chinese subject or a British subject; still others considered
whether it was possible, in Hong Kong, to have Chinese magistrates who would
handle jurisdictional matters concerning Chinese (Endacott 1964b: 2735; Munn
1999: 47).
In 1844, Governor John Davis showed his determination to exert British
sovereign rights over Hong Kong by refusing the attempts of Qing offcials
to intervene into certain criminal cases involving Chinese residents within
Hong Kong. Yet he also tried to realize the indirect-rule principle by framing
an ordinance whose scheme, modeled after traditional Chinese local policing,
would have created unpaid and elected local Chinese peace offcers, (Paouchong
and Paouken) to assist police in maintaining peace and order (Endacott 1964a:
57). Davis successor, Samuel Bonham (18481854), in 1853 suggested setting
up some kind of limited local Chinese self-government system by hiring paid
peace offcers (tepos) to settle civil disputes among the Chinese (Endacott 1964a:
8485). Nevertheless, all these schemes for an institutional mechanism in which
local Chinese could build up a certain degree of self-rule eventually failed. Munn
observes that the British colonists in the early decades failed to establish stable
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 18 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM


and serviceable political links with any leadership of the Chinese community
comparable to what the British had practiced in Singapore (Munn 2001: 2). As a
result, the colonial government generally left the Chinese community much to
itself, although historians are wrong to generalize that period as paradigmatic
of British indirect rule in Hong Kong. Munn argues that an overemphasis on
the autonomy of the Chinese community masks the fact that the British offcials
were quite unable to govern the unruly Chinese community and, therefore,
always resorted to direct and top-heavy governments through political and legal
measures. A strong indicator of that coercive direct rule over Chinese natives
was indeed the maintenance by the early colonial regime of one of the largest
police forces in the British Empire.
The indirect-rule principle was not easily applicable in Hong Kong, as
it was in other British colonies. In 1844, the Colonial Treasurer expressed his
uneasiness about the dearth of respectable Chinese leaders in Hong Kong
and attributed this dearth to the policy of the hostile Chinese Government. He
wrote,
It is literally true that after three years and a halfs uninterrupted
settlement there is not one respectable Chinese inhabitant on the
island The policy of the Mandarins on the adjacent coast being to
prevent all respectable Chinese from settling at Hong Kong; and in
consequence of the hold they possess on their families and relatives
this can be done most effectually. At the same time, I believe that they
encourage and promote the deportation of every thief, pirate, and idle
or worthless vagabond from the mainland to Hong Kong. No Chinese
of humbler class will ever bring their wives and children to the colony.
The shopkeepers do not remain more than a few months on the island,
when another set takes their place; there is, in fact, a continual shifting
of a Bedouin sort of population, whose migratory, predatory, gambling,
and dissolute habits utterly unft them for continuous industry, and
render them not only useless, but highly injurious subjects, in the
attempt to form a colony.
(Endacott 1964c: 968, quoted in Smith 1985: 111)
Samuel Fearon, the Census and Registration Offcer, worried much about
internal law and order. He wrote in 1845,
The arrival of the British feet in the harbour speedily attracted a
considerable boat population, and the profts accruing from the supply
of provisions and necessaries at once raised many from poverty and
infamy to considerable wealth. The shelter and protection afforded by the
presence of the feet soon made our shores the resort of outlaws, opium
smugglers, and indeed, of all persons who had rendered themselves
obnoxious to the Chinese laws, and had the means of escaping hither.
In course of time the demands for labour, for the public and other
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 19 5/21/09 11:07:46 AM

works drew some thousands to the island, the majority of whom were
Hakkas or gypsies; people whose habits, character and language mark
them as a distinct race. Careless of the ties of home and of those moral
obligations, the observance of which is deemed absolutely necessary to
the preservation of the national integrity, uneasy under the restraint of
law and unscrupulous of the means by which they live, they abandon
without hesitation their hearths and household gods, their birthright
and their fathers tombs, to wander, unrespected, whither gain may call
them. The unsettled state of the Colony, and the vast amount of crime
during its infancy afford abundant proof of the demoralizing effects of
their presence.
(CO 129/12, 24 June, 1845, quoted in Smith 1985: 108)
Regardless of any bias or racial arrogance that characterizes these remarks, they
seem to confrm what the Chinese authorities predicted in the Canton Register
in 1841: that under British jurisdiction, the island would become even more
popular with social outcasts; that Hong Kong will be the resort and rendezvous
of all the Chinese smugglers; and that Opium smoking shops and gambling-
houses will soon spread; to those haunts will fock all the discontented and
bad spirits of the empire (Canton Register 23 February, 1841; quoted in Smith
1985: 107). In fact, apart from the international trade in opium and coolies, open
gambling houses and brothels were the only local businesses that the new rich
of Hong Kong were likely to establish.
1
But the most important factor for this
dearth of respectable Chinese leaders in Hong Kong concerns the fact that the
majority of the Chinese population in Hong Kong then were male immigrants
or sojourners attached to no local village. The British could not secure the
cooperation of village elders simply because there were extremely few village
elders in the colony. In fact, the immigrant population soon took over the native
villages, thus rendering it diffcult or useless for the colonial government to co-
opt the traditional local leaders.
The (Self-)Making of the Colonial Hong Kong Chinese Elite
Hong Kong lacked a well-defned local Chinese community that possessed
strong local leadership; in this absence, the British idea of dual administration
soon evolved into a constitutionally centralized, but operationally self-limiting,
governance. The colonial government kept almost autocratic power in the hands
of the governor; Chinese residents were subject to crude coercive measures such
as nightly curfew, elaborate registration schemes, and other surveillance and
policing practices. Tensions between the Europeans and the Chinese were quite
pronounced, especially in the mid-1850s, when a series of incidents led to the
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 20 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM


Second Opium War (1856-1860). Ernst Johann Eitel, a missionary and secretary to
the governor, wrote in the 1890s of an unbridged chasm between the Chinese
and the Europeans (Eitel 1895). The effective segregation of the two communities
from each other had a long-lasting impact on the colonial regime, one of
which was its failure to devolve governmental power to the municipal level.
For example, the central colonial government had to levy rates for police pay
because any devolution of power on the part of local bodies would, according to
conventional wisdom, easily trigger confict between Europeans and Chinese. In
this light, early colonial Hong Kong appears to have operated under an informal
segregated rule rather than under conventional indirect rule.
However, the spatial separation of the two communities resulted from
their mutually practiced segregation. The separation eventually created a
new foundation for a more stable indirect rule, as a new type of collaborative
relationship gradually took shape. Chinese war collaborators such as Tam Achoy
and Loo Aqui rapidly amassed their wealth through opium trade and through
the land granted by the British; a Chinese class of new rich gradually evolved,
and its members were invariably interested in land and property speculation.
Also, as the colonial government wanted to reserve the more valuable waterfront
properties for the Europeans, the Chinese were encouraged to relocate in
specifed areas that were quite separate from the waterfront. The concentration
of Chinese in the exclusive zone called Chinatown near Tai Ping Shan enabled
local Chinese leadership to grow independent of British governmental processes
(Evans 1970; Chan 1991). Former war collaborators gradually became local
leaders because they were wealthy enough to donate money to notable charity
services; moreover, the close association of these individuals with powerful
secret societies conferred on them signifcant political clout among the Chinese.
One of the landmark events delineating leadership status in the Chinese
community one that also transformed the unrespectable Chinese to
respectability was the building, in 1847, of the Man Mo Temple by Loo and
Tam; the place later functioned not only as a religious site but also as a social
center from which the Chinese exercised a certain informal self-government
(Lethbridge 1978: ch. 4; Ting 1989). Generally not regarded by the British as
respectable persons, and regarded by the Qing government as traitors, the
founders of the temple nevertheless formed the frst generation of Hong Kong
Chinese community leaders whose main political function was to mediate
between the colonial government and the Chinese.
2
The temple also functioned
as an unoffcial link between the Hong Kong Chinese and the Canon authorities.
As described by Eitel, Man Mo Temple secretly controlled native affairs, acted
as commercial arbitrators, arranged for the due reception of mandarins passing
through the colony, [and] negotiated the sale of [Qings] offcial titles (Eitel
1895: 282).
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 21 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM

In traditional rural China, the elite, or gentry, usually served as
intermediaries between the local people and governmental authorities; the
government recruited them from the ranks of scholars, who normally obtained
degrees from the imperial examination system. A person who excelled in the
examination would receive an appointment to a government offce, and such an
appointment translated into the opportunity to accumulate economic wealth.
As a member of the gentry remained a member of his village, local leaders and
governmental bodies usually maintained close connections with each other.
However, Hong Kong farmers had produced few, if any, scholars or literati; Hong
Kong Chinese fshermen did not have kin ties with the gentry. Therefore, the
colonial administration could not simply build relationships with the ordinary
Chinese on the basis of an old gentry class. However, the economic growth of the
1850s and the 1860s for the opium trade and the coolie trade created favorable
conditions for the emergence of this small group of Chinese elite, which
comprised contractors, merchants, compradors, government servants, and
Christian employees of missionary groups (Smith 1985). Mixing with the newly
immigrated wealthy merchants from Canton, the gentry gradually transformed
themselves into part of the new elite Chinese or, in John Carrolls description, the
frst local bourgeoisie (Carroll 2005). Their emergence opened up the possibility
that a new pattern of collaborative colonial relationships would take shape.
After the mid-1860s, the legal system in Hong Kong functioned with fewer and
less pronounced discriminatory measures among races; also, under the more
humanistic governorship of Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell (18661872), a
new partnership between the Chinese elite and the colonial authorities became
possible. The landmark signifying the stabilization of indirect rule through these
locally grown elite began with the establishment of Tung Wah Hospital. The
new form of collaboration is nicely encapsulated in the title of Sinns book on
this institution: Power and Charity (Sinn 1989).
Philanthropy as Collaborative Institution
Tung Wah Hospital was established in 1872; it was the core institution of the new
form of collaborative colonialism. Its establishment was to address the Chinese
needs for welfare and medical services. As many of the poor in early colonial
Hong Kong were sojourners from mainland China, death on their journey to
Hong Kong created a problem because traditional Chinese custom insisted on
burial in ones place of origin. In 1851, the colonial government granted a piece
of land to the Chinese for them to house the ancestral tablets of those deceased
who did not have families in Hong Kong. The frequent abuse of this unregulated
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 22 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM


place by moribund Chinese prompted a subscription campaign that called for
the establishment of a properly run Chinese hospital. The founding directors of
the hospital were all prominent Chinese fgures mostly either compradors
working for the European companies or merchants from guilds such as the Nam
Pak Hong (Nam Pak Hong 1979). Some other directors were self-appointed
Kaifong (street committee) leaders whom one analyst described as a group of
civic-minded, status-seeking and paternalistic citizens (Lethbridge 1978).
However, though set up initially as a philanthropic enterprise, the hospitals
functions were never purely medical. It dispensed Chinese justice as well as
Chinese medicine, and was encouraged by the government to give advice on
various government policies. As the institution developed, it also started to
settle minor civic disputes, manage temples, and build schools; occasionally, it
petitioned the government, calling for the redress of grievances. The colonial
government, happy to see the directorate act in ways that helped manage the
Chinese, even allowed the Registrar-General, who had been trained in the
cadet service and equipped with a good knowledge of the Chinese language, to
participate in their work in short, the colonial government gave the hospital
a quasi-offcial standing.
3
The hospital was indeed a bizarre and slightly odd version of the structure of
gentry rule, the existence of which, in Hong Kong, was rather rudimentary at the
time of the arrival of the British. Yet, it followed the previous exemplary hybrid
organization, the District Watch Committee (founded in 1867) in mixing Chinese
and British traditions. During Governor John Pope Hennessys rule (18771883),
the infuence and the authority of the hospital reached new heights: the directorate
of the hospital began to act as though it had inherited the magisterial function
of the traditional petty Mandarins. Moreover, the hospitals unconstitutional
status enabled the hospital to assert itself, culturally and politically, far beyond
what the British had anticipated. Lethbridge records that at the formal opening
of the Hospital in 1872, the full committee, some 70 or 80 in number, were all
dressed in the Mandarin costume, some even with peacocks feathers attached
to their buttons (Lethbridge 1978: 61). Similarly, in 1878, during a visit by the
governor, 300 infuential native residents from all classes of the community
were present, and some 50 or 60 of them were in Mandarin costumes, some of
which sported blue buttons, some crystal, and some gold, while a few had the
additional honor of wearing the peacocks feather (Lethbridge 1978: 61). In the
Qing dynasty, buttons and feathers on Mandarin costumes signifed a detailed
offcial ranking. It was diffcult to tell whether those people wearing Mandarin
costumes had acquired these signifers in a regular way or an irregular way, or
whether they wore them as sheer masquerade.
4
Yet, the costumes were effective
in signaling both to the colonial authority and to the local inhabitants that the
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 23 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM

wearers were somehow endowed with an effective magisterial power within the
Chinese community. Rather than display an alien colonial rule imposed on the
Chinese, the presence of a British governor in such ceremonies only reinforced
the perception of the continuity of sheer imperial power, whether British or Qing.
Though authorized by no one to do so, the new Hong Kong Chinese elite was
eager to play this role. Such highly ritualistic practices demonstrate that the
hospitals directorate, and thus the rising Hong Kong Chinese elite, were keen
on imagining themselves to have gained social advancement in very Chinese
terms under British colonial rule.
If the role of self-imagined gentry that this new elite played under the
British legislation was merely symbolic and ritualistic, such gesture, however,
facilitated their real attainment of status in China. In real terms, the directorate
interested itself not only in the general welfare of the Chinese population within
Hong Kong, but also in the neighboring Chinese provinces. The hospitals active
participation in activities that organized Hong Kong and overseas Chinese and
that, for example, raised money for food relief in China gradually earned the
hospital some formal recognition from the Chinese emperor. Such activities also
gave the hospital further access to formal bodies of power within the Chinese
government. Zhang Zidong, the famous reformist offcial, at one stage made use
of Tung Wahs connections in order to reach, and to collect information from, the
increasingly infuential overseas Chinese communities. He sent instructions to
the hospital in Hong Kong as if to a part of a Chinese administrative department
(Sinn 1989: 137149).
In the late 1890s, all this ostentatious display of political clout seemed to be
sidestepping British sovereignty in Hong Kong, creating enmity on the part of
the European community. This enmity erupted as a serious scandal, in which
some Europeans accused the hospital of being a secret society and of subverting
the colonial government, so the governor conducted a formal investigation to
mollify the critics of the Chinese elite. Although the fairness of the investigation
was in doubt, Tung Wahs directorate was vindicated. And although the Hong
Kong government retreated a bit in their recognition of Tung Wahs special status
after this event, the directorate continued to assume the role of Hong Kongs
gentry class (Sinn 1989: 150156).
A persons self-assumption of, and re-enactment of, the role of gentry,
was signifcant in the Hong Kong context, as it simultaneously resurrected and
turned around the cultural and political confguration of traditional Chinese
local rule. Rather than gain their gentry status through exhibited excellence in
Chinese classics, as was typical in the imperial examinations, this elite stratum
manifested its ability to gain access to an imperial power representing not the
Qing Emperor but the British Crown. British colonial offcials, especially those
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 24 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM


who were concerned with Chinese affairs, were content to see a body that could
help attend to Chinese matters in Chinese ways. Although Governor Arthur
Edward Kennedy (18721877) turned down the aggressive hospital directorates
proposal for a Chinese Municipal Board that would function as a separate
governing structure for Chinese, the hospital still attained an important status in
advising the government concerning anything Chinese, and posed as the single
Chinese voice under British colonial rule (Eitel 1895: 507).
The hospital directorates assumption of such a role as surrogate gentry
refected ingrained cultural aspirations as much as political calculations.
Chinese offcials had assigned the label traitor to many subsequently successful
businessmen, either because they had left China at a time when the imperial
government prohibited emigration or because they had helped the British in
successive foreign intrusions. Now, however, these businessmen played the role
of the gentry class and obtained recognition from both of the imperial powers.
To compensate for their lack of cultural leadership (a lack that was evident in
their unfamiliarity with traditionally praised excellence in Chinese classics),
members of the new gentry class set themselves regular ritual observances
identical to those of the literati-magistrates in imperial China: members of
the new gentry attended the Man Mo Temple to participate in the spring and
autumn sacrifces to Confucius. They also set up Confucius learning societies,
built schools to teach Confucius teachings, and boasted that Confucian teaching
gave them Chinese identity (Lethbridge 1978: ch. 3; Sinn 1989).
Fondness for Confucianism and a more general inclination toward
traditionalism were phenomena particularly prominent in the late-nineteenth-
century overseas Chinese community. Parallel cases could indeed be found
in Southeast Asian colonies such as Penang and Singapore. This overseas
Chinese traditionalism later found itself at odds with the more iconoclastic
and revolutionary mood throughout mainland China at the turn of the century.
However, in the 1870s, traditionalism, for this Hong Kong Chinese elite, was still
signifcant in real terms: defense of the interests of the elite within a patriarchal
system whose location was more and more infuenced by Western ideas. This
state of affairs leads us to the story of the Po Leung Kuk, a sister institution of
Tung Wah Hospital.
Patriarchy in Collaborative Colonialism
When, in the New World, the widespread abolition of slavery came to fruition
in the late nineteenth century, the demand for cheap labor there skyrocketed.
This demand, in turn, spurred great demand for cheap labor from China. There
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 25 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM

were only a few merchants in Hong Kong who did not have a hand in this
proftable coolie trade. As mentioned before, the selling indentured labor was a
core business that triggered early colonial Hong Kongs economic development.
The lucrative nature of the business, however, provoked abusive practices, such
as kidnapping and the use of false premises to lure emigrants; it was reported
that massive irregular forced emigration occurred all over the coastal regions
of China. International pressures mounted to stop forced emigration, but the
Qing government remained ineffective in regulating the emigration (Irick 1982;
Yen 1985; Tsai 1993: ch. 4). Britain was also compelled to restrict the coolie
trade among its colonies in order to stamp out kidnapping and other criminal
practices therein. The Hong Kong Chinese elite were eager to exhibit their good
intentions by helping the colonial government root out the illegal sale of human
beings. Volunteering to expose cases of abuse in the emigration trade, the elite
not only presented themselves as cooperative but took the initiative in such
affairs, as well. Tung Wah Hospital soon shouldered the related responsibilities
by employing two detectives who would report and stop crimes related to
emigration; the hospital also the coordinated efforts, however limited in real
terms, made by both the British government and the Chinese government.
As concerns about human rights gradually rose, international pressure was
mounting and calls to prohibit servitude eventually came to include the sale of
girls for prostitution. The inclusion of this particular trade in prohibited forms of
servitude posed a signifcant threat to the Chinese patriarchal practice of buying
girls from poor families and bringing them up as domestic servants: that is, the
mui tsai system (Haslewood 1930). Hong Kongs Chinese elite (most of whom
were also Tung Wah directors) proposed the establishment of the Po Leung Kuk
(Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Women and Children) to protect these
victims from the rampant, abusive emigration trade. The elite asked for the
authority to employ detectives, offer rewards for arrests, and return victims to
their homes. However, with the exception of its protection services, including
the very controversial practice of marrying off their clients, the Po Leung
Kuk constituted an infuential lobby that sought to ameliorate the impact of the
new sale-of-girls ordinance. The society organized a series of London-bound
petitions that opposed the ban on the mui tsai system (Smith 1981; Sinn 1989:
113117). In short, the society defended Chinese custom, invoked Captain Elliots
proclamation concerning segregated rule, and advocated legal exemptions for
the wealthy who chose to practice mui tsai. The society put forward the argument
of cultural preservation, interpreting mui tsai as a normal social custom that
was far from being abusive. Refusing to admit that mui tsai is a form of child
slavery, the society wanted only to distinguish legal sales from illegal sales. With
their strong infuence on some government offcials and their well-entrenched
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 26 5/21/09 11:07:47 AM


positions in Hong Kongs power formation, the Po Leung Kuk held out against
the strong pressure of anti-mui tsai campaigners from Britain and Hong Kong
societies for decades (Smith 1981, 1995). It was only after many long and hard
struggles, which brought pressures to bear from the Colonial Offce, the League
of Nations, Christian societies, missionaries on the ground, unionists, and
women activists, that the abolition of the mui tsai system came to pass in the
1920s.
The mui tsai struggles demonstrate very well the rather reactionary face of
indirect rule in Hong Kong, insofar as social reforms and the incessant quest
for progress were growing rapidly in China around the turn of the century.
Nevertheless, the conservatism of the colonial Chinese elite obtained protection
under the colonial system, even though campaigners efforts kept coming from
both the local society and the colonial home country. The complicity between
the Chinese and the British elements in the early collaborative colonial regime
would not have been possible without the help of certain individual governors
such as Kennedy and Hennessy, who favored the Chinese elite in exchange for
their support in matters such as fund-raising projects related or unrelated to
Hong Kong welfare. For example, Hennessy, an Irishman, was on very good
terms with Hong Kongs Chinese businessmen, for they were particularly
more generous in contributing to the Irish Relief Fund than were Hong Kongs
Europeans (Sinn 1989: 119). This close collaboration between the Chinese elite
and the localized British colonial offcials in Hong Kong dominated both the
form of political power on the island and the ways to interpret Chinese cultural
values. The collaboration was a form of political power in which actors could
exploit charity work and charity institutions as a scaffold for the actors exercise
of social power in the name of cultural differences.
Man Mo Temple signifed the unruly period of early segregated rule;
however, quasi-offcial charity institutions such as the Po Leung Kuk and Tung
Wah Hospital were characteristic of the collaborative colonialism that took root
in colonial Hong Kong. These institutions, although eclipsed by colonialist pro-
active interventions of the twentieth century, laid down the basic parameters
according to which collaboration between the British colonizers and the Chinese
elite functioned. Shuttling along the frontier between two empires, the Hong
Kong Chinese elite affrmed for themselves a distinct identity by securing a
social and political status that had been unimaginable under past Chinese
rule and by consolidating a bi-culturalism based upon reifed notions of both
Western and Chinese cultures. Carroll observes that the remarkable growth of
the elite translated into the gradual emergence of a full-fedged bourgeoisie of
Hong Kong (Carroll 2005, ch. 4).
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 27 5/21/09 11:07:48 AM

However, I would like to qualify Carrolls observation. There is little
evidence that a Chinese bourgeoisie, possessing its own class consciousness,
characterized Hong Kongs social landscape at that time. The Hong Kong
Chinese elite, in the late nineteenth century, chose to play the role of a surrogate
gentry that mimicked the roles played by their counterparts in mainland China.
David Faure (2003) also cautions against the substitution of the word elite for the
word gentry as they carry overlapping but still distinct connotations respectively
in British cultural contexts and in traditional Chinese cultural contexts. To Faure,
if a gentry shares in its localitys Chinese dynastic governmental power, then the
gentry legitimated dynastic rule. In the case of Hong Kong, the relatively complex
composition of the islands elite made any such legitimation problematic,
if indeed the legitimation was not merely an effect created by scholars who
confated the western conception of elite with the Chinese conception of gentry.
I would also maintain that the imaginary resurrection of traditional social roles
by Hong Kongs Chinese elite, reveals a lot about the political culture and the
legacies of this hybrid class in power. On the one hand, they rose to prominence
because of their wealth; on the other hand, they sought offcial recognition from
the colonizer, as mainland Chinese gentry did from the emperor. Such a re-
enactment of the traditional gentry role could not have been possible without a
particular colonial situation in which the colonizer, to facilitate its governance
of the colonized, had to allow for the collaborative Chinese re-invention of
tradition. The cultural implications of the Chinese re-invention of patriarchal
institutions in the name of philanthropy are profound because Hong Kong, by
consolidating the surrogate-gentrys power to preserve cultural conservatism,
divorced itself from the iconoclastic and progressive challenges of the modern
Chinese nationalism represented by the May Fourth Movement (1919) in
China.
The legacies of this collaborative colonial formation in Hong Kong can still
be found in much later eras, not only in the citys conspicuous lack of a politically
progressive bourgeoisie but also in its weak civil society. There is no class project
of the bourgeoisie leading the society in the course of social reforms. The elite
is, instead, easily prone to collaboration or even to collusion with whatever
government is in power. They behave as if they are always in need of seeking
recognition from the previous imperial authority or colonial master. At any rate,
Hong Kongs powerful class of Chinese has never developed a political project
that would lead to autonomy for that same class; in other words, the Hong Kong
Chinese elite do not build their social power in civil society, an arena separate
from or even in opposition to the ruling government. What contemporary
Hong Kong has inherited from its colonial past may be Chinese tycoons rich
in wealth; but they are not a strong bourgeoisie. They carry with them the
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 28 5/21/09 11:07:48 AM


lingering patriarchic values, associated conservative ways of life and the
tradition of making collusive relations between governmental power and civil
society organizations. Because, in Hong Kongs long colonial past, practices of
collaboration always pre-conditioned the growth of Hong Kongs bourgeoisie
as much as for the civil institutions that usually embody the pervasiveness of
colonial power. Therefore, what is at stake for the Hong Kong Chinese elites
legacy of collaborative practices is not so much the close partnership between
the Chinese ruling elite and the European ruling elite as the quasi-governmental
nature of most civil institutions in Hong Kong.
Collaboration is a key that can take us to look beyond a spurious dichotomy
between the colonizer and the colonized and to recognize in early colonial Hong
Kong the agential power of the Chinese gentry-elite, but it would be a glaring
error not to consider how they bore the colonial imprints. For it is in this early
phase that we see how the development of an autonomous bourgeoisie, like it
happened in Europe, was both facilitated and thwarted in Hong Kong because
Hong Kongs development of collaborative power was premised precisely
on a colonial milieu. To get to the collaborative as well as to the colonial nature
of the power formation, I would argue, is the key approach by which we can
understand Hong Kongs political culture then and now.
ch.01(p.9-29).indd 29 5/21/09 11:07:48 AM
2
Cultural Coloniality:
The English Language and Schooling
P
oet and educationalist Chris Searle once wrote that the English language
has been a monumental force and institution of oppression and rabid
exploitation throughout the 400 years of imperialist history It was made to
scorn the languages it sought to replace, and told the colonized peoples that
mimicry of its primacy among languages was a necessary badge of their social
mobility as well as their continued humiliation and subjection The English
language itself was the language of the master, the carrier of his arrogance and
brutality (Searle 1983: 48). Amidst Hong Kongs post-1997 mother-tongue
education controversies, educators in Hong Kong who insist on using Chinese
as a medium of instruction in schools might not all agree with Searles passionate
and radical view. But most of them regard the shift from a system that had
privileged English to a system that emphasizes Chinese as an essential step in
marking the end of colonialism in Hong Kong. Indeed, Hong Kong Chinese
have two widely held beliefs concerning the dominant status of the English
language: one takes the British colonizers decision to make English the offcial
and dominant language of Hong Kong as a necessary condition of the imposed
colonial rule; another upholds functionalism: the dominance of the English
language is attributable to its commercial value. These two commonsensical
beliefs lend support to different sides of the language-of-instruction debate: the
former supports a nationalistic view calling for the rectifcation of the power
asymmetry after British colonial rule ended in 1997; the latter maintains that
even if colonialism were not there, the Chinese would still attach greater value
to English language education. Apparently, these two views take completely
different stands on the decolonization of language; both are indeed variants
of the same constellation of colonial discourses: they either crudely simplify
Hong Kongs colonial relations or simplistically conceal Hong Kongs colonial
asymmetry.
Recent studies present a far more complex picture concerning the
relationships between the English language and colonialism in general. For
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 31 5/21/09 11:08:05 AM
example, Pennycook (1998) traces the connections between the long history
of colonialism and the English language by inspecting different discourses
adhering to English as a language. He warns that to characterize colonialism
according to simple stereotypes of a colonizers oppression and exploitation of
a colonized people indeed draws attention away from the constant cultural and
micropolitical operations of colonialism, although the complexities of related
issues co-exist with the daily presence of very simple dichotomizing. My analysis,
in this chapter, follows Pennycooks lead by grasping both the complexity and
the simplicity of the connections between the English language and colonialism
in Hong Kong. But my focus limits itself neither to colonial discourses in a
narrow sense nor to Hong Kong per se; rather, it pits the colonialism-English
relationships against the complex formation of collaborative colonial power in
both Hong Kong and China. I want to show that the privileged status of English-
language education in Hong Kong was more likely to stem from irregular
changes in policy and societal orientations than from an ingrained imperialist
imperative; and I should add that this privileged status is not, and never was,
attributable only to commercial demands. Rather, there were many historical
nuances of English use and English education: there were various ways English
might facilitate imperialist domination, but there were also moments when
English was used as an instrument for social differentiation among the Chinese.
I treat these nuances as instances of Hong Kongs layered coloniality. And, by the
term layered, I mean a coloniality that transcends the usual colonial binaries and
that has a great bearing on the problematic formation of Hong Kong identity.
Proselytizing with the Power of Warships
Departing from the old approach of segregated rule, Hong Kongs colonial
government, in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, took substantial
measures to intervene in the realm of education. Contrary to the liberal
myth that the colonial authorities in Hong Kong consistently took a laissez-
faire approach to the social and cultural affairs of the local Chinese society,
introduction of comprehensive school supervision in Hong Kong proceeded at
a pace faster than in the British homeland. To understand the emergence of these
active interventions, we need to go a long way back to trace (1) how Christian
missionaries developed problematic relationships with the colonial government;
(2) how proselytizing education gave way to secular education; and (3) how the
English language facilitated the efforts of the elite Chinese to sustain their racial
and social distinctions.
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 32 5/21/09 11:08:05 AM
Cultural Coloniality: The English Language and Schooling 33
Protestant evangelical activity in China can be dated back to 1807, when
the London Missionary Society sent Robert Morrison to China (Latourette
1929; Ride 1957; Cohen 1978). At that time, such activities violated the Qing
decree that, issued in 1724, prohibited Christianity. Thus, it was common for
missionaries to establish their bases in Southeast Asia, where there were a large
number of Chinese migrants (Harrison 1979). The missionaries learned Chinese
there, established publication houses, and trained Chinese clerics. This training
included English language studies. Of course, the missionaries never set out to
work exclusively on the fringes of China: they considered all of China their fnal
destination. Chinese offcialdoms hostility to Christian evangelism in China
posed a problem for the missionaries, but advances made by British merchants,
armed with the military power necessary to force China to accept free trade, also
benefted the missionaries evangelical works, if not any related proft-seeking
(Miller 1974). To carry out their missionary work, the missionaries became
increasingly involved in the political and military endeavors of British political
and commercial interests.
1
The Treaty of Nanking, by which the Qing government ceded Hong Kong
to Britain, was signed in 1842 after the humiliating defeat of the Chinese navy in
the First Opium War. Although Christian circles in Britain generally expressed
outrage at this war fought in the name of the infamous opium trade, they soon
reacted with jubilation to the treaty because they believed then that the military
and diplomatic victories would soon pave the way for Christians to have freer
access to Chinese soil and to Chinese souls a belief that materialized only
after the Second Opium War (Beattie 1969; Lodwick 1996). For these Christian
circles, God had displayed his power and majesty by bringing good out of evil.
For example, Elijah C. Bridgeman stated,
The agency in the great moments is human; the directing power divine.
The high governor of all the nations has employed England to chastise
and humble China. He may soon employ her to introduce the blessings
of Christian civilization and free intercourse among her millions.
(The Chinese Repository, 1842, 11: 628)
When James Legge stated that the treaties between China and Britain gave a
great impulse to the Chinese Mission, he was representing far more than himself
(Legge 1859). Indeed, many Protestant denominations, as well as the Roman
Catholic Church, rushed in through the open door, scrambling to participate in
the evangelization of the Empire.
Most of the missionaries who had been either working in the Chinese
communities of Southeast Asia or living in Macau focked to Hong Kong before
moving on to other treaty ports in China; some missionaries, however, stayed in
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 33 5/21/09 11:08:05 AM
Hong Kong, where they established local churches. The underlying aim of the
missionaries educational work was mainly to train clerics who would eventually
spread the Gospel in China. To continue this work, the missionaries set up many
missionary schools and seminaries in Hong Kong.
2
And as soon as they began
their work on the island, the missionaries suggested to the colonial government
that it issue both grants of land and fnancial assistance to schools. Governor
John Davis (18441848), who was a staunch advocate of religious education,
supported the missionaries, but the Colonial Offce in London decided to start
a grant scheme that would aid Chinese village schools but not the missionary
schools. Many people considered this policy to be symptomatic of the British
governments unwillingness to implicate itself in the sensitive religious rivalries
in which different congregations had already managed to enmesh themselves
(Ng 1984: ch. 2). Thus, the missionaries obtained no fnancial aid from the
government; instead, the government granted them administrative power, in
the form of a seat on the new Education Committee (Lobscheid 1859; Ng 1984:
2631). This committee oversaw all educational matters and, in effect, controlled
all of Hong Kongs Chinese village schools; thus began an era when churchmen
gained formidable dominance over the educational scene in Hong Kong.
In the missionaries home country, citizens expressed increasing concern
over public responsibility for education and challenged church dominance
in education. In contrast, churchmen dominated early colonial Hong Kong
education, almost rendering it a domain of religion.
3
Through the power to
distribute grants and then to supervise the schools, the Education Committee
pushed Bible study into the village schools Bishop Boones Catechism and the
Bible were featured prominently on the list of required textbooks (Lobscheid
1859: 2528). Under strong pressure from these churchmen, the Bishop of
Victoria became the chairman of the Education Committee and, thus, the overall
superintendent of schools. In short, the state not only permitted churches to
dominate the institutionalization of Hong Kong education but also did so when
many secularists and religious dissenters were challenging religious education
in Britain (Wong 1996: 5052). It was hoped by Governor Davis that the village
schools would eventually be placed in the charge of native Christian teachers
who would have been led up by the Protestant missionaries and who would
thus be afforded the most rational prospect of converting the native population
of the island (quoted in Eitel 1895: 247); however, English teaching neither
suppressed nor replaced the study of Chinese classics. Chinese Hong Kong
students studied both the Bible and Chinese classics in vernacular Chinese. Even
later, when James Legge introduced the teaching of English in a few government
schools, the students did not particularly welcome English. Religious education
did not take root as well as had been expected, and many missionary schools
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 34 5/21/09 11:08:05 AM
were soon closed down. The dismayed churchmen found that Hong Kong was
not a place bearing much resemblance to other Chinese parishes, although they
hoped to fnd in Hong Kong a Chinese society where the Gospel would fnd a
home in the Chinese soul.
Ever since the sixteenth century, when the Jesuit Matteo Ricci started his
missionary work in China, the missionary activities of different Christian sects
generally converged on a common proselytizing strategy for China: to preach
to the gentry (Gu 1991).
4
However, the absence of a locally rooted Chinese
gentry class in early colonial Hong Kong posed a huge stumbling block for this
traditional wisdom. Even the Morrison Education Society or James Legges
London Missionary Society, which were successful in bringing the frst Chinese
converts to Protestantism, could not keep many Chinese Christians active in
religious work (Wong 1996: 6467).
5
Most often, the students who attended
missionary schools turned out to be translators, compradors, or other middlemen
operating between the British and the Chinese, thus making civic use of the
English learned in missionary schools. In this regard, the infuence of religious
education was felt not so much in transformed Chinese souls as in transformed
political and economic structures throughout Chinese society.
James Legge: Accomodationist or Secularist?
The irrelevance of Christian teachings to the local Chinese brought about a
decline of missionary schools in the 1850s. The Arrow Incident of 1856, which
led to the Second Opium War, aroused afresh the enmity between China and
Britain. Locally, a bread-poisoning panic refected the atmosphere of native
hostility toward the Europeans (Tsai 1993: 5253). Yet, the repeated defeat of
the Qing navy by the British had established a triumphalist confdence among
the colonial establishment in Hong Kong. It was in this context that James
Legge initiated a program of educational reform that had far-reaching effects.
Overshadowed by his image as a versatile scholar, James Legges input in Hong
Kongs education has never been systematically explored. In the discussion
below, I try to link his theological ideas and his Sinological scholarship with his
educational endeavors, insofar as they were all intertwined with each other.
James Legge started his missionary life in Malacca, teaching at the Anglo-
Chinese College established by the London Missionary Society. He spent the next
three decades working in Hong Kong and Southeast China, serving as a pastor,
working for the colonial government, and producing massive translations of,
and commentaries on, the traditional scholarly classics of China. After retiring
from service in Hong Kong, he became the frst Professor of Chinese at Oxford
35
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 35 5/21/09 11:08:05 AM
University and, as a Sinologist, established for himself lasting fame (Wong
1996). Reminiscent of Jesuit predecessors such as Matteo Ricci, Legge adopted
a proselytizing strategy that was unique among those of his contemporaries.
In an atmosphere charged with British imperial pride, Legge ran against the
grain by taking an explicitly acccommodationist stance. That is to say, a major
part of his legacy as a scholar evolved from his attempts to accommodate the
Christian faith to the classical traditions of the Confucian elite. To this end, he
translated English-language works into Chinese and Chinese-language works
into English, thereby bringing the Bible to Chinese readers and the Chinese
classics to Westerners. His theological position sprang from his specifc claim
that there was an ancient form of monotheism in the Chinese traditions.
6
For
him, if the dominant Chinese literati could conclude that what they got from
Christianity was not alien but a reminder of their own canonical past, the whole
of China could easily be Christianized. However, Legges view was a minority
position among the missionaries at that time. Even the colonys government
offcials were suspicious of the Chinese propensity to accept the divine mission.
For example, in discussing the Chinese in Java, Governor John Bowring stated,
It will not be easy to eradicate from the mind of a Chinaman [sic] his
exalted notions of the greatness of his country, and the superiority of his
countrys learning, literature and institutions, to those of any portions
of the outer world.
(Pomerantz-Zhang 1992: 16 n.31)

Legge was isolated for his accommodationist views, which won him the
pejorative term of Leggism (Pfster 1990, 1991, 1993, 1998).
7
But for his voluminous
work, to which he made a life-long devotion, and for the high praise that he
often reserved for the ancient Chinese classics, Chinese writers have often
portrayed him as a Sinophile, a scholar who possessed a rare genuine respect for
Chinese culture. However, the Sinophilic fgure of James Legge, which became
particularly strong after he retired de facto from missionary work in 1867, often
overshadowed or even obscured assessments of his earlier missionary work and
of his services in the colonial government.
8
In his scheme, brought up to the Board of Education in 1860, James Legge
included several highly controversial proposals. In opposition to the prevalent
church dominance, Legge instead suggested a thorough secularist approach,
which drew hostility from religious circles.
9
Eitel, who was Inspector of Schools,
strongly opposed the reform and described the whole move as a non-conformist
liberation scheme, which preferred secularism to Episcopalianism (Eitel 1895:
392). Yet, with the support of Governor John Bowring and Governor Robinson
(18591865), who also opposed religious education, Legges secularism fnally
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 36 5/21/09 11:08:05 AM
gained the upper hand. Another factor that emerged thereafter was the priority
of English education and government control. Legge developed an audacious
and concrete plan according to which several schools were combined together
within the perimeter of Hong Kongs metropolis and would establish Central
School, where students would learn English. In prioritizing English language
teaching, Legge turned against the village schools, which, despite their increased
numbers and their expanded student enrolment, had been complaining about
their poor quality (Ng 1984: 4754). In the report, he denigrated the whole
vernacular education system as suffused with an atmosphere of low moral tone;
he also complained about the indifferent attitude of the poorer classes toward
school education. He targeted traditional Chinese pedagogy, which he accused
of overemphasizing recitation and memorization and of being stubbornly averse
to change. Frederick Stewart, the headmaster of Central School, whom Eitel
described as Legges disciple, was even more candid in painting a bleak picture.
He stated in a report in 1866 that it seemed rather impossible at present to make
the Chinese feel a greater interest in the education of their children. The parents
consider they are doing the government a favor by sending their children to its
school (Stewart 1866: 139). In short, British experts characterized vernacular
Chinese education as almost totally hopeless.
10

As I mentioned earlier in the chapter, Britain witnessed an almost
simultaneous movement that called for state responsibility in popular education
(Curtis and Boultwood 1966; Curtis 1967; Wardle 1976). But Legge did not make
a similar effort to amass popular support for education from the Chinese: he
established a novel centralized form of English education for Chinese children
in Hong Kong. He claimed that his plan would make Central School a model
school so that an infuence would go and tell those in the villages. Obviously,
however, Hong Kongs sparsely populated villages could possess no resources
in emulation of the leading model, and consequently, the decline of the village
schools was inevitable (Ng 1984: 47, 7077). At any rate, while Britains drive
toward secular education in Britain strengthened populist-egalitarian ideals,
Legges vision for Hong Kong emerged as statist, elitist, and prejudicial
against the vernacular. James Legge the policy-maker of education, has posed
some diffculty for historians who admire James Legge the Sinophilic scholar-
missionary, and who fnd it inconvenient to reconcile the two apparently
opposing images. For example, the renowned Hong Kong educational historian
Ng Lun Ngai-ha argues that the view and attitude of Legge could be well
compared with those of the British Orientalists in India, as both shared a healthy
appreciation of the indigenous culture; but when it comes to Legges education
program, she declares that Legge was a pragmatist who saw the commercial
value of knowledge of English to the Chinese (Ng 1984: 41; my emphasis). In
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 37 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
a similar vein, Stokes calls Legge a realist, although, unlike Ng, she does not
agree that English had commercial value then. She writes,
The middle-class Chinese, men of substance who could afford to pay
for schooling, living in Hong Kong, seemed to have little interest in
Western learning. Nor had the cash value of learning the English
language yet become obvious to the superfcial observer.
(Stokes 1962: 12)
If Stokes is right when she states that the Chinese lacked enthusiasm for
English-language studies by that era, one should not automatically conclude
that James Legges pragmatism refects either his capitulation to Hong Kongs
commercial orientation or his betrayal of his own missionary goals or educational
ideals. To be sure, the all-too-common stereotype of Hong Kong as a city driven
only by commercialism begs the very question of why, in the frst place, the
English language gained dominance there. I am afraid that the provisional label
of either pragmatist or realist for Legge might be ftting the stereotype
of Hong Kong much better than giving a true portrait of Legge.
11
Moreover, I
would venture to say that Ngs diffcult interpretation in her otherwise brilliant
and useful chronicle of Hong Kong educational development may result from
her perhaps too-rigid application of David Kopfs (1969) Orientalist-Anglicist
typology, which categorizes colonial fgures in India according to their attitudes
(appreciative or disdainful) toward the native cultures.
Orientalism or Anglicism?
In the mid-eighteenth century, Orientalists and Anglicists started debating with
each other over how education resources should be spent: whereas the Orientalists
argued that the colonial governments in the British colonies should devote more
resources to Oriental education for natives, the Anglicists advocated English
teaching because they thought that Oriental knowledge was inferior, confused,
and outdated. A line of colonial historiographies, like Kopfs, treat the debates
as maps of two antagonistic approaches toward colonial rule over natives. Pitted
against each other, the Orientalists appear as learned scholars who possessed
both profound Oriental knowledge and sympathy for the natives, while the
Anglicists come across as arrogant Britons who believed in the superiority of
Western civilization. Thomas Macaulay, who was a British colonialist serving in
the Supreme Council of India, declared that English education in India should
create a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in
opinions, in morals, and in intellect, and writers frequently quote this bold
pronouncement as epitomizing Anglicist self-conceit (Macaulay 1835: 249).
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 38 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
However, Gauri Viswanathan, in Masks of Conquest (1990), her celebrated
study of English education in India, goes to pains to point out that there was,
in fact, much more in common between the Orientalists and the Anglicists than
most historians have been prepared to admit. She argues that it would be more
accurate to describe Orientalism and Anglicism not as polar opposites but as
points along a continuum of attitudes towards the manner and form of native
governance (Viswanathan 1987: 30). Even when the Orientalist-Anglicist
debates were at their height, the point of contention had never been whether
one could respect the ancient culture of the colonized native Indians. Indeed,
to the two camps, the Oriental knowledge was always part of a precise and
meticulously defned scheme of administration; it was a kind of useful
knowledge in the hands of colonial administrators, who wanted to establish a
more diffuse network of hierarchical relationships between the colonial offcers
and the colonized natives (1987: 8). In this regard, Warren Hastings, Governor-
General of India (17741785), writes that
Every accumulation of knowledge, and especially such as is obtained by
social communication with people over whom we exercise a dominion
founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state: it is the gain of
humanity.
(Letter of Hastings to N. Smith, quoted in Viswanathan 1987:
6, my emphasis)
Colonial administrators like Hastings developed an interest in Oriental
knowledge, and this interest derived from their understanding that knowledge
of the natives could reinforce the authority of the colonial state; later, for
Lord Wellesley, Governor-General of India (17981805), the legacy of Oriental
knowledge became an attractive cultural program, as it could be useful and
objective and could serve a form of colonial governance that would rely not on
direct rule but on rule through various local functionaries. According to these
administrators, they could not create such a new governing structure by simply
imposing an alien one on the natives. Rather, if a new political society was to
grow, traditional native culture had to provide the soil in which that growth
would occur. Viswanathan comments on this belief:
Anglicism was dependent upon Orientalism for its ideological
programme Orientalist scholarship undertaken in the name of gains
for humanity gave the Anglicists precisely the material evidence they
needed for drawing up a system of comparative evaluations in which
one culture could be set off and measured against the other.
(Viswanathan 1987: 7)
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 39 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
Pennycook (1998) also takes the view that both Anglicism and Orientalism
were equally complicit with colonial governance. Furthermore, he criticizes the
simplistic belief according to which any colonialism that exhibits pronounced
Anglicist bigotry must have, as its archetype, Anglicism: thanks to this belief,
modern day liberals, leftists, and conservatives alike are able to distance
themselves easily from colonial complicity (Pennycook 1998: 93). I am afraid
that easy condemnation of caricatured Anglicism and an over-investment in
Orientalist sympathy are just two sides of the same coin. Therefore, I think
that the scholars who praise James Legge for his Sinophilia risk concealing the
coloniality of which Legges Sinological-Orientalist scholarship was indeed a
part.
As a matter of fact, James Legge was almost a century after Hastings and
Wellesley. The late nineteenth century witnessed an even closer relationship
between Oriental knowledge and the expansion of European empires, so that the
rapid growth of Orientalist scholarship was much more internationalized and
institutionalized. In his inaugural speech to the Second International Congress
of Orientalists held in London in 1874, Samuel Birch explicitly linked the
spread of civilization to the advance of Oriental knowledge. At the same
time, Birch considered this advance of Oriental knowledge to be dependent on
the Empires own advance because it provided the scholars with improved
facilities of access and provided scholars with an immense quantity of new
materials and texts to analyze (quoted in Girardot 2002: 147). In 1892, Max Muller
openly trumpeted the divinely given role of England to stand at the centre of
the whole world, for England knew not only how to conquer but how to rule as
well, having realized Alexanders dreamed of marriage between the East and the
West. He declared that for there to be a peaceful relationship between the rulers
and the ruled, there needed to be an intimacy of knowledge; he also declared
that Oriental scholars should shoulder the role of bold generals in the coming
battle for human understanding and for human unity by marshalling historical
facts (quoted in Girardot 2002: 483).
In The Victorian Translation of China (2002), Girardots biographical study
of James Legge, especially of his later life, the author tries carefully to distance
Legge from this increasingly imperious, entrepreneurial, and militant Orientalist
scholarship that drew much from Max Mullers type of comparative science
of religions; Girardot tries to characterize James Legge as a cautious pilgrim,
a hyphenated missionary-scholar and Sinological-teacher, an exemplary
model of the difference between judgmental, power-oriented Oriental-ism and
the more sympathetic Orientalist.
12
Nevertheless, such a now conventional
focus on James Legge as mainly a Sinophilic scholar should not obscure the
fact that before he retired as an academic in Oxford, he was indeed part of the
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 40 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
colonial knowledge-power nexus that made instrumental use of his Oriental
knowledge about Chinese culture and that was particularly evident in the cadet
service, where he offered to train Hong Kong colonial offcials (Lethbridge
1970; Wong 1996: 4243). As a matter of fact, many other governors and colonial
offcials, such as Henry May (19121918) and Cecil Clementi (19251930) (whom
I discuss in Chapter 5), were cadet trainees at the beginning of their colonial
careers and were all well versed in Chinese affairs (see also Eitel 1877). For
this reason, it is no coincidence that many missionaries and colonial offcials
were amateur Sinologists: they contributed scholarly papers to journals such
as The China Review; they formed the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society, which was housed in the Supreme Court building; and they elected
some of Hong Kongs governors to the branchs presidency (Hayes 1985).
13
This
interlocking of missionaries, Sinological studies, and colonial administration
was an important part of Hong Kongs coloniality. In point of fact, James Legges
famous translation of Chinese classics was published under the sponsorship of
Joseph Jardine and John Dent, the largest opium merchants of the time.
In regard to his Sinophilia, Legge felt nothing but pride for what he thought
was his contribution to the incorporation of China into a higher civilization.
Along with other contemporaneous churchmen, Legge made an association
between his Christian beliefs and the British imperialist project by interpreting
China as the Sinim, the term that appears in Christian scriptures (Isaiah 49: 12).
14

Pfster explains how Legges Protestant evangelism integrated itself neatly with
the Wests civilizing mission:
It was motivated by the postmillennial theology he advocated. It
claimed that Christian emissaries would become images of higher
civilization to the heathen, and so would be used by Gods spirit to
effect a more complete and massive conversion of all peoples, including the
traditional Chinese, to Christian faith and civilization.
(Pfster 1998: 80, my emphasis)
Decades of Legges evangelical missionary work in Hong Kong brought with
him many frustrations; however, he was still proud of the colonial joint venture
between the missionaries and the colonial force. In a public lecture delivered in
1872, just a year before he left Hong Kong for the last time, he said that he still
felt the thrill of Britannia standing on the Peak and looked down with an
emotion of pride on the great Babylon which her sons have built (quoted in
Girardot 2002: 54).
It is evident that if Legges accommodationism set him apart from the other
Orientalists, who were committed totally to Oriental-ism, then we must not
confuse him with Matteo Ricci, whose Jesuit accommodationism was based on
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 41 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
a genuine respect for China as an equally great civilization. In contrast to Ricci,
who had dressed like a Confucian scholar in order to gain access to sixteenth-
century Chinas literati scholars, Legge never adopted Chinese dress, completely
preferring English styles, whether of clothing, worship, or architecture (Pfster
1998). Indeed, the aggressive evangelism that characterized Legges early career
as a missionary did not allow for many Ricci-styled cultural encounters of equals
and turned Legge into a tragic fgure whose later life, in particular, was streaked
with much frustration.
Education for Enlightenment and Government
With the colonial knowledge-power nexus now in view, we can re-examine
Legges legacies relative to Hong Kong education. Quite alienated from Hong
Kongs missionary community, Legge had to turn to the secularist governors
to fnd support for his proposed educational reform. The overarching ideas of
his plan pertained not only to Hong Kong but indeed to all of China, insofar
as these ideas constituted a careful and visionary consideration of the overall
political situation of post-Second Opium War China. The years 18601861 were
an important landmark in both the history of modern China and the history
of Hong Kong. While Legge was preparing his scheme for establishing a new
educational system that would promote English education in Hong Kong, the
Taiping rebels at Nanking defeated Qing forces. Nevertheless, with the help of
Western armies, the Qing forces suppressed the rebellions and, within six years,
had completely wiped out the opposition. Just prior to such a devastating blow,
the Qing imperial authorities had been unable to refuse the Wests demands
at the Convention of Peking (1860), by which the Chinese government ceded
the Kowloon Peninsula to the British, who incorporated it into Hong Kongs
jurisdiction. The Treaty of Tientsin was signed in 1858 together with the
agreements made at the Shanghai Tariff Conference to give the British and the
Americans control over the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. These
two diplomatic agreements provided the British with a number of favorable
conditions and facilities that enabled the colonial power to widen its commercial
activities in China (Bredon 1909; Wright, S.F. 1950). It would be unreasonable
to assume that Britain would not focus on Hong Kong as an extension of
British activities in China. Indeed, Legges euphoric mood was refected in his
presentation to the Legislative Council:
This plan makes the teaching of English a more prominent part of the
education in the Government Schools than it has hitherto been. But I
beg to submit to you that it ought to be so. It ought to be so in this
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 42 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
Colony where the administration of Justice is conducted in the English
language. It ought to be so, that an infuence may go forth from the Island,
which shall be widely felt in China enlightening and benefting many of its
people.
(Minutes of the Legislative Council Meetings (special summons) on
March 23, 1861; quoted in Ng 1984: 78, my emphasis)
The British colonial government administered justice in the English language,
a state-of-affairs that was not confned to Hong Kong. Under the principle of
extraterritoriality in the territorial concessions, foreign laws were soon to be
practiced in some Chinese coastal cities, thereby restricting Chinese jurisdiction.
Therefore, Legge should have said that it was the extension of British juridical
power to both Hong Kong and China that made the English language both
necessary and enlightening at the same time, although the precise meaning of
the word enlightenment in the nineteenth century did not mean so much in a
persons moral transformation through literature as old Anglicists in India had
believed. Hong Kong students of Chinese ethnicity who strove to enlighten China
needed more than knowledge of the language. Central School also taught them
other subjects that were integral parts of the Maritime Customs examinations
(Ng 1984: 78).
The Taiping Rebellion promoted the rise of Han offcials in the Qing imperial
hierarchies. Han generals such as Zeng Guofan, whose own armies obtained
support from regional Chinese militias and foreign mercenaries, led the forceful
suppression of the rebellions. These successes prolonged Qing dynastic rule
for the next ffty years. However, the Western mercenaries and weapons that
the Han generals employed marked only the beginning of foreign involvement
in late-imperial Chinese political affairs. The Tung-Chih Restoration, launched
soon after the Taiping Rebellion had subsided, obtained assistance from foreign
powers in many different ways (Wright, M. 1966). In a series of reforms known as
the Western Affairs Movement (yang wu yun dong), the reformist offcials adopted
Western scientifc knowledge, military technology, and training techniques for
diplomatic personnel; the motto of this campaign concerned Chinas self-
strengthening, the requirement that China learn from the West in order to
subdue the West (yi yi zhi yi). The establishment of translation bureaus and the
building of new foreign-language and technology schools signifcantly affected
the cultural and intellectual landscape of imperial China. (I assess the ideological
effects of the yang wu yun dong in Chapter 4). However, such initiatives did not
instill in the offcials any wish to step beyond the importation or the imitation
of foreign knowledge, foreign institutions, and foreign technologies; nothing
about either the old political structure of the imperial government or Chinas
traditional beliefs or culture found its way into the reforms.
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 43 5/21/09 11:08:06 AM
The colonial establishment in Hong Kong held high hopes for the unprecedented
imperial restoration program. Although the curriculum reform of Central School
had incited some disquiet about spending Hong Kong money on training ethnic-
Chinese boys to serve in Mainland China, Governor Hennessy, Inspector of
Schools Eitel, and other offcials were fully supportive of the policy (Ng 1984: ch.
5). Even Stewart, who was the frst principal of Central School and who saw the
need to maintain vernacular education, held the view that such spending would
guarantee lasting benefts for the British government. Their vision reached
far beyond a narrow study of Western technology, as conceived by Chinese
bureaucrats and Chinese literati. Their opinions were echoed in the local press.
A leading newspaper, Hong Kong Daily Press, expressed this opinion:
It is wonderful that the large majority of the Chinese clerks and
employees in the Imperial Maritime Customs Service have been pupils
at the Central School. It may be a direct loss to the Colony for a time,
but it will be a great indirect gain in the future, and the Central School is
most freely employed in turning out embryo Chinese offcials capable
of speaking English, imbued with progressive ideas This English-
speaking contingent of Chinese youths will, we hope, ultimately prove to be
the channel by means of which the reign of progress may be inaugurated and
reforms introduced into China.
(Hong Kong Daily Press, April 3, 1884, my emphasis)

According to this conviction, the students ability to speak English correlated
directly with their possession of progressive ideas. This conviction drove the
Hong Kong equivalent of Macaulay to put into action the Anglicist dream of
producing a class of persons, [Chinese] in blood and colour, but English in
taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. Indeed, in the late nineteenth
century, those in the colonial establishment felt no need to conceal this type of
imperial vision. Eitel, a known critic of secular education, expressed clearly his
view in his Europe in China,
Europes destiny is to govern Asia. Marching at the head of civilization,
Great Britain has commenced her individual mission in Asia by the
occupation of India and Burma, the Straits Settlement and Hong Kong.
By ffty years of handling of Hong Kongs Chinese population, Great
Britain has shown how readily the Chinese people fall into a frm European
regime, and the rapid conversion of a barren rock into one of the
wonders and commercial emporiums of the world, has demonstrated
what Chinese labour, industry and commerce can achieve under British
rule.
(Eitel 1895: ivv, my emphasis)
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 44 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
As a German-naturalized English missionary, a Sinologist, a private secretary to
Governor Hennessy, and an inspector of schools in Hong Kong for more than
two decades, Eitel did not hide his imperialist arrogance when he divulged the
intention underlying the help the British offered to reform the Qing government.
Indeed, this whole new approach to China was a result of careful calculations.
In 1860, Sir Frederick Bruce, the British minister in China, had warned that a
breakdown of Chinas government would have disastrous consequences for
British non-territorial interests (Ng 1984: 82). The late-Victorian imperial idea
was defnitely not confned to territorial conquest. In 1850, a writer in the
Edinburgh Review illustrated this point:
It is a noble work to plant the foot of England and extend her spectre by
the banks of streams unnamed, and over regions yet unknown and
to conquer, not by the tyrannous subjugation of inferior races, but by
the victories of mind over brute matter and blind mechanical obstacles.
A yet nobler work it is to diffuse over a few created worlds the laws of
Alfred, the language of Shakespeare, and the Christian religion, the last
great heritage of man.
(Edinburgh Review, 62/XCI/1850,
quoted in Eldridge 1973: 238, my emphasis)
Therefore, the end of the nineteenth century was a period in which many British
were contributing reform ideas to colonial matters and were serving as advisors
or instructors, if not holding offcial positions, in the modern institutions set up
by offcial Chinese bodies and all this while Shakespeare was being taught
in Hong Kong Central School (So 1950; Bennett 1967; Spence 1969; Fairbank
1978: ch. 10).
15
Droves of missionaries came to China to set up their own schools.
And the Inspectors-General of Chinese Imperial Customs came from Britain or
America not only to administer the laws of Alfred in coastal cities territorial
concessions but also to recruit English-speaking Chinese boys from Hong Kong
in this regard.
While learning from the West became a new political motto among the
reformist offcials within the Qing bureaucracy, it also opened venues through
which Hong Kong English-educated persons extended their infuence along the
China coast. As part of the previously mentioned Western Affairs Movement,
economic reforms helped foreign frms open branch offces in treaty ports and
helped Hong Kongs English-educated elite obtain positions in the offces of
several self-styled reform-minded Qing offcials (such as Li Hongzhang and
Zeng Guofan, where the newly-hired elite served as personal advisors and held
sway over their own private bureaucracies. (I return to this issue of think-tank
intellectual politics in Chapter 4.) As knowledge of the West increasingly became
valuable as cultural capital, it also constituted the basis for a new stratum of
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 45 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
Chinese elite whose infuence was not confned to Hong Kong (So 1950; Bennett
1967; Chung 1998).
From Multiculturalism to Elitism
So far, I have been tracing the idea of English education in Hong Kong and have
done so in the context of late-nineteenth-century British imperialism. However,
if we take Central School merely as an institution constituted, from the start, as
a full-fedged governmental agency seamlessly incorporated into the imperial
states project to subjugate China, we will risk misreading the ideological
confguration of collaborative colonialism in Hong Kong. At least for James
Legge, convictions concerning higher civilization (the expanding British
commercial and political power) mingled with a wish to bridge the gulf of
animosity that existed between the two races and that fared up time and again
between the two Opium Wars (Stokes 1962: 14).
As an institution carrying out the imperial mission, Central School not
only conveyed the idea of British superiority but also acted as the frst genuine
crucible for an amalgamation of the two races. In fact, it acted as a miniature
multicultural society, somewhat breaking down the racial segregation of the
earlier years. True to its founding philosophy of secularism, Central School
made Bible study optional during the frst few years (Stokes 1962: ch. 2). Even
Central Schools classes that taught Bible studies did so in Chinese translation.
Likewise, English was not a compulsory subject at the school, since its founding
fathers believed that the Chinese students would eventually learn the language
willingly (Stokes 1962: 23). What was foreseen was that the rapidly increasing
cash value of English-language competence would induce a rapid turnover of
students. Increasingly, even a rudimentary knowledge of English was enough
for boys at the school to seek jobs in business houses. And even those Chinese
masters who were able to teach some English were always engaged in part-time
jobs in commercial frms.
However, commercialism was not the sole factor underlying the growth of
English-language education; the expansion of Hong Kongs colonial government
substantially added to the growth after Governor Bowring complained in 1860
that the schools did not train civil servants competent in English. Eventually,
English was made compulsory in 1865, when James Legge proposed to make
Central School directly responsible to the governor; the change effectively turned
the school into a government department. Yet, even when English-language
instruction became the schools major goal, the Chinese language remained a core
subject (Ng 1984: 6568). With Governor MacDonnells approval, Central School
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 46 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
soon changed from a school that took in only ethnic-Chinese male students to
one that opened its doors to male students of all nationalities. Central School
maintained both its multiracial composition and (until 1889, when Chinese-
language subjects became optional) its dual emphasis on English and Chinese.
Nevertheless, the composition of Central Schools students exhibited diversity
in terms of background and age. For example, married men were often found
studying with adolescents (Stokes 1962: 27). As an alumnus of Central School
phrased the issue during a dinner speech,
[Central School] has always been the meeting ground of boys of all
nations and religions; though Chinese boys have predominated, yet [sic]
there have been quite a number of Indian, British, Portuguese, Japanese
and other boys. These boys, in their daily intercourse, have come to
understand and appreciate each others point of view and outlook on
life, and have acquired a sense of give and take and a knowledge of
mankind in all its races, religions and beliefs which cannot but make
for success in the great world beyond the school.
(Quoted in Stokes 1962: 17)
Central Schools second headmaster, Batson-Wright, spoke of having male
students who, together, accounted for up to twelve nationalities. According to
Stokes reckoning, each male student was obliged to follow the social or religious
customs of his race Moslems had to leave classes during Ramadan, Chinese
students at Ching Ming and many other festivals, Jews were absent from school
at the Feast of Tabernacles, and so on (Stokes 1962: 28). This multicultural
achievement was hardly inconsequential in early colonial Hong Kong, as racial
discrimination there and elsewhere was severe. According to Crisswell and
Watsons report (1982), even in a language school for police that taught Indian
and Chinese offcers to speak English and British offcers to speak Chinese, the
more advanced Indian and Chinese students were not allowed to sit with the
European offcers, for the latter felt that their status would be lowered in the
eyes of the Indian and the Chinese (Crisswell and Watson 1982: 53). Therefore,
the additional merit of Central Schools secularism comprised its multicultural
characteristics, which bred a degree of inter-racial friendship and tolerance.
However, in the end it could not escape the state-church contest for power.
The 1870 Forster Education Act in Britain marked the beginning of Britains
formal recognition of state responsibility for popular education fve years
after Central School in Hong Kong had become a state institution. In response to
the policy change in the home country, and under the direction of the secularists,
Governor Kennedy and Headmaster Frederick Stewart of Central School
proposed a controversial new grant-in-aid system. It was such a new system
that it reignited the animosity between advocates of secularism and advocates of
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 47 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
religious education (Ng 1984: 5459). The initial draft of the grant codes required
secular instruction in the stipulated subjects for four consecutive hours daily.
Quite a number of Protestant denominations, together with Roman Catholics,
strongly opposed the proposal. In the very heated quarrels that followed, anti-
secularists attacked Central School for its godless education (Stokes 1962:
31).
The defenders of Central School appealed to the fact that the school had a
student body of mixed nationalities, so that compulsory religious instruction
was not possible. The dispute dragged on for several years until the arrival
of anti-secularist governor Hennessy shifted the balance of power in favor of
the churchmen. Central School then became the target of a different criticism
a criticism that concerned the quality of the students English-language
profciency. After a thespian investigation into a hyped-up scandal about the
poor standard of English at Central School, the Chinese language became an
optional subject, so that the school could devote more teaching hours to English-
language instruction (Stokes 1962: 3541; Ng 1984: ch. 4).
Hennessy was famous for his purportedly pro-Chinese stance, and the
signifcance of his intervention into this issue of language education was
far-reaching; it also epitomized how the whole new governing strategy of
collaborative colonial rule increasingly relied on Macaulays Anglicist approach.
He plainly wrote in his dispatch to London that we should have here an
English-speaking Chinese community and he thought the Chinese would
[not] care much for any loss they might have as Chinese subjects in the country
(CO/129/181/p. 8). His suggestion to cut Chinese-language teaching hours was
echoed by E. R. Belilios, the wealthy merchant and educational philanthropist
who said, I dont see why the English government should encumber itself
with the teaching of Chinese and the English government should anglicise its
subjects. It is interesting to note that Wu Tingfang, the frst Chinese Legislative
Council member appointed by Hennessy, also supported the cutting of Chinese-
language teaching hours: Wu thought it was a waste of time. (Pennycook 1998:
113) In 1878, the high-profle intervention of Hennessy ended in an all-parties
Education Conference, at which the colonial government laid down a policy
that privileged English and that was unreservedly elitist. The Grant Codes were
modifed in 1879 and the secularist requirements relaxed; also, the victory of
the churchmen resulted in setting the governments primary goal to strengthen
English-language instruction (Ng 1984: ch. 5). Frederick Stewart resigned, partly
to protest the policy-based marginalization of Chinese-language subjects at
Central School. The missionaries were happy, from then on, to share with the
government the mission of providing elitist education to the emerging ethnic-
Chinese upper class (Ng 1984: 69, n. 20). The policy of giving priority to the
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 48 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
English language, although in principle a feature at all government schools, was
totally unrealistic for the majority of vernacular schools, which now received
the designation district schools and whose student bodies consisted mostly
of members of the poorer classes. The district schools subsequent decline was
inevitable.
Apparently, these controversies were reminiscent of the Anglicist-
Orientalist debates in China; but here in Hong Kong the whole saga was indeed
a tussle between the churchmen and the secularists, couched in terms of English-
language standards. The net result was the establishment of a predominately
English-language education system that undermined the vernacular language;
the system was in place until 1911, when Governor Lugard (19071912) formed
the Board of Chinese Vernacular Primary Education in response to the political
unrest in China (see Chapter 3).
Indigenizing Elitist English-language Education
Throughout the debates, the churchmen exhibited the triumphalist mood
characteristic of those Anglicists in India; however, we should be cautious not
to treat the asymmetric status between English and Chinese as -resulting simply
from the British colonialists imposition of the English language on the Chinese.
Indeed, even Wu Tingfang, the only Chinese Legislative Councilor, did not raise
any oppositional view to defend for the vernacular education. What he left was a
scornful remark that Chinese-language teaching was a waste of time. Ironically
enough, it was Frederick Stewart, an Englishman, who stood up to protest the
marginalization of Chinese-language subjects at Central School. Yet, it is hardly a
surprise if one understands that it was a collaborative colonialism that governed
Hong Kong: if Governor Pope Hennessy could take a staunch Anglicist stance
but hold, simultaneously, a pro-Chinese political strategy which made him
infamous to other Western colonists in Hong Kong Wu Tingfang should not
be an embarrassment to the Chinese insofar as he was a Chinese councilor who
opposed the teaching of more Chinese-language courses. Both of them upheld
something that seemed to be incongruous with their respective ethnic belonging.
Yet, it was perfectly understandable because both of them needed each other
in a collaborative colonial formation. Hennessy was in need of the help of the
Chinese collaborators as much as the Chinese wealthy classes wanted to assign
a privileged status to English-language education. To establish and maintain
the superiority of English over Chinese in the context of the Western Affairs
Movement, the Anglicist policy served the best interests of the Chinese wealthy
class, although it meant further relegating the Chinese vernacular to an inferior
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 49 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
position, a trend that most co-opted Chinese community leaders did not care to
reverse.
The efforts of these emerging Hong Kong-based Chinese elite to defend
English-language instruction amounted to a highly class-conscious act in which
the English language was used as much as a vehicle for imposing cultural
domination of one race on another as a cultural capital effectuating class
segregation within the same dominated race. No evidence can prove the truth
of such willful acts of class segregation among the ethnic Chinese than the 1902
petition that a number of prominent Chinese community leaders among
them, Ho Kai, a famous Chinese patriotic reformist thinker whom I further
discuss in Chapter 4 drafted in order to establish an exclusive new school for
the well-to-do (Ng 1984: 87, n. 71; Baker 1996: 711). This petition resulted in the
establishment of St. Stephens Boys School founded in 1903. The petition stated,
in part:
The Queens College [Central School] and the Belilios Public School
are excellent Government institutions in their way, but the exceedingly
large number of pupils attending these schools and the paucity of
English teachers, and the indiscriminate and intimate intermingling of
children from families of the most various social and moral standing, render
them absolutely undesirable as well as unsuitable for the sons and
daughters of respectable Chinese families.
(Report of the Committee on Education 1902,
Enclosure No. 2, my emphasis)
The signatories of the petition meticulously laid out how the Chinese could
attain social mobility through English-language learning:
The want is now increasingly felt of a school at which such a thorough
knowledge of English could be obtained as would enable boys to leave
school at a suitable age, and on proceeding to England to at once enter
on the special course of study prescribed for the profession which
might have been selected for them by their parents.
(Report of the Committee on Education 1902, Enclosure No. 2)
The letter ended in a direct appeal to a sense of pride in the British imperial idea,
which could hardly be reduced to the material instrumentality of the English
language:
It is at present a constant complaint that, having received an education
in the Government Schools, the Chinese have failed to assimilate to any
extent English sympathies and ideas, and are ever backward in responding to
the call of public duties. But we are confdent that thorough education on
the lines, which we now suggest, will soon remove all cause for such
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 50 5/21/09 11:08:07 AM
complaint. Such an education will not only endow our young men and
women with more open minds and greater public spirit, but will result
in the more cordial co-operation of the British and Chinese nations and closer
intercourse between them. An excellent system of public education
is one of the best forms of national investment. In commercial and
industrial effciency, in a higher level of civic duty, and, above all, in the
wider diffusion of moral culture and religious feeling, the nation is amply
repaid for what it spends.
The Chinese signatories of this petition identifed themselves as the upper
classes of the Chinese residents in this Colony. But a similar petition, signed
by a group of Europeans calling for a separate English School for Europeans
explains in a more elaborate, more racist language:
The education of the European children suffers very much from the fact
that Europeans and Asiatics are mixed, and the European child had to be
educated side by side in the same class with large numbers of Asiatics
But the Chinese boys in the schools are numbered by thousands, large
numbers of whom, be it noticed, come from the mainland, and are in no
way connected with the Colony; and the ordinary standards of truth,
honour and morality amongst the masses of the Chinese people undeniably
differ very widely from our European standards Constant contact with
Chinese, both in class-room and play-ground must affect the formation
of the character of the European boy.
Elsewhere in the petition, the European signatories stated clearly that the source
of moral contamination was the mainland and that our most respected
Chinese fellow-residents have recently started a school for their own children,
because they do not think it desirable that they should be thrown into constant
contact with the boys in the Queens College [named previously as Central
School].
Historical studies of colonial Hong Kong have often focused on racial
discrimination, highlighting the conficts there between the Chinese and the
Europeans. And yet, one need only juxtapose the Europeans petition with the
Hong Kong-based Chinese elites petition to recognize that the two radically
distinct demographic groups the colonizers and the colonized were in
agreement as to Hong Kongs instituting of segregated education. The other,
of the Hong Kong-based Chinese elite, was the mainland Chinese; and the
European contingents other was the mainland Chinese, as well. In other words,
Hong Kongs two privileged communities the well-off natives and the foreign
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 51 5/21/09 11:08:08 AM
colonizers shared the same lexicon for character formation according to the
British Empires very English sympathies and ideas. Governor Henry Blake
(18981903), in his explanation of this dispatch to the Colonial Offce, explained
the Chinese petition:
The better classes of Chinese are quite as anxious as any European to
preserve their children from contact with children of a lower class,
intimate communication with whom would be prejudicial to their
moral character.
Gone, at the dawn of the twentieth century, was the multiculturalist era of
Central School, when Hong Kong educators had encouraged a racially and
ethnically diverse student body to study the egalitarian teachings of both
English and Chinese. James Legges dream had been to bridge the gulf between
the two races. By the early 1900s, this dream had ceded place to a reality in which
Europeans and some elite Chinese, out of concern for moral character, argued
for educational segregation. The only distinctiveness we can fnd in the Chinese
petitioners appeal was their frm belief that the proper means to exclude the
moral other that is, the Mainlanders was segregated education conducted
in the English language. This language came to embody a new cultural or even
moral capital.
Western imperialism in the late nineteenth century was characterized by the
imperialists frm belief in racial superiority and their denial of the subjugated
peoples ftness for self-government. As illustrated by the Chinese petitioners
explicit linking of moral culture, religious feeling, and public duties,
discourses about morality were never dissociated from political leadership and
government, at least in the context of late-nineteenth-century imperialism. As
the racially subjugated, the elite Chinese would not let up in presenting for
themselves a strong argument in response to the concern of self-government.
And, for the British colonists, the aspiration of the Hong Kong elite Chinese would
only re-affrm Anglicist confdence in the assertion that the English language is
an effective vehicle for rigorous leadership-oriented moral education; moreover,
this aspiration would re-affrm Anglicist confdence in the Hong Kong colonial
governments decision to substitute this brand of moral education for religious
education, which was put in place by Governor Hennessy and had held sway
in the previous decades. Thus, Governor Henry Blake approved the request
to establish an elite Chinese school and explained his approval to the Colonial
Offce:
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 52 5/21/09 11:08:08 AM
If we can secure the attendance of the children of the Chinese upper
classes, many of whom will, if the school succeeds, come down from
China, and some of whom will probably form part of the offcial class of
the future, the consequence may be far reaching and the benefts to this
country may amply repay the small outlay that the scheme demands.
Europeans and elite Hong Kong Chinese alike, placed their hopes on this
offcial class of the future that would come down from China. What was
in Governor Blakes mind could not possibly have been ordinary immigrant
Mainlanders, but chosen children of the Chinese upper class. This fact, in itself,
illustrates a new collaborative relationship wherein the Europeans and the elite
Hong Kong Chinese aimed not just to govern the small colony of Hong Kong
but also to incorporate a much bigger China into the British grand imperial
blueprint. The report explains, at length, that many residents in Hong Kong did
not consider themselves Hong Kong citizens because many still preferred to
send their children back to China for education. On these premises, the reports
conclusion frmly rejects the idea that Hong Kong would supply education to
all the children within its jurisdiction. Yet the deeper rationale for this rejection
of universal education surfaces when the document states that it would be more
practical for Hong Kongs colonial government to enlighten the ignorance of the
upper classes of Chinese than to force new ideas on the mass of the people (Hong
Kong Government Gazette, April 4, 1902: 518).
In the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, many
people sensed that there was a much wider crisis in the English-language
education of the other British colonies.. Some of them attributed this perceived
crisis to the tactless imposition of English-language education onto natives by
the British colonies. Critics of this educational trend blamed the much-reported
crisis on Anglicists such as Macaulay (whom I will discuss in the next chapter).
In contrast to this uproar across the British colonies, the British colonists in Hong
Kong saw no such danger in their differential provision of English education to
a selected stratum of Hong Kong Chinese (Chirol 1910), because Hong Kong
was the place where British colonial politics was translated into class politics
of China. The collapse of the tottering Qing Empire was in sight. And the
increasingly aggressive Hong Kong Chinese elite, who attempted to infuence
the future development of China, strengthened the British colonists belief in
the superiority of the English language. They looked forward to educating the
future offcial class of China.
However, Hong Kongs educational system, which privileged Hong Kong
Chinese elite and marginalized all other Chinese residents, resulted in a slightly
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 53 5/21/09 11:08:08 AM
ironic outcome. As long as Hong Kong remained wed to the Anglicist belief that
the English language is a vehicle for moral cultivation, and as long as the British
colonists endorsed the Hong Kong Chinese elites demand for exclusive access
to English-language education, the English language remained an indiscernible
set of sounds and scribbles for Hong Kongs wider Chinese community. And
the irony is this: the cultural segregation between the privileged Chinese and
the marginalized Chinese generated tensions that increasingly superimposed
themselves on the existing racial cleavage between the Europeans and the
Chinese. In serving as a class marker much more than as a facilitator of cultural
communication and thus of homogenization, the English language failed to
unify colonial Hong Kong into a monolithic entity that would stand in contrast
to the other, mainland China. Rather, the other emerged from within Hong Kong:
the other was the poor, immigrant Mainlander class. Therefore, in contrast to
many who assert a distinct Hong Kong identity was already in place in the
colonial days, my assessment is that the absence of an initiative to make English
a common language among all Hong Kong residents ironically pre-empted
Hong Kongs development of a distinct identity of its own. The children of
Europeans and the wealthy Chinese no longer mixed with each other in schools
although they all received English-language education; the wealthy Chinese
had their children equipped with a cultural capital that further aggravated their
unequal status compared with the poorer Chinese who were always the new
immigrants.
Whether Hong Kong has historically developed a cultural identity of
its own is a cause of concern for historians. Those who stressed the ethnic
Chineseness of Hong Kong people always denied the existence or the extent
of such a Hong Kong identity before the 1960s. In contrast, Carroll (2005, ch. 4)
takes the view that a distinct Hong Kong identity was already fully in place by
the late nineteenth century, when the Hong Kong Chinese elite were beginning
to function as a full-fedged bourgeoisie. Many other scholars also draw upon
the notion of multiple or overlapping identities to argue for the existence of
this distinct Hong Kong identity which might have seated together with the
Chinese identity to which many in Hong Kong also vowed allegiance. However,
the idea of multiple identities does not help us to look into the problems carried
by a complex identity formation such as Hong Kong. The historical examination
of colonial Hong Kongs English-language education, however, shows that
Hong Kongs collaborative-colonial formation had long over-determined
language as a contestable site for identity formation. On the one hand, Hong
Kongs collaborative-colonial formation perpetuated the privilege that the
English language had obtained; on the other hand, it re-assertively situated the
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 54 5/21/09 11:08:08 AM
Chineseness of Hong Kong frmly within the British imperial embrace. These
facts tell us not only that the form of collaborative rule in Hong Kong changed
at the beginning of the twentieth century but also how a distinct Hong Kong
identity failed to establish itself along linguistic lines. In other words, instead of
taking the emergence of a Hong Kong bourgeoisie as epitomizing the inception
of a distinct Hong Kong identity, my question is, to the contrary, why and how
the colonial conditions in which such a bourgeoisie grew up indeed impeded the
maturation of a full-fedged Hong Kong identity in dissociation from that of the
Chinese.
My discussion so far shows that the racial exclusion sought by Hong
Kongs Europeans was in perfect agreement with Hong Kongs elite Chinese,
who also desired social class exclusion. With colonial racial politics translated
into class politics of the indigenous, the complicity between the colonizers and
the elite Chinese in Hong Kong indeed inaugurated a gradual shift away from
the Anglicist position. Instead of attaching cultural ideals and values to the
English language, English culture and literature were increasingly confned to
a small elite stratum. That means even though the English language commands
a dominant and offcial status in Hong Kong it has never become a popular
and commonly used language in everyday life. Without any project attempting
to incorporate all Hong Kong Chinese into the culture of the colonizers, Hong
Kong remained as a place where Chinese cultures and languages could exist
and develop. However, the indigenous appropriation of the English language as
cultural capital to mark class distinction displaced the colonial project without
having the asymmetric cultural hierarchy reversed. Such indigenization of
colonial power is socially divisive rather than helping to fortress an independent
identity.
The socially and politically divisive character of language use and language
education in pre-1997 Hong Kong constitutes a thorny legacy not easily resolvable
in Hong Kongs post-1997 mother-tongue education program (Chan 2002).
For one thing, multilingual Hong Kong considers the meaning of a mother-
tongue language to be highly ambiguous; for another, the majority of Chinese
parents in Hong Kong perceive its Chinese-language schools to be inferior and
therefore persistently shun them. In the 1970s, anti-colonialist movement in
Hong Kong once upheld Chinese nationalism obliging the colonial government
to grant offcial status to the Chinese language (I will discuss this issue again in
Chapter 6). But the dominant status of the English language can still hardly be
undone now. The post-1997 educational reforms, which are often described as
upholding the principle of mother-tongue education, are indeed aggravating
the segregation principle by restricting the English language to be used as the
medium of instruction only in a few selected schools. Such divisive policy has
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 55 5/21/09 11:08:08 AM
stirred up many more grievances and frustrations than before because, with
British colonial infuences now gone, competition among the parents to tag the
class marker of receiving English language education on their children is getting
even stronger.
My analysis in this chapter shows that fetishism of English language
education in Hong Kong is largely attributed to the desire of class segregation
among the Hong Kong Chinese community. It is then not diffcult to understand
why the dominant status of the English language is coupled with the absence
of imposing British cultural infuences on Hong Kong daily life. Such antinomy
is often casually depicted as a kind of instrumentalism but its roots in the
collaborative-colonial setting are worthy to be exposed for their profound
historical implications. On the one hand, dominant status of the English language
has never meant that British culture has ever enjoyed signifcant cultural
hegemony beyond the restricted circles of the elite Chinese collaborators. The
extensive and largely unregulated use of Cantonese in mundane daily life in
Hong Kong has indeed saved Hong Kong Chinese from the nationalistic cultural
programme such as the coerced use of putonghua (or the national language) at
the expense of the vernaculars by both Republican and Communist Chinese
regimes. Therefore, ironically enough, colonial rule in Hong Kong left a space in
which the Cantonese language and culture could and did fourish continuously
throughout the twentieth century. On the other hand, Hong Kongers are thus
deprived of a common language (neither Chinese nor English) of their own
and, consequently, fnd it diffcult now not to be subdued in another potentially
colonial situation wherein much of society treats putonghua as the language of
the new master, if not the carrier of his arrogance and brutality (Searle 1983:
48). Unable to assert a distinct identity in terms of language use, Hong Kong
is equally ambivalent about both the current dominance of English and the
nationalistic urge to uphold the status of the Chinese language. In this light,
the failure of the mother-tongue education program in post-1997 Hong Kong
testifes both to the impasse of anti-colonialisms binary logic and to the intricate
coloniality that is unique to Hong Kongs collaborative colonialism whose
legacies refuse to fade away.the controversies of church dominance and national
education in England, see Best (1956); Curtis and Boultwood (1966); Curtis
(1967); Wardle (1976).
ch.02(p.31-56).indd 56 5/21/09 11:08:08 AM
3
Pedagogy of Imperialism:
Indirect Rule and HKU
L
ate-nineteenth-century Hong Kong witnessed the rapid development
of its English-language education. But it was also a period when many
other British colonies cried out in alarm about crises in their English-language
education systems. Valentine Chirol (1910), for example, reports how Macaulays
famous Minute on Indian Education in 1835 inaugurated a highly successful
system of English-language education (especially during its frst three decades)
that produced men of great intellectual attainments and of high character; yet
in the wake of student-associated political agitation all over India, its English-
language education system turned out to be a seedbed of discontent. According
to Chirol, schools and colleges that provided English-language education shifted
away from cultivating good English scholars, good Christians, or good subjects
of the Queen to the avenue to lucrative careers through mere cramming
of undigested knowledge (Chirol 1910). In contrast to the Anglicists high
hope that English-language education would be the best and surest remedy
for political discontent and for law-breaking and would help form a class
who may be interpreters between us [the British] and the millions whom we
govern (Macaulay 1835), the study of English literature seemed, in Chirols
eyes, to have merely succeeded in creating a class of mediocre Babus, who
were intellectually hollow, uprooted from their own tradition, and imperfect
imitators of the West (Chirol 1910).
No Western power had ever fully colonized China; yet, the spread of
Western thought under the Wests imperialist dominance coincided with
waves of political and intellectual discontent no less severe than the crises that
developed in the British colonies. Western political ideas inspired the Chinese
reformists Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who put forward a constitutional
reform program in 1898; the failure of this program resulted in the rapid
emergence and growth of radicalism, and proponents of these new ideas called
for a revolution that would overthrow the Qing dynasty. This unrest culminated
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 57 5/21/09 11:08:24 AM
in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, which ended when the Eight Allied Forces in
which British troops played a leading role occupied Peking (Beijing). The
rebellion and its outcome fractured the partnership between the Qing Empire
and the Western powers, a partnership that had developed during the Western
Affairs Movement. With the upsurge of Han nationalism, which targeted the
Manchu ruling aristocracy, the Qing Empire was on the brink of total collapse.
Meanwhile, anti-foreign sentiment was growing among the young Chinese
literati. These and other China-based movements placed great pressure on
the Qing Empire to reform itself, and this pressure gradually generated actual
reforms in the frst decade of the twentieth century, despite the previous failure
of the reform proposal put forward by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. The
Qing government drafted several plans in preparation for a future constitutional
government; one of the most drastic measures that had eventually been put
into effect was the abolition of the Imperial Civil Service Examination (ke ju)
in 1905 (Franke 1960; Wang 1979). As an almost total overhaul of the social and
ideological underpinning of the Qing dynastic regime, the act soon proved to
be a hasty one, for it exacerbated discontents. Frustrated by the collapse of the
traditional channel of upward mobility, and having no effective new institutional
system that could replace the channel, students easily gravitated to radical ideas
and to the revolutionary movement (Sang 1991, 1995).
These rapid changes in China brought about several different implications
for colonial governance in Hong Kong. On the one hand, the upsurge in Chinese
nationalism raised the anti-foreign consciousness of Hong Kong Chinese, which
indirectly posed a challenge to British rule (Tsai 1993). On the other hand,
with the breakdown of the Qing regime in view, revolutionaries turned to the
Western powers, either seeking possible political alliances or other forms of
support or looking for new intellectual resources by which the revolutionaries
might gain a perspective on, and knowledge of, a post-imperial China. Despite
all the anti-foreign rhetoric, the humiliation that foreign powers had inficted
during successive wars on China had not deterred the enthusiasm of Chinese
students for Western learning. For example, the frst decade of the twentieth
century saw massive growth in the number of students studying in Japan,
which many Asian people considered a successful copy of the West; and it is
ironic that this growth occurred only a few years after the Qing navy suffered
a humiliating defeat orchestrated by the Japanese, whom the Chinese had long
condescended to as only people of a tiny island (Shu 1927; Lin 1976; Saneto et al.
1982). Caught between political currents running in different directions, Hong
Kong experienced two noticeable developments. First, the British increased
their surveillance over schools, in a bid to enhance the colonial states control of
education and to curb the growth of a nationalism that might threaten colonial
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 58 5/21/09 11:08:24 AM
Pedagogy of Imperialism: Indirect Rule and HKU 59
governance. Second, Hong Kong continued to experience a growing demand for
English-language education, as the volatile political situation of the late Qing
dynasty reinforced Chinese aspirations to acquire Western learning. Against this
backdrop, collaborative colonialism took on a renewed form.
In this chapter, I discuss how the general educational crisis, which emerged
in many colonized societies, shaped the way in which British imperial authorities
employed English-language education in Hong Kong and China. By focusing
on Frederick Lugards project for the establishment of the University of Hong
Kong (HKU), I examine how English education emerged as a new colonial
governmentality, both as a response to the crisis situation wherein the old Anglicist
belief that the English language embodied moral superiority was on the wane,
and as an occasion for the rise of educational managerialism. I also demonstrate
that such a reconfguration of the imperial civilizing mission would have been
impossible without the enthusiasm of both Chinese collaborators in China and
Chinese collaborators in Hong Kong, all of whom were involved not only in
shaping the post-Qing Chinese political order but also in the continuation of the
British imperial mission in the new Republican China.
Western Learning and an Imperial University for China
After the two Opium Wars, a consistent aim of British policy was to establish
modern British educational institutions in and for China, in an effort to bring
her into the British imperial domain. In the same year as the establishment of
Central School in Hong Kong, the Qing government established an elementary-
level foreign-offce interpreters school named Peking College. A similar
institution, the Tung-wen-kuan (Translation School), already existed in Canton
(Fairbank 1978: ch. 9). Sir Robert Hart, the delegated British Inspector-General
of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, persuaded the Qing government to
open these institutions, giving himself the power to fll vacancies in the teaching
staff and even to dispatch his customs offcers there on teaching assignments
(Bredon 1909; Wright 1950; Bennett 1967; Spence 1969). In the process of its
reorganization after 1867, there grew a movement to turn it into a Western-
style university (variously referred to as Imperial University, the University
of Peking, the College of Western Sciences and Literature, and otherwise).
Similarly, in 1872, the Rev. Hutchinson of the Church Missionary Society voiced
the need to build a university in Hong Kong (Endacott 1962; Harrison 1962; Ng
1984). In 1880, Governor Hennessy appointed Eitel to head a commission to
consider raising Central School to the collegiate level. Although the proposal
was fnally considered to be premature, calls for a higher-learning institute for
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 59 5/21/09 11:08:24 AM
Chinese Hong Kongers lingered, despite occasional opposition from branches of
the British government.
However, over the next two decades, British-directed educational reforms
in China did not go as smoothly as expected. Owing to the opposition of
conservatives among Qing offcials, the whole Western Affairs Movement
was confned to limited sectors where training in handy technical military
and industrial knowledge was offered. Even a series of proposals to introduce
mechanics and mathematics into the offcial examinations failed to gain
acceptance (von Gumpach 1872; Mellor 1980). However, in the British colony
of Hong Kong, the acceptance of Western medicine by ethnic-Chinese residents
was gradually advancing.
In 1887, inaugurating the new Hong Kong College of Medicine for the
Chinese, Patrick Mansion, its frst Dean, did not forget to mention China. He
bemoaned certain events:
Twenty years ago the Taiping Rebellion was suppressed. Those
of us who were in China then thought that surely now a new era is
beginning; and we waited from day to day and year to year for what
is called the opening of the country. In [our] imagination we saw a
network of railways and telegraphs rapidly spreading itself over the
land; hospitals and schools of science rising in the towns; public works
going on everywhere; there was to be better government, better food,
better clothing, better houses, more security and comfort for every one.
Everything was to be squared to the foreign model The desirability of all
this was very manifest to us, and we could not understand why it was not set
about immediately.
(Mellor 1980: 910, my emphasis)
Some years later, Sir Charles Eliot, a famous Orientalist and the then vice-
chancellor of the University of Sheffeld, complained, during a vacation visit to
China, of
great talksof reforms and representative government. Boards and
Commissioners are appointed to study foreign constitutions, armies,
and systems of education. Everyone is reporting on something or
other, and the offcials of the Empire seem likely to turn into living Blue
Books I am not sure that all this indicates a real desire to do anything,
for I have been an offcial myself, and I know that the object of asking
for a report on a question is generally to get rid of it.
(Eliot 1907; quoted in Mellor 1980: 10, my emphasis)
Yet, Eliots dismay was outdated that same year, when Hong Kong Governor
Frederick Lugard (19071912) declared a project to build a university for China
in Hong Kong. Eliot was eventually to become the universitys frst vice-
chancellor.
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 60 5/21/09 11:08:24 AM
Looking More to the West
The revival of the idea of building a university in the small colony of Hong
Kong would not have been possible were it not for the rapid deterioration of the
situation in China. The dying Chinese empires resistance to Chinas adoption
of Western learning was quickly draining away. By the turn of the century,
the yearning for Western knowledge by Chinese was no longer confned to a
particular reformist circle within the bureaucracy: the yearning was giving rise
to waves of intellectual movements that posed challenges to the old regime. After
the Empress Dowager led a coup dtat that stifed the Hundred Days Reform,
Chinese intellectuals broke into three different factions: ultra-conservatives,
exiled reformists, and revolutionaries, each faction propagating its own ideas.
Reformists like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao called for a constitutional
monarchy; the revolutionaries clamored for a Western-style republic; but both
invoked Western theories and experiences to support their calls. Successive
Qing military defeats at the hands of Westerners paradoxically both produced
Chinese societys admiration for anything foreign and preserved Chinese
societys general xenophobia. In those days, when studying abroad was a rare
experience, literate Chinese would study with scholarly reverence even casual
travel writings about Western countries (Kang 1985; Liang 1985). Through
translated books, newspapers, and intellectual journals, Western ideas were
propagated as ready-made formulas that would facilitate Chinas resurrection
(Fairbank and Liu 1980: ch. 5). Under these circumstances, those Chinese who
had studied in the West emerged as new intellectual fgures. For example, Yen Fu,
through his voluminous works of translation, imported positivism, Darwinism,
Adam Smiths political economy and J. S. Mills liberalism into China, all of
which he had learned about during his few years of study in Britain (Schwartz
1964).
With subsidies from the government or private sources, droves of Chinese
students soon turned to foreign countries such as Japan, Belgium, Germany,
France, Russia, and the United States for further education (Lin 1976). Chinese
society no longer discriminated against Western learning or confned it to
limited sectors of the political hierarchy; indeed, Chinese intellectuals expressed
great admiration for this learning. The Chinese students brought home far more
than mere technical knowledge: they also brought to China, on the one hand,
various progress-oriented ideologies and hopeful visions and, on the other hand,
Western-tinged anxieties and fears. Compared to the percentage of Chinese
who studied in Europe and America, the percentage of Chinese who studied in
Japan was huge, and quite a number of these students drew inspiration from the
61
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 61 5/21/09 11:08:24 AM
radical ideas fourishing there (Reynolds 1993). Chinese revolutionaries, newly
infamed by these radical ideas, joined various types of secret political societies,
and even ordinary study-abroad Chinese students were described as returning
to China armed with the new learning, openly despising their country and their
parentage, hybrid Europeans with a veneer of foreign manners badly laid on a
Chinese framework (Mellor 1992: 35). Western learning fooded into China and
contributed to the collapse of traditional moral controls, much as moral crises
erupted in full colonies. However, precisely because people believed that the
educational crisis derived from returning study-abroad students, they attributed
the crisis not to any particular foreign power but to the fact that the students
had been uprooted from their native soil. On top of the high cost incurred in
sending students abroad, fear of producing an unruly new generation in an alien
environment increasingly created favorable conditions for the establishment,
on Chinese soil, of Western-based education institutions. There was then a
virtual scramble among foreign powers to establish universities in China. The
Americans were the most energetic foreigners to make use of the huge Boxer
Indemnity Fund and swamped China with all sorts of educational initiatives;
they were followed by the British, the French, the Germans, and the Italians
(Mellor 1992: ch. 4).
A Truly Imperial Mission as a Collaborative Enterprise
In 1905, the year the educational reform in China materialized in the form of
the abolition of the Imperial Civil Service Examination, the idea of establishing
a university in Hong Kong appeared in an editorial in the China Mail. The
editorial was in response to a protest that some Chinese students, studying in
Japan, had leveled against the Japanese government, which, upon request from
the Peking government, had tried to impose certain controls on the students.
The students had threatened either to withdraw en masse and establish a new
university whose location would be Shanghai and whose faculty would consist
of European professors or to continue their studies in Europe or America. The
editor asked why Hong Kong might take up the matter (China Mail December
19, 1905). A small debate then emerged over the suggestion that Hong Kong
be the site of a new university, a suggestion that the editor considered a truly
imperial mission. Bateson Wright, the second headmaster of Queens College
(formerly Central School), chided the editor, saying it would be a local white
elephant; he was against the idea of spending enormous sums to educate
the sons of an alien empire (Mellor 1992: 3940). Governor Lugard, however,
picked up on the idea almost as soon as he took offce in 1907. With a donation
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 62 5/21/09 11:08:24 AM
of funds from Mody, a prominent local Parsee merchant, the scheme soon
started rolling. Although Lugard was the prime mover behind the project,
he cautiously avoided calling it an offcial government scheme. Instead, he
carefully managed to steer the project as a community enterprise, the support
for which was expected to come from private benefactors. Believing that the
project should be collaborative among Britain, China, and local and overseas
Chinese communities, he appealed for support and funds from a wide range of
sources, reaching out simultaneously to the Secretary of the State, the Viceroy of
India, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces, the British
Minister to China, the Shanghai Municipal Council, former Inspector-General of
the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Sir Robert Hart, and others. Although
initially his enthusiasm did not meet with equivalent keenness from the Colonial
Offce, he found encouragement from Ho Kai, who then helped to solicit support
from the local Chinese elite, who raised funds from local and overseas Chinese
communities (Harrison 1962; Mellor 1980, 1992; Ng 1984). Overcoming the
initial inertia, the project later obtained enthusiastic endorsements from Chinese
circles, including Chang Yujen, viceroy of southern Guangdong and Guangxi
Provinces, where the Hong Kong Cantonese had deep connections.
Lugards insistence on steering the project as a collaborative enterprise,
even down to the community level, does not imply that he treated the project
as an amateur pursuit or as a matter of routine administration. His supporters,
too, did not fail to treat the project as an important political and governmental
move, for while the Chinese exhibited demand for Western learning, they were
suspicious and doubtful of the side effects of such enthusiasm for it. Although
they had not held Western learning responsible for the erosion of discipline,
they could sense that new craving for Western knowledge among young Chinese
learners was already posing a threat to the existing political order in China. Ideas,
which were considered by some conservatives as too progressive, were already
spreading too fast, causing grave concerns among Chinese authorities. In this
regard, the British, who perceived themselves as saviors of an ailing empire, had
a new formula that could both quench the Chinese thirst for Western knowledge
and quell the disturbances that surfaced as the thirsts chief side-effect. After
the Empress Dowager issued a hasty decree to establish universal education in
China, the editor W. H. Donald wrote in a China Mail editorial in 1907,
It would be the acme of folly for her to attempt to revolutionize
a system which has endured for so many centuries without the aid
of foreigners. At the present time China has in her service many able
and devoted foreign instructors Those students who go to Japan, or
at all events a large percentage of them, return with a mass of half-
assimilated knowledge and political ideas which prepossess them in
favour of revolution. If China had effcient Middle Schools, Technical
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 63 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
Colleges, and Universities of her own these students would complete
their education and they would not be subject to the anti-dynastic
infuences which begin to affect them directly they get to Tokyo.
(China Mail October 2, 1907; quoted in Mellor 1992: 52)
However, there was no consensus for this secularist panacea; dissenting
voices appeared, especially within British religious circles. A confict between
materialism and Christianity was the conclusion reached by the All China
Christian Conference held in Shanghai in 1906; the view concerned, whether
actual or not, an emergency situation caused by the impending scramble
for educational reform in China. In London, a China Missions Emergency
Committee was formed and called on Christian missions to create, in a united
effort, a self-governing native Church in China. This initiative later turned into
a united-universities scheme, which involved a plan for a new university
located in China and rooted in Christian morality (Christian Education in
China 1922; Mellor 1992; Perham 1968: 341). Even Eton College in England was
planning a crusade against the dragon of materialism (in other words, the moral
crisis that allegedly threatened China) and proposed to set up an Eton Mission
in Chengtu to give the Qing Empire the beneft of the best education and of
learning Christianity (Mellor 1992: 39).
A Marriage of Materialism and Morality
It was obvious that the churchmen took the educational crisis in China to be
a vindication of their earlier disapproval of the secularist tendency. In sharp
contrast, Lugard tried to rescue the imperial mission of education through the
managerialism he had gained in his long years in colonial government. He
proposed a university in Hong Kong rather than in China. The location was of
crucial importance for Lugard, as he believed that only under full British control
could the university be ensured proper organization and continuity of policy,
which in turn would maintain the high standards of the universitys degrees.
He pointed to the desire of the Chinese for authentic Western education and
doubted whether degrees issued by a mission university not incorporated
under any local law would ever command Chinese confdence (Mellor 1992:
105). However, unlike the kind of English-language education that the British
colonial government in India had instituted there, the Western learning that a
new university in Hong Kong should offer would neither Christianize its students
nor privilege literary studies. He thus retreated from his previous ambition to
build Oxford and Cambridge in the Far East (Perham 1968: 339) and turned
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 64 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
to Birmingham and Leeds for his models (Mellor 1992: 172). The university
would be secular and practical, would offer its Chinese students degrees only in
felds such as engineering and medicine, and would remain under tight British
control.
Lugards plan was seen as a threat to the missionaries. Defending his idea,
Lugard debated acrimoniously with William Cecil, who had his own program
for a Christian university in China. Cecil warned Lugard that his secular
university would promote education without religion, morality without faith
and would risk producing men without principle, without truth, and without
honestymaking the name of the West odious to all right-minded men (Mellor
1992: ch. 11). In rebuttal, Lugard attacked Cecils project for its incoherence, since
a university in China could not be subject to effective British quality controls;
neither would the Chinese welcome such a universitys religious nature. The
debate was furious and went far beyond a comparison of the viability of the
two projects.
1
Cecil wanted a university to provide the full range of Western
knowledge, including those departments of western thought less concerned
with things material; Lugard pointedly referred to the Indian example, arguing
that the dissatisfaction exhibited by a large section of educated Indians was
precisely due to the teaching of such subjects. Moral crisis was their common
concern, yet their responses ran in exactly opposite directions.
Despite undeniable personal enmity and considerations of realpolitik, the
exchanges tell us much about an important moment in Hong Kong educational
development. To a certain extent, both Cecils project and Lugards project could
be considered collaborative, as the two refected efforts to institutionalize Western
civilization within China through an institute for higher education. Lugards
project differed from Cecils insofar as the former stressed a colonial model; the
stress was not only on full British control, possible only in a colony, but also on the
authenticity of Western learning, which Lugard believed was much desired by
the Chinese. His project corresponded to the then-dominant Chinese intellectual
perception that the term Western civilization was a catch-all phrase meaning
nothing but material wealth and power. It was on these grounds, rather than
through the more confict-ridden approach of Christianization, that collaboration
between the British and the Chinese, regardless of their inclinations, could take
root. There were certainly some Chinese parents and offcials worried about the
loss of Chinese identity that Western learning might bring about. But according
to Lugard, an education system that educates Chinese students in Hong Kong
would do less harm to further denationalize the students than would an
education system that educates Chinese students in Christian schools on Chinese
soil (Perham 1968: 349).
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 65 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
Character Formation: Searching for New Colonial
Governmentality
Indirect rule functioned in two key ways: it re-affrmed the superiority of a
colonial model and it emphasized the need for a colony to avoid denationalizing
the natives identity (Lugard 1906, 1923; Fitzpatrick 1924; Perham 1934; Crocker
1936; Mamdani 1996; Hechter 2000).
2
Therefore, it should not be surprising
that Lugard appeared, on certain occasions, to play the role of an unyielding
imperialist and, on other occasions, to play the role of a cultural relativist. He
was indeed candid in admitting that the impact of a purely secular western
education upon eastern peoples hasa tendency to deprive students of their
national religion and to substitute nothing for it (Mellor 1992: 172). However,
he refused to attribute the moral crisis to the removal of religious teaching
from Western education; still less did he consider it possible that the religious
educationalists could supply a code of morality to the Chinese by substituting
a united Christianity, or any particular Christian creed, for ancient indigenous
codes. For him, the moral crisis was simply a problem of character formation,
a point that he put bluntly in a paper to a congress of all the universities of the
British Empire: the problem before us in opening a University in Hong Kong is
how to train character (Mellor 1992: 173). People should redefne the problem
of the moral crisis, Lugard argued, as a governmental problem that the
educational institutions could solve through training rather than doctrines,
through practice rather than content, and through institutions rather than a set
of empty codes. He quoted and endorsed Sir G. Clarkes point of view:
The educated European may throw off the sanctions of religion but he
has to live in a social environment which has been built upon the basis
of Christian Morality and he cannot divest himself of the infuences
which have formed his conscience The Oriental, educated or
partially educated in western thought, has no such environment and
the restraints of ancient philosophies have disappeared and there is
nothing to take their place.
(Mellor 1992: 175)
As yet more proof that natives lacked the capability of self-government, Lugards
remark was indeed an interesting variant of the colonialist discourses. Lugard
announced not the supremacy of Christianity but the natives vulnerability to
inauthentic forms of Western superiority. In his eyes, the Europeans could keep
their morality even after throwing off its daily sanctions; but the native races
would only get off track in the presence of half-baked Western teaching because
they were detached from preconceived ideas adapted to nations which are the
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 66 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
outcome of 1,900 years of Christianity (Mellor 1992: 173). Lugard articulated
here a typical Fanonian anxiety over the ambivalence of mimicry captured in
his nicely quotable phrase, the white, but not quite (Fanon 1968). Not a few
early-twentieth-century colonialists feared that incomplete colonialism would
unleash awful destruction in native communities. Therefore, more colonialism
would save such natives from themselves: natives whose levels of Western
learning and of cultural growth remained insuffcient to the civilizing agenda.
And what was this agenda? Purportedly, it was for colonialism to create natives
who could establish their own responsible governments. The colonizers
emphasis on more colonialism explains why Lugard insisted that a university for
China should be built in Hong Kong, which was a full colony, and not in China,
which was just a semi-colony. Only in a full colonial situation could the colonial
state properly micro-manage educational details like the operation of hostels,
the selection of text-books, and the hiring of teachers.
Liberal Governance of Colonized Men
Ian Hunter has demonstrated for us how, in the 1830s, people like David Stow
and James Kay-Shuttleworth redeployed technology for the governance of the
soul in order to institute the governance of men: these and other individuals
invented such mechanisms as classrooms and playgrounds that, above all else,
enforced discipline and instituted moral training (Hunter 1994). Lugard, as well
as most educators in the British colonies, understood that the reliance of schools
on teachers as modern-day pastors was precarious, indeed. In the colonial context,
classroom teachings enormous failure to produce morally disciplined natives
prompted the students to regard textbooks with suspicion, to look outside the
classroom for improvements, and to turn to character-formation mechanisms of
a more easily measurable type (hostels, playgrounds, gymnasia, roll-calls, meals,
and hygiene) (Lugard 1923: 433). According to many colonizers, the classroom
was a dangerous place that served not to inculcate Western learning in natives
but to undermine eastern beliefs, and thereby to disorganize much of the social
life, to deprive students of their national religion and to substitute nothing for
it, and to fre the immature imaginations of imaginative races, as Lugard put
it. He noted, also, that
[the] study of the philosophic theories of the West, of political
economy, and of Western History with its outstanding examples of the
emancipation of the people from oppressive control, are allto impel
them to conclusions destructive alike of the family infuence on which
the social system is so largely based, and of all constituted authority.
(Perham 1968: 172, my emphasis)
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 67 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
In other words, the natives should condemn Western learning because it posed
dangers disproportionate to its benefts. So, what was the solution to this
dilemma? As a harbinger of contemporary citizen education, Lugard, quoting
the 1904 Governor-General in Councils Resolution on educational policy,
stressed that the remedy for the evil tendenciesis to be sought, not so much
in any formal methods of teaching conducted by means of moral text-books as
by placing pupils continuously in an environment of carefully selected and
trained teachers, a high standard of discipline, the institution of well-managed
hostels: this type of environment would nurture students respect for and
practice of rule abidance, loyalty, and co-operation (Perham 1968: 172). Anyone
who knows how English public schools run will not respond with surprise to
the fact that Lugard warned colonial boarding-schools to keep their distance
from the squalid surroundings that were native towns.
As a proto-multiculturalist, Lugard had an idea that hostels and boarding-
schools could support an educational regime in which different religious
organizations would evangelize the colonized souls. Perhaps, in this regime, the
role of religion was no more and no less than a cultural technology to train and
discipline character; whatever the case, Lugard saw no compelling reason not
to adopt the utmost degree of religious tolerance. He even came to suggest that
the Chinese, if they so wished, could establish a hostel in university to inculcate
among Chinese the tenets of Chinese religious beliefs, equally with Christian
creeds (Mellor 1992: 173). It was beside the point that the hostel, a specifcally
British invention, was totally alien to any Chinese religious institution. For Lugard,
a hostel tolerant of many religions was a new formula by which secular Western
education would not deprive students of the powerful aid which religious
sanctions give (Mellor 1992: 173); compulsory religious instruction would then
be largely redundant. Lugard carefully balanced secular education and moral
training by putting hostels at the center of his new pedagogical framework. For
these efforts, Lugard earned himself a glorious chapter in his biography, which
depicts him not only as a soldier-general but also as an educationist. Wherever
he went thereafter, he could claim to have made the University of Hong Kong a
model for other colonies, a marriage between materialism and morality.
Lugards experiment was controversial among the British. However, some
of his Chinese sympathizers were more eager than the British to see, in China,
a kind of Western learning that would not further threaten the dying dynastic
rule. Other Chinese supported the project for a different reason: they projected
a future Republican state onto the HKU model of the material-moral hybrid.
But despite their different political orientations, the Chinese gave much-needed
impetus to Lugards project, which was fnally adopted. The university opened
in 1911 the realization of a truly imperial mission that coincided with the
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 68 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
inauguration of the Chinese Republican era.
3
The university was a collaborative
project supported by both traditional Hong Kong communities and new Hong
Kong communities, by both an Eastern regime and a Western regime. Lugard
thus made his mark on a moment in colonial history, a moment when indirect
rule was not just a political idea but also very much a cultural and educational
one. Just as enthusiastically, he demonstrated in his colonial governorship that
education or, better, the business of character formation was henceforth
nothing more than a governmental matter that spanned different cultures and
religions. Yet, nothing was more important to him than the vindication that his
was a moral project. Much to Lugards delight, at its decennial meeting in 1921 in
China, the Commission on Christian Education fnally offcially acknowledged
Lugards university to be a moral institution (Mellor 1992: 170).
Indirect Rule as Education Philosophy
Lugard was famous as a person who effectively articulated the principle of
indirect rule throughout the colonial world. His earlier career as a soldier-
explorer and his rich experiences in suppressing native unrest in various places
across Africa and Asia overshadowed his later style of governance in Nigeria
and Hong Kong. He was acutely aware that successful colonial rule could not
be divorced from education, which provided for the foundation of indirect rule.
Perham, Lugards biographer, writes,
He saw the life of the people he was administering as whole and
his own policy as a total response to their needs. Far from regarding
education as no more than one part, however important, of these needs
he saw that it must govern their whole future development.
(Perham 1968: 489)
Of course, what Lugard considered important was both the whole future
development of each native person and the development of the native people
conceived as a whole. In this regard, he later spelled out quite clearly his
educational philosophy while speaking about education in Nigeria:
The primary function of education would in my judgment be to ft
the ordinary individual to fll a useful part in his environment with
happiness to himself, and to ensure that the exceptional individual
shall use his abilities for the advancement of the community and not to its
detriment or to the subversion of constituted authority It should be the
aim of our new system to train up a generation who shall exchange this
bitter hostility for an attitude of friendly co-operation, and who shall
be able to recognize and achieve ideals of their own, without a slavish
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 69 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
imitation of the European and be proud of a nationality with its own clear
aims and future.
(Lugard 1914: 4, my emphasis)
Neither Macaulay nor Lugard were scholars, yet the two men laid the foundation
for the history of British colonial education. Lugard was a very late post-Victorian
colonialist, and what set him apart from the earlier Anglicists such as Macaulay
was his recognition that, for colonial rule to be successful, the colonizer must
simultaneously avoid a class of persons, [native] in blood and colour, but English
in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect and create a generation of natives
who possess a nationality of which they can be proud. Yet, it would be a
glaring error to interpret Lugards remarks as an unconditional endorsement of
the natives autonomy. So that such a generation might emerge, circumstances
must satisfy at least one necessary condition: under the tutelage of the colonizer,
either the colonizer or the colonized or the two, together, must preserve a certain
constituted authority. The colonizers key duty was to clearly determine how
and when natives would achieve their national end.
Although such a meticulously elaborated new colonial philosophy
refected colonizers attempts to justify the preservation of colonial authority,
we may recognize the genuine conceptual breakthrough by which colonialism
and nationalism emerged more as each others pre-conditions than as two
opposing discourses. This philosophy of colonialism prefgured a certain form
of nationalism, which theorists and practitioners, alike, had excluded from
previous imperial visions. By emphasizing the imperialist projects moral
authorities rather than the projects superior morality, Lugard opened the way for
managerialism to displace imperialism but left unchanged the basic structure
of the colonial-power hierarchy. This discursive shift helped colonizers like
Governor Cecil Clementi (see Chapter 5) manipulate their relations with
traditional Chinese authorities. The colonizers believed that, under managerial
guidance, colonialism and nationalism were compatible, and this belief laid the
foundation for the collaborators appropriation of colonial rule (see Chapter 6).
We may examine how these possibilities germinated from Lugards thoughtful
colonial-pedagogical model.
By abandoning the text-centered pedagogical approach, Lugard transcended
the spurious debates between Anglicists and Orientalists. And by focusing on
the effects of different character-formation methods, Lugard conceptualized the
means by which the British Empire could constitute and preserve a colonized
peoples identity their subjecthood and their nationality without banishing
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 70 5/21/09 11:08:25 AM
colonialism from the equation. Colonialism could negotiate for itself a dominant
space in a colonized peoples political identity. In his celebrated book The Dual
Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1923), Lugard explains how modern education,
when a part of colonial governance, can help foster and preserve a native system
of power and authority:
The education afforded to that section of the population who intend to
lead the lives which their forefathers led should enlarge their outlook,
increase their effciency and standard of comfort, and bring them into
closer sympathy with the Government, instead of making them unsuited
to and ill-contented with their mode of life As regards that smaller
section who desires to take part in public or municipal duties, or to
enter the service of Government or of commercial frms, education
should make them effcient, loyal, reliable and contented a race of self-
respecting native gentlemen.
(Lugard 1923: 4256, my emphasis)
In this conception of education for the advancement of community as a
whole, Lugards prescription of the colonial proto-national model of popular
education extended even to the ignorant masses; yet the colonial premises of
government also compelled him to carefully differentiate different models
of colonial education that could be provided. Lugard argued that the British
Empire had previously erred in indiscriminately introducing its colonies to
an overly egalitarian type of English-language education and that this type
of education had prompted the natives to embrace the illusive conception of
universal citizenship in a Christian Kingdom. The colonizers enlightenment of
the colonized had gone too fast and too far, and had fred up the immature
imaginations of the imaginative races. Lugard sought to avoid the dangerous
situation in which a class of educated natives would compete with the once-
accepted rulers and would, thereby, endanger the cohesiveness of the native
community. In Dual Mandate, he highlighted these dangers and the urgency with
which colonizers should offset the dangers by providing education to the sons
of native rulers (1923: ch. 21). In other words, so long as native rulers and their
offspring possess the same royal character as the colonizers, Western education
will threaten nobody and Western knowledge could be easily shared among
the colonized natives. The essence of Lugards brilliant doctrine of indirect rule
centers on the doctrines strategy by which colonizers might tap native rule and
integrate it into colonial rule. Perhaps this strategy explains why Chinese Hong
Kongers responded with more enthusiasm and donations than did British Hong
Kongers to an educational project whose executors described as an imperial
mission (Lugard 1928).
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 71 5/21/09 11:08:26 AM
Control through Support of Vernacular Education
Lugards policy of linking education to colonial rule did not stop with the
establishment of a university. Drawing from other colonies bad experiences,
wherein the British colonizers had promoted English education at the expense
of vernacular education, Lugard unusually extended his support to vernacular
education and, thereby, widened the scope of colonial state control. As I discussed
previously, the late-Qing era was one of political chaos in which conservative
impulses and reformist impulses resulted in a highly unstable composite. The
Qing government hastily drafted several ill-conceived measures that, rather than
reform education, pointed to the Qing states imminent collapse. Mushrooming
new schools could neither satisfy the Chinese peoples demand for new
education nor placate the growing ranks of reformers and revolutionaries.
Ironically, many of these schools became places where alienated teachers and
students propagated revolutionary ideas (Sang 1991, 1995). Between 1901 and
1909, Lugard promulgated fve successive policies that detailed the governments
control over school education (Wang, F. 1979). Because overseas Chinese
communities increasingly intervened in Chinese affairs, and because Chinese
nationalism was spreading fast in these communities, the Qing state extended its
regulation of education to them. Many Hong Kong Chinese schools also became
sites for revolutionary activities (Ng 1984: ch. 6). Lugard was more acutely
aware of the importance of vernacular education to the stability of colonial rule
than any of his predecessors had been. Like his Chinese counterpart, he tried
to bring all private vernacular schools under state regulation and supervision.
He delegated the Supervisor of Government Schools, R. C. Barlow, to conduct a
thorough survey of all the 300 private (mainly Chinese) schools in Hong Kong.
In 1911, the colonial government formed the semi-offcial Board of Vernacular
Education, whose chief duty was to promote effcient vernacular-Chinese
education. These policy moves led to the 1913 Education Ordinance, another
product of Barlows Report (Fang 1975; Ng 1984: ch. 6; Educational Report 1912).
This ordinance conferred great power to the colonial government so that it could
control the organization and the curriculum of private schools. According to the
ordinances loose defnition, a school was a place where ten or more persons are
being or are habitually taught, whether in one or more classes (Ng 1984: 110). In
draconian fashion, the Director of Education could refuse to grant registration to
any school and he could do so at his discretion; any unregistered school was
unlawful and liable to closure. The ordinances endowment of almost unlimited
power to the colonial state was unprecedented and unparalleled in Britain,
where the 1902 Education Act signaled the beginning of national control over
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 72 5/21/09 11:08:26 AM
education and allowed for a high degree of decentralization. In justifying the
Hong Kong ordinance, Director of Education E. A. Irving declared,
The public is entitled to protection as far as a government department
can give it. If mines and factories cannot be left without supervision,
neither can schools (Bishop Weldon) There is the further argument
that state expenditure on education cannot be economically controlled
unless the extent of that private educational effort is known, which
it professes to supplement. Without compulsory registration this
knowledge is unattainable. In Hong Kong, there is the further reason
that schools are liable to become cover for unlawful propaganda.
(Irving 1915: 12)
Although one reader of the local Hong Kong Daily Press described it as the
most autocratic and inquisitorial legislation (Hong Kong Daily Press June 13,
1913), the government passed the ordinance without opposition. And although
the ordinance was a clear assault on Hong Kong-based political activities
attributable to Republican revolutionaries and their leader Sun Yat-sen, Ho Kai,
a known supporter of Sun, unreservedly backed the ordinance in the Legislative
Council. Ho said,
I heartily sympathize with the desire on the part of the government to
bring all schools in the Colony under control at least, under their
supervision, so that they may know what is being taught to the younger
generation of this Colony in any or all of these schools.
(Hong Kong Hansard 1913; quoted in Ng 1984: 110)
Ho Kai was the son of Rev. Ho Fuk Tong, James Legges frst trained Chinese
missionary. He was also the strongest advocate of Lugards plan for the
University of Hong Kong. His remarks above may be the best annotation that
illustrates the type of person to which the term native gentleman referred.
A Beacon on the Threshold of the Desert
At the ceremony for the laying of the University of Hong Kongs foundation
stone, Lugard made the following statements in his speech:
Mr. Chamberlaincalled himself a Missionary of Empire and bade
us think Imperially. Let us then exercise an Imperial imagination in
regard to this University and not confne our view to the horizon of
the immediate present. We are endeavouring not only to afford the
highest educational facilities to the citizens of Hong Kong, but also to
hold out the hand of friendship and to assist China to educate her sons
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 73 5/21/09 11:08:26 AM
without exposing them to long exile and the risk of denationalisation The
justifcation of the British Empire lies in its results. So long as it stands
for impartial justice, so long as its aim is to raise and to educate the
peoples who are subjects of our King, or who are contiguous to his
boundarieshistory will record of it that it was founded on something
higher than territorial conquest or national aggrandizement It has
happened to me in past years that I have been the humble instrument
by which the confnes of the Empire were enlarged in some directions.
Those days are past. It is no longer an age of acquisition in which we live,
but an age of development And if this Colony becomesthe centre of
educational progress in South China, you will have achieved a nobler
extension of the principles which underlie the British Empire than any
which accompany territorial expansion.
(Lugard and Mody 1974: Appendix III)
Despite the presence of several delegates from the viceroys of Nanking and
Canton, and also representatives from the Chinese army, Lugard went on to
say,
Its staff must bemen like those who have carried through a similar
undertaking at Khartoum founded in memory of Gordon, where on
the very scene of the cruelties of slave-traders and the oppression and
misery of ages, a centre of British education stands like a beacon on the
threshold of the desert and trains its students to carry light and healing into
the darkest places of Africa [The] graduates of this Universitywill
be Missionaries of Empire. Notwith distorted conceptions and theories
of government antagonistic to the established order of their country, but
imbued with that genuine patriotism whose only aim is to make their
country better and greater [This] schemeshall stand as a proof
that the citizens of a British Colony are not solely engrossed in the pursuit
of wealthThat Hong Kong shall lead the way among Crown Colonies
is proving anew that the British Empire is not merely a vast trading
corporation, but has still the sacred fre of Imperial responsibility and is
content to cast its bread upon the waters, without looking to immediate
gain, assured that it will return after many days.
(Lugard and Mody 1974: Appendix III, my emphasis)
In the above sections, I demonstrate Lugards pervasive display of pride in
British imperialism; yet, what is remarkable in the statements is the almost
seamless substitution of genuine patriotism for Imperial responsibility, the
eloquent metonymic sliding between empire and missionary.
This scenario, in which the heroic fgure of British imperialism successfully
establishes the University of Hong Kong, exemplifes the way in which the
turn of the century was a watershed in the history of imperialism. Imperialism
was changing from the late-Victorian ideas of mission, obligation, and
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 74 5/21/09 11:08:26 AM
trusteeship toward ideas buttressed by the idea of a voluntary association
of free states in the form of a Commonwealth (Thornton 1959; Eldridge 1973;
Smith 1998). Amidst the pervasive moral crisis discourse, Lugards central
innovation was twofold: to create a coherent governmental philosophy that
reconciled imperial pride, English supremacy, and utilitarianism; and to make
way for the emergence of a post-imperial, yet still colonial, governance. The
discourse of the crisis of English education marked the moment when character
formation and moral regulation became a domain of government. Paradoxically,
because of such a shift, British imperialists and the Chinese nationalists found
new common ground. This achievement is particularly remarkable insofar as the
Chinese nationalists had at frst found themselves beset by cultural imperialism.
With the establishment of the new common ground, the distinction between
indirect rule the British colonizers had devised initially in the service of colonial
control and Chinese nationalism (which had originally emerged in resistance to
colonialism) became increasingly blurred. When the Republic of China was born,
the support and enthusiasm of the revolutionaries for the British imperial project
amounted to vivid evidence that the formation of collaborative colonialism was
taking a clearer, more modern shape.
With regard to the colonial authorities co-option of native leaders and to the
principle of liberal government, Lugard took a crucial step beyond James Legge,
for whom the success of the imperial mission depended on both the triumph of
British civilization and that civilizations ability to complete the moral project
of Christianizing China. The decisive break of Lugard from Legge marked the
end of the religious-moral project of imperialism and inaugurated the rise of
secularist moral governance, but did not emerge out of the putatively invincible
power of imperialism. Rather, the transformation of colonialism into a civilizing
pedagogy, in which education became an instrument of indirect colonial rule,
emerged, under Lugard, from a rampant moral crisis within the British Empire.
It was at this juncture that all conditions were ready for the further localization,
indigenization, or even nationalization, of colonial power its transplantation
into the ideology of liberal nationalism and the project of nation-state building.
ch.03(p.57-75).indd 75 5/21/09 11:08:26 AM
II
Hong Kong In-Betweens
ch.03a(p.77).indd 77 3/5/09 12:40:30 PM
4
Double Identity of the Colonial Intelligentsia:
Ho Kai
P
ostcolonial studies have dispensed much ink on the ambivalent state that
colonial rule perhaps left to the colonized people in the contact zone.
Frantz Fanons famous black skinwhite masks metaphor refects his effort
to capture the miserable split identity of the colonized: he asserts that colonial
authority is so overwhelmingly dominant that it works whenever colonized
subjects try to mimic the colonizers culture. Homi Bhabha, in contrast, argues
that mimicry undermines colonial authority as much as it does other in-between
states of hybridization or creolization in which resistance is not just possible but
always embedded, as well. In short, Fanon considers the ambiguous identity
of the colonized to be one of wretched misery, whereas Bhabha considers the
ambiguity to be a facilitator for the emergent and the new. However, many
critics have already pointed out that these claims about colonialisms universal
effects should be qualifed by closely examining the specifc contexts of the
events in question. For example, Ella Shohat (1993) suggests that we need to
discriminate between diverse modalities of hybridity, by which she means that
we should give contextualized treatments to different types of hybrid state. Arif
Dirlik pushes that criticism further by disputing against the overemphasis of
colonial discourse analysis upon the determining power of discourse without
taking the wider institutional structure into consideration; thus, he warns that
the condition of in-betweenness and hybridity cannot be understood without
reference to the ideological and institutional structures in which they are housed
(Dirlik 1994: 342).
In many ways, late-nineteenth-century Hong Kong manifested the cultural
characteristics of a colonized contact zone. Compared with the Hong Kong of
earlier eras, the Hong Kong of this era had a generation of English-educated
Chinese students, thanks to the English education system put in place by
Legge, Hennessy, Eitel, and their followers. The Western Affairs Movement
also cultivated similar breeds in other coastal cities in China; in many ways,
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 79 3/5/09 12:40:44 PM
Hong Kong In-Betweens 80
the Chinese who lived in these contact zones were caught in a colonial or
semi-colonial situation where their identity was constantly put in doubt. They
commanded English or other European languages; they were equipped with all
sorts of Western learning that granted them expert status in certain professional
felds; they had different cultural outlooks, aspirations, tastes, habits, and
moral values that might mark them out from the traditional Chinese literati.
They were the equivalents of the Indian Babus or, in the pejorative Chinese
idiom, fake foreigners (jia yang gui zi). However, although useful in some
aspects, neither Fanons nor Bhabhas notions about colonial ambivalence can
offer us enough tools with which we might understand either the colonial (or,
to be exact, the semi-colonial) situation of these coastal cities in general or the
political or cultural mindsets of the colonized natives in particular. Among
the colonized, there was, no doubt, widespread mimicry of the West; hybrid
or creolized cultural forms were also burgeoning in every quarter, yet it is still
far from adequate to invoke the associated or presumed colonizer-colonized
couplet as a way to start assessing the effects of the specifc power formation.
In this chapter, I will roughly follow Dirliks lead by delineating the ideological
and the institutional conditions of the specifc mode of cultural and political in-
betweenness that were contingent on the collaborative colonial formation that
was, itself, grounded in but not confned to Hong Kong. I will demonstrate also,
how this power formation extended across Hong Kong and China and played
its part in fashioning the new order of post-imperial China both in real terms
and in imaginary terms. Outlining competing post-imperial political visions and
programs, I will take Ho Kai, a prominent Hong Kong fgure who also occupies
a pronounced position in modern Chinese intellectual history, as an example
that illustrates a line of mercantilist-reformist politics at the eve of Republican
China. In unveiling the political and the cultural dynamics involved, the case
of Ho Kai will enable us to frmly grasp not only the interests and world-views
of the emergent Chinese comprador-merchant class but also the formation of
a collaborative-colonial intelligentsias subjectivity at this unique historical
juncture.
China studies have paid attention to the new coastal urban public that
emerged in the treaty ports and have debated what effects this public had on
the rise of modern China. Scholars have different assessments of this new social
group and identify them by different names: for example, Cohen (1976) calls
them coastal reformers, Esherick calls them the urban reformist elite (1976),
and, with particular reference to Hong Kong, Linda Pomerantz-Zhang calls them
the colonial intelligentsia (1992). Although their occupations varied, ranging
from merchants and compradors to lawyers, translators, and interpreters for
the government or for Western frms, they invariably had close relationships
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 80 3/5/09 12:40:44 PM
Double Identity of the Colonial Intelligentsia: Ho Kai 81
with the local mercantile bourgeoisie in one way or another. Chinese merchants
were the frst social group in China to experience the ferce competition of
foreign powers in trade. However, the new urban publics interests had never
found full articulation in political terms until the Qing empire felt compelled to
seek reforms after the crisis of the Taiping Rebellion (18511864). The Western
Affairs Movement gave ample opportunities for the merchants and the reform-
minded intellectuals to grow as prototypical bourgeoisie. Scholar-generals
like Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan, and Zuo Zongtang soon formed their own
mu fu (think tanks) and recruited reform-minded intellectuals and experts
to help in the launching of various yang wu (Western Affairs) programs: for
example, the development of basic industries, communication, transportation,
and a modernized military. The reform movements also had their cultural
and educational projects such as large-scale publication plans involving the
introduction to China and the translation into Chinese of diverse felds of Western
learning. The Chinese government opened special schools in the larger cities and
established arsenals, factories, and shipyards there according to Western models.
And the Chinese government or individual or community initiatives enabled
batches of students to study abroad. The reforms instilled in many Chinese the
hope that China, in its embrace of Western practical methods, would experience
a national regeneration. Redressing Chinas previous isolationism, the Qing
government also adopted Western diplomatic practices and was more receptive
than before to the Western-dominated protocols of international law.
Commercial War and Mercantilist Reformers
Amid the new tide of reforms, Hong Kongs colonial intelligentsia were at the
forefront of making their reformist views public, not just locally but indeed
to China at large. For example, Wang Tao and Wu Tingfang were among the
pioneers of modern Chinese journalism; Zheng Guangying and Ho Kai were
famous critics who aired their analyses of and proposals for reform (King
and Clarke 1965; Cohen 1974). As the growing economic clout of the Chinese
merchants mismatched their existing political status (both in colonial Hong Kong
and in China), they made a particular effort to push for institutional reforms that
would enhance the power of merchants. Whereas conservative offcials such as
Zhang Zidong still envisaged a superfcial reform program, limited to purely
technical, engineering, or military arenas, Hong Kongs colonial intelligentsia
issued bold calls for deeper institutional reforms, especially in political and
cultural arenas. These calls inevitably necessitated a vision that went beyond a
simple regenerating of traditional Qing dynastic rule.
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 81 3/5/09 12:40:44 PM
Hong Kongs colonial environment encouraged the colonial intelligentsia
there to join in Chinas reform movements for several reasons. In this regard,
scholars always point to the obvious: namely, that thanks to British rule in Hong
Kong, the colonial intelligentsia had a deeper understanding of the merits of
Western institutions of which they could take advantage. Yet, it is also true that the
colonial structures deep-seated racial discrimination strictly limited the colonial
intelligentsias political development in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Europeans
hostility to the appointment of Wu Tingfang as the frst Chinese legislative
councilor testifes to the obstacles that educated Chinese had to overcome if
they were to achieve parity within a colonial framework (Pomerantz-Zhang
1992). Yet, his career swiftly ascended after he joined Li Hongzhang in foreign
affairs. This accomplishment exemplifes how the elite standing that he attained
sometimes with bitter experience in a colony was easily comparable to the
elite standing of a Chinese offcial. For this matter, the colonial intelligentsia,
even after they joined the Qing offces, seldom harbored a deep grudge against
the whole colonial system; indeed, they usually embraced the imperialist idea
that Great Britain was the standard of civilization. Although they might have
grievances about individual issues such as racial discrimination, they never
openly questioned Britains right to rule Hong Kong.
Upholding the superiority of Western institutions and their principles,
the colonial intelligentsia strongly believed that China could not borrow
Western technologies without reforming related institutions according to a
new set of principles and concepts that (1) were equally Western and that (2)
the traditional Chinese literati could not thoroughly comprehend. What the
colonial intelligentsia envisaged, therefore, was a series of reforms modeled on
Great Britains reforms, if not Hong Kongs. However, on economic affairs, the
intelligentsia usually held mercantilist-nationalist views wherein China could
only beneft from more Sino-Western trade, which would generate profts that
could, in turn, support other China-strengthening projects. The intelligentsia
strongly felt that, to facilitate the promotion of commerce, a strong state
should support and protect Chinese merchants in this trade. For this reason,
the intelligentsias reform proposals were explicitly or implicitly founded on
the vision of a fercely fought commercial war (shangzhan). The commercial-
war vision encouraged the intelligentsia to form their own political vision. They
advocated widespread legal and judicial reforms for the new economic order
because they considered themselves among Chinas most-needed groups in the
fght against the old systems frequent abuses of power. They held the view that,
only by providing these favorable conditions to Chinese merchants could the
Chinese people, as a whole, win this commercial war. Moreover, the intelligentsia
argued that, to support these legal and judicial reforms, and to accommodate
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 82 3/5/09 12:40:45 PM
persons with Western-styled education, the Chinese government should
revamp the traditional educational system and the traditional administration-
recruitment policy, which were based on the Civil Service Examination.
Among the colonial intelligentsia, Wu Tingfang stood out as one who
possessed the best knowledge of British legal and administrative systems and
expertise in international law and diplomacy (Pomerantz-Zhang 1992; Ng 1983).
He was a barrister educated in Hong Kong and was the frst Chinese (Hong
Kong) to receive appointment to the position of legislative councilor. As such,
he drafted the frst company law for China (Shin 1976; Chung 1998); Zheng
Guanying, a comprador from Hong Kong, gained fame for popularizing the
slogan commercial warfare among reformers (Wang 1966; Hao 1969; Wu 1975;
Sigel 1976); Sigel considers Zheng to be probably the most infuential reform
writer of the early 1890s because he refected the attitudes of the developing
mercantile class in the treaty ports and it was this community that played the
most prominent role in the adoption and implementation of a more nationalistic
conception of foreign affairs (Sigel 1976: 273). Tang Tingshu and his brother
Tang Shaoyi, educated at missionary schools and with early experience serving
the Hong Kong government as clerks and translators, established (under Li) the
frst Chinese steamship, mining, and spinning companies, doing so with capital
collected through personal networks in Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong.
The two brothers realized that the healthy expansion of commercial
activities depended on a powerful states strong backing thereof. They invariably
became Chinese nationalists, clamoring for the abolition of extraterritoriality,
the reclamation of tariff autonomy, and the exclusion of foreign vessels from
domestic shipping. On top of that, they cared far more about institutional
building and exercise of statecraft that is, an effcient state cognizant of the
need to expand and protect its sovereign rights than about establishing a
coherent cultural conception, either linguistic or religious, of the Chinese nation.
The sought-for mercantilist assertion of sovereignty by the Qing government
had long-term ramifcations for Chinas relationships with its former tributaries
and autonomous kingdoms. For example, Tang Tingshu, who founded the
Kaiping Mines and Tang Shan Railway, vigorously urged the Qing government
to gain dominance over Korean affairs in the 1880s and the 1890s. His brother
Tang Shaoyi was active in advising Yuan Shikai, who headed another reform
faction within the Qing government, to establish a Chinese imperialist presence
in Korea and to transform Korea into a Chinese protectorate (Sigel 1976).
Commercial war, as a political imaginary, was a desire of both liberalism
advocates and strong-state advocates. The success of European imperialist
conquests in Hong Kong or in other treaty ports appeared to many Chinese as
a manifestation of a new world order characterized by commercial competition
83
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 83 3/5/09 12:40:45 PM
among states. Therefore, the reformists utmost concern was not the pursuit of free-
market growth but the development of a strong state. In this regard, the Western
Affairs Movement comprised pursuits of power in different areas: marketplace,
industry, technology, and politics all at once and with government power
as the prime mover. The deep involvement of governmental power in these
pursuits defed the narrow technicist vision of the Western Affairs Movement,
initially fostered by the old conservatives precisely because the whole movement
was shot through with a strong political emphasis. In other words, the reforms
were never simply about transfers of foreign technologies or the transplantation
of ideas and knowledge; as a matter of fact, the eventual economic reforms
authorized regional coastal leaders to act as patrons who would protect and
promote modern industrial and armory enterprises (Teng and Fairbank 1954;
Wright 1966; Fairbank 1978: ch. 10). To put these new economic ventures under
state control, the government instated a special arrangement, called offcial-
supervision, merchant-management (guandu shangban), which endowed some
selected regional bureaucrats with the enormous power to breed their own
networks of political patronage. Exercising their political skills, regional reformist
offcials negotiated with the central government for the charters, monopolies,
and tax concessions needed by their new industrial enterprises. The merchants
were responsible for management and used their personal networks to raise
capital, but in some situations, the offcials might also act as entrepreneurs
to raise part of the required investment fund (Wu 1975; Chan, W.K.K. 1977;
Godley 1981). Under such arrangements, which a Chinese Marxist perspective
may describe as components of burgeoning Chinese bureaucratic capitalism,
economic investment and political investment became barely differentiable.
As businesses were embedded in politics, the emerging Chinese merchants
and Chinese industrialists were equally intent on making political investment
as economic investment (Chung 1998: 15). They hoped to have more room for
development and, consequently, had to invest in certain options: for instance,
they had to pursue relaxed bureaucratic regulations or to draw bureaucrats
into the sharing of related interests and profts. These political investments in
colony-based reforms, knowledge, training, and experience were transformed
into vehicles that, together, constituted a mercantilist program by which China
could strengthen its statecraft. As one important version of contemporary
Chinese nationalism, the mercantilist imaginary was a crucial one, since it
played a signifcant role in consolidating for the dying Qing Empire a program
by which the empire might transform itself into a unifed modern state. That
mercantilist-nationalist vision very much derived from the imaginary space that
emerged when China experienced defeats at the hands of European imperialists
and when China experienced European-led colonialism in Hong Kong and in
other Chinese treaty ports.
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 84 3/5/09 12:40:45 PM
Constitutional Monarchists and Revolutionaries
The effects of the mercantilist vision still easily make themselves felt today;
however, their programs and demands were later eclipsed by or absorbed into
the subsequent Chinese nationalist programs. The advocates of the mercantilist
vision were nationalistic in economic affairs and were pioneering in their calls
for political reforms, but they had diffculties in delineating a distinct cultural
vision for modern China. These diffculties posed a stumbling block for the
comprador-merchants, who sought to lead the nationalist movement. Reform-
minded literati, such as Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, pursued a reformist
course for constitutional monarchy and did so with a cultural and religious
agenda that was much clearer than that of the mercantilists; consequently,
these literati soon became beacons for a reformed Qing state (Cameron 1931;
Fairbank and Liu 1980: ch. 7). Although they were Cantonese, the ties that
Kang and Liang had to Hong Kong or to commercial interests in treaty ports
were much weaker than those of the mercantilists; however, their eminent
accomplishments in traditional Chinese scholarship and their loyalty to the Qing
court won them privileged access to young Emperor Guangsu. Emulating the
Meiji model in Japan, they attempted to transform the emperor into a national
symbol of unity, and an integral part of the project to build a modern Chinese
nation-state. To a much greater extent than the offcials leading the Western
Affairs Movement, these constitutional monarchists were concerned about the
threat that foreign powers posed to China; also, they stressed the importance
of establishing a distinct Chinese cultural identity and thus subscribed to a
strong cultural nationalism, which was lacking in the mercantilist-nationalist
imaginary. For the above reasons, Kang and Liang, known in Chinese as the
weixin clique (constitutional monarchists), attacked the comprador-merchants
as well as the colonial intelligentsia, criticizing the limitations of the Western
Affairs Movement. To appropriate some of the conservatives cultural concerns,
and to integrate these conservatives into a unifed nationalist enlightenment
program, Kang, in particular, tried to re-interpret Confucianism and transform
it into Chinas national religion, much as the Meiji Restoration had done with
Shinto in Japan. In this way, Chinas constitutional monarchists targeted both
the conservative Qing bureaucracy and the foreign powers and, therefore, came
into confict with the colonial intelligentsia like Ho Kai, as well as with the
revolutionaries (more below).
While the Western powers were intensifying their demands that the Qing
government concede greater shares of the Chinese market to Western interests,
Chinese capital was becoming internationalized, a process that brought to China
much overseas-Chinese capital. Much of this capital came from migrants who
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 85 3/5/09 12:40:45 PM
were returning from Australia and the United States and who had gone overseas
through the coolie trade of earlier decades.
1
The reform implemented by Yuan
Shikai brought with it a new commercial law code that spurred the coalition of
overseas Chinese capital by permitting the formation of joint-stock companies
with limited liability. This new form of capital formation gradually replaced
the old state-supervision system (Cameron 1931).
2
Cantonese, particularly
the natives of the counties of Siyi (Enping, Kaiping, Xinning, and Xinhui) and
Xiangshan, accounted for a large percentage of the returned migrants in the
Southern provinces and Hong Kong. They quickly grew into a sizeable group,
and, united among themselves by strong ethnic ties, engaged actively in both
business and politics (Hong 1982). While these wealthy businessmen established
ties with both the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, a number of small
merchants, laborers, and intellectuals took a more radical political stance against
both the Qing state and the aggression of the foreign powers. They organized
successive campaigns to boycott American (190506) and Japanese (1908)
goods; such political activism among the Siyi minority in Hong Kong and in
China gradually brewed a radical nationalist cause and inspired revolutionary
leaders like Sun Yat-sen. Sun was a medical student who hailed from Xiangshan
County in Guangdong and who had studied in Hong Kong (Cantlie and Jones
1912; Feng 1947, 1969; Ng 1985, 1986). As he admitted later in his life, it was his
experience of living in Hong Kong that inspired him to lead a revolution (China
Mail February 20, 1923). In a sense, Hong Kong was not only an organizational
base of revolutionary activities but also the breeding ground of the ideas that
led to the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution (e.g. Lo 1961; Chan, Mary M. Y. 1963;
Chan, Lau K. C. 1990; Fok 1990; Tsai 1993; Ng 1985).
The mass mobilization that preceded the Republican Revolution was an
unmistakable expression of Chinas political nationalism and was echoed by the
economic nationalism that characterized these newly established consortiums
of overseas Chinese capital. The consortiums could beneft from the rising
nationalism, which stressed the slogan of rights recovery and which advocated
a boycott of foreign goods. Thus, it was in this politically charged context that
the consortiums could rapidly get into the business of steamships and railways
and could, at the same time, aggressively pursue banking and other forms of
fnancial business (Chung 1998). Their political activism and formidable power
even made the Hong Kong colonial government feel threatened: Governor Henry
May once called them The Young China Party (Tsai 2001: 87).
3
Suns Republican
Revolution would not have been possible had Hong Kong not supported this
so-called Young China Party, which was comparable to the Young Turks, active
in the Near Easts similarly dying Ottoman Empire. Backing Suns increasingly
mature political vision of a post-imperial republican order, the Siyi faction was to
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 86 3/5/09 12:40:45 PM
become the backbone of the southern Republican government after 1911, when
Qing imperial rule over China fnally came to an end (Tsai 1993, 2001; Chung
1998). The Republican Revolution that brought an end to the Qing dynasty was
more like a coup dtat at any rate, it was nothing like the mass revolutions
of 1789 in France or 1917 in Russia. With the decisive pressure coming from
General Yuan Shikai, Emperor Xuantong abdicated in 1912, and Sun became the
provisional president of the Republic of China. He was sanctifed as the Father
of the Country (guo fu), but the factional struggles among warlords denied Sun
much real political power for the decade that preceded his leadership, in 1926,
of the Civil War for unifcation (Hsu 1975: 552).
Although leading a revolution, Sun had not made his radicalism
incompatible with the mercantilist-nationalism that he had frst learnt from Hong
Kong. On the contrary, by following a line that took parliamentary democracy
and economic liberalism as its policy core, Sun gained his supports mainly from
wealthy overseas Chinese. It was for this linkage that the Leftist-Marxists who
emerged much later in China reckoned that Suns revolution had been an old
democratic bourgeoisie revolution, with neither mass participation nor any
agenda of social revolution.
The Father of the Country and His Patron in Hong Kong
One important fgure of the colonial intelligentsia who overlapped with Hong
Kongs Chinese merchants and with whom Sun associated was his teacher at the
Hong Kong College of Medicine, Ho Kai, who had once become a patron of Sun
and who lent support to his revolution. But in his own life, Ho Kai was never an
overtly radical person. As shown in previous chapters, Ho Kai was perhaps one
of the most central personages in the colonial regime on the eve of the Republican
Revolution. He was the son of Ho Fuk Tong, the frst ordained Chinese pastor of
the London Missionary Society led by James Legge. Besides being a pastor, Rev.
Ho Fuk Tong was also a successful land speculator (Smith 1985: 130; Chan, W.K.
1991: 75, n. 3); his son Ho Kai served as the only Chinese Legislative councilor,
from 18901914. I am going to devote the rest of this chapter to this central fgure
of Hong Kong to examine how the colonial intelligentsia thought and acted at
this important historical juncture.
Although Ho Kai was both a prominent Chinese leader in Hong Kong
with the former Kai-Tak International Airport named after him (and after
another businessman, Au Tak) and a vocal China critic, historians usually treat
his colonial-establishment affairs in isolation from his close connections with the
leaders of the Republican Revolution.
4
Works by Hong Kong scholars such as
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 87 3/5/09 12:40:45 PM
Choa (1981), Chiu (1968), and Lo (1961) often stress rather narrow biographical
interests; Mainland Chinese Marxist historians such as Ren (1958), Hu (1964),
and Xiong (1986) adhere to a rigid historicist interpretative framework, into
which they force Ho Kai to ft. Within this framework, Ho Kai is read purely
as a reformist thinker who made marginal, though timely, input into the late-
Qing reform movement, and he is measured according to his contributions to
Chinas early absorption of progressive Western bourgeois political ideas. These
works barely acknowledge Ho Kais involvement in the British colonial system;
and they neglect Ho Kais colonial involvement in association with Sun Yat-sen
a fgure whom contemporary offcial Marxist historiography commend, with
cautious reverence, as the harbinger of revolution.
As early as 1887, Ho Kai, in association with his close ally Hu Liyuan,
started to convey their political vision through polemical essays criticizing the
Qing ambassador to Great Britain and Russia, Zeng Jize (Ho and Hu 1887).
Ho Kai came up with more detailed reform plans in his later works that were
published during and after the frst Sino-Japanese War (18941895) and that
include Discourse on the New Government (1894), Foundation of the New Government
(1897), and Administration of the New Government (1897). As China reverberated
from its humiliating defeat by the Japanese navy, Ho articulated pungent
criticisms that condemned conservative thought and scornfully derided the anti-
foreignism exhibited by Chinese offcials after the military defeat. Originally,
Ho Kai wrote all these English-language essays either as letters to the editor
of the leading English Hong Kong newspaper, the China Mail, or as personal
correspondence to Hu Liyuan, his old classmate at Central School. In them, Ho
Kai clarifed his position as a member of the colonial intelligentsia and offered
a comprehensive overview of his political thought (Ho 1887; Ho and Hu 1895,
1898a, b, 1899). Against the tide of Chinese nationalistic outrage over the Wests
imperialist invasion of China, Ho Kai acclaimed the foreigners for the benefts
they brought to China. To supplement his condemnation of the corrupt and
ineffcient Qing government and of the governments inhumane and lawless
treatment of suspected criminals, he prescribed a detailed plan for reform of
the Qing government. The plan touched on almost all policy areas ranging
from recruitment of offcials, administration of the army, and civil servants
salaries to fscal policy of the tariff system and the establishment of suffciently
autonomous local councils. In spite of the xenophobic fervor rising all over the
country, he ridiculed the groundless arrogance revealed in Chinas attempts to
assert its imperial rights in outlying territories such as Manchuria, Mongolia,
and Eastern Turkistan. He wrote that the Qing government had only themselves
to blame, since they had exhibited no ability needed for rule over these far-fung
territories, whereas the British government could effectively control overseas
territories such as Canada, Australia, and India (Ho 1887).
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 88 3/5/09 12:40:46 PM
Intended initially for English readers of the China Mail in Hong Kong, Ho
Kais acrimonious attack on the Chinese bureaucracy won the laudation of the
editor; Ho Kais articles were soon translated into Chinese, were published in
the Hua zi ri bao (Chinese version of the China Mail), and circulated widely in
China; they were also republished in Shanghai (Ho and Hu 1887). Hu Liyuan,
Hos translator, did a better-than-required job by supplementing the essays with
beautiful Chinese Mandarin phrases and by making extensive elaborations and
embellishments that rid the essays of their tone of colonial conceit.
5
As historical
documents, Hus translations might exemplify translingual (mis)reading (Liu,
L.H. 1995) for they wonderfully conceal the traces of coloniality and paint a
very patriotic picture of Ho Kai. As far as Chinese publications on Ho Kai are
concerned, these translated essays in Chinese usually and almost seamlessly
place Ho into a category of modern Chinese thinkers and accord him a legacy
wherein he heroically pioneered pro-China reformist political concepts (e.g. Ren
1958; Hu, B. 1964; Xiong 1986).
History and the Enlightenment of the Nation
Apart from the interesting translation problem between languages, the reason
that explains why the complexity of Ho Kais collaborator role does not emerge in
many Chinese publications has a strong connection to the intricate relationships
between nation, modernity, and history. Addressing such an issue in Rescuing
History from the Nation, Duara (1995) argues that national history secures for the
contested and contingent nation the false unity of a self-same, national subject
evolving through time (1995: 4).
6
He also explains that national history, as a
reifed history derived from the Enlightenments model of linear, teleological
history, will inevitably exclude other modes of fguring the past because this
national history
allows the nation-state to see itself as a unique form of community
which fnds its place in the oppositions between tradition and
modernity, hierarchy and equality, empire and nation. Within this
schema, the nation appears as the newly realized, sovereign subject
of History embodying a moral and political force that has overcome
dynasties, aristocracies, and ruling priests and mandarins, who are
seen to represent merely themselves historically. In contrast to them,
the nation is a collective historical subject poised to realize its destiny
in a modern future.
(Duara 1995: 4)
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 89 3/5/09 12:40:46 PM
Duara argues that this uncritical adoption of the Enlightenment mode of historical
writing has underlain the constitution of a continuous Chinese national subject.
This phenomenon is most strongly evident in relation to the early twentieth
century, when social Darwinism took root among the Chinese intelligentsia, who
argued that biological evolutionism, extended beyond biology, was showing
the way for the Chinese nation to struggle out or up from its dependent position
in the global capitalist system (Duara 1995: 48).
7
I am not going to dwell on the larger issue of how this modern project
of writing Chinese national history reconstructed Chinese historiographical
traditions (see e.g. Dirlik 1996; Schneider, A. 1996; Weigelin-Schwiedrzik
1996b, 1996a; Fitzgerald 1997; Lie 1997).
8
Yet Ho Kais appearance in Chinese
historical-writings remains an interesting case for my purpose: to show how
the dominance of the Enlightenment mode of history-writing the theme of
national awakening has obscured the coloniality of modern China.
As Fitzgerald elegantly describes it, awakening China is not a simple
historical narrative, but one linked to the emergence of a political technique
to awaken Chinese people through various cultural apparatuses (Fitzgerald
1996). The genre of modern Chinese intellectual history operates as a kind of
pedagogical and cultural instrument that facilitates the placement of modern
Chinese thinkers into neat categories according to their attitudes or contributions
to the project of awakening China. This type of historical writing is highly
politically sensitive and is usually entangled with overtly partisan evaluations of,
refections on, and criticisms of current political situations. However, although
divergences along various political lines are obvious, the historiographers are
quite united in mapping intellectuals and politicians onto a spectrum ranging
from the conservative through the reformist to the revolutionary. Thus, they
portray the history of modern China as a series of stages in which the awakening
process takes various forms and in which the vicissitudes only further correct
the method (or political line) that awakens the Chinese to their nationhood. A
prototypical case of such a portrayal of awakening is Chen Duxius narrative of
our last awakening, which identifes the tortuous path that modern China was
taking as a linear progression from academic awakening through political
awakening to ethical awakening (Chen 1922: 49).
The linear narrative of China-on-its-way-to-awakening promises to
measure the degree of Chinas awakened national consciousness. However,
historiographers often neglect the fact that this trope of awakening originated
with the missionaries those accomplices of Western imperialists (see e.g.
Martin 1907). Within this scheme, yang wu (the Western Affairs Movement),
weixin (the constitutional monarchist reforms), and geming (revolution) function
not in a mere chronology but as different moments of a historical logic a
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 90 3/5/09 12:40:46 PM
logic that was unfolding over the past century. With their due historical roles
to play, the measure of each moment derives from what came next: the writers
normally criticize the Western Affairs advocates for their inability to look
beyond the limitations of technological-economic reforms; and they criticize
also the Constitutional Monarchists for their navet in placing their hopes on
an irredeemably rotten dynasty; however, they argue that the latter because
it pushed the awakening process one step further was better than the former.
Although different writers might assess each fgure differently, this basic May
Fourth evaluative frame remains essentially the same and underpins both
Marxist historiographies and non-Marxist historiographies.
The Making of a Reformist Patriot
It is within this common evaluative frame that Xiao Gongquan, a non-Marxist
historian, states, Although Ho Kai was deeply infuenced by Western culture,
he held deep patriotic feeling for his homeland and tried to apply what he had
learned to save China from her crisis. Therefore, he wrote to continuously clamor
for reforms (Xiao 1954: 816). Echoes of this tone surface in Ren Jiyu, a Marxist
historian, who credits Ho Kai for the contribution he made by attacking the
Qing regime. He states,
Same as other reformists, Ho Kai and Hu Liyuan were not thinking
of taking over the government but were hoping that the rulers would
open up the government to satisfy the demands of the people. They
were one step ahead of other reformists by bringing up the concept of
peoples rights or democracy which was not even mentioned by the
others They had defnite anti-imperialist sentiments, but they were afraid
of imperialism: hence they adopted a compromising attitude towards
imperialism. They were against feudalism, but because of the weakness
of their class, they were unable to develop radical thoughts against
feudalism.
(Ren 1958; quoted in Choa 2000: 244, my emphasis)
Within the awakening discourse, the key theme is the enlightenment of
the Chinese mind to ways of superseding the feudalism to which the Qing
regime still clung. In this reckoning, Ho and Hus efforts to bring the idea of
peoples rights to the Chinese have constituted the two mens single greatest
contribution. Yet, in glossing over Hos service to the colonial regime in Hong
Kong, Ren has to speculate about Hos psychological state in order to arrive
at the conclusion that Ho was afraid of imperialism and that he held anti-
imperialist sentiments. In other words, Ho Kais ideas are taken out of context
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 91 3/5/09 12:40:46 PM
in order to weave them into a seamless nationalist narrative that charts the
path on which the awakeners trod. All the awakeners appear in an orderly
line, from which they enlighten the Chinese and thus carry China through its
darkest dynastic period into a daylight lit by revolution. Rens Marxist position
might explain his treatment of Ho Kai: Ren fts Ho into a linear developmental
narrative in order to justify the inevitability of communist revolution as the last
crucial awakening. But non-Marxist scholars who have detailed the events of Ho
Kais life and his infuential published works are still not quite ready to accept
Ho Kai in his own right. For example, in one essay, Tsai Jungfang takes Ho Kai
to be mainly a fgure who achieved a syncretic fusion of Chinese and Western
ideas and values (Tsai 1978). In another essay, he calls Ho Kai and Hu Liyuan
comprador ideologists in the title of his article, yet names them comprador
patriots in the text (Tsai 1975). Unlike Rens work, Tsais careful writings
squarely face Ho Kais deep involvement in British colonialism, but still praise
Ho and Hu as nationalists. To reconcile the conficts between Hos words and
deeds, Tsai appeals for a redefnition of terms and argues that patriotism and
compradorism are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Tsai 1981: 196). He also
makes the following argument:
There are different types of compradors, just as there are different types
of nationalists. There are different degrees of compradorism, just as
there are different degrees of patriotism. A person may have a certain
degree of comprador tendency, and others may have more, depending
on the degree and nature of ones connections with imperialism.
Furthermore, a person can be a comprador on one occasion, and a
patriot on another. Indeed, a person can be paradoxically a comprador
patriot he may collaborate with the imperialists at the sacrifce
of some sovereign rights in the hope of eventually building a strong
nation to resist imperialist aggression.
(Tsai 1981: 195)
Tsai stretches the meanings of nationalism or of patriotism to the point where
they become almost interchangeable with subservience to imperialism. In this
way, Tsai risks completely overhauling the commonsense meaning of the phrase
Chinese patriot: namely, one who upholds Chinas sovereign rights against
any imperialist infringement. However, my point here is not to dispute whether
a patriotic act can or cannot be disguised under some tactical calculations
commonly found in crisis situations. Rather, what one may fnd striking is the ease
with which a fgure like Ho Kai, who Tsai himself admits frequently contradicts
himself, undergoes a recuperative identifcation as a nationalist, even though
the identifcation might dilute the conceptual meaning of the term nationalist.
Even more interesting is Tsais effort to save Ho Kais patriotism, an effort that
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 92 3/5/09 12:40:46 PM
leads Tsai to neutralize the meaning of compradorism. He states that the
term comprador may be used in a descriptive and not necessarily derogatory
sense, and emphasis may be placed on the objective roots ofcompradorism
(Tsai 1981: 195).
9

I am not disputing the invaluable contributions that Tsai has made by
articulating the ambiguities that indeed mark Hos deeds. My contention is
only that Tsai might have missed the opportunity to draw from Hos case a
paradigmatic crisis of modern nationalist historiography. Unfortunately, Tsai
reacts to the disputable Hos deeds by redefning the associated terms and thus
restoring the problematic conventional conceptual scheme. An oxymoron may
sometimes justifably be a kind of Weberian ideal type; yet, I think that scholars
should not treat colonial ambivalence as a license for conceptual haziness. The
only textual evidence to which Tsai points in justifying his characterization of
Ho as a nationalist seems to be the following statement:
I am not without my nation [sic] pride, and I revere the land of my fathers;
but I cannot conscientiously go to the length of stating that the
French restored our invaded territory, when they had got everything
they desired at Tonquin and the Province itself, which had for many
generations been a vassal state of China I must honestly state that
although I am apt to be proud with a just pride, I must confess that,
had the French not been so half-hearted, and cared to send a few more
ships and several extra regiments of picked soldiers, I should have been
anxiously concerned for the whole of the Chinese empire.
(Tsai 1981: 205, my emphasis)
Yet, Ho in Tsais next quote appears to have identifed Chinese as them rather
than us. He states,
Let those Chinese who have a mind to raise themselves and their
nation along with them frst fnd out the true cause of their countrys
degradation and then apply the proper remedy. Do not rely too much
upon the reorganization of your army, nor the increases of your navy,
nor upon your new forts and guns.
(Ho 1887: 3, my emphasis)
This article was published in China Mail, which, as the mouthpiece of the foreign
community, usually conveyed the opinions of the Hong Kong Europeans. This
critical prose, exceptionally long for such a text as written by a Chinese, targeted
the foreign-policy statement delivered by Zeng Jize, the Chinese consulate to
Britain and Russia. In the article, Ho rebutted Zengs intention to re-affrm Chinas
imperial rights in the remaining tributaries and quite disparagingly exhorted
China to set your own house in order frst. In a Chinese version published
later, he even wrote that the the changes which may have to be made when
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 93 3/5/09 12:40:46 PM
China comes to set her house in order can only proftably be discussed when she
feels she has been thoroughly overhauled (Ho and Hu 1887; my emphasis).
Tsai is defnitely not the only scholar to fnd it diffcult to make sense of
the contradictory statements; other historiographers have also been tempted
to resort to speculation about Hos state of mind. However, what they tend to
exclude is this possibility: the fssure that they try to gloss over derives indeed
from their oft-used interpretative scheme, which operates on the assumption
that it was Hos inborn Chinese identity that governed his mind. In other words,
Hos contradictions may refect the historiographical nationalism of which the
historians writings are a part. The fssure invites an alternative reading that
breaks away from the nationalist paradigm. In this regard, Foucault states,
Contradictions are neither appearances to be overcome, nor secret principles to
be uncovered. They are objects to be described for themselves (Foucault 1972:
151). Rather than explain (or explain away) the contradiction, it might be more
proftable to describe the discursive conditions of its possibility. In our case, it is
the nationalist making of a comprador patriot that needs to be undone.
10
Value of a Queue: The Usefulness of Chinese Identity
While assertions of Ho Kais patriotic heart abound in all these studies, we can
hardly ever fnd hard proof that he was ever baffed by any sense of ambiguity
about his identity. He consistently called himself a British Chinese subject, or a
British subject of Chinese parentage. When Lord Beresford was touring the
major Chinese cities and Hong Kong on behalf of Britains Associated Chambers
of Commerce in 1899, Hong Kong Chinese leaders attended a related meeting.
Eight of the attendees, including Ho Kai, wrote a letter to Lord Beresford,
stating,
We think that there is a mighty force available for the British
Government, a force which has been hitherto lying dormant and
undeveloped either willingly neglected or perhaps never dreamt of.
That force is the unchallenged commercial acumen of the Chinese. By
a proper system of organization and greater encouragement to British
subjects of Chinese parentage, they can be made an arm of strength to
Great Britain commercially, and that proud position that she has held
in China can yet be maintained despite the rivalry and underhand
schemes of her enemies. We humbly suggest that Britains Chinese
subjects be sent to the interior to occupy every possible source of trade and
to act as commercial scouts or living channels of communication to the
different Chambers of Commerce. Well organized and instructed to
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 94 3/5/09 12:40:47 PM
make inquiries within their tradal spheres or to penetrate further, if need
be, into the interior or any special region, these intelligent merchants
may perform wonders and help to maintain the commercial supremacy
of Great Britain.
(Beresford 1899: 231)
What made Ho Kai and his fellow Chinese leaders so confdent of the
commercial-scout role that the British Chinese subject could play was the
Chinese merchants meticulous understanding of market needs and supplies.
They reassured Beresford that they could be the middlemen who could visit
places where Europeans would only arouse suspicion; they [could] extract
information where foreigners would only close the natives mouths (Beresford
1899: 232). However, they maintained strongly that they, as middlemen, had to
remain Chinese if not in other aspects, at least in outlook because where
Chinese of the interior would willingly interchange views with British subjects
of Chinese parentage and Chinese dress, foreigners would have to be content
with vague and evasive answers given grudgingly and with circumspection
(Beresford 1899: 232).
Possessing the privilege of shuttling between different identities, Ho, the
collaborator par excellence, was extremely aware of the use-value of each one of
them. As a matter of fact, the frst complaint that the eight signatories made to
Lord Beresford concerned a loss of Chinese-cultural appearance. The perceived
loss stemmed from the British policy wherein the British granted protection to
their Chinese subjects in the interior of China only if they followed the rule
of distinctive appearance: for example, cutting off their queues and changing
their long-accustomed mode of dress. The signatories, presumably the most
prominent Hong Kong Chinese merchants, forcefully argued that the wider
Chinese communities whose members usually wore queues should consider
the advantages of remaining culturally Chinese. However, equally forceful was
the signatories plea that the British protect from corrupt and vengeful Chinese
Mandarins those Chinese subjects whose courage to participate in public life
hinged on whether their British status could effectively maintain itself.
In short, what Ho Kai and the British Chinese subjects wanted was nothing
less than a double-identity: culturally Chinese and politically British. This was
not a matter of a split consciousness, which colonialist psychology would depict
as arousing guilt and internal dissension (e.g. Memmi 1967; Mannoni 1990), but
the license to shuttle between two worlds. In arguing that this license of double-
identity was necessary, the signatories relied on the premise that the British
Empire needed to expand its commerce and that the empires Chinese subjects
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 95 3/5/09 12:40:47 PM
were instrumental precisely in satisfying this need to penetrate further into
the Chinese interior. In other words, the bicultural confguration could work
well only under the conditions of colonialism. Ho Kai put this impeccable union
of British Chinese subjects and the British Empire as follows:
with the support and goodwill of these British subjects of Chinese
parentage, with the removal of the likin [transportation tax] barrier
and other obnoxious Customs regulations, British goods, assisted by
superior carrying powers, can supply the Chinese market, and there
would be such a ramifcation of British commercial interests in the whole
Chinese Empire that China, in its entirety, would become a complete sphere of
British infuence, which as Great Britain is a nation of free traders, may
be considered as synonymous with the Open Door.
(Quoted in Beresford 1899: 232, my emphasis)
Lord Beresfords account of his visit to China summed up Chinas situation just
before the Eight Allied Forces invaded China to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, in
which rebelling Chinese had killed numerous missionaries and had destroyed
many foreign interests (see Esherick 1987). The Allied Forces drove the Qing
emperor out of Peking, and the invading European forces burned down the
Summer Palace of the Empress Dowager; at that time, the European powers
dissolution of Chinas governmental structure was a matter of political
determination, rather than of ability. As a sign of the times, Beresford entitled
his published report of his journey to China The Break-up of China (Beresford
1899). Ho Kai did not resort to any explicitly patriotic grounds in defending his
advocacy of the Open Door option, which was also favored by the British. Rather,
Ho fgured that the alternative solution the partition of China would bring
about only a scramble for each and every sphere of infuence among the European
powers. Ho Kai and the Hong Kong Chinese elite assured Lord Beresford that
the British empire would beneft most by choosing this Open Door option, since
the empire had the trust of the Chinese, who would offer their assistance to the
British but not to other powers. The Open Door option would in effect make the
whole of China a sphere of British infuence.
After the turmoil of the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing Empire remained at the
mercy of the eight invading powers. It would probably be a speculation, if not an
assertion, to say that the British exhibited restraint because of Ho Kais advice.
But his highly intriguing patriotic call, in itself, reveals how one of the most
important Hong Kong Chinese perceived and deliberated the integrity of the
Chinese nation during the most acute crisis in Chinas contemporary history.
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 96 3/5/09 12:40:47 PM
Colonialism for the Enthusiastic Collaborators
Ho Kais advocacy of a liberal monarchical system in his 1898 series of essays
has led almost all historians of the feld to classify him as a moderate reformer.
However, this classifcation does not mean that Ho Kai neither entertained nor
even promoted the prospect of radical change in China. What he insisted on
rather, was a British takeover of the Qings imperial administrative authority.
Indeed, well before he wrote his essays calling for reforms, Ho Kai helped
organize the frst meeting of the revolutionary Xing Zhong Hui (Society for the
Revival of China), of which Sun Yat-sen, his student, was an active member
(Tse 1924; Schiffrin 1968; Rhoads 1975; Choa 1981; Tsai 1993). When the Boxer
Rebellion broke out in 1900, Ho Kai, together with other revolutionaries, plotted
to persuade Li Hongzhang, the governor-general of the southern provinces of
Guangdong and Guangxi, to proclaim the independence of southern China. Ho
Kais role was to win the consent and support of Hong Kong Governor Henry
Blake (18981903). A proclamation entitled Regulations for Peaceful Rule was
drafted to address to foreign countries. The document detailed a plan to take
over the governing authority of southern China: it includes proposals for the
establishment of a parliament, for the restructuring of Chinese governing bodies
at all levels under the tutelage of all the foreign powers, for the opening up of
China to all the commercial interests of foreign countries, and the establishment
of a school system and a judiciary based on Western models. With Lis hesitation
and Londons lukewarm attitude, the plan was not carried out (Schiffrin 1968:
ch. 7).
The drafting of this proclamation happened only one year after Ho Kai
had openly argued against the partition of China in his letter to Lord Beresford.
Shifting from the defense of a united China to the instigation of provincial
independence, Ho Kai left unchanged his insistence that China be subsumed
under the guidance of the British Empire. What some scholars may interpret
as a patriotic act that was meant to prevent Chinas collapse was, according to
Ho Kai himself, the best outcome of Lugards indirect rule: the collaborators,
with the help of their masters, would run China better than the Western powers
by themselves. Ho Kai summed up his view in an open letter to John Bull,
published in the China Mail just a month after the attempted proclamation of
southern Chinas independence had failed:
You must capture not only Peking, but also the lawless band of mandarins
and their confederates the leading Boxerstake it that you are well agreed
upon the principles so fearlessly propounded by your Under-Secretary
for Foreign Affairs that China shall be for the Chinese, and there will
be no partition of the Middle Kingdom by the Foreign Powers. The
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 97 3/5/09 12:40:47 PM
Indianising of China you will not have, but then you must not go to the
other extreme to leave China severely alone and permit her to get along as
before.
(Ho 1900; quoted in Choa 2000: 229, my emphasis)

Apart from the passionate call in the above statement, todays readers might
also be surprised to fnd in this amazingly well-argued open letter how eloquent
Ho Kai was in dispelling, one by one, the myths that might have misled the
British to act less vigorously, frmly and fearlessly. Those myths included
the allegations that it was the indiscretions of foreign missionaries that had
stirred up the Celestials and had caused the Boxers massacres; that the Boxers
violence was excited by a deep cultural difference between Christianity and
ancient Chinese beliefs; that the Chinese on the basis of Chinese customs of
propriety were irritated by the mixing of the sexes in the missionaries places
of worship. The list of myths went on. In his point-by-point rebuttal, Ho Kai was
at pains to reveal how distorted these Western conceptions of the Chinese were.
The nationalists would read the open letter as evidence of Ho Kais patriotic
defense of traditional, authentic images of China. However, his presentation of
these positive images of China was followed by an invitation to foreigners
asking them to complete their civilizing mission.
Ho Kai was quick to rebut what the Europeans thought about the Boxers
and the violence. He maintained that such biases that we may today call
Orientalist concealed the real causes of the Boxer violence. From then on,
he blamed the corrupt Chinese Mandarins and the conservative literati of being
fearful of the principles of good government, the necessity for reform, the rights
of personal liberty and [the right to resist] unjust demands and impositions.
Ho Kai commended both the content and the sincerity of the missionaries
evangelistic teachings, for without them, the Chinese would not know the
values of these principles. Unfortunately, these principles posed real threats to
the offcials who preyed upon the ignorance and superstition of the people. In
Ho Kais eyes, the Boxers were no more than uncivilized and excited masses
manipulated by offcials and ultra-conservatives like the Empress Dowager and
her allies.
11
Appealing to the white mans burden, Ho Kai strongly urged the
British to come forward and help reform the Chinese government by taking
over its administrative power. He put the matter forcefully to John Bull the
Englishman:
Does it not seem rather selfsh of you to merely make your fortune in
China without doing something to ameliorate the miserable conditions
of its inhabitants? Do not your religion and civilization demand more of
you?
(Ho 1900: 3, my emphasis )
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 98 3/5/09 12:40:47 PM
Ho Kai asked Britain and the United States for deliverance from the yoke of an
oppressive and corrupt government (Ho 1900). His wish was so intense that
he would have been totally disappointed if the Allied Forces sought mere peace
with China. Ho Kai states,
It will not do after having vindicated your honour to make a hollow
peace with the Chinese Government, exact an indemnity, sign a new
treaty, have some more ports opened to trade, get more concessions,
and then let the Manchus Government do as they like thereafter.
(Ho 1900: 3)
Ho Kai urged the British not to be fooled by inexperienced persons or by
interested parties into believing that China needed a strong central Chinese
government, backed up by a large and disciplined army maintaining order
throughout the territories. As he said, it was foolish as well as dangerous at
all times to teach naughty children the use of fre arms or to put into their hands
dangerous weapons and implements (Ho 1900: 3, my emphasis). Here, Ho
Kai was blatant in mobilizing the colonial trope of the adult-child distinction
to conceive the relation between Britain and China. Such a prevalent colonial
trope assumes that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny that the development
of individuals mirrored the development of the wider species or community. He
was not only putting himself totally into the colonizers world of racist fantasy
but also into what Mangan calls the schoolmaster syndrome (Mangan 1985:
112): Ho Kai thought that the Chinese might need a good dose of British public
school-style discipline.
At the other extreme was the argument wherein post-reform China
would become so strong that it would threaten the world. Ho Kai rejected this
argument by defending the peace-loving nature of the Chinese people in a
manner reminiscent of Nandys (1983) distinction between childlike (loveable
innocence, susceptible to education that will facilitate maturity) and childish
(uncultured brute requiring control and authoritarian rule). To relieve the
foreign powers from the Yellow-Peril fear (of a future childish rebellion), Ho Kai
explained how China was indeed just childlike. Yet, it is most interesting that Ho
Kai also tried to convince the British that the intervention of foreign powers in
China was unnecessary. He says,
Chinese of different provinces have their several distinctive
characteristics, and in the distant future they are more likely to separate
into distinct states than to unite into an immense nation.
(Ho 1900; quoted in Choa 2000: 230)
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 99 3/5/09 12:40:47 PM
Though, in Hos eyes, China would fall apart anyhow, the task of helping to
reform China was a worthy but tremendous pursuit. To lessen the British fear of
the white mans weighty burden, Ho soothingly reminded them that many of
her intelligent and gifted sons are most enthusiastic over it (my emphasis) (Ho 1900;
quoted in Choa 2000: 230). As I stated in the previous section, Ho facilitated
his prediction that China would collapse by plotting, with the revolutionaries
help and with Governor Henry Blakes consent, the independence of southern
China.
The above quotes, missing from most studies on Ho Kai, make it quite clear
that there is a great difference between Ho Kais ideas of nation, patriotism,
and imperialism and the way modern Chinese nationalist historians normally
conceive of these terms.
12
To say that contradictions riddle Ho Kais thought
is to overlook another possibility of conceiving colonial history in the
twentieth century and how this colonial history produced a different type of
colonial mentality. One might call this new type a colonialism of enthusiastic
collaborators. Ho Kai was not just a victim of British imperialism, one whose
gross psychic contradictions manifested themselves in a double-identity. On the
contrary, as the son of the frst converted Protestant Chinese minister, Ho Kai
was perhaps the paragon of what Lugard called the native gentleman (see
Chapter 3). Fully, if not overly, identifying with British imperialist ideals, he did
more than merely represent the gap between the British civilizing mission in
China and the British commercial mission there. His startling interrogation of his
colonial master Do not your religion and civilization demand more of you?
was certainly more than what Homi Bhabha describes as a moment when Ho
returns the colonizers gaze (Bhabha 1984, 1994b). The question was a protest, an
enactment and a re-enactment of colonial authority; but what is most important,
the question was also a strategic redirection of the process of domination rather
than, as Bhabha would have it, a strategic reversal of the power-bearing gaze.
Collaborative colonialism was not a simple binary structure of the colonizer and the
colonized.
13
The colonial psychology of the collaborator was defnitely neither
a case of passive ambivalence nor a discursive form of unconscious, subjectless
subversion; underlying the psychology were conditions in which the formation
of the collaborators subjectivity augmented the colonizers values.
Colonial Subjectivity of the Collaborator
Bhabhas type of postcolonial analysis stresses on analyzing the retroactive
effects of the authorless reiteration of colonial discourse but he, obviously,
glosses over the subjectivity of the collaborator. In his essay The Postcolonial
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 100 3/5/09 12:40:48 PM
and the Postmodern, Bhabha rightly asserts that cultural and political identity
is constructed through a process of alterity (1994a: 175). On the basis of this
assertion, he adopts the postcolonial prerogative of supplementarity in order to
affrm and extend a new collaborative dimension, both within the margins of the
nation-space and across boundaries between nations and peoples (1994a: 175).
However, he cuts short the cultural logic of the process of alterity by prematurely
asserting that there is a certain defeat, or even an impossibility, of the West in
its authorization of the idea of colonization (Bhabha 1994b: 175; my emphasis).
From the case of Ho Kai, we learn that the collaborators reiteration of a colonial
discourse would, rather than defeat the West as the authority of coloniality, give
rise to the collaborators different uses of the colonial discourse.
Bhabha argues that collaboration is only a text-based phenomenon; that the
agent of collaboration appears only retroactively. In this sense, Bhabha misses
the real collaborator, whose subjectivity develops through processes of conscious
intervention. The collaborator usurps and yet augments the authority of the West
by invoking colonial discourses to posit the collaborators (compatriot) other.
With regard to Hong Kongs ambiguous colonial heritage, one may be inspired
by Bhabha to pursue the third term between the colonizer and the colonized
to characterize Hong Kongs culture. But if the case of collaborative colonialism of
Hong Kong is foregrounded, such a third term should no longer be treated
as an innocent arena exempted from the real process of alterity. The ways the
third term or the third arena operate in the constitution of the subjectivity of
collaborator in Hong Kong still premise on excluding, subsuming or containing
its other. The China that cannot be left alone or the naughty children playing
with fre arms is Ho Kais other. The politics of supplementarity for the
collaborator as a subject means that it is not so much a case of the natives
reply to the master, with the effect of displacing or destabilizing his authority,
as one in which the colonizers authority is redirected toward the other and,
thereby, strengthens, rather than weakens, the colonial power.
In other words, even though colonial discourses are the culture-power
conditions that subject the colonized into voiceless submission, these discourses
do not deprive collaborators of agency. In concrete terms, the colonial setting for
Hong Kongs colonial intelligentsia did not easily trap them in an ambivalent
situation where they agonized about their cultural identity. The truth is that this
colonial setting enabled the colonial intelligentsia to place themselves between
two competing imperial systems and to maneuver.
14
From this perspective, we
may understand that the Britons pampering of the intelligentsia in the last two
decades of the nineteenth century was as much a consequence of a strategic
shift in British colonial governance as it was a consequence of the intelligentsias
willful deployment of their own cultural capital within either or both of the two
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 101 3/5/09 12:40:48 PM
imperial systems. It is this fact that made colonialism a collaborative enterprise
in Hong Kong. Within such a collaborative-colonial formation, novel use of the
colonial discourses need not constitute a discursive act either of resistance or of
domination involving only the West and the non-West. Instead, conventional
colonial discourses can be redeployed, in many different ways, to establish new
relationships of alterity that simultaneously blur and reaffrm the distinction
between the self and the other. Moreover, peoples use of these discourses always
involves power-oriented strategies that surface in specifc contexts beyond the
strict divide between the West and the non-West.
In this chapter, I have demonstrated that collaborative colonialism emerged
in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century as both a cultural
formation and a power formation. These two formations regulated the new
fows of national and international capital and ideas. Characterized from the
late nineteenth century onward as no longer a matter of direct colonial rule,
but as commerce under the dominance of military and economic means,
collaborative colonialism involved different categories of colonial social agents.
One key category was of the colonial intelligentsia, who not only represented the
interests of Western imperial powers but also actively transformed such power
into a new ideology that prefgured a certain form of nationalism which
might have exhibited a mercantilist, revolutionary or hybrid face. In this light,
the category of national subject can never be taken for granted. My analysis of
Ho Kai has put in doubt the presumed unity of the Chinese national subject
that features prominently in nationalist historiographies. The presumption
of historiographies of this unity often obscures the existence of collaborative
colonialism and its associated subjectivities. Scholars who want to re-examine
the connections between Hong Kong and the Republican Revolution of China
should consider revisiting Ho Kai. This revisit could open up alternative and
fruitful views of the modern Chinese nation.
ch.04(p.79-102).indd 102 3/5/09 12:40:48 PM
5
Chinese Cultural Nationalism
and Southern Localism
I
n contrast to the one-China conception in dominance now, regionalism was
indeed a key theme of early Republican Chinese politics, as there was no stable
central Chinese government until Chiang Kai-shek led the Northern Expedition
in 1926. The lingering regional rivalries were partly a continuation of the late-
Qing situation. The southern provinces, largely out of reach of Qing imperial
control, could be used by various forces as testing grounds for new projects
such as reformist experiments in building Western-style institutions and the
revolutionary mobilization of migrants returned from overseas. In this regard,
the southern provinces were the place where different political forces sought
support from foreign powers. In contrast, the northern provinces fell under the
control of traditional imperial bureaucrats and, therefore, remained relatively
uncontested in cultural and political terms. The Republican Revolution of 1911
elevated the political status of the southern provinces signaling the rise of
southern infuence. According to a writer of the popular Travellers Handbook for
China, published in 1913,
The Chinese have a saying everything new originates in Canton.
This is especially true of things political. It was in the narrow streets of
this southern city that the plots that resulted in the recent Revolution
were hatched, and during that brief but dramatic struggle, the principal
parts were played by Cantonese.
(Crow 1913: 178)
However, the distinct political importance of southern China did not mean
the end of the traditional northern dominance dominance that had come
into being long before, in the imperial past. After the abdication of Emperor
Guangxu in 1911, there was no fully legitimized Republican government for one
and a half decades. General Yuan Shikai was in command of several cliques of
military power in the North, while Sun Yat-sen held Canton as his base. Some
military leaders of Yunnan and Guangxi who commanded their provincial
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 103 3/5/09 12:41:04 PM
troops (known as guest troops) effectively dominated and controlled
Guangdong; they pledged lip-service loyalty to Sun (MacKinnon 1973; Lary
1974; MacKinnon 1980; Sutton 1980; Lary 1985).
1
Amid constant military clashes
between different factions of warlords during this era, which was politically
characterized by a rough North-South divide, intellectual efforts were devoted
to the search for a solution to the political problem of forming an effective central
government that could enforce an acceptable Republican constitution. Against
the old imperial ideal of maintaining a unifed China under a strong central
authority, some people conceived federalism as the foundation of a genuinely
democratic China because regional autonomy, so the conception went, would
facilitate the participation of the local people. According to this proposed
preparatory stage for a future unifed China, each province was to come up with
its own independent local constitution. This stable provincial autonomy would
then provide the basis for the negotiation of a federalist Chinese state structure.
Ou Qujia, in a pamphlet New Guangdong, called for Guangdongs autonomy
(Ou 1981); Yang Shouren, another Republican revolutionary, echoed Ou in a
similar piece that called for Hunanese autonomy (Yang, S. 1981). Although the
word autonomy (zili), and not independence (duli), commonly appeared
in this literature, it strongly argued for unhindered local rule in the respective
provinces, which only later would be linked through liansheng zizhi (federal
self-government) (Li, Jiannong 1956: ch. 13; Chesneaux 1969; Schoppa 1977; Hu
1983; Li, Dajia 1986). These advocates of federal self-government movements
conceived of a federalist China as a realization of progressive politics and held
that the principle of local autonomy related closely with the concept of popular
sovereignty (Duara 1995: ch. 5, 6). When Mao Zedong joined the independence
movement of Hunan province in the early 1920s, he even suggested that the idea
of Zhongguo (the Central Country, the very name of China), which implies
unity under a center, was the fundamental cause of the peoples misfortunes
(Mao 1920b, a, c; McDonald 1976).
2

These impulses for local autonomy were well received in the South, which
has had close economic and cultural connections to Hong Kong. For example,
Chen Jiongming, commander of the Guangdong army and former governor
of Guangdong, drove out the intruding Guangxi army under the banner
Guangdong people rule Guangdong (yueren zhi yue). He was an enthusiast
for anarchism and socialism but held an elaborate idea of Chinese unifcation
under democratic federalism (Chen, Jiongming 1928; see also Tung-yueh-fou-
sheng 1922; Duan 1989). During the brief periods (in 1912 and 1913) when he
controlled Canton, he achieved some quite remarkable reforms and received
praise from both Hong Kong residents and the colonial government; however,
Sun Yat-sen ousted him with the help of Yunnan and Guangxi troops (Chan,
L.K.C. 1990: 151152).
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 104 3/5/09 12:41:04 PM
Chinese Cultural Nationalism and Southern Localism 105
These localist or regionalist versions of Chinese nationalism did not
survive the Northern Expedition, which the KMT army launched to wipe out
all so-called warlords including Sun Yat-sens former ally Chen Jiongming
whom the KMT leadership blamed for all the chaos that had beset China.
Increasingly, Sun Yat-sen invested hopes for a new revolution; he established
the Huangpo Military Academy to build a Bolshevik-style army. He gradually
abandoned his early Han nationalism, which had favored self-rule for Hans
and Manchus, and emphasized the power that belongs to a state whose origins
derive from a revolutionary party. He redefned the goal of Chinese nationalism
as an affair not merely of Han people but indeed of the Chinese as a distinct race
with no unbridgeable ethnic differences. In this reckoning, advocates of regional
difference were providing platforms for warlords.
Sun the centralist thus conceived China both as a dormant power that
needed an effective state to guide it to its own awakening and as an already
unifed national subject waiting only for his party and government to represent
it (Fitzgerald 1995, 1996: ch. 35). Sun now opposed local attachments not
amenable to the service of the unifed state; if there was still no such state, a party
should exercise the power and the determination to create it. Such changes in
Suns thinking materialized in his reform of the KMT according to the Bolshevik
model; his interest in the Soviet Union also led to his controversial policy to
admit Communist Party members into the reorganized KMT. In the frst KMT
Congress in January 1924, Sun explained that he no longer proposed to govern
the state through the party (yi dang zhi guo) but to build the state through the
party (yi dang jian guo) (Li, Jiannong 1956: 617618).
Suns radical statist turn surprised many of his old associates, especially
members of the KMT among overseas Chinese, party journalists, and professional
politicians (Fitzgerald 1982). Afraid that Sun would target old members of the
KMT as enemies of this new radical nationalism, as warlords in collaboration
with the imperialists, the old members left in droves (Fitzgerald 1989).
Hong Kong was engulfed in this rising tide of radical nationalism, as
evidenced by the Canton-Hong Kong General Strikes of 19251926.
3
Sun directed
anti-imperialist sentiments against the leader of Guangdongs provincial self-
government movement, Chen Jiongming, whom Sun accused of betraying the
Republican Revolution and of having colluded with the British colonial authority
of Hong Kong (Chen, L.H. 1988; Chen, D. and Gao 1997).
4

In short, the radical Chinese nationalism of the 1920s broke the old
harmonious relationship between comprador-merchant communities, returned
Chinese migrants, the Hong Kong colonial authority, and the southern regime of
Republican China. In its place, a new type of collaborative relationship emerged
and exceeded the limits laid down in the previous era.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 105 3/5/09 12:41:04 PM
Colonial Traditionalism: The Legacies of Clementi
In contrast to the late-Qing revolutionaries, who had striven chiefy to overturn
the Qing imperial regimes political power, the young generation of Chinese
radicals who emerged in the 1920s was always radical in cultural, as well as
political, senses. Some joined revolutionary parties in order to realize their
political goals; some developed radical cultural critiques of political parties
corrupt practices or established political institutions.
Overwhelmingly infuential among the young intellectuals was the cultural
radicalism of what is known as the May Fourth New Culture Movement (Chow
1960). The role of culture in modern nationalistic politics emerged as an urgent
issue because students protest experiences in 1919 led the students to believe that
old Chinese traditions, especially Confucian moral doctrines, were responsible
for the failures of all past political reforms and revolutions. Therefore, young
intellectuals believed that the agenda to radically reconstruct Chinese culture
was an integral part of the nationalist struggle. Through a series of literary,
artistic, and everyday-life revolutions, they attempted to abolish traditional
learning and the old curriculum. For example, the May Fourth intellectuals
promoted a new written vernacular language (baihua) that would replace the
classical written Mandarin (wenyan).
5
Feeling threatened by these waves of new Chinese nationalist ideologies
purportedly imported from the North, which bore the banners of both anti-
imperialism and anti-feudalism, the Hong Kong Chinese elite responded by
hanging onto traditional Chinese values and teachings. Sharing this interest in
maintaining Hong Kongs status quo, the British colonial authority also actively
came forward to help defend Chinese traditionalism (Pennycook 1998: 123).
After the strike-boycott of 19251926, Secretary of State for the Colonies R. H.
Kotewall addressed Hong Kong Governor Cecil Clementi about the role of
the European inspectorate of the vernacular schools and emphasized the need
for the Hong Kong government to carefully monitor vernacular education, as
the schools had become breeding grounds for sedition. According to what
he referred to as the wisdom gleaned from experience in Malaya, Clementi
declared then not only that English inspectors should be in place to prevent
the spread of anti-British teaching, but also that the government should directly
intervene in Chinese-language curriculum to stress Chinese traditional teachings.
He wrote,
The Chinese education in Hong Kong does not seem to be all that
it should be. The teaching of Confucian ethics is more and more
neglected, while too much attention is being paid to the materialistic
side of life In such a system great stress should be laid on the ethics
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 106 3/5/09 12:41:04 PM
of Confucianism which is, in China, probably the best antidote to the
pernicious doctrines of Bolshevism, and is certainly the most powerful
conservative course, and the greatest infuence for good money spent
on the development of the conservative ideas of the Chinese race in the minds
of the young will be money well spent, and also constitutes social insurance
of the best kind.
(CO 129/455456; quoted in Pennycook 1998, my emphasis)
6
The colonial government quickly adopted this policy, which promoted the
traditional Chinese values of hierarchy, loyalty, and subservience, and did so
to establish a counterweight to the rise of radicalisms including both Chinese
nationalism and its counterpart, communism. Bernard Luk Hung Kay recorded
how the Hong Kong Chinese elite soon came to join the British authority in
building a fortress of conservative traditionalist Chineseness in Hong Kong
(Luk 1991: 659). Clementi, as both a long-time administrator in Hong Kong
and an eminent student in the cadet service directed by James Legge, was well
trained in Oriental knowledge and was both a scholar of Chinese folk songs and
a fuent speaker of Cantonese. He was perhaps the best person in the colony to
promote traditional Chinese culture. According to Luks account, he gave a tea
party at Government House in 1927 and invited all the most senior literati then
in Hong Kong men who had held imperial examination degrees and court
ranks in the now-defunct Qing Empire. The members of this old literati had
lost their status in the rise of republicanism and had found themselves further
alienated when the May Fourth New Culture Movement, clamoring for science
and democracy and an end to Confucianism and feudalism, swept the
country. Yet, in Hong Kong, the British colonial government treated the literati
not as mere honored guests but as persons endowed with an important cultural
mission. Luk describes the occasion on which Clementi met the senior Chinese
literati:
He welcomed these dignitaries with a speech in Cantonese, extolling
traditional Chinese learning and morality, emphasizing how important
it was that the Chinese should treasure their ancestors learning and
live up to the ancestral moral code, rather than follow any fad from
abroad. He invited them to join him in projects to interpret traditional
scholarship for the younger generation so that they would know what to
follow and to propagate Chinese morality and scholarship throughout
the world so as to remove all barriers to understanding and friendship
between foreigners and Chinese.
(Luk 1991: 659)
Clementis move to exploit traditional Chinese culture and scholarship was
accompanied by the governments active intervention in vernacular education;
107
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 107 3/5/09 12:41:04 PM
consequently, a new government Chinese-language school was established.
Later, the 1935 Burney Report advised the government to change the English-
dominant one-path system and called for greater public provision of primary
vernacular education in order to establish, through Chinese-language teaching,
the conservative moral authority. To support this dual system, the University
of Hong Kong established a Chinese department in 1927. The establishment
of such a department was unprecedented in the university modeled on British
universities; but it was also strategic, for it helped form the Chinese curriculum
to be used in Hong Kong schools.
In the collusion between Chinese traditionalists and the colonial authorities,
the latter appointed the former to positions of honor, proft, and infuence at
the university. Chinese literati were directors, teachers, and librarians there,
and senior members of this clique even accompanied Vice-Chancellor William
Hornell on a tour of Southeast Asia to raise funds for the Chinese Department
(Lo, H. L. 1961). In the early twentieth century, donations from wealthy
Southeast Asian Chinese were to be important funding sources for educational
projects in China. A famous case is that of Tan Kah Kee. In Fujian Provinces
Amoy treaty port, he invested a huge sum of money in the establishment of the
University of Amoy (Yang, J.F. 1980; Yong 1987; Chen, Jiageng 1989; Li, Y. 1991;
Tan 1994). Through their contributions to educational projects, wealthy overseas
Chinese could make connections with Chinese governing bodies. The use of
these contributions has been widely seen as a continuation of a similar practice,
wherein political investors donated money to support either the late-Qing
reforms or clandestine revolutionary activities (Chung, S.P.Y. 1998). In those
earlier days, both reformers such as Kang Youwei and revolutionaries such as
Sun Yat-sen were vying for fnancial support from the overseas Chinese, and
the two factions benefted greatly from the support. After the establishment of
Republican China, educational projects received generous funds from overseas
Chinese. Yet such investments came with strings attached: the educational
projects normally had to promote certain cultural ideals, which might or
might not be congruous with what was going on in China itself. Thanks to
Kang Youweis enthusiasm, before the Republican Revolution, to promote
Confucianism as a state religion, which was part of the project to establish a
constitutional monarchy in China, attachment to Confucianism took root chiefy,
as an irony, in the overseas Chinese communities rather than in the Mainland.
In turn, the fnancial clout of the overseas Chinese enabled Confucianism to fnd
channels through which it could re-import itself to China in the 1920s. Clementi
was simply tapping these resources to protect Hong Kong from the possible
damage that radical Chinese nationalism could bring about.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 108 3/5/09 12:41:04 PM
Thus we can see that the conficts between different historically embedded
versions of Chinese culture played out in Hong Kong, the place where the
past and the future met: while the Mainlands new intellectuals who fooded
into Hong Kong cherished a modernist ideal, overseas Chinese focused on
maintaining Chinese identity by grasping the roots of a purportedly Confucian-
based tradition. Western modernist aspirants who wanted to see the whole
Chinese outlook revolutionized stood against aged Confucian scholars who
taught wenyan to young students, who in turn learned merely to compose
poems in classical styles. These competing conceptions of Chineseness led to
legendary clashes between radical Chinese intellectuals and the conservative
educational establishment supported by the overseas Chinese. For example, Lu
Xuns serious clash with Lim Boon Keng soon after he took up a teaching job at
the University of Amoy led to a massive resignation of young lecturers from the
university (Hong 1990). Lu Xuns bitterness continued as he paid his frst visit
to the University of Hong Kong and witnessed for himself how Hong Kong had
turned into a sanctuary for an anachronistic and defunct literary style (Abbas
1997: 112116).
7
Colonial Construction of Chineseness
It is commonly noted that in the case of India, the impulse to distinguish between
the national culture and that of the West is combined with an aspiration to
modernity that can be defned only in terms of the post-Enlightenment rationalism
of European culture (e.g. Chakrabarty 1987). According to Chatterjee (1986),
these contradictory impulses are evident in each phase of the development of
nationalist thought. In order to cope with the contradiction, nationalist thought
would have to defne, again for each phase, an ultimate self-referent for the
nation. Chatterjee sets out, in his Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, to
trace the successive phases in which the self-referents of the Indian nation were
defned (Chatterjee 1986). Yet, here, I am interested neither in the question of
whether Chinese nationalism can be similarly defned according to a linear
progression of successive phases, nor in the question of how the self-referents of
the Chinese nation can possibly be defned. Rather, what is immediately relevant
for my analysis here is to locate the conjuncture at which the contradictions
of modern Chinese nationalism became manifest in the clashes between the
different conceptions of Chineseness developed overseas and in the Mainland.
In addition, I want to identify how these different conceptions of Chineseness
intertwined with different versions of colonial power.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 109 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
In the 1920s, this competitive encounter of different versions of Chineseness
occurred in Hong Kong owing to the intervention of the British colonial authority
there. Whereas during Lugards governorship in the frst two decades of the
century, Hong Kongs educational institutions functioned as governmental
instruments, Clementis educational policy in the 1920s drove Hong Kong
education along a path that brought Hong Kong ever deeper into Chinese culture
and politics. Rather than follow Lugards model of breeding native gentlemen
both within the medium of English language and under the tutorship of the
British, Hong Kongs educational system, after Clementi, entered into a bitter
contest over what Chinese identity should mean in Hong Kong, and perhaps
elsewhere in China. The young nationalist-modernists in mainland China
considered the old Chinese tradition of the literati to be obsolete. In Hong Kong,
however, the colonial government preserved the tradition and indeed resurrected
it as an instrument with which they might quash the tides of radical nationalism.
However, one should not draw the premature conclusion that the change from
Lugard to Clementi signifed a move away from the imperial ideas that the former
had laid down, insofar as his indirect-rule principle does include the promotion
of traditional values where benefcial to colonial governance. Clementi made
only one inventive variation: the basis of Hong Kongs constructed Chineseness
was to be a kind of Chinese tradition, namely, the high-literati tradition, which
had, in fact, never previously existed in Hong Kong.
Clementis policy to promote traditional Chinese morality came too late
to counter the rising tide of modern Chinese nationalism. In retrospect, the
policy proved to be a poorly devised strategy for exerting British infuence in
China. Compared with the much more aggressive approach of instilling China
with a whole set of technical knowledge and knowledge of the humanities to
modernize Chinas nation-state building process, the British approach was
sluggish and mean. While Americans invested huge sums of money in ventures
that provided Chinese students with U.S.-based study-abroad opportunities
(Christian Education 1922), the University of Hong Kong, in sharp contrast, was
trapped in a fnancial crisis in the late 1920s, as the British government refused
to heed the vice-chancellors call to use the Boxer Indemnity Fund to support
the university (Mellor 1980).
After Clementi left for Malaya, the promotion of traditional Chinese did
not develop beyond the original scope of his plan. However, we can see the
long-term effects of Clementis promotion of Hong Kongs Chinese education
if we look at the massive growth of Chinese schools throughout the 1930s
(Turnbull 1984; Wong, C.L. 1996). The Chinese curriculum used by these
Chinese schools adhered to the old classical tradition, which was increasingly at
odds with the rapid development of literary and language revolutions inspired
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 110 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
by the May Fourth Movement. Throughout the Republican era, Hong Kong
was a site where the teachings of the traditional Chinese literati and the new
Chinese nationalism, which was overwhelmingly infuential outside the offcial
establishment, co-existed. As the Republican government tried to incorporate
Hong Kong Chinese education into its educational system, some Chinese
schools were registered both in China and in Hong Kong and tried to share the
Chinese national curriculum of Chinas schools (Wong, C.L. 1996: ch. 6). This
aggressive approach to incorporate all overseas Chinese education under the
Nationalist Government leadership elicited a strong reaction from Clementi
who, ironically, on becoming governor of Malaya, curbed the spread of Chinese
education for fear of the growth of Chinese nationalism in Malaya (Turnbull
1984). This abrupt change shows clearly that, not unlike other Orientalist
approaches in the old British colonial establishment, Clementis approach to
the Oriental learning that he personally cherished was unwaveringly over-
determined by his offcial commitment to colonial rule. However, Clementis
legacies were well entrenched in Hong Kong. The infuences of the conservative
Chinese curriculum were reaffrmed, when in the 1950s, the colonial government
found it useful to appropriate Chinese traditionalism to counter the infuences
of communism, another tide of radicalism brewing in schools (Luk 1991). All
these colonial efforts to maintain Chinese traditionalism are now an indelible
part of Hong Kong Chinese identity, for the efforts left not only an entrenched
conservative brand of Chinese studies in the Hong Kong education system
(whose curriculum remained largely unmodifed into the nineties) but also a
living institutional tradition in which collaborative colonial rule through cultural
governmentality is given full play.
Imported Cultural Nationalism
In sharp contrast to Malaya, where the British colonist Clementi could stem the
spread of Chinese nationalism by wielding brute force, the cultural scene in Hong
Kong became dominated in the early half of the twentieth century by immigrant
Chinese mainland intellectuals who were often categorized as South-bound
intellectuals (nan lai wen ren) (Wong, K.C. et al. 1998b, c). Immigrant Chinese
intellectuals came to Hong Kong in massive numbers after 1937, when the Second
Sino-Japanese War broke out. Some of them were running away from the war;
others came to Hong Kong under a relocation plan, organized by the Republican
government, to save them from falling into the hands of the enemy. These exiles
brought with them their institutional technology: publishing houses, newspapers,
journals, and the like. They appeared on the scene suddenly and brought to
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 111 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
Hong Kong a totally new set of modern nationalist cultural conventions, the
most important of which was the standardized national written vernacular,
baihua. They also introduced various modern literary forms of expression such
as the novel, modern drama, and flm. With these institutions supported strongly
by the institutions of the Republican government, the newcomers contribution
to the establishment of a modern Chinese literary tradition in Hong Kong was
tremendous. In newspaper columns and other venues of literary writing, the
local writers, educated in bilingual or English-language Hong Kong schools,
disappeared almost over night. According to Zheng et al., this rapid Central-
Inlandisation (zhong yuan hua) annihilated completely the possibility of
developing a local literary subjectivity of Hong Kong (Wong, K.C. et al. 1998c:
2132). The transformation happened just as Chinese migrant intellectuals in
Hong Kong were congratulating themselves for having rapidly built up Hong
Kong as another cultural centre for China.
This change in the cultural landscape, however, had a smaller effect
on the local educational system. Although the infux of Chinese intellectuals
numerically overwhelmed the older literati, whom the Hong Kong government
had co-opted, the overall educational structure and orientation set by the latter
remained unchanged. However, without the support of the local Hong Kong
government, the newcomers managed to establish a Chinese education system
parallel to the dominant English one, although it could not really compete with
the elite English schools in terms of status and recognition. These Hong Kong
Chinese schools called themselves Overseas Chinese (huaqiao) schools and
registered under the Education Ministry of the Republic of China; but in fact,
they were caught in between the two different systems.
8
Except for a few of the
better-organized Chinese schools, most of them could not meet the standard
prescribed by the Chinese national curriculum. They did not give suffcient
weight to the teaching of the Chinese language and emphasized wenyan over
baihua. A further irony is that although wenyan, the old language for the study of
Chinese classics, was taught in the Chinese schools, the teaching of the Chinese
Classics (guoxue) carried less weight in the schools curriculum (Wong, C.L.
1996: 313314). In fact, the problem of baihua versus wenyan occupied a central
position in the Chinese nationalists new image of Hong Kong. The nationalists
often perceived a simple binary relationship between the old and the new, but
the actual situation was more complicated than this perception, and I will deal
with this issue later in this chapter.
The massive displacement of cultural elites to Hong Kong not only boosted
its status as a cultural center for China but also sharpened the cultural conficts
and exposed the internal contradictions of the newly emerged national identity.
No longer treated as a source of Western ideas benefcial to the modernization of
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 112 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
China, Hong Kongs colonial yet parochial characteristics became a sore point
for those Chinese intellectuals who were highly charged with patriotism and
who were struggling for a modern and strong Chinese nation.
Hong Kong: A Political Colony and a Cultural Desert
In the eyes of the Southbound intellectuals, the existence of an anachronistic
traditional Chinese culture under the protection of the British authority, together
with a local popular culture peripheral to the forward-marching Chinese
nationalist culture, made Hong Kong a culturally backward and abhorrent place.
The intellectuals often called Hong Kong a cultural desert and disparaged
the island for its colonial atmosphere and conservatism. This anti-imperialistic
sentiment espoused by the Chinese intellectuals seriously diminished Hong
Kongs image. Previously, the Chinese had seen Hong Kong as a place where
Sun Yat-sen had drawn inspiration from a well-managed progressiveness an
inspiration that formed Suns revolutionary fervor to save China. However, by
the 1920s, most Chinese considered Hong Kong a flthy corner of an unreclaimed
Chinese territory that could give rise only to misgivings or bad feelings. Lo
Wai Luen, a veteran Hong Kong writer, has collected a number of mainland
writers descriptions of Hong Kong written mostly in 1930s. In the descriptions,
the writers complained about how dislocated they felt while living in this
Chinese city. Topping the list of their grievances was the unease they felt in
not being able to communicate easily with people in Hong Kong. Hu Shih, a
famous contemporary Chinese intellectual, wrote,
Parents hope that their children could learn English at an early age, and
at the same time, they also hope that they would learn more Chinese. The
conservatism of the Guangdong people is the cause of their infatuation
with the Chinese classics, and schools refuse to use textbooks written in
the national language (guoyu) [he] is a superintendent of the Chinese
schools. He said he worried that baihua is not the spoken language of
the Cantonese. It might not be any easier or more useful for Cantonese
children to learn baihua than wenyanI told them they are getting it all
wrong I hope they can accept the new trend of the Mainland and be
forward-looking rather than regressive on matters of developing ideas
and culture I dont understand how Canton, the base of revolution,
can be as conservative as that.
(Hu, S. 1935: 58; my translation)
Hong Kong, or indeed all the southern areas, including cities like Canton,
presented a tarnished image in the eyes of the new Chinese intellectuals. The
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 113 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
South was no longer the place from which national political revolutions sprang;
on the contrary, it was lagging behind, blamed now for a cultural conservatism
that kept it immune to the new round of revolutionary changes.
Yet, according to these critics, the most repugnant aspects of Hong Kong
lay elsewhere. In comparison with the pure Chinese national body, Hong
Kongers were lamented for their sexual and moral unpredictability, which was
seen as responsible for the ethnic hybridity exemplifed by the many cases of
miscegenation there. Lu Danglin, a writer closely connected with the KMT,
wrote,
Many students can speak fuent English like Europeans and Americans,
but as for the Chinese language, they cannot write even a short essay or
family letter of a few hundred words. They cant even speak the national
language (guoyu). They and their elderly may think that they can learn
knowledge all over the world, ancient and modern, by getting to know
how to speak a few English words. But their education, even that taught
by the higher institute, can at most allow them to know something but
never teach them to think The most unseemly sight one sees on the
street is a Chinese woman walking with a westerner. These women
love western meals you may think they are prostitutes, but they may
not be; on the other hand, if you think they are pure, some of them
may indeed be prostitutes If [women of this kind] foster mixed-blood
babies, it wont be a Chinese citizen, nor will it be considered a citizen
by its fathers country they can only be victims of their mothers.
(Lu 1939: 143147; my translation)
The perception of womens loss of chastity irrevocably corresponded to the
perception of a place being colonized it was the colonization that underlay
Hong Kongs moral decay:
Hong Kong has long been a territory belonging to other people
Although there are Chinese everywhere in Hong Kong and the
foundation of Hong Kong people is still built upon the Chinese, Hong
Kong lacks the Chinese spirit and has lost its Chinese soul I really
have doubts about the nationality of some Chinese who are born and
raised here in Hong Kong There is no place that gives me a worse
impression. I might be a bit too extreme, but the revolting, unnatural
foreignism in some places, and the basest possible slavishness is
nonetheless real.
(Tu 1939: 157160; my translation)
The concern of these writers about losing the national soul was of course not
accidental to any nationalist discourse; yet in Hong Kong, this typical anxiety
of Mainlander intellectuals, expressed through the metaphor of lost chastity,
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 114 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
coincided curiously with the long-held prejudice of British colonial offcials
against Eurasians. In the collaborative-colonial setting of Hong Kong, cultural
and ethnic differences even more easily galvanized into bipolarity, an outcome
that often reifed both the Chinese and the Western. Even the Eurasians
themselves, such as the famous comprador Ho Tung, was highly vigilant in
posturing himself as a protector of traditional Chinese morals, customs, and
tastes in dress (Lee 2004: ch. 3). However, if the old fear of miscegenation was an
easy ally of a kind of cultural conservatism, Chinese cultural nationalists in the
late 1930s and after often criticized Hong Kongs hybridity as a mark of Hong
Kongs decadence and backwardness. In short, critics could invoke cultural
hybridity to explain what was, in their eyes, Hong Kongs cultural infertility.
For example, in the literary circles increasingly dominated by the new
migrant Mainlanders, critics launched a series of attacks against the writing
style of young Hong Kong writers writers whom the critics considered to
be indulging in sentimentalism (feng hua xue yue). Lambasting the supposed
immature writing technique of these writers, the critics then turned to blame
what they thought of as a cultural environment colonized by American culture,
popular music, and so on: the cultural barrenness of Hong Kong. Other critics
came to the defense of the young people:
It is not that they were averse to progress. Hong Kongs cultural life is
still just a sprouting bud. Peking has had the New Culture Movement
for twenty years; Shanghai has had more than ten years of the Social
Sciences and New Arts Movement. Hong Kongs cultural life began
just two or three years ago. Its achievement (so far) is acceptable, but
could be better.
(Yang, G. 1940: 172; my translation)
What is truly revealing in this remark, apart from its arrogance, is the authors
comparison of Hong Kong with the northern Chinese cities. Cultural life
in Hong Kong was denied in comparison to that of Beijing and Shanghai,
which were twenty or so years ahead, according to like-minded critics. Newly
established baihua canons had become the sole yardstick for the measurement
of cultural excellence. The charting of cultural advancement precisely rendered
national culture synonymous with modernity; in other words, cultural level
was measured according to the degree to which it had been severed from the
past. And it was according to this new set of parameters that Hong Kong was
increasingly becoming the Chinese nationalists internal other backward,
vulgar, and colonized.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 115 3/5/09 12:41:05 PM
The Margin Criticizes the Margin of the Margin
Wong Wang Chi, in his reading of collections of Chinese mainland writers
impressions of Hong Kong, underscores the coincidence that they were
written mostly by Shanghainese (Wong, W.C. et al. 1997: 62). He points to the
implicit comparison of Hong Kong and Shanghai in these writings. What is
most striking to Wong is that Shanghai, which was a treaty port dominated by
colonial powers, had thus attained rapid development. The existence of extra-
territorialities in Shanghai and the massive infltration of foreign interests into
the city could not possibly have left Shanghai immune to foreign culture and
consumerism nor could it have closed the city to more open attitudes toward
sex. Thus, Mao Zedong described China as a semi-colony, referring especially
to the decadent cities controlled by imperial powers (Mao 1939). The only
rationale for the critics derogatory remarks of Shanghainese writers was that
Hong Kong was a full colony formally ceded to the British. The criticisms of a
colony came from a semi-colony, so that what one had was a tale of two rival
cities (Lee 1995).
Leo Lee describes the mentality of the semi-colonized Chinese mainlands
urban literati-cum-intellectual stratum as possessing an inland-centrism. Though
they enjoyed the rapid development of Shanghai, their egos were severely hurt
by their own marginal status. In this regard, we should remember that Shanghai
was still not yet fully governed by foreigners. Hong Kong was thus not only
marginalized through colonialism but a margin of the margin, as well from
a Shanghainese perspective, a subordinated place, completely devoid of culture
(Lee 1995). This nationalistic criticism of Hong Kongs coloniality is a criticism
of the margin of the margin by the margin (Wong, W.C. et al. 1997: 65). Wong
concurs with Leo Lees point, and states,
They did not know about their own marginality. On the one hand, they
identifed themselves with the colonial rule in Shanghai and were proud
of the prosperity and powerful status this colonial rule had brought to
them. On the other hand, they criticized Hong Kongs colonial rule. As
a matter of fact, they had forgotten their own position.
(Wong, W.C. et al. 1997: 6566; my translation)
What I fnd truly revealing in this cultural antagonism between two differently
scaled colonized places is less a competition for scarce dignity (as Lu Xun wrote,
the weak could only demonstrate their strength by attacking the still weaker)
than a transformation of status, through a perverse logic of identifcation
with the colonizer, from that of victim to that of dominant cultural power a
transformation that has been integral to the formation of contemporary Chinese
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 116 3/5/09 12:41:06 PM
nationalism. The following quotation manifests how easily a salvationist anti-
colonial critique can slide along the path of refashioning the cultural and political
logic of a civilizing mission as a nationalist logic. A mainland writer, Yang Yanqi,
states
The coming of wai jian lao (men from the provinces outside Guangdong)
is no doubt a pivotal change for Hong Kong. The low standard of the
culture of the Hong Kongese that one could witness three or four years
ago is pathetic and laughable. Although recently wai jian lao brought in
Culture for this place, local people still appear to be ridiculous in every
way. I have a joke that I am fond of telling: they dont even know how
to eat pork; they only eat cha-shao [Cantonese BBQ pork] They always
wear tight black trousers with white servant uniforms, just like the
Chinese waiters who appear in Hollywood movies. Now I understand
Hong Kong is a foreign land. Of course, Chinese in a foreign country
should have that slavish-look. Before, I was not pleased seeing this
look in movies. Now I see the truth in the motto China in a foreign
country. (Now I no longer blame Hollywood moviemakers.)
(Yang, Y. 1983: 207; my translation)
This image of China in a foreign country has indeed vividly captured the
ambiguous status of Hong Kong in modern Chinese nationalism. But this
status is not just abstract ambivalence; it is also legitimized exoticism. This
writers judgmental observation refects both the absence of solidarity among
Chinese (between Shanghainese and Hong Kongese) and the dearth of his
sensitivity to the historical reality wherein both of these populations were
subjugated compatriots. Borrowing a tourist-like gaze from the West, this
southbound intellectual ironically confrmed the actuality of the image of the
subjugated Chinese an image that the discourse of the Chinese national
self tried to disavow. At the same time, the writer effectively rationalized the
legitimacy of an Orientalist exoticism, which framed the Chinese nationalists
gaze on its internal other. Such a nationalist imaginary was ironically built on
a colonialist imaginary. And however bizarre the nationalist imaginary may be,
it in congruity with similar discourses about the lack of a national soul
legitimized a national pedagogy to civilize/nationalize the wretched colony of
Hong Kong. Yangs surprise encounter with Chinese in Hong Kong confrmed
what Fitzgerald describes as the relative ease with which Chinese nationalists
accepted the colonial representations of John Chinaman as the foundation for
fashioning a new kind of people (Fitzgerald 1997: 61).
Certainly, plenty of examples in contemporary China reveal the nationalist
capture of the colonial (Fitzgerald 1996: 139). Although, in a recent exchange on
why the Chinese were, in general, more ready than the Indians to incorporate
key tenets of imperialist ideology in their programs for national revival, Duara
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 117 3/5/09 12:41:06 PM
resorts to the need to have the Other [being] principally internalized in the
self in order to nurture the ability to criticize the self (Duara 1997: 68; see
also Fitzgerald 1997; Bulag 1997). However, the internalized-colonial image
exemplifed here invalidates the optimism that Duara may espouse. Criticism
of the national self need not merely entail an individuals introspection; the
criticism can also displace hostility toward the other, who is still embedded deep
in ones own self. In our case, the hostility sprang from internalized humiliation
that transformed itself into a nationalist pedagogy characterized by a nostalgic
paternalism. The writer Tu Yangci wrote emphatically,
Although Shanghai also hides numerous crimes and is fooded by evil
currentsit still, in certain aspects, sprouts new buds unlike Hong
Kong, which is already deadwood with rotten roots and branches
Poor Shanghai, deprived of parental care and guidance: I hope you can
do your best to care of yourself. Dont follow Hong Kong, the homeless
ragamuffn, and sink into bad habits.
(Tu 1939: 157; my translation)
In addition to the images of the lost soul and raped chastity we came
across above, the stray child also exemplifed the Chinese nationalist images
of Hong Kong, once anti-imperialism had become the main form of Chinese
nationalist rhetoric.
9
Yet, despite the critique of political imperialism, colonial
representations of John Chinaman remained and, indeed, became the basis of a
spatial hierarchy on which the inland-periphery relationship of subordination,
handed down from the Chinese imperial past, revived. This imagined spatial
hierarchy gradually emerged as the archetype of the inter-colonial relation
between China and Hong Kong and gave rise to a paternalistic discourse
about a Hong Kong waiting to be rescued. This inland-centrist discourse (da
zhong yuan zhu yi) framed Hong Kong people as almost but not yet fully
Chinese; the narrative about Hong Kong as either a stray child or raped
chastity entered into the modern Chinese nationalistic imagination as a test
of Chinas virility. According to this imagination, Hong Kong is doomed to its
coloniality and possesses merely a Chinese body, not a Chinese soul; Hong Kong
is in the grip of an utterly irredeemable slavish mentality, and therein, Hong
Kong lacks the qualifcation to belong to, or to choose, a different nationality.
This embarrassing contrast between appearance and reality, between surface
and substance, caused some Chinese immigrant writers in Hong Kong great
anxiety during the anti-Japanese wars of the 1930s and the 1940s (Cen 1938; Mu
1938; Tu 1941). Presuming that participation in the resistance was the duty of
all Hong Kong Chinese, the writers lamented the Hong Kong intellectuals lack
of real enthusiasm for participation therein. But these nationalist writers never
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 118 3/5/09 12:41:06 PM
coherently explained which community it was to whom Hong Kong people
owed this presumed citizens duty (Wong, W.C. et al. 1997: 55).
Apparently, the writers anxiety stemmed from the absence of a clear
defnition of citizenship in Hong Kong. Even as subjugated natives under British
colonial power, Hong Kong Chinese lacked a clear sense of who really constituted
the foreign power that exercised colonial dominance over the island. Although
the radicalized Chinese nationalism that developed after the 1920s refected a
widespread effort to instill into all of its imagined Chinese citizens a Chinese
national consciousness within an all-embracing anti-imperialist discourse, the
term Hong Kong Chinese (xianggang huaren) could not, as a category, justify
the full dedication of a citizens duty and loyalty. The conjugal term Hong Kong
Chinese (without a hyphen in between) can mean both Chinese living in Hong
Kong and Hong Kong people with a Chinese ethnic origin. Huaqiao (Overseas
Chinese) is the Chinese term prevalently used in the Republican period to refer
to ethnic Chinese living in Hong Kong; it puts Chinese in Hong Kong together
with overseas Chinese inhabiting Southeast Asian and other countries. In effect,
the term implied even greater recognition of the foreignness of Hong Kong than
either Hong Kong Chinese or Chinese Hong Kongers (huaji xiangangren). The
offcial usages of the term Huaqiao were indeed at odds with the then-prevalent
Mainlander practice of treating Hong Kong simply as part of China. The radical
nationalism that emerged in early Republican China started to hold back this
recognition of foreignness, so that the practice of calling Hong Kong Chinese
tongbao (compatriot with consanguinity) gradually replaced the categories
huaren and huaqiao.
10
Increasingly, those referred to differences between Hong
Kong and China as differences between the national and the local.
Now that we grasp how both Chinese traditionalist culture and modern
nationalist culture came into confict in Hong Kong, we may ask a few more
important questions: How did Hong Kong feature in the confict-ridden
processes of Chinas nation-building? How did Hong Kong, throughout the
Republican era, relate to China culturally and politically? How did different
directions of cultural fow and different political dynamics across Hong Kong
and China leave their marks in the confguration of the nationalist imaginary of
China?
It is impossible in the context of this studys framework to present
comprehensive answers to these questions. However, I will in the remaining
half of this chapter, focus on a discussion of dialect literature, which surfaced as
an all-China issue in the 1930s and the 1940s. I focus on these debates on dialect
literature because it once provided China and Hong Kong with a theoretical
platform on which the cultural politics of modern Chineseness played out. I frst
present how such debates on dialect literature also known as the national
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 119 3/5/09 12:41:06 PM
forms debates emerged before I inspect closely how these debates treated
Hong Kong. My objective is to argue against Wang Hui, who represents a recent
and subtle attempt to hold onto a certain modernist-nationalist logic underlying
modern Chinese literary historiography.
National Forms and Local Forms: Whose Vernacular?
As Japanese aggression toward China was gathering pace in the 1930s, Chinas
need to raise the Chinese peoples support for China to forge national
solidarity posed new challenges for Chinese intellectuals, especially for those
on the left. A large-scale geographic movement of Chinese writers, from cities
to peripheral regions, reversed the century-long historical trend wherein literati
congregated increasingly in urban areas (Wang, H. 1998a, b). Several factors
explain why this relative shift away from urban areas occurred: for example,
the Japanese invasion of China and particularly of its cities forced some Chinese
writers to fee to rural areas; the CCP encouraged and organized other writers
to go to far-fung Chinese regions to serve as propaganda teams for the War
of Resistance. The rapid relocation of intellectuals from Chinas urban areas,
where lifestyles were already quite Westernized, exposed the serious drawbacks
of the modern radical nationalist cultural ideal of making baihua a common
language for China: forced to face the tremendous diffculties of crossing
the boundaries of different spoken languages, many Chinese writers began to
recognize the importance of grasping locally vibrant folk cultures and varieties
of local languages.
11

Baihua as a written vernacular was a product of print culture, which
emerged because Chinas rapidly developing urban areas were home to intense
cultural activity and a pronounced expansion of readership. As a symbol of the
desire to break away from the classical language, wenyan, the anti-traditionalist
intellectuals who emerged during the May Fourth Movement of 1919 considered
formalizing baihua, applying grammatical rules of some European languages
to it, and turning it into an important tool of Chinese nationalism. Along with
linguistic reform came the call for developing a new literature in the new
language (Chow 1960; Grieder 1970: ch. 3; Fairbank 1978: ch. 8,9). Rejecting
the old wenyan of the old literati, supporters of baihua declared that a new anti-
aristocratic common language for a new literature should be plain and simple
and should thus function as the Literature of the Common People. Both the new
language and the new literature gained popularity in the early Republican era
through school textbooks and the numerous publications of young writers, with
strong backing from the states educational and cultural institutions.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 120 3/5/09 12:41:06 PM
However, the rapid population fow within China was altering the cultural
and linguistic landscape of China. This fow exposed the chief limitation of the
May Fourth modern-nationalist project: the new written vernacular could not
but remain out of touch with the majority of the national population, situated as
they were in a wide variety of local realities and endowed with different cultural
sensibilities. Baihua featured the same set of characters that wenyan featured,
and so the ease with which the poor and largely illiterate masses learned baihua
was not much greater than the ease with which they learned wenyan. The New
baihua literature centered on urban life, to the exclusion of peasant life, and
on Han people, to the exclusion of Chinas wide variety of non-Han minority
nationalities. In short, although advocates of the baihua movement constantly
invoked the idea that in vernacularism, one writes what one speaks, China
possessed no common Chinese vernacular.
12
Chinese Marxists were at the fore in attributing the shortcomings of baihua
to the New Cultural Movement of May Fourth, which was wrongly biased
toward the urban bourgeoisie. The Marxists tried to gain the high ground of
nationalism and pronounced the need for a more radical and political agenda
for language reforms. Qu Qiubai, who took a decidedly Stalinist-internationalist
stance, clamored in 1931 for a New Literary Revolution that would account for
the development of folk languages and dialects and that might even lead to the
development of different regional written languages (Qu 1932). Mao Zedong, in
his famous Yanan speech, broached the same issue and re-framed it as a search
for a national form that would be rid of foreign dogmatisms, abstract tones,
and abstract doctrines and that would possess a lively Chinese style and favor.
The exploration of Chinese national forms raised a number of issues beyond
those of Qus conventional Marxist critique of class because, for the frst time,
the modern Chinese intellectuals recognized locality as an important constituent
of the Chinese nation (Mao 1938). In subsequent rounds of debate over national
forms and local forms, both Qus and Maos positions were interchangeably
invoked.
Gradually, views polarized into two camps. Those defending the May
Fourth standpoint of Literature in the National Language, and the National
Language in Literature criticized local and regional expressions as contaminated
by feudal remnants. They took a skeptical view of local forms and held that these
forms would be acceptable only after being restructured. The sympathizers of
the folkloric and the local, on the other hand, condemned the metropolitan and
Westernizing nature of the new baihua orthodoxy. Rejecting the anti-aristocratic
claim, they held that baihua was no less aristocratic than the old wenyan; some
even described baihua simply as a new wenyan. In response to the upsurge of
interest in local forms, which risked boosting local and regional identities,
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 121 3/5/09 12:41:06 PM
prominent CCP-related writers such as Pan Zinian, Huang Sheng, and Zhou
Yang tried at different points to hold back the criticism and to re-affrm the May
Fourths purported commitment to modernity. The writers tried to steer the
discussion to prevent it from going beyond the much-limited problematic of
popularization (Huang, S. 1939; Zhou 1940; Pan 1944).
Logic of the Nation-state?
Although the local-forms debates constitute one of the least researched areas in
modern Chinese literary history (for exceptions, see Li, Huoren 1973; Liu 1980,
1981; Dai 1982), the debates have recently caught the attention of some scholars.
In his recent study therein, Wang Hui tries to speak for a unitarian view of
language by deriving it from a logic of the nation-state. As Wang asserts, unity
of the nation-state could risk collapsing if there were too great an emphasis on
locality (Wang, H. 1997, 1998a, b). In Wangs view, nation-state is a product of
modernity, which is governed by a logic of universalism that requires a nation-
state to possess a national common language. Such a need would inevitably
subordinate all local expressions and dialects. Wang Huis argument is not
based on a putatively general trend of modernization; rather, he tries to posit
the development of modern-Chinese-language against Chinas own historical
specifcity for which, Wang argues, the development of Chinas modern
language had to run counter to the European model of vernacularism, which
seeks a complete correspondence between the written word and the spoken
vernacular. Wangs study tries argue against both Derrida and Kojin Karatani: the
former asserts phonocentrism the idea that sounds and speech are inherently
superior (or more natural) than written language to be an exclusive feature
of the West; the latter, on the contrary, disputes that vernacularism, a model for
national languages, constitutes an issue that has arisen in all parts of the world,
without exception (Derrida 1974; Kojin 1996: 94; Wang, H. 1998: 26). For Wang
Hui, neither Derrida nor Kojin can explain Chinas path of language reforms.
Although the May Fourth New Culture enthusiasts once copied from Europe
and pursued an idealized vernacularism as a model for Chinese-language
reform, the correctives made possible by the Leftist criticisms in the 1930s set
the enthusiasts on the right path, one that would lead to a national language
based on written characters rather than on a spoken vernacular.
Wang recapitulates how CCP theorist Hu Sheng attempted a cautious
balance between two tendencies: on the one hand, the May Fourths tendency
to reject outmoded, uncreative folk forms, which were full of fatalistic and
feudal reactionary thought embodied in poisonous languages; and, on the
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 122 3/5/09 12:41:07 PM
other hand, the counter-tendency to disavow baihua for its being the possession
of the high bourgeoisie and the educated class, which would risk producing
a Europeanized comprador writing system (Wang, H. 1998b: 4345). But
Wang tries to add more weight to Hus line of argument. Rather than merely
strike a balance between the two, Wang Hui takes them as successive stages of a
dialectical movement: as a negation of a negation of the May Fourth modernism.
This dialectic also animates a line of criticism that started off as Marxist criticism
in terms of class and that ended as an imperative of the nation. In this regard, Hu
Feng indeed wrote in a more aggressive manner:
Popularization cannot be divorced from the May Fourth tradition,
for at all times it must conform to the demand for realist refection of
and critique of life. Nor can the May Fourth tradition separate itself
from popularization, for in its nature it tends towards union with the
masses.
(Hu, F. 1941: 442; quoted and translated in Wang, H. 1998b: 4849)
Hu Shengs cautious balancing act was once put in Hu Fengs own celebratory
battling tone when he said that the cultural struggle of the national citizenry
and the masses has become joined. But one should also note that Hu Feng had
therein made an important slide from a Marxist position to a nationalist one.
Wangs argument seems to provide a rationalization of such a shift as if it is an
utterance predetermined by a structural logic (Wang, H. 1998b: 4849). Wang
then endorses Hus conclusion, made in 1940, that the national-forms debates
should be defned as chiefy concerning popularization. Defning the debates as
ones about how national-forms should encompass, or be enriched by, local-forms,
Hu takes the gap between the modern written language and the different spoken
languages as bridgeable by the invention of a new pronunciation written out in
pinyin phonetics. As planned, these two language types, together, would form a
generalized language a Putonghua and a corresponding common speech.
As neither the mythical origin of vernaculars nor any existing form of spoken
language would be the basis of the modern Chinese national language, Wang
proceeds to claim that the logic of staunch and unwavering universalism was
not only nationalistic but also internationalist, or cosmopolitan (Wang, H.
1998b: 47).
However, it is obvious that Wang Huis cultural historiography of modern
Chinese language rests on his re-enactment of a common Hegelian impulse:
reading history as an unfolding of a dialectical logic in search of a national
subject that will come into its full consciousness and being. While Wang
may successfully prove that there is certain historical specifcity concerning
the development of Chinese linguistic nationalism, he manifests himself to
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 123 3/5/09 12:41:07 PM
be operating within an all-too-familiar Hegelian historicist paradigm: such
historicism is indeed premised on the reproduction of a discursive structure that
unrefectively assigns a spatial hierarchy, involving the central-inland sphere
and its periphery, to representations of the national-local relationship. In other
words, an unrefective affrmation of baihua, the product of the May Fourth New
Culture movement, as the sole legitimate parameter of Chinese nationalism risks
glossing over the complex struggles between destabilizing forces struggles
that fomented repeated competing claims for the constitution of a Chinese
nation. Through these claims, the present construction of the national and
the local has established itself in Chinese history. As a corollary to this line of
thought, one argument that Wang makes is of particular interest. Wang argues
that the modern Chinese languages unwavering commitment to universalism
which explains its internationalist or cosmopolitan characteristics is
seldom found in either the European or the Japanese experience of nationalism-
as-vernacularism. However, this commitment reveals itself to be untenable once
its confictual and unstable nature becomes apparent.
In the following part of this chapter, I examine how the conceptual
categories of the national and the local are, at best, efforts to ft Hong Kong
into the Chinese-nationalist narrative. I argue that behind the apparent display
of Wangs putative structural logic of nation-state are indeed suppressed or
marginalized depictions of the Chinese nation, as well as diverse representations
of the nations pasts. The whole issue involves a far-from-simple negotiation
between the national and the local. I illustrate my argument by referring to the
debates over dialect-literature that re-emerged in Hong Kong between 1947 and
1948 and that Wang Hui has ignored.
Hong Kong Popular Cultures: Local Forms or Vulgar Forms?
Hong Kong has no doubt been an arena where different forms of metropolitan
cultures have competed with each other. The implantation of particularly urban
northern modernist Chinese cultural forms in Hong Kong did not change the
fact that Hong Kong was a place rich in folk customs and local artistic work
that had originated in the southern provinces. Hong Kongs local cultural
forms were always interacting with various new popular consumerist forms
that were connected closely with mass media and different folkloric forms of
cultural expression. For example, the traditional wenyan language was not just
classical and elitist; it had already gone secular and folklorist, and hybridized
with the new baihua to become something called half-wenyan-half-baihua (ban
wen ban bai), which is evident in many social satires and in much erotic fction.
13

ch.05(p.103-130).indd 124 3/5/09 12:41:07 PM
In Hong Kong, confuences and interbreeding of global and local cultures has
caused great anxiety among cultural nationalists.
14
In 1937, the nationalists
antagonistic attitudes toward local popular culture culminated in a plea urging
the Republican government to impose a ban on the production of Cantonese
movies, most of which occurred either in Canton or in Hong Kong (Xu, F. 1937).
The nationalists worried about what they saw as the vulgar tastes to which these
Cantonese movies appealed and about the movies consequent potential threat
to morality; strong protests and disagreements erupted, as a result, in both of
the cities.
15
For right-wing nationalists, Cantonese cultural products owed their
appeal to the vulgar tastes, the sensationalism, and the eroticism characteristic
of the decadent colonial environment. The leftists, who saw the importance of
popularity, made a parallel argument: just as Cantonese culture failed to counter
negative external infuences with a home-grown culture, they considered that
Hong Kong culture lacked a local form that might facilitate the development of
a new, healthy, progressive national form. Therefore, although leftist mainland
writers in Hong Kong were keen to talk about Hong Kongs appropriation of old
forms and about Hong Kongs insertion of new contents into those forms, the
writers tended to stress the importance of eradicating poisonous cultures and
of even sanitizing them (Wong, K.C. et al. 1999c: 1218).
Speak No Dialects; Contemplate a Different Nation
As an originator of the dubious concept of local forms, Hong Kong did not
take any prominent part in the national-forms debates, although many of the
debates were published there. However, the issues fared up again in 1947. After
a long silence during the peak period of the War of Resistance against Japan, the
revival of this debate gained the active support of prominent Chinese cultural
bureaucrats such as Mao Dun and Guo Moruo (Wong, K.C. et al. 1999b: 101
151). This revival would not have been possible if not for the highly tolerant
environment that resulted from the CCPs strategy of alliance politics, which
sought to win over the urban middle class and intellectuals during the high tide
of the Civil War between the CCP and the KMT. As usual, the CCPs cultural
leaders attempted to steer the debates toward the problematic of popularization
and played down any tendency to search for local cultural identities. Still, by
admitting the importance of the local specifcity of cultural expressions, they
made concessions that were both remarkably unprecedented and explicitly
political.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 125 3/5/09 12:41:07 PM
For example, Mao Dun, a famous leftist writer, admitted that the May
Fourths slogan of Literature of the National Language was improperly
infuenced by both a philosophy of imperial unitarianism (da yi tong) and
dominance by force; and that baihua literature was based solely on northern
language and should properly be treated as the literature of northern dialects
only. He went on to unveil the political logic behind the cultural contestation
and admitted that the dominant position of northern language as the language
of literature was due to extra-literary reasons, such as political and economic
factors (Mao, D. 1948).
However, the enthusiasm of the local writers for exploring local literature
broke with the restrictions of this offcially endorsed popularization discourse
and continued to produce dissident viewpoints even after the CCP cultural
leadership tried to make a concluding remark to the heated discussions (see
Feng and Quan 1948). For example, one writer plainly stated that baihua to
many Guangdong people was just another foreign language (Jing 1948: 119).
He once again referred to Qu Qiubais call for a New Literary Revolution and to
alleged models of vernacularism that arose during the Renaissance in Italy and
the Romantic period elsewhere in Europe.
16
Qu regarded the current dialect-
literature movement as a genuine vernacular movement and thought that
rigorous crossbreeding of the emerging dialect literature of various regions could
give rise to a future national language for China (Jing 1948: 125). In arguing for
his vision of multilingualism within the paradigm of leftist cultural criticism,
Qu referred to the example of the USSR:
Dialect literature is not exclusivist. It has to prosper alongside other
dialect literature and the literature of the common speech [Putonghua]
In the USSR, other than Russian literature, arent there dozens of other
types of dialect (minority) literature? Their critics or arts theorists take
this as something to be proud of. As a matter of fact, only scenery
blooming and blossoming with thousands of different colors can
symbolize the development of peoples arts and cultures. Why do we
hang onto the sight of dreary, monotonous yellow-earth plateaus or
freezing winters? As to the question of the so-called unifed national
language, the language doesnt, as a matter of fact, currently exist If
it is referred to as a future possibility, it has to wait until convergence
occurs among different languages. It is irrelevant here to invoke it
as a reason to stop the development of the urgently needed dialect
literature.
(Jing 1948: 125; my translation)
Despite the overshadowing effect of Hu Fengs problematic of popularization,
we can witness a fundamental challenge to the conceptual binary of the local
and the national. Indeed, the repeatedly invoked need of the leftist nationalists
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 126 3/5/09 12:41:07 PM
to popularize literature provided the localists with the leverage to employ
the rhetoric of radical criticism and to unsettle the alleged consensus about the
essence of the Chinese nation. Rather than admit that dialect literatures are
constitutive parts of a national literature, some localist writers even disputed
the label dialect literature. In an article entitled Abolishing the Labels of Dialect
Literature and Dialect Art, the author states,
I once wrote something in Chiuchow words and sent it to Chiu Chow.
I got a response that said, It is written in Chiuchow words, so why
call it dialect?... The so-called dialect literature and dialect art have
already presupposed the existence of dialect; correspondingly, there
is a kind of literature and arts of the offcial language. But what is
that? Is it baihua? That is the northern dialect. Is it the so-called national
language, guoyu? That is still the northern dialect recognized merely
through the [invoking] of a paper document from the government
The so-called [idea of] dialect cannot gain any recognition from the
people, for if Cantonese is a dialect, all [languages] from other places
are dialects, too. Otherwise, [if we] recognize all languages of other
places as baihua, then when is Cantonese not a kind of baihua, too?
(Yan 1999: my translation)
Refusing to be bound by the discourse concerning dialect literature, the author
called for a cultural politics of localism that would go beyond either the adoption
of more dialect vocabulary in literary writing or the writing of literary works in
dialect; rather, he overturned the legitimacy of the new orthodoxy of a binary
between the national and the local. The author contended that Cantonese and
Chiuchowese were vernaculars; a persons treatment of their written forms
should not differ from the persons treatment of written baihua. The author
pushed the logic of vernacularism to its extreme and thus challenged the
legitimacy of the modern Chinese nation-state. He wrote,
In the North, one may take [their] dialect as guoyu [national language].
This is straightforward. But in foreign countries, Cantonese has
become Tongshanwa and represents China. (The fact that some years
later, somebody exported a prefabricated national language was, of
course, an exception. We should stick to the original perspective of the
Chinese migrants overseas.) Tongshan means Tong state.
17
[It] saw
the northern language as the language of the foreign provinces (wai
jian hua). There are different positions a language can take. Different
concepts of locality and foreignness can thereby emerge. Northern
people may not accept it when others take their language as a foreign
language; similarly, southern Cantonese people cannot accept it when
others take their language as a dialect Isnt it a joke to classify Dream
of the Red Chamber as dialect literature of the Wu region? To consider
Shui Hu Chuan as dialect literature of Shangdong is not appropriate
either.
(Yan 1999: my translation)
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 127 3/5/09 12:41:07 PM
When the localist writer employed the rhetoric of Qu Qiubais New Literary
Revolution, the leftist logic of vernacularism-as-popularization triggered a
movement that did not stop after turning the Chiuchowese language and the
Cantonese language into useable local forms simply to enrich the alleged all-
China national form. Rather, the movement opened a venue in which he could
produce a different historical account of the Chinese nation. The author explained
his logic of cosmopolitanism by tracing when and how China had emerged as a
nation. To him, the national imaginary of China as Tongshan had a different
origin unrelated to how the urban Westernized Chinese intellectuals mimicked
a fctive European vernacular model of national language or the intellectuals
devising of a baihua based on a grammar modifed from European languages
(Kubler 1985). On the contrary, what the writer has referred to is an alternative
memory of the Chinese nations origin a memory rooted in the cultural
encounters experienced by early migrants in the coolie-exporting provinces of
Tongshan.
Different Memories of Chinese Pasts as Another
Cosmopolitanism
We now can see how the localist writer in the dialect-literature debates
presented a cosmopolitanism different from that asserted by Wang Hui. Behind
this different cosmopolitan imaginary lurked a different conception of the
Chinese nation; such a conception of Chineseness not undoubtedly differs
from the Shanghai cosmopolitanism or the Chinese cosmopolitanism recently
discussed by Leo Lee (1999). Having survived Chinas violent changes of political
and cultural domination, this migrant Tongshan cosmopolitan experience differs
markedly from what the Shanghai modernist intellectuals have espoused. The
latter aspired to a modern Chinese culture committed to an imagined Europe
a monolithic universalism, which we should be able to see as a semi-colonial
mimicry that had grown out of their curiosity about the West as a symbol of
power. In contrast with this May Fourth intellectual anti-traditionalism, the
leftist invocation of the popular elicited, in the now peripheralized South, a
different, multicultural imaginary of Chinese nationalism. This non-inland
logic of migrant cosmopolitanism did not quite follow the nation-state logic,
itself merely a derivative discourse of colonialism (Chatterjee 1986); nor was the
conception of the Chinese nation associated with this migrant cosmopolitanism
simply pirated from language nationalism, as theorized by Benedict Anderson
(1991). Rather, such a migrant-cosmopolitan voice was faithful to the ideal of
the vernacularism pleading respect for peoples daily language, their daily
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 128 3/5/09 12:41:08 PM
expressions, their daily sentiments, and their lifelong memories. Accompanying
this alternative conception of a national language and a subaltern insistence on
the participation of different vernaculars in the formation of the nation was a
proto-federalist conception of an ideal Chinese state. Within such a competing
nationalism, premised as it was on a rival image of cosmopolitanism, the Hong
Kong writer refused to be localized:
Only the local language spoken by the people is the peoples offcial
language; only a transformed language merging together languages
of all places should be treated as Chinas orthodox national language.
Only that language can be the national language. In the process of
striving for this, we should not belittle ourselves by putting a stigma
of dialect on [our] literature and arts. Nor should we confne ourselves
to an enclave, treating dialect-literature and dialect-arts as merely local
things. All those ideas should be abandoned as soon as possible. The
reasons for doing so are substantial and strong.
(Yan 1999; my translation)
In his attempt to reveal the logic underlying the project to establish the modern
Chinese nation-state, Wang Hui concludes his review of the national-forms
debate by asserting that it is no accident that in the end the issues of local forms
and vernacular dialects could only constitute a secondary question in the debate
about national forms (Wang, H. 1998b: 49; my emphasis). However, I would
contend that it is not so much a nationalist logic that renders the legitimacy of
certain cultural forms secondary, but the unrefective national/local opposition
that render some forms secondary to some others.
18
In short, it was the exclusion
of a certain proto-federalist nationalist imagination that rendered a certain
vernacular merely a subordinate local dialect.
The dialect-literature debate was short-lived. It is believed to have been
cut short in accordance with the general political trend to curb localism during
the early days of the new Communist China (Jin 1998; Wong, K.C. et al. 1999b:
1516). Early advocates of the dialect-literature movement returned to silence
after 1949, when the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) was founded. However,
under British colonial rule, the local Cantonese dialect survived the ensuing
waves of campaigns for language unifcation and radical linguistic reform and
was employed widely in popular cultural forms, such as those of cartoons,
satire, romantic literature, erotic literature, and other typically disparaged forms
of literature, and also in ideologically charged artistic expressions (Wong, K.C. et
al. 1999c).
Modern Chinese cultural nationalism remained strong after 1949. However,
despite efforts to bring to Hong Kong a national pedagogy, modern Chinese
cultural nationalism could not subdue the threatening existence of other
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 129 3/5/09 12:41:08 PM
cultural forms in that city; nor did the former successfully subject the latter to the
fne category of the local. To say that Hong Kong has developed a local identity
in distinction from the national Chinese one is as misleading as the assertion that
Hong Kong is a hybrid product of the more stable Chinese or Western culture:
neither Chinese identity nor Western identity is more stable than Hong Kong
identity. The modern identity of China is very much a result of the contradictory
discourse of European nationalism grafted onto the revitalization project of an
old Chinese empire. The European vernacularist principle one that inspired
Chinese intellectuals in the 1920s to create a national language for all Chinese
became, in the late 1930s and the 1940s, increasingly threatening to the pan-
Chinese universality claimed by the nationalists. In this regard, the presence
of Hong Kong, together with the unending southern localist sub-narrative of
Chinese nationalism, testifes not only to the existences of what Duara (1995)
may treat as fragments of Chinese pasts fragments that may be weaved
together to show the possibilities of alternative Chinese nationalism but
also, perhaps, more to the impossibility of suturing the necessary vacuity of the
Chinese national-popular. As Laclau and Zac (1994) argue, national identity, or
any political identity, comprises its constitutive split within, and the processes
of identifcation are what politics is all about: the identity politics between
Hong Kong and China should never be treated simply as a tussle between the
local and the central (also see Zizek 1993). Negotiations and contestations over
different memories of the Chinese past and diverse visions of the future are
indeed what really unite all Chinese, including those in Hong Kong, under the
foating signifer China.
ch.05(p.103-130).indd 130 3/5/09 12:41:08 PM
6
Cultural Cold War and the Diasporic Nation
G
lobal politics after World War II included the decolonization of many former
colonies; yet, at the same time, the global politics of this time ushered in the
Cold War, which lasted for the next half century. Many former colonies fell into
the categories of either developing nations or underdeveloped nations and found
their independence in a world deeply divided. This state of affairs meant not so
much that the former colonies would embark on autonomous development as
a new kind of dependence that played into the hands of either one, or both,
of the hegemonic powers. Culturally, national independence also posed, for
the newly independent territories, diffcult questions about national identities
questions that persist today. Interested parties ask questions about national
identity and try to answer them by looking back on the alleged historical roots
of the nation; however, in the wider reality of the Cold War, these efforts could
not possibly divorce themselves from global hegemonic contestations. The Cold
War divided some regions and nations, yet also helped to integrate others; it
redrew boundaries in real and imaginary terms. In all cases, its infuences ran
much deeper than a polarization of the world into two political camps.
The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) gained control over mainland China
in 1949 in a mood of exuberant anti-imperialism that resulted in the reclamation
of all treaty ports and coastal concessions, with the only exception of Hong
Kong. However, the Korean War (19501953) broke out soon thereafter and
dragged China into a Cold War confrontation with the United States; Hong
Kongs decolonization was held in suspension, for China had to take advantage
of Hong Kongs free-port status to break the U.S.-imposed trade embargo and to
acquire foreign exchange vital for the new regimes survival. For the following
three decades (until the 1980s), the issue of a decolonized Hong Kong largely
escaped intense scrutiny in international politics, and strategists on all sides
instead turned Hong Kong into a Cold War battle zone. Remnants of the defeated
KMT military and other former Nationalist Government affliates constituted
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 131 3/5/09 12:41:41 PM

a sizeable part of the refugee population in Hong Kong; upon their arrival,
they confronted pro-communist leftists, who enclosed themselves in separate
enclaves. Hostility between the two communities abounded, and Hong Kongs
social stability was largely at their mercy as they respectively and repeatedly
organized or instigated protests, strikes, and riots during the frst two postwar
decades.
As the Cold War was a protracted economic, geopolitical, and ideological
struggle between communism and capitalism, contestations on the cultural and
ideological fronts were at least as important as arms races or regional military
conficts. In Hong Kong then, one would fnd the leftist-rightist divide among
Chinese from all walks of life and in all settings: from newspaper establishments,
bookstores, schools, and cinemas right down to soccer teams. In this chapter,
I take the Cold War as the most important background against which there
emerged a cultural and political imaginary about a diasporic Chinese nation.
Manifested in notions such as Overseas China or in intellectual currents such
as Neo-Confucianism, the connections of these currents of thought with the
controversial Cold War cultural infrastructure are the subject of an analysis here
that reveals how the latter pre-conditioned the materialization of a distinct type
of Chinese nationalism in Hong Kong one that has become a core element of
Hong Kong identity, as it is now known. There is also a common belief that the
rise of Hong Kong identity in the 1970s is attributable to the political awakening
of Hong Kongs postwar baby-boomer generation to colonial oppression.
However, in this chapter, I take issue with this view. Analyzing the return
to China discourse in terms of the complex discursive shifts that occurred
between the left wing and the right wing in Hong Kong over the future of an
imagined homeland, I bring to light certain overshadowed aspects of Hong
Kong consciousness. I want to demonstrate, with examples, that underpinning
Hong Kongs emotional, intellectual, and political turbulence, which fashed
with youthful impulses of radicalism and nationalism, were also instances
in which colonial power was indigenized or localized. The chapter takes the
indigenization of colonial power as the main motif informing and underlying
the writings and the other practices of some of the latest members of the colonial
intelligentsia. These practices illustrate how such people bidding farewell to
the old while embracing the new could make the continuity of colonial rule
across 1997 as smooth as possible.
Diasporic Nationalism and the Cultural Cold War
In a sense, both Hong Kong and Taiwan could not be what they are now had the
Cold War not dominated global politics. The American intervention in the KMT-
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 132 3/5/09 12:41:42 PM
Cultural Cold War and the Diasporic Nation 133

CCP conficts across the Taiwan Strait had the consequence of turning both Hong
Kong and Taiwan into a strategic bulwark against the spread of communism
over Southeast Asia. In order to contain the spread of communism on cultural
fronts, American dollars came pouring into East Asia in support of academic,
educational, and other cultural activities that might possibly impede the growth
of radical ideologies (Huang, A.Y. 1996; Wu 1999: 18). There was a huge refugee
population in Hong Kong during the 1950; traumatized by wars, famines, and
political persecution, the population constituted easy prey for the cultural Cold
War. In Hong Kong, Greenback, anti-communist publications mushroomed
in formats ranging from news journals, cultural magazines, school textbooks,
and childrens literature to college newspapers and pictorial weeklies. These
publications occupied, from the 1950s onward, almost every possible niche of the
cultural life of ordinary Hong Kong people, and posed a strong challenge to the
previous predominance enjoyed by the pro-CCP leftist cultural establishment.
1

Roughly identifed as right-wing institutions, many of these publications were
manned by exiled intellectuals who had fed the Mainland to Hong Kong after
1949.
The Asia Foundation, which was the chief American agent for such funding,
supported three major publishing houses: You Lian (United), Jin Ri Shi Jie (Todays
World), and Asia Press. The Asia Foundation was connected with the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA); Jin Ri Shi Jie was a branch offce of the United States
Information Service (USIS) (Wu 1999: 1820, n. 4). While all of these institutions
supported anti-communist intellectuals be they essayists, philosophers,
or moviemakers by subsidizing their research projects or study plans, the
You Lian Press also established a research institute to gather information about
Communist China. Quite a number of tertiary colleges hosted exiled scholars
as lecturers. Thus, a sizeable population of writers settled in Hong Kong; they
taught, researched, and published extensively, as well as wrote in Hong Kong,
yet only a few could get into the more privileged institutions recognized or
funded by the colonial authority. With exiled Chinese, whether in Hong Kong
or elsewhere, as their target readers, the writers drew from their experiences
and their knowledge of mainland China to provide the readers with valuable
strategic information about or analyses of Chinas communist regime, which,
at that time, exercised extremely strict information control; indeed, the divide
between the PRC and the rest of the world was named the Bamboo Curtain. The
writers considered themselves engaged in studies of the bandit regime (fei
qing yan jiu), despite the fact that the China watchers and the Western journalists
to whom the writers fed information might not end up writing books or reports
whose anti-PRC message was as virulent as that of the KMT.
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 133 3/5/09 12:41:42 PM

In addition to research work, the You Lian Press supported cultural activities
that were less politically colored and that included magazines run by scholars
and writers who took students of all ages as their readers.
2
To bring up a new East
Asian generation of cultural and political leaders who would espouse American
values, You Lian developed numerous scholarships and exchange programs
that enabled students and academics to pursue further studies in the United
States. To be sure, American exertion of cultural and political infuence on China
through educational and academic activities did not start with the Cold War era;
as mentioned in chapter 3, the Americans began to take the lead over the British
in building collaborative educational projects in China as early as the 1920s.
However, with Communist China now turning into an enemy of the United
States, diasporic Chinese communities became major targets of those U.S.-
based endeavors. As pan-Chinese anti-communist solidarity was serviceable
in the Cold War, Hong Kong did not just offer its own refugee population as
targets for U.S. Cold War policy, but also served as a geo-strategic center for
such maneuvers. For example, the You Lian Research Institute published
Chinese textbooks for private secondary schools in Hong Kong, as well as for
Chinese schools in Southeast Asian countries.
3
Many anti-communist writers
who associated with the KMT regime in Taiwan were also involved in the Hong
Kong-based publication of journals.
Although the Cold War was about ideological conficts, the effects of the
Cold War rivalry would not be entirely about either the political values that
the two sides tried to safeguard or the systems that the two sides respectively
advocated. Cold War funding made possible a cultural infrastructure that, in
Hong Kong, functioned not so much to re-affrm the strong anti-communist
tendency already there among the refugee population as to facilitate connections
between areas populated by exiled or emigrated Chinese. Consequently, Cold
War culture profoundly infuenced the immigrants sense of self in relation to
membership in a Chinese community and thereby helped confgure Hong Kong
Chinese subjectivities. There has always been a leftist interpretation of the Cold
War that stresses the insidiousness of Cold War institutions and that accuses
intellectuals in the frontline states of being ideological dupes of Americanism;
my analysis below, however, traces, in Hong Kong, the nuances that characterize
how people experienced, negotiated with, and contested Cold War effects.
4
The Political Imaginary of Overseas China
Whereas in the 1950s, refugee publications funded by American dollars operated
like functionaries of the Cold War propaganda machine, a more varied range of
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 134 3/5/09 12:41:42 PM

opinions gradually emerged in the 1960s. In these later refugee publications,
some editorialists suggested a Third Way beyond the KMT and the CCP; some
proposed a United Chinese Government; still some others called for a revival
of Chinese democratic movements. All these suggestions refected a changing
sentiment that increasingly rejected not only communist dictatorial rule but
Chinese authoritarian regimes of a non-communist persuasion, as well. In
this regard, the plethora of divergent opinions tells us how disoriented the
communities of exiled intellectuals were. One writer, Zhan Buji, depicted how
the predicament of the multiple dislocations of overseas Chinese led him to call
for an Overseas China as a political alternative:
Ever since the communist takeover of the Mainland, twenty million
huaqiao (overseas Chinese) have been treated merely as moving
property of the communists in foreign countries; a huaqiao means no
more than foreign exchange
5
Taiwan authorities are deeply fearful of
communist infltrationall the Chinese qiaobao (overseas compatriots)
living overseas are no more than people who hold Chinese passports
from Taiwan without the right to go to Taiwanthey had better keep
silent on everything or organize a few tours every year to celebrate
Chiang Kai-sheks birthday or go sightseeing in Taiwan When
foreign friends ask us whether we are Mainland Chinese or Taiwanese
Chinese, how should we respond? One hundred percent of Chinese
huaqiao (except Taiwanese huaqiao) were born in mainland China. We
cannot recognize ourselves as Taiwanese in all honesty, in the eyes of
the overseas huaqiao, Taiwan is just the familiar name of a geographical
area and is not even as much of a home as Hong Kong or Macau are.
How can they whole-heartedly support a country without real
feelings So, why cant we organize an Overseas China? Neither the
CCP nor the KMT can do anything to us.
(Zhan 1968; my translation)
The imaginary unity of different overseas Chinese communities did not succeed
in the manner of a democratic and critical project as Zhan had expected it
would. Instead, a chauvinistic nationalism always overwhelmed the putatively
asserted solidarity among diasporic Chinese communities; in other words, the
communities seldom worked to relate the all-China issues to each and every
locality; on the contrary, the communities marginalized local issues.
For example, although people has always exalted the presence of both the
communist press and the anti-communist press in Hong Kong as evidence of
a free press in Hong Kong (see, e.g., Chan et al. 1996), the scope of journalistic
attention has never reached beyond the Cold War imaginary political map.
These refugee anti-communist publications seldom reported information about
Taiwan; news about Taiwan invariably refected the perspective of the new
mainland migrants to Taiwan (wai sheng ren) or was simply a reiteration of the
135
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 135 3/5/09 12:41:42 PM

KMT regimes doctrines. There was no reportage of any political sentiments of
the local Taiwanese (ben sheng ren) because Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong
were either pro-KMT or pro-CCP. They held an equally nationalistic attitude
in condemning or silencing any move hinting at a subversive cry for Taiwan
independence. In a way, although Hong Kong was not under KMT martial law,
as Taiwan was, local Hong Kong news effectively submitted to daily censorship
from the KMT news-and-information control bureaus.
Under martial law in Taiwan, writing novels was the only way for dissident
voices to make themselves heard. Hong Kong readers could read Taiwan-
published books to circumvent news controls and Cold War propaganda and
to glimpse what people in Taiwan felt and thought. However, such literature
always exhibited the fanciful projection of Chinese unity that was characteristic
of diasporic Chinese nationalism. One episode demonstrates how such
nationalist imagination maintained an apparent pan-Chinese unity, while the
people in each locality of this imagined China refused to listen to each other.
In 1968, KMT authorities in Taiwan arrested writer Chen Yingzhen for political
reasons. A young writer in Hong Kong, Shum Yat-fei, impressed by Chens talent
and also perhaps by the social consciousness in his novels, recorded in print his
deep worry over Chens fate during the several months of news blackout that
followed the arrest (Shum 1968b).
6
Shum recorded how he had tried initially to
rally both support for Chen and opposition to the KMTs unjust detention of
him. But Shum grew deeply disheartened as rumors circulated that Chen had
been arrested for his support of Taiwan independence. Shum considered the
rumor to be more alarming than the arrest itself; he then described his decisions
and the resulting agony he experienced:
However much we are dissatisfed with the Chiang Kai-shek regime,
Taiwan cannot go independent. Taiwans independence deserves no less
opposition than Chiangs dictatorship. And if these two oppositional
positions get intertwined and bring out conficts, we would rather lean
toward Chiang than side with Taiwan independence.
(Shum 1968b; my translation)
He later expressed his relief upon learning that KMT authorities had accused
Chen not of being a supporter of independence but of being a communist. Of
course, we now know that, far from being a supporter of independence, Chen
Yingzhen has always had a strong socialist inclination and has always been a
staunch unifcation advocate. The novels that he wrote in the 1960s relayed his
skilful and pungent criticisms of Taiwan society under Chiangs dictatorial rule,
but failed to impress his Hong Kong readers as much as Shum, who lacked even
the basic information necessary to judge how Chen would position himself in
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 136 3/5/09 12:41:42 PM

regard to an issue as important as Taiwan independence. Nationalist chauvinism,
in the form of the motto Better dictatorship than a divided nation represented
the Hong Kong Chinese nationalist viewpoint during cultural Cold War
conditions and stopped a youth like Shum, who could still appreciate writers
critical talents, from listening to what might lie beyond the imaginary united
China. For the younger generation in Hong Kong, the Cold War structured a
diasporic nationalist imagination within a statist conceptual scheme, and this
imagination compelled them to limit their own political choice to either the
CCP or the KMT. Despite this narrowing of the political feld, members of the
younger generation professed that they were heroically struggling against the
two regimes, with favor toward neither one.
7

Diasporic Chinese nationalism was also closely associated with the
nationalists emotional investment in a Cold War victory. Such a connection
enabled global geo-strategic thinking to become an indispensable part of the
nationalist imagination. For example, Cold War rhetorical support for democracy
allowed Lao Siguang, a famous anti-communist historian, to admit that the
Taiwan independence movement could be seen as the Taiwanese peoples
reaction to the Chiang Kai-shek regimes oppressive and corrupt rule. However,
he categorically rejected the course of Taiwan independence as unfeasible. To
avoid the inconsistencies that emerged among his principles, he stated,
We should be concerned about Taiwan as much as we are concerned
about China; but Taiwans fate cant be changed. It will stay under
the protection of the United States until mainland China changes. A
new, non-communist Chinese government will then recover Taiwan.
If I am right, Taiwan is no more than a place where people can retire
and escape from the war. I havent talked much about Taiwan recently
because I am not going to retire soon.
(Lao 1968; my translation)
This wishful statement might not have taken into account the fact that the Taiwan
independence movement was also grounded on indirect American support and
on its tacit endorsement (Wang 1999); yet the statement illustrated how Cold War
geo-strategic consideration had built itself into a diasporic nationalist discourse.
Apart from wishful assumptions regarding the military might of the liberal
camp, diasporic Chinese nationalism in Hong Kong was also homologous to
the sanctifed moral meanings that the immigrant Chinese found in their lives
in exile. This moral dimension of diasporic nationalism was refected in, and
interwoven with, the discursive and academic practices of Neo-Confucianism,
which originated at New Asia College in Hong Kong.
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 137 3/5/09 12:41:42 PM

National Spirit in a Colony: Neo-Confucianism
New Asia College was founded to host exiled Neo-Confucian scholars. For this
project, an initial offering of help from the KMT government was followed by
American funds. Scholars at New Asia College believed that their life in exile
carried with it a special cultural responsibility that was open to philosophical
justifcation. Tang Junyi (Tang Chun-I), one of the pre-eminent Neo-Confucian
philosophers of New Asia College, poetically described the turmoil that he and
others experienced as a tragic tale of the scattered fowers and the withering
fruits of Chinese Culture (zhong hua wen hua de hua guo piao ling) (Tang 1974: 1
29). In existentialist terms, he held that what every intellectual in exile faced was
a personal choice between authentic personhood, grounded in nationality, and a
life permanently alienated from its identity. He described the endeavors of people
to fnd authenticity amid the hardships of exile as a project of planting ones
soulful roots (ling gen zi zhi) in the long stream of Chinese Culture, which was to
be preserved and made imperishable (Tang 1974: 3061; my translation).
Tang was a great fgure among the Neo-Confucianists. His critical
investigations, as much as his self-critical and soul-searching investigations,
were very much an outcome of the Cold War formation, within which the
relationship between the Western powers and exiled Chinese nationalists was
shot through with tensions and contradictions. He examined the sad reality of
academic dependency, whereby the exiled nationalist scholars had to rely on
the West for fnancial aid that would go toward living spaces and opportunities
to develop academically. This collaboration was grudgingly arranged, despite
the fact that the writers and the West shared an opposition to communism. The
exiled Chinese scholars and researchers grew increasingly anxious that they
might lose both their national identity and their control over academic agendas:
they eventually realized that they were of value to Western (mainly American)
academies mainly as mere native informants. In other words, although they
espoused a high-fying ambition to teach Western Culture so that it should learn
from Eastern Culture,
8
they began to question whether the migrant intellectuals
could really go beyond the studies of the bandit regime, which served only
Cold War political and military agendas.
Tang issued a rather heroic call to the exiled intellectual communities when
he profoundly criticized the craving of Hong Kong youths to study in the United
States as a prelude to gaining American citizenship. His criticism revealed his
unease about the way in which the British colonial master who hosted these
youths had been planning to amalgamate New Asia College into a tightly
controlled mainstream educational system (Report of the Fulton Commission
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 138 3/5/09 12:41:43 PM

1963).
9
His agony was great as he bid farewell to the college before resigning in
protest of the governments move:
The educational goal of New Asia was originally to offer knowledge
and learning to China. It is painful that what we hoped cannot be
realized. We can only bear our pain if we do not give up [the educational
goal of New Asia]. Thats the true New Asia Spirit. However, if the
federal structure of the Chinese University of Hong Kong cannot be
maintained, our New Asia Spirit will disappear. If everyone knows only
the international world and Hong Kong but not China, we cannot even
keep our pain. Our lives will become either those of the innumerable
and lifeless wandering international souls or simply those of obedient
men in Hong Kong. This will truly be an absolute pain.
(Tang 1981; my translation)
For decades, Neo-Confucian scholars had been known for their persistent
criticism of the instrumentalist view of knowledge, which was allegedly intrinsic
to Western cultures (Chang 1976). Their cultural conservatism ran counter to the
unrefective embrace of Western modernity commonly found in the heirs of the
May Fourth Movement. The founding fathers of Neo-Confucianism sought an
alternative path of national development for China: Xiong Shili was a great-
revolutionary-turned-great-scholar; Liang Shuming, linked closely Xiongs
anti-modernity critiques with the village-reconstruction movement (a kind of
grassroots community-building initiative based on Confucian teachings) (Alitto
1979). Having inherited these legends and being surrounded by the historical
aura captured by the phrase New Asia Spirit, New Asia College became the
next in a chain of legends about a stream of rare but courageous traditionalists.
Over the years, the New Asia Spirit was a repository for all kinds of
idealistic associations and projections and has been the subject of many
different re-interpretations, some of the most prominent being persistence
against communism; the spirit of humanity; the spirit of Chinese culture; and
an educational ideal. However, although Neo-Confucianism in Hong Kong
had inspired quite a few young students, it was itself imbued with many
contradictions. In contrast to its predecessor in China, the intellectual agenda
of Neo-Confucianism in Hong Kong changed substantially to harmonize with
the Cold War anti-communist struggle. Detached from Hong Kong society,
as their teachings and concerns were about a great Chinese cultural tradition
(the opposite, in many ways, of Hong Kong culture), the Neo-Confucianists
became isolated scholars who immersed themselves in a pure philosophical
pursuit of moral subjectivity and who did not fully realize the spirit of praxis-
engagement, as emphasized in the Confucian classics. Indeed, their criticism of
Western modernity was blunted given the fact that few, if any, continued to
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 139 3/5/09 12:41:43 PM

criticize science or democracy, the May Fourth icons for Westernization. Instead,
they premised their defense of Neo-Confucianism on a belief that Confucian
teachings might supplement Western modernity. Therefore, they made most of
their efforts launching inspections of Chinese culture, with an idealized notion of
how Western culture might exhibit the ways in which Neo-Confucianists might
modify Confucian philosophies so that they ft a Western mode of modern life.
10

As members of the Cold War chorus, the Neo-Confucianists criticized the triumph
of the undemocratic rule of communism far more than they criticized colonialism
in Hong Kong. However, in functioning as a credible tool for the Western liberal
camp, their anti-communism also legitimized their disengagement from the
local Hong Kong colonial reality. Therefore, Neo-Confucianists could offer no
tangible social criticisms that might help local students refect on the immanent
coloniality they faced. In other words, the Neo-Confucianists failed to develop
an organic relationship with the colonial Hong Kong society that hosted them.
As the existence and the development of Hong Kongs Neo-Confucianism
were largely at the mercy of the colonial government, none of these Neo-
Confucianists fancied that the colonial government would really value their
merits. So while raising not only the question of national affliation but also
the moral spirit of Hong Kongs young Chinese, the Neo-Confucianists earned
less and less offcial support, a trend that was especially pronounced after the
Cold War confrontation started to ease up in the 1970s. Thus, Tangs battle to
defend New Asia Colleges autonomy and the New Asia Spirit could not help
but be a lonely voice, a hopelessly quixotic resistance against the colonial host.
A contradictory situation such as the one in which the Neo-Confucianists
found themselves caught up could not help but generate a moral and cognitive
gap between high morality (a nostalgic longing for an imagined China) and
accommodating attitudes and practices toward the rather oppressive colonial
reality of Hong Kong.
This palpable gap was indeed embarrassing, but it was precisely the gap
that gave rise to what Laclau calls the surface of identifcation, through which
new political identity can emerge (Laclau and Zac 1994: 13). In 1971, when
Chinese nationalism started to engulf the students in the wake of a territorial
dispute over the Diaoyu Islands, a New Asia student Lau Mei-mei wrote a
passionate open letter in which, by quoting passages from the moral teachings
of Tang Junyi, she criticized the political acquiescence of New Asia scholars and
queried how her teachers could match their teachings with their deeds (Lau,
M.M. 1971). This letter, entitled Cry New Asia, aroused heated debates, and was
reprinted in and reported by many other youth publications (CSW October 1,
1971).
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 140 3/5/09 12:41:43 PM

The challenge that Lau Mei-mei posed to the empty notion of New
Asia Spirit soon culminated in the re-appraisal and re-interpretation by local
students of the notion from the point of view of different political concerns
and aspirations. The students increasingly disarticulated the notion from anti-
communist nationalism and re-articulated it as a starting point for an anti-
colonial nationalism. A student spoke of his new understanding in 1974:
If we want to implement the New Asia Spirit, we cannot just uphold
Chinese culture in academic pursuits; we should implement it by
opposing the colonial government. But for these twenty years, this has
not been done. Teachers of New Asia must be in agony over the lack
of national consciousness of Hong Kongs youth. In fact, the colonial
government was the real cause. Student movements that have emerged
recently are anti-colonial and are driven by Marxism and Trotskyism.
They supplement the lacuna left by the New Asia Spirit.
(SUNA 1974: 33; my translation)
11
The contradictions that emerged out of the Cold War formation carried with
them the students uneasiness concerning the teachers complicity with colonial
power. It testifed that the diasporic Chinese nationalism the exiled scholars had
brought to Hong Kong appeared as a narrative about a nation with a traumatic
void rather than as a coherent ideology. To the extent that this nationalism
succeeded in arousing students to assert for themselves an autonomous political
identity, it sowed the seeds of its own destruction, as its own Cold War complicity
with the colonial establishment became more and more unacceptable. As a
philosophy about ones lost national roots, this exile nationalism began to come
apart even as it started to take root in Hong Kong. Thus, the discourse about
the traumatic void of the exiled generation was not just a constitutive lack (in
the Lacanian sense) but also inscribable, for it offered an empty space in which
different national imaginations could fourish (Laclau 1990; Laclau and Zac
1994). So, when the Neo-Confucianists failed to offer moral principles consistent
with a practical vision for the future and, thus, failed to fll the void, the locally
grown nationalist aspirants sought to innovate the Chineseness that, according
to the old nationalist scholars, they did not possess.
Innovating Chineseness
In the midst of the worldwide student radicalism of 1968, the buzzwords
identity crisis appeared in many publications for young audiences. The
concept itself recalled both many radical ideas from the West and the nostalgic
voices of the older generation of exiled intellectuals. There is no better example
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 141 3/5/09 12:41:43 PM

that illustrates this urge to re-invent Chineseness than that of the group of
young writers and artists who launched the new cultural magazine Panku. They
not only focused the new magazine on cultural and political criticism, but also
organized activities among its readers by pushing the Campaign for Lifestyle
Innovation.
12
Their motto was Lets live more like Chinese. They grouped
together a number of college professors, artists, poets, musicians, doctors, and
journalists who were to design a whole new set of Chinese customs, including
New Year wall posters, greeting slogans, and festival board games; they even
devised new rituals for festive celebrations and choreographed new folkdances.
One of the participants recorded how their idea of Lifestyle Innovation came
up. He wrote,
[Someone] suggested that people should send greeting cards to friends
at the Moon Festival. Pao thinks it is a good idea. Yeung says that
cocktail parties in foreign countries follow a set of fxed rules but that
the Chinese feast, regardless of whether it is big or small, is always
totally chaotic and messy. Wu holds the same opinion and says that
he cant stand going to those wedding feasts or whatnot because,
other than eat, drink, and play mahjong, there is nothing to do. As for
funerals, [the Chinese] go to church and then call the Buddhist monks
to chant. Its unfathomable. We got really excited talking more about
these messy phenomena and came to the realization of how serious
the matter is.
(Shum 1968a; my translation)
The campaign brought together, all at once, three important factors: the youths
impulses to modernize; the traditionalists grief over the fall of the Chinese
national spirit; and intellectuals May Fourth-style thrill of playing a vanguard
role in designing a set of cultural codes for the people they claimed to represent.
Although this cultural re-invention campaign did not materialize into what
they had expected (namely, a popular movement that could go beyond the
circle of a handful of intellectuals), it epitomized an important moment in the
transformation of diasporic nationalism.
By claiming to reinvigorate in Hong Kong a Chineseness that Hong Kong
putatively lacked, the campaign simultaneously opened up a space in which
young Hong Kong intellectuals could imagine themselves at the very center of
a national revival. The diasporic imagination of China, which had taken no
concrete Chinese soil as its reference but which had emerged within the Cold War
power formation, subtly reversed the previous conventional center-periphery
hierarchy of China and Hong Kong. This shift had a profound effect on what
shortly emerged as a massive movement for a return to China that I discuss
later.
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 142 3/5/09 12:41:43 PM

Renegotiating Cultural Nationalism in Hong Kong
First, however, let us discuss how such an immanent identity crisis had the effect
of concomitantly clearing the way for the emergence of a Hong Kong identity.
I illustrate the complex discursive negotiations involved in this emergence by
analyzing Chinese Students Weekly (Zhongguo xue sheng zhou bao) (CSW, hereafter),
a high school student magazine that had a readership of over 30,000 and that
was in print from 1952 to 1974. Like all the examples we have discussed above,
CSW was a product of the American-dollar culture, although CSWs manifest
commitment was supposedly to the ideals of modern Chinese nationalism (Ip
1997; Wu 1999: 18). CSW was considered one of the most successful student
magazines during the three decades it was published.
13
Both because it circulated
widely and because it provided young persons with the space in which they
could learn about various new artistic or literary trends and theories, CSW
earned the reputation among local scholars as the cradle of the new generation
of Hong Kong cultural workers (Xiaosi 1997).
With young secondary-school students as its intended readers, CSW was
relatively light on the repetitive anti-communist propaganda often found
in other political publications. Yet in the frst two decades of its publication
history, it produced as much Cold War rhetoric regarding communist Chinas
status as a total Other as any other anti-communist publication. Using many
sensational reports or stories of refugees, CSW employed a softer approach than
other publications, yet consolidated the familiar heaven-and-hell framework
regarding the relative merits of Hong Kong and mainland China. In the early
1950s, when the left was mobilizing Hong Kong students to go back to China
for further education, CSW ran numerous articles to dissuade them from being
deluded and reported on the hardships of studying in China (CSW August 15,
1952; September 12, 1952). As most of the Chinese magazines and newspapers
published during that period were oriented along some partisan line, an
acrimonious war of this type of propaganda was almost part of daily life.
In these respects, CSW was no different from the other refugee publications
that I have discussed so far. However, unlike the others, which could cover all
the abstractions of China for adult readers without even referring to any aspect
of local society, CSW targeted a younger generation that was largely locally
born, and so CSW could not avoid frequent characterizations of Hong Kong
society that would bring the publication closer to the experiences of its young
readers. When it made these characterizations, however, CSW had to gloss over
the colonial reality of Hong Kong society and put it into the category of the free
world, as I discuss below. Although Hong Kong in the 1950s and the 1960s was
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 143 3/5/09 12:41:43 PM

still a repressive colonial society in many aspects, with very strict police control
and with no effective democratic elections for any signifcant governmental
bodies, most CSW writers described the city as part of the liberal-democracy
camp, a fortress of free culture (CSW August 22, 1952). As Ip Iam-chong
observes, many of the CSW writers used iconic phrases of Cold War rhetoric to
refer to Hong Kong. For example, many claimed that CSW itself exemplifed the
free press, that Hong Kong education was free education, and that Hong
Kong was part of the free world. All these claims stood in contrast to what
they described as the hellish environment of mainland China. They depicted
Hong Kong as the only place where Chinese students could breathe free air; it
even described Hong Kong as one of the last few places that taught the culture
and history of the Motherland, China (Ip 1997: 2224). In order to elaborate on
both the freedom that Hong Kong enjoyed and the fourishing of Chinese
culture in this free environment, CSW was not only apologetic about the
colonial government and its educational policies but, in every way possible,
either buried the actual experiences of life in a colonial regime or re-inscribed
them as part of life in a harmonious bicultural society. For example, when in
1963, the writers debated among themselves whether or not the co-presence
of Chinese and English middle schools was desirable, some young authors
accused the English-school students as being unpatriotic; those students were
a disgrace to the Chinese people (CSW 585/1963).
14
As a rebuttal, an English-
school student wrote a confession in which she recounted her experience at a
Chinese primary school, where she had suffered discrimination at the hands
of senior schoolmates for her poor English. She wrote that, rather than feel
bitter, she turned the experience into a determination to learn both English and
Chinese really well. She said it was a responsibility incumbent upon her because
she felt proud to be Chinese when she made friends with foreigners; therefore,
speaking good English was a matter of Chinese pride (CSW 590/1963). CSWs
editors promptly wrote an editorial comment praising her determination and
affrmed it by reiterating the importance of bilingualism in Hong Kong. The
editors directly appealed to Chinese national pride rather than argued from any
other position. Yet, their intention was also obvious in steering the discussion on
nationalism not to reach an anti-colonialist conclusion.
As an infuential youth magazine with literature and arts as its main content,
CSW expressed political messages that were strong enough to impress its young
readers, and this persuasive capacity enabled CSW gradually to creep toward
a renewed interpretation of Chinese nationalism one that no longer took the
Chinese language as the paramount embodiment of Chineseness. Incidents such
as this bilingual affair were numerous in CSW and marked gradual but signifcant
shifts in the Chinese cultural-nationalist discourse in Hong Kong. On almost
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 144 3/5/09 12:41:44 PM

every National Day of the Republic of China (which falls on October 10 and
which is known also as the Double Ten), CSW ran articles commemorating Sun
Yat-sens Republican Revolution; however, the publication made an increasing
effort to celebrate certain aspects of the Hong Kong way of life. The result of this
shift in emphasis was to dampen those differences between Chinese cultural
nationalism and the lifestyles of this colonized city, which Chinese nationalists
had heavily criticized since the 1930s (see Chapter 5).
A Cold War Turn of Collaborative Colonialism
As previously mentioned, the strategic needs of the Wests Cold War anti-
communism assigned to Hong Kong a frontline role in stamping out the spread
of communism. Chinese cultural nationalism was instrumental in this strategic
consideration; the only condition was that the role should not jeopardize the
colonial governance of Hong Kong. Therefore, to reverse the antagonism
between Chinese nationalists and British colonial rule, the task became one of
forging a new ideological hegemony that would reconcile potential conficts
between Hong Kongs colonial reality and Hong Kongs aspiration for national
autonomy. A re-fashioned Chinese cultural nationalism, exemplifed by CSW,
was thus neither conservative and atavistic nor anti-imperialistic, radical, and
utopian; for the nationalism was contained within a Cold War framework in
service to the West. In place of the new-old dichotomy or the progressive-
traditional binary, relationships between colonialism and nationalism within
the Cold War framework now all took second place to the two-camps rhetoric of
here-there, free-dictatorial, us-them.
Ip Iam-chong describes how the mutually accommodating relationships
between Chinese cultural nationalism and colonialism led, eventually and by
means of an invoked Hong Kong identity, to a social conservatism. He states,
Fanon discusses both how the identity of native nationalists was
indeed continuous with that of the colonizers and how the native
nationalists longed to occupy the space previously occupied by the
colonizers In Hong Kong, cultural nationalism did not confne itself
to the frame left by the Western colonizer. Rather, the two were, in
different areas, complicit with each other in establishing colonial rule.
Cultural nationalists called for the solidarity of Hong Kong society in
the name of the people and social interest out of which it was
hoped that a formative civil society would be born. However, far
from being an arena in which resistance against the authoritarian state
would be launched, this civil society was subjugated to the social order
of stability and prosperity, to the advantage of the colonial regime.
(Ip 1997: 33; my translation)
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 145 3/5/09 12:41:44 PM

Ips remark may overlook the implicit criticism that Neo-Confucianists like Tang
Junyi once leveled against academic (colonial) dependency, but he is certainly
right to highlight how discourses about Hong Kong identity were initially
offshoots of the cultural Cold War formation. The pro-colonial-establishment
notion of Hong Kong identity came out markedly in the social unrest that erupted
in the mid-1960s. The CSW collective was one of the frst groups to lend their
vocal support to the governments tough enforcement of law and order. Their
reaction was so partisan that even when some members of the editorial board
suggested that they should organize essays to write about the social causes of
the riots, the senior member simply refused (Liu 1988; Ip 1997: 28).
The Cultural Politics of Imagining Hong Kong
Precisely at the time when the colonial government hyped Hong Kong
belongingness to encourage nationalist mobilization in Hong Kong and, thus,
to stem the dangerous tides of radicalization, CSWs Cold War collaborative
ideology was put to its greatest test. CSWs readers were expressing a burgeoning
interest in Hong Kong, and CSW responded to its readerships changing focus by
undergoing a process of localization: it assigned some of its pages, for example,
to social issues, to reports on student movements in the West, and to introductory
articles on foreign literary and flm theories (Lo, W.L. 1996a: 5473). Relaxing itself
from the customary anti-communist style, CSW joined discussions concerning
the identity-crisis problem and, thus, echoed changes at other journals such as
Panku and Jianhuang. Dogmatic anti-communist phrases gradually disappeared;
Hong Kong became the CSW writers focus; poetry, prose, and novels about
Hong Kong mushroomed. Having emerged as a coherent community, Hong
Kong was both sensationalized and aestheticized by the young writers of
CSW (see Ip 1997: 31). Lo Wai Luen, in her personal memoir, gives her summary
of both the co-existence of multiple voices and the contradictions manifested in
CSWs later years:
From 1954 onward, Qiu Zhenli wrote an irregular column. He
demonstrated what national consciousness really means, from the
perspective of a Chinese intellectual; he loved talking about his nostalgia,
ideals, scope of knowledge, cultural tastes, personal cultivation, and
so on. He became an iconic fgure for young Hong Kong students.
From 1963 onward, He Zhen wrote the column Notes of a Teacher. He
always wrote from the perspective of what a Hong Kong teacher
felt and thought; he used to refect on local refections from a global
perspective, as [Hong Kong] was situated at the crossroads between
Chinese and Western cultures. He no longer adhered to the tradition
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 146 3/5/09 12:41:44 PM

of Qiu Zhenli and therefore drew much criticism; but he considered
that criticism to be refective of precisely the critics imprisonment in a
static mode of knowledge. From 1969 onward, Xiaosi wrote the column
Speaking on the Way. The concerns therein were extremely narrow, no
longer touching on traditional culture; nor was there any new Western
knowledge. The column focused solely on the youth themselves,
treating the dilemmas they faced and their state of mind. It pretended
to offer some very superfcial solutions, addressing the boredom and
the frustration that the youth then faced. But it avoided touching on
the radical social campaigns that were taking place out there in society.
This meek slothfulness was very safe on the surface; in reality, it was
another kind of control.
(Lo, W.L. 1996a: 6667; my translation, my emphasis)
Although Lo was not prepared to accept criticism that CSW had been only a pawn
in the Cold War, she herself could witness how diasporic Chinese nationalism
was increasingly out of touch with the fast-changing concerns of the readers.
This small piece of personal memory demonstrates vividly the ambivalence of
the CSW anti-communist nationalists toward the emerging Hong Kong identity:
on the one hand, they wanted to see Hong Kongs distinctiveness safeguarded
against communist cultural and political intrusion; on the other hand, they
sensed that, by itself, the rise of such local consciousness would inevitably
expose all the problems of colonial society that they themselves were reluctant to
criticize. Neither the nationalist intellectuals lofty pathos nor the cut-and-dried
package of handy Western theories could help inquisitive young adults deal
with the concrete and local colonial reality although both pathos and Western-
infuenced theorizing were characteristic feats of modern Chinese nationalists
intellectualist practice. To catch up with the outburst of social and grassroots
campaigns in Hong Kong, CSW was fooded, in its later years, with reports and
essays of social issues, although some readers criticized this upsurge of social
concerns as superfcial, emotional, and non-engaging. The infux of critical
discourses indeed exceeded the limits that a cultural magazine, whose initial
function had been as a pro-West Cold War tool, was supposed to maintain. The
editors felt surprised and disoriented as the social and cultural concerns that
they had originally encouraged young Hong Kong readers to develop started to
turn back on the publication.
In some ways, CSWs more local-oriented discourses of diasporic
nationalism ran into a predicament in the 1970s, as did Neo-Confucianism. Just as
the obsession of Panku writers with inventing the Chineseness revealed the huge
gulf between the ideality of the imaginary homeland and the philosophers lack
of engagement with the colonial reality, CSWs incapacity to lead the campaign
for Hong Kong youths identifcation with Hong Kong pointed to a general
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 147 3/5/09 12:41:44 PM
failure for the old non-leftist cultural leaders to identify a proper perspective
from which the youngsters could confront Hong Kongs colonial reality. The
demise of diasporic nationalism ushered in a period replete with social and
cultural discontents of different types. Many people believed that this period,
remembered as the Red Era (huo hong nian dai), would be the beginning of the
end of Hong Kongs colonial past: the refugee mentality was gone; a new Hong
Kong identity was budding.
ch.06(p.131-148).indd 148 3/5/09 12:41:44 PM
III
Lingering Colonialism
ch.06a(p.149).indd 149 3/5/09 12:42:00 PM
7
Indigenizing Colonial Power and
the Return to China
I
t is nowadays a commonplace to characterize the 1970s as a monumental
break for Hong Kong. While many praise the economic take-off, quite some
others point to the cultural and social transformation that happened then. The
rise of political activisms and radicalisms among the university students is often
referred to as an important cause of those profound changes, which gave rise
to the new political outlook of the postwars generation of locally born Hong
Kong Chinese. Their growing interest in political participation is often taken as
the manifestation of an emerging local consciousness which resulted from the
identity crisis that surfaced after the failure of the Cold-War non-leftist diasporic
Chinese nationalism to address the rather frustrating colonial reality that denied
democratic participation of the local Chinese populace as well as their national
belongingness. As a result, student radicalisms of the 1970s had the legitimacy
of British colonial rule in Hong Kong shaken and it paved the way for the call for
its return to the China Motherland. While I basically agree that the 1970s can be
treated as a time when locally born Hong Kong Chinese considered themselves
for the frst time as historical subjects seeking a future and an identity of their
own, I am not that sure about the signifcant break with the past that the
student radicalisms of the 1970s indeed achieved. For one thing, such a narrative
obscures the continuity between diasporic Chinese nationalism and various
later attempts to construct Hong Kong identity. Furthermore, it does not explain
why and how a society that overwhelmingly loathed the communist instigators
of the 1967 riots would, in the early 1970s, turn out a group of elite university
students who would feverishly identify with Communist China and pursue
Hong Kongs return to China.
1

In this chapter, I am going to examine the discursive shifts and the discursive
displacements that led to a complex confguration of identity politics between
Hong Kong and China. I argue that although the change of political orientation
was dramatic, we may notice signifcant continuity between the Cold War-
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 151 3/5/09 12:42:16 PM
Lingering Colonialism 152

affected diasporic Chinese nationalism and the emergent subjectivity of the
young Hong Kong elite. Such an analysis of what I will term the Return discourse
should begin with a review of the postwar education system from which student
movements emerged, for it constituted a prominent part of what Appadurai calls
the ideoscape of 1960s and 1970s Hong Kong (Appadurai 1996). It will then
move on to a few glimpses of how the Return discourse crystallized an about-
turn of the political orientation among the Hong Kong Chinese intellectuals.
Revealing the ideological re-orientation as one that was underpinned by the
new managerialist vision which lent credence to the desires either to justify
communist rule over China or to legitimize colonial governance in Hong Kong,
this chapter addresses the question of how and why conditions were already
there in Hong Kong for colonial power to be indigenized before the transfer of
sovereignty from Britain to the PRC was realized in 1997. Such a process of
the indigenization of colonial power can help explain why decolonization in
political and cultural terms is still an objective to be longed for a decade after
the Chinese authorities had resumed their governmental power in Hong Kong.
The Left Turn of the Identity Crisis: The Return Discourse
Over the years, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) remained at the peak of
the colonial elite education system. Since HKU was founded, four decades
of political chaos in Republican China and receding British infuence in
China rendered Lugards grand plan to nurture a new generation of native
gentlemen for China an unfulflled dream. Yet HKU until 1964, the only elite
university remained a breeding ground of loyal civil servants for the colonial
government and of professionals such as doctors and lawyers. The infux of
refugees from the Mainland boosted the development of Chinese schools and
led to the establishment of an informal private Chinese-language education
system. However, as the university would admit only students coming from
Hong Kongs English-language schools, the Chinese-language schools were
considered inferior. The formation of the bilingual Chinese University of Hong
Kong (CUHK) in 1964 symbolized, for the exiled intellectuals, the colonial
governments recognition of Chinese-language education; and some of them
celebrated it as a signifcant step away from English-language supremacy. During
its frst two decades, CUHK was the only alternative to the colonial educational
system and received positive mention in some Hong Kong Chinese-language
newspapers and magazines (Lau, J.S.M. 1971; Lee 1971; Nanbeiji 1971).
To be sure, CUHK did not initially promote itself as a radical institution
that would destabilize the colonial establishment; nor did its students show
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 152 3/5/09 12:42:16 PM
Indigenizing Colonial Power and the Return to China 153

any anti-colonial sentiment. On the contrary, conservative student political
attitudes prevailed at the two universities. For example, both HKU and CUHK
student leaders supported the governments measures to suppress the street
protests, demonstrations, and riots of 1967. Apolitical attitudes abounded on
the campuses, and laments over cynicism and decadence were typical themes
in student publications. Skepticism about politics reigned; everyone was
suspicious that all occasions of political discussion were vulnerable to political
agitation, that all campuses were infltrated by career students. This apoliticism
in the depressed atmosphere of the 1960s gradually thawed, thanks to the
political opportunism of some loyalist Chinese community leaders who tried
to mend the cleft between the Chinese residents and the colonial government
by launching a campaign that called for the government to increase its use of
the Chinese language and to recognize the Chinese language as another offcial
language.
This act of self-promotion was no more than a grab at social support for
personal advancement in the colonial co-optation structure, but it soon animated
the imagination of elite university students, as they were also eager to increase
their participation in university administration. To emulate the 1960s student
movement in the West, elite students at HKU began to talk enthusiastically
about the students role in politics. The call of the loyalist Chinese elite, for
the governments recognition of the Chinese language soon gained the active
support of the students and turned into a wider civil and student campaign. The
ragtag alliance of the Chinese Language Campaign did not win for the loyalists
much credibility in the eyes of their colonial master, because other activists
usurped the issue of the Chinese language as a platform to advance a wider
Chinese nationalist course. Although limited, the Chinese Language Campaign
was the frst post-riot social movement that pitted Chinese identity against the
colonial government (Hong-Kong-Affairs Group 1982; HKFS 1983).
Radicalizing Overseas China? The Defend-Diaoyus
Campaign and the Red Era
With its rather moderate demands, the Chinese Language Campaign, however,
opened a can of worms regarding the ambiguous political implications of Chinese
identity. The campaigns limited goals and visions were soon superseded by
the high nationalist fervor among elite students of the early 1970s.
2
The event
that triggered the dramatic change was the sovereignty row over the Diaoyu
(Senkaku) Islands, which involved China, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States
(The Seventies 1971; Kwan 1997).
3
While neither of the two regimes that claimed
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 153 3/5/09 12:42:17 PM

to be the sovereign representative of all China would stand frm in defending the
sovereign rights of a tiny group of uninhabited islands, Chinese students from
Hong Kong and Taiwan came forward to protest, despite the fact that there was
virtually no response from the tightly controlled Mainland. Although scholars
have yet to carefully assess the long-term effects that the Defend-Diaoyus
Campaign (biao diao yun dong) has had on Taiwan and Hong Kong respectively,
one thing is certain: undetermined sovereignty over uninhabited islands was, as
an issue, the ideal leverage with which the overseas Chinese could assert and
defne the identity of Overseas China. It symbolized perfectly the unnamable
trauma of diasporic nationalism and lent support to a phantasmagorical
structure that would provide a historic role for overseas Chinese.
In Hong Kong, the law enforcements violent suppression of a peaceful
nationalist-student demonstration left the colonial authority open to wider
criticism from Chinese nationalists, even though the British government was
actually not involved in the territorial dispute. As a result, nationalist aspirations
that the old anti-communist nationalists had nurtured soon evolved into anti-
imperialism and anti-colonialism, which had great resonance with leftist radical
ideologies, including anarchism, Trotskyism (as in Western student movements),
and Maoist radicalism (pushed by the CCP in Hong Kong). Though none of
these new radicalisms took root in Hong Kong society, the collapse of the old
Cold War hegemony irreversibly made changes to local ideological discourses.
The lukewarm attitude of the students teachers toward the Defend-Diaoyus
Campaign indicated the young students urge to seek new perspectives beyond
the framework of anti-communism. As we have previously discussed in
relation to the publication of Cry New Asia, the right-wing cultural nationalists
credibility was greatly drained. The students interpreted their acquiescence
as a demonstration of hypocrisy; later, they challengingly asserted that their
nationalist teachers were complicit with the Western imperialists.
The ideological disarray gave rise to severe competition among different
radical positions: while the social-ist faction (she hui pai) (including Trotskyists,
anarchists, and liberal democrats)
4
tried to transform the discontent into energy
for society-wide citizen-rights campaigns and labor movements, a strong anti-
mobilization force from the homeland-ist faction (guo cui pai) was there to push
the movement in the opposite direction. This homeland-ist faction advocated
a much milder movement, focusing solely on national identity and taking
advantage of the identity crisis. Rather than actively challenge colonial rule by,
for example, organizing local labor unions or community groups, they avoided
such political agendas and attempted to steer a student movement that would
be more cultural in orientation. The homeland-ists arranged visiting tours to
China in a bid to enhance student patriotism toward communist China, which
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 154 3/5/09 12:42:17 PM

they considered the hope for the future of socialism. Thus, although Maoism,
revolution, and socialist ideals were the new trump cards in the ideological
battles among young elites, the ideal that held sway was de-radicalization.
There is an easy structural explanation for such duplicity: a radical Hong Kong
was not in CCP geo-strategic interests.
5
The blatant political opportunism of
the young elite student leaders was no doubt another factor. However, such
a homeland-ist stance was popular across university campuses, where the guo
cui pai was a dominant faction. Such a dramatic turn of ideological orientation
merits a closer look. It emerged initially not as a political ideology of the left but
in the discursive space of diasporic nationalism that we have been considering
throughout this chapter.
Return as Spiritual Redemption
The trope return appeared frst in Panku, which a group of exiled Chinese
nationalist intellectuals founded in 1967. The slogan was then hotly debated in
the mid-1960s in different political journals, well before the young university
students tried to put it in practice in the 1970s. Panku was a magazine with a
rather high profle, wide-ranging political and cultural interests, and sharp
theoretical and social concerns. It was geared toward learned persons who
professed both a taste for intellectual matters and an open-minded willingness
to shoulder responsibility for the nation. Started as a non-partisan intellectual
and cultural magazine, it gathered together the youngest and most energetic
writers in Hong Kong. However, although some HKU elite students were its
readers, the magazine, like other refugee publications, circulated mainly within
exiled Chinese intellectual circles in the private tertiary colleges that constituted
the non-mainstream Chinese education system.
The topic of Return marked a watershed in the magazines development.
As little as fve years after some writers raised the problem of return, Panku
changed from an anti-communist magazine to an ultra-leftist journal, and even
became the command post of the Maoist pro-CCP left-wing student movement
in the 1970s. During its initial stages, the pages of Panku were flled with refugee
literature, anti-communist articles, introductions to Western literary theories,
and criticism of the leftists participation in riots; yet in 1972, it ran articles with
Red Guard-styled attacks on rightist professors, stinking intellectuals,
imperialist running dogs, and intellectual compradors (Panku Editorial
1972). This dramatic shift resulted not from an editorial coup dtat but from a
gradual transformation of the editorial position, which began in 1968, when the
issue of return set the tone for the subsequent change of intellectual current.
155
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 155 3/5/09 12:42:17 PM

A series of highly controversial but infuential articles co-authored by Bao
Cuoshi and Chen Qi, plus others, vividly illustrate the magazines ideological
transmutations, which were underpinned by complex metonymic substitutions
and displacements (Bao, C. 1967a, 1968; Bao, Y.M. 1968).
6
Throughout these
processes, the discourse of Overseas China that I discuss earlier was transformed
into the discourse of Return.
In the 1980s and the 1990s, the term return normally referred merely to
the process wherein the sovereignty of Hong Kong would transfer from Britain
to China in 1997, but in the 1960s, the term had much wider philosophical
meanings and strategic considerations. The concept then referred to a social
and psychological process, in which the identity crisis of diasporic Chinese
intellectuals could, putatively, be solved: namely, one should go back to ones
Chinese cultural roots. Thus, the concept of return was indeed a derivative
from the Overseas China discourse that I have addressed. In a way, when Bao
and Chen frst raised the concept of return, they used it as an answer to Tang
Junyis rather pessimistic call to spiritual redemption, as depicted by the image
of scattered fowers and withering fruits (hua guo piao ling). Tang described
Chinese culture as undergoing a process of self-strengthening in ones present
suffering and rootlessness. In this regard, Bao and Chen metonymically read
the call for return as a return to ones roots. They were indeed quite elaborate
about the philosophical meaning of return and linked the term up with Tangs
criticism of the idea of Taiwan political independence. They wrote,
All human life is but a movement for return, within which one brings
ones own nostalgia, contributions, and needs in order to return to the
human arena where one belongs. All happiness and suffering are but
the foam of these currents of return Who is Chinese? The question
can indeed be put as: Who in this world is suitable to commit himself
at all levels (emotional, cognitive, technical, or any other concerning
everyday life) to his ability to ft himself into and, thus, to belong to a
Chinese society with all its given conditions of existence, in terms of
its cultural, material, geographical, and historical specifcities as well
as those related to social values and directions of social development?
Only when [we] confront the fatal hindrances of this movement of
return would the Chinese, with their pre-determined [fates], search for
substitutes and plunge into the vacuity of human life in order to conceal
the frustrations faced by their belongingness. All loss, helplessness,
splitting away, and independence constitute a response to [the fact
that] we cannot return.
(Bao, C. 1968: 46; my translation)
Invoking an image of a predetermined Chinese identity, the authors dwelt on
a highly emotional depiction of primordial ties, the severing of which were
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 156 3/5/09 12:42:17 PM

solely accountable for the exiled intellectuals pathetic sense of detachment and
their vain desires to go independently. In other words, they characterized the
whole Taiwan-independence course as pathetic and attributed this characteristic
to their loss of self-identity, which is recoverable only by a sui generis return to
ones home.
Return as Rational Choice and Application of Modernization
Theory
There is another narrative one that ran parallel to the passionate and
emotional fow of moral appeal. What really set Bao and Chen apart from Tang
Junyi, with his ardent call for intellectual responsibility, was their innovative
argument: namely, that Return was also a rational choice based on a callous
analysis of comparative historical sociology. In their words, because of its
glorious past, China is a nation worthy of ones commitment; and because
of its glorious present, modern Western civilization provides by far the best
direction of change (Bao, C. 1968: 7). Invoking the imaginary schema of social
evolution, they asserted that China must learn from the West in order to reach
the primate stage of modern Chinese culture (Bao, C. 1968: 7). As Bao and
Chen say, it was not a matter concerned solely with moral values. They claimed
the task lies not in abstract ideas such as democracy but in its dynamic aspects
known as social mobilization (Bao, C. 1968: 7). Thus, the West exemplifed the
best experience in successful social integration and social mobilization, for the
secret formula for societal survival was the triad: nationalism, industrialization,
and national education.
This formulaic equation invoked by Bao and Chen seems nothing new to
sociology students now. Anyone can get it from a sociology textbook. However,
in the 1960s, this formula provided Bao and Chen with strong rhetorical
ammunition that they used to fght a two-front battle. On the one hand, they
shook the traditionalist rearguard interpretation of nationalism; on the other
hand, they relentlessly attacked all-out-Westernization advocates because,
insofar as they prematurely insisted on implementing a democratic system in
China, they voiced an unrealistic desire to skip a stage of social evolution. Bao
and Chen defended a standard path of social evolution, on which mobilization
precedes a full-scale adoption of Western values, and repeated the unsurprising
Chinese-Marxist criticism that liberals are ignorant of Chinese reality. Bao and
Chen declared that liberals were intellectual compradors, who did no less harm
to China than bureaucrats, landlords, and warlords. The most curious feature
of this barrage of charges was that not a single Marxist or Maoist term was
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 157 3/5/09 12:42:17 PM

used; instead, Bao and Chen borrowed both the analytical framework and the
vocabulary from either Neo-Confucianism or Western modernization theories.
Readers of Tang Junyi would doubtless recognize Tangs criticism of the
infamous reality of academic dependency. Because of this dependency, the exiled
intellectuals could sell the West only a hackneyed knowledge of China that was the
product of the fei qing yan jiu (studies of the bandit regime) industry. However,
Bao and Chen armed the leftist critique of intellectual compradorism with the
weapon of evolutionary historical sociology; for only the latter could offer terms
(the level of social mobilization) by which one could rigorously measure, and
thus legitimize, the achievements of the communist regime. Only through such
a re-articulation of the Overseas China discourse could Hong Kongs diasporic
nationalism change its orientation from the right to the left. Apparently, such a
shift was simply a swing from one political position to another by some of the
intellectuals; however, we should further examine the content of such a leftist
turn to understand its implications.
From Studies of the Bandit Regime to Studies of the Nation
In another article, Bao and Chen pleaded for all overseas Chinese intellectuals
to abandon fei qing yan jiu and set out for new guo qing yan jiu (studies of the
nation) (Bao, C. 1967a). By shifting further away from high principles and moral
burdens, Bao and Chen, however, subtly displaced the moral authority of the
Neo-Confucianist notion of national spirit. They also somewhat sarcastically
attempted to persuade all overseas Chinese scholars to engage in studies of the
nation, as it was bound to be a vogue and have a huge cash value. Believing
that there would be a new fad to probe into the secret of the Chinese model
of development, they predicted that guo qing yan jiu would become a new
knowledge industry, and they tried to lay down its methodological principles:
Knowledge is only the result of those methodological processes in
which natural or human events are symbolized and put into the chain
of causality and logical relations, through which the unknown becomes
known What we have learnt from foreign countries is that there are
other methodologies for data analysis, and we should then fnd some
new data to produce knowledge. We should not denigrate ourselves as
the classiest Peking duck, flled with the junk of past Chinese events
The best students studying abroad (liu xue sheng) are those who read a
lot and travel a lot but who eventually go back to Chinese affairs, using
new scientifc methods to dig up and refne new-found data.
(Bao, C. 1967b: 35; my translation)
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 158 3/5/09 12:42:17 PM

Targeting the liu xue sheng community, whose members were often guilt-ridden
by their comprador position as structured by Cold War intellectual dependency,
Bao and Chen called for a new nationalist scholarship and, thereby, met head-on
the Orientalist-comprador complex. Their whole set of rhetorical feats was to add
therapeutic value to the exiled intellectuals vocational crafts, by re-articulating
their desire for knowledge into a new intellectualistic discourse within which
the Chinese intellectuals could redeem their lost soul without abandoning
the cultural capital they had accumulated in the Western academies: namely,
scientifc methodology. It was in China that they could not only re-discover their
cultural roots but also discover treasures never before noticed. Bao and Chen
wrote,
When the vagrants who beg for knowledge in the foreign academies
suddenly realize that their own home is indeed piled with mountainous
fodder for knowledge, they should feel exhilarated. Unfortunately
many liu xue sheng treat that nice garden as a desert and produce only
knowledge of the bandits (fei qing), thereby leaving a vacuum that
allows foreign scholar experts to make distorted judgments and reports
that mix half-knowledge with sincerity.
Chinas undiscovered treasures can make one rich, can create knowledge
(particularly in the form of scholarship), and can even transform ones identity.
Therefore, Bao and Chen state,
Liu xue sheng always dream of Westernization and are fond of anything
new [Yet] from the viewpoint of bringing about new things, mainland
China is an unprecedented cultural theater in history, Chinese or
Western Even with their intentions to test the taste of foods cooked
according to Western recipes, they can still have their heart set in the
East and do some effortless guo qing yan jiu; they might fnd out later
that China does not need Westernization. It might be the case that liu
xue sheng themselves need some Sinicization. But it would not be too
late for Sinicization if one has ones heart set in the East.
Uneasy about Baos call for a Return to the PRC, Lao Siguang, a prominent anti-
communist philosopher teaching in CUHK, joined the ideological contest. He
composed a rejoinder in which he endorsed their critique of the liu xue shengs
irresponsible attitudes. Many of these students apparently cared more about
getting foreign especially American passports than about their own society.
Lao argued that this critique was applicable mainly to Taiwanese liu xue sheng. He
declared that Hong Kong students were less fanatical seekers of U.S. citizenship,
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 159 3/5/09 12:42:18 PM

that they bore a greater sense of responsibility for China, and that they were
less subservient to Western Chinese experts. However, what Lao might not have
realized was that he and his anti-communist intellectual allies had to address
at the level of its epistemological foundations the criticism of the Cold
War structure of intellectual dependency. To neglect this task was to open the
foodgate, before which anti-communist nationalists could no longer hold any
moral high ground against the leftist tide. This was exactly what happened in
the 1970s, when the diasporic cultural nationalism increasingly weakened itself
as an anti-communist moral and social critique and became a discursive domain
dominated by a leftist version of modernization sociology.
Ethics of Social Mobilization
Sociological reasoning legitimized the discourse of modernization, which in turn
acted as a defense for the CCPs achievement of a fully mobilized Chinese nation.
The ethics of mobilization annulled the proclaimed Cold War value hierarchy,
which, for instance, had put democracy above dictatorship. The young Chinese
intellectuals active incorporation of modernization sociology into the CCP
apologetic, as manifested by Bao and Chen, realized itself, ironically, in the mid-
1960s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China, when the Red
Guards were delegitimizing sociology for its philistine, bourgeois, and Western
roots. In the following decade, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping each suffered
political fallout stemming from their advocacy of the modernization program;
despite this, the curiosity that Hong Kong students displayed for China in the
Red Era was fuel for an upsurge of sociological interest in the developmental
model of New China. According to its programmatic design, learning to know
(ren shi) China would bring about identifcation (ren tong) with China. Having
already laid out this path, Bao and Chen believed there should never be anything
standing between ones study of the nation and ones being a patriot. Even those
overseas intellectuals, who initially studied China out of merely rational or
utilitarian motivations, would eventually value the motivations that drove them
to solve their existential puzzles, and embrace patriotic value commitments.
However valid and interesting Bao and Chens assertion that there should be
a bridge between positivistic studies and hermeneutical studies, their foresight
concerning intellectual Return-ism was more than a stunt exercise of dialectical
synthesis; it was, indeed, also about a possible shift from value commitments
to utilitarianism; from patriotism to instrumentalism. And it was precisely
this scenario that unfolded over the following three decades: Increasingly, the
overseas intellectuals soon realized that Return was an advantageous fad.
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 160 3/5/09 12:42:18 PM

From the epistemological and political structure of the Return discourse, we can
learn that the Cold War was never merely about ideological conficts. Nor did
positivistic and functionalist sociology work solely for the American Cold War
allies in their opposition to the Third World or to the socialist camp. In the same
vein, the Return discourse was never simply cultural nationalism. If the Neo-
Confucian cultural nationalists such as Tang Junyi were deeply agonistic about a
perpetually unsettled Chinese Nation forever in the limbo of a travelling life,
the comparison of the overseas Chinese to the Jews was bound to arise. Indeed,
in the 1960s, struggle of the Jews to return to their so-called homeland garnered
great admiration among exiled Chinese communities in Hong Kong, who
constantly invoked the Jewish Return; however, the focus of these communities
interest, herein, was not the religious and moral basis of the Jewish Return but
the practical establishment and development of a territorial state by the Jews.
7

The sociologization of the diasporic Chinese intellectuals relationship with
China effectively compromised the philosophically unsettled national spirit
fostered by the philosophers a territorialization of the de-territorialized spirit
of the Chinese diaspora. The sociological axiom of value-neutrality arrested the
anxious, critical national spirit. For example, Cheung Tak-shing, a radical student
beaten by police during the Defend-Diaoyus Campaign, wrote refectively in
1972 on Hong Kongs young generations underlying ignorance of Chinese
culture and on the diffculty that he had experienced when weighing the pros
and cons of communist rule in China (Cheung, T.S. 1972). He ended up with an
equally weighted balance but said it was proven that communism at least could
be a strong instrument for making the state rich and the military strong (fu guo
qiang bing). Then he concluded that there were actually two types of return: one
of action, and another in spirit. For him, to return-in-action, one had to endure
great personal sacrifce and to do so in the absence of any guarantee that one will
earn the high regard of others or will be really useful. Therefore, one should feel
comfortably at ease in choosing to work outside the home country. Cheung
asserted that to feel comfortably at ease would no longer mirror comparable
feelings from the past: the actual return that one had conceived to be a possibility
took the form of a spiritual accomplishment now.
However, the breakdown of the Cold War anti-communist ideological
hegemony did not always end up in the moral neutralism of the type exemplifed
by Cheungs prudent sociological balance sheet. Those more eager to contribute
to the reconstruction of the shattered worldview after the cultural Cold War in
Hong Kong were more than comfortably at ease with intellectual aloofness. For
example, Lau Siu-kai painfully argued for a heroic modernization crusade that
would root out impediments to Chinese modernization. He wrote,
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 161 3/5/09 12:42:18 PM

On the road to modernization, where old thoughts, institutions, and
habits have to be destroyed and cleared away, pain is inevitable and
unavoidable for us Chinese. We Chinese have to have determination
to realize this great goal and accept every diffculty and challenge,
striving to build our country into the worlds strongest state.
(Lau, S.K. 1969: 17; my translation)
Neither Lau Siu-kai nor Cheung Tak-shing returned to China in action (in
Cheungs phrase). Yet, both of them later became well-known sociologists in
Hong Kong. Cheungs comfort in a spiritual return effectively supplemented
Laus more aggressive statism, as well as his interest in statecraft. With all kinds
of student and general publications growing interest in sociological, economic,
and political-scientifc analyses of China, both the old anti-communist magazines
such as Jianhaung and the ideologically disoriented CSW were in decline.
Charged with a new faith in the Mainlands CCP regime for its remarkable
record of modernization (ironically, still a heretical term to the CCP state in the
1970s), the new Hong Kong radicals soon placed atop their list of enemies the
old anti-communists like Liu Shuxian and Lao Siguang, who had advocated
the most illusory third road (Luo 1972; Zhao 1972). Panku magazine took an
extreme left turn, showering Lao, Luo, and their like with relentless ad hominem
attacks. Thrown in their faces were charges that their anti-communism was
not only outdated and feudalistic, but also slavish to the foreigners and of a
comprador nature; they themselves and their thoughts should be the objects of
revolution. However, such a meager Hong Kong version of the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution was short lived. The lefts cultural-national fanaticism did
not survive beyond the downfall of the Gang-of-Four in 1976, which ended the
whole radical Red Era. The accompanying though, at any rate, secondary
tendencies of the radical idealism of Hong Kongs elite students suffered
a heavy blow because the idealized image of a motherland (zu guo) abruptly
shattered as the ugly realities of Maos era surfaced rapidly after the downfall
of the ultra-leftists; the student movements that had drawn their inspiration
from the waves of radical idealism soon subsided. The collapse of ideology was
accompanied by a loss of orientation; but the moral vacuum left behind was
soon flled by a new enthusiasm among the new generation for the CCPs new
program of modernization led by Deng Xiaoping. This was a program that both
Hong Kongs radicals and old pro-establishment conservatives were invariably
eager to join.
However, this pendulum swing was not simply ideological; indeed, from
a careful examination of the radical discourses, we can see that those young
ex-radicals had discursively, effectively, and in advance prepared themselves
for such a right-turn because their embrace of Red China served to realize, so it
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 162 3/5/09 12:42:18 PM

seemed, both their desire for a strong state and their utopian ideals. The pragmatic
face of that radicalism became much more palpable when the radicalism itself
subsided. Now, being on the left in Hong Kong was increasingly an index of ones
pro-PRC status rather than of ones identifcation with any progressive values;
one was likely to appropriate the radical pasts of a generation as ones political
capital: that is, as records of ones long-held patriotism.
8
What took the place
of idealism was the sociologists zeitgeist: national-statism plus managerialism.
They emerged when the manifest Cold War ideological rivalry was coming to an
end; the new Chinese patriotism took shape precisely in conjunction with both
the demise of the national spirit and the moral agony of the exiled intellectuals.
Such a reconfguration of nationalism illustrates the fact that an upsurge of
radicalism, together with the in vogue anti-colonial rhetoric, did not constitute
a genuine decolonization process in Hong Kong. What we can witness in the
1970s was a decisive turn foregrounding ideologically the localization of colonial
power. Proactively preparing for such a turn by developing a socio-political
discourse was Lau Siu-kai, who had been laboring to extend theoretical unity to
the governmentality that straddled colonial Hong Kong and postcolonial Hong
Kong.
Managerializing Colonialism
Lau Siu-kai is a political sociologist, trained at HKU and in the United States.,
and once a frequent political critic in public media before he became political
advisor to the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government
in 2002. I consider Lau Siu-kai the paradigmatic case for late-colonial Hong
Kongs localization of colonial power because his political engagement and
his academic works demonstrate only too patently his perhaps incomparably
consistent efforts on two fronts: (1) to make the alleged success of British colonial
rule in Hong Kong a rigorous theoretical and sociological issue and (2) to apply
his insights, distilled from that colonial rule, to axial principles whose practical
function would emerge when Hong Kong phased out its colonialism.
To be sure, localization of colonial power, as epitomized by Laus case,
is not equivalent to decolonization, if the term decolonization refers to the
efforts and the processes that bring an end to the colonial domination of natives.
The termination of British colonial rule over Hong Kong was a matter resulting
almost totally from secret diplomatic deals between the Chinese and the
British governments. During the long transition toward the fnal handover of
sovereignty in 1997, the two sides played up over-dominating political rhetoric
that emphasized a stable transition (ping wen guo du) rather than cultural and
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 163 3/5/09 12:42:18 PM

political demands for an end to colonialism. In this light, Laus interest in
theorizing the success of colonial rule in Hong Kong gained prominence when
the Sino-British Joint Declaration about Hong Kongs handover was signed.
Lau Siu-kai can trace his lineage back to members of the colonial intelligentsia
such as Ho Kai and Wu Tingfang whom we discussed in previous chapters;
however, he does not come forth as an apologist for British imperialism in terms
of embracing the Empires civilizational ideals. Like Ho Kai, Lau also exhibited
his own patriotism concerning the strengthening of China; his writings from
his youth, as quoted in the above section, depict society-concerned students,
who were common features of the Hong Kong landscape in the 1960s and the
1970s. However, Laus patriotic impulses are usually buried under the very
aloof social science terminology that peppers his mature and well-known
works. In his seminal book Society and Politics in Hong Kong (1982), Lau claims
to have deciphered the secret codes of Hong Kongs success and, in this regard,
presents a theoretical framework that concerns Hong Kong politics and society
and that, critics chided, was too clumsy. The key concept of the framework is
utilitarian familism, proposed frst in an earlier paper that discusses the attitudinal
orientations of the postwar Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. Lau inherited
the legacies of Cold War East Asia scholarship, which Marion Levy and Lucien
Pye exemplifed. Asserting that familism comprises the essential cultural and
psychological traits of Chinese, all of them took family as the defning social
unit for Chinese. Referring to data generated from a questionnaire survey, Lau
claims that Hong Kong Chinese have developed the social variant utilitarian
familism, which stands in contrast to the stereotypical traditional Chinese
familism. Considered by Lau to be an adaptation of traditional familism to the
industrial, urban colonial society of Hong Kong (Lau 1981: 201), this variant of
familism, rather than hamper modernization, can indeed bring it about, for the
utilitarian aspect of this variant can guarantee that Hong Kong Chinese would
concentrate solely on the pursuit of material well being. In other words, in lieu
of utilitarian individualism, or the Weberian entrepreneur charged with the
Calvinist work ethic, Hong Kong Chinese can follow their own roadmap to ideal
economic success.
Moreover, Lau did not just join the chorus of the then-fashionable
pursuit of East Asian economic miracles by simply repeating the clich about
the dependence of economic development on cultural contributions, which
invariably invoke the stereotype of Chinese Confucian-familism. Instead, Lau
had another political agenda. He argues in his works that Hong Kong Chinese
focus on materialistic and utilitarian pursuits; therefore, the community often
is inward looking and prefers to be left alone. This introspective isolation is,
for Lau, a key component of the political culture distinctively prevalent in
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 164 3/5/09 12:42:18 PM

Hong Kong; and he uses it to account for what he sees as Hong Kongs long-
held political stability, which he states was particularly pronounced when the
postwar refugee population fooded the city. On the basis of these observations,
Lau proposes another notion, the minimally-integrated socio-political system,
to describe Hong Kong, a place where polity and society are said to be mutually
secluded.
This image of overtly materialistic people who lack class consciousness
and who pursue short-term prospects is reminiscent of the Lewisian notion
of a culture of poverty, hotly debated in the 1960s (Lewis 1959). However,
a signifcant difference between Lewis and Lau is that Laus culture has been
emerging from poverty, whereas Lewis culture trapped the poor in a cycle of
poverty. Indeed, a familistic culture of peasant immigrants was discussed in
Banfelds study on Italian cities, where he found a kind of amoral familist
culture (Banfeld 1958); yet, curiously, Lau has never acknowledged Lewis or
Banfeld in his writings. Lau resorts to a new variant of Hong Kong exceptionalism
by claiming that utilitarian familism is unique to Hong Kong (Lau, S.K. 1982:
182). Also, where Banfeld and Lewis point to the peasants maladaptation to
city life, Laus version of the familistic personality is, interestingly, functionally
related to colonialism and modernization. Lau states,
[Hong Kong] Chinese society can be considered as an inward-looking,
self-contained and atomistic society with apolitical orientations and
low potential for political mobilization. Such a society is a perfect
complement to the secluded bureaucratic polity, and their coexistence
as well as mutual avoidance provides a clue to the explanation of
political stability in Hong Kong.
(Lau, S.K. 1982: 68, my emphasis)
Fred Y. L. Chiu (1997) criticizes Laus stereotypes about the Chinese family and
his reliance on survey data. For Chiu, the modern Sinologists obsession with the
Chinese family succeeds only in making the social and the political disappear.
Chiu writes,
In the process of a contemporary manufacturing of positivist
knowledge about Hong Kong, the history of political activity was
concealed, preventing or obstructing the development of current
political movements. Combining model-ftting post-hoc reasoning,
question-begging, and a defensive apologia, researchers who claimed
to study depoliticization were apparently depoliticized themselves.
In the process, their research objects and objects of research were
desocialized. And, as a corollary, the research subjects were hardly
aware of what alternatives might be.
(Chiu 1997: 307)
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 165 3/5/09 12:42:19 PM

I have no trouble with Chius overall assessment of Lau. My only contention is
that Chius reading into Laus self-depoliticization is perhaps a bit far fetched,
for Laus research, including his methodology, has never offered a full culturalist
account of this colonial miracle. Laus theoretical discourse has, instead, a far
too clear political agenda too clear perhaps for Chiu to interrogate Lau on
whether alternative ways of understanding the Chinese self are available for
Laus research subjects. In other words, Lau has not really concealed the political
by following the Cold War China studies tendency to naturalize culture because,
according to Lau, Hong Kong political culture has never been a purely cultural
matter abstracted from the colonial institutional context. Instead, and as usual,
he immediately extracts from survey data about peoples attitudes his own plot,
wherein pure descriptions of political-institutional settings abound. First, he
argues,
Hong Kongs Chinese society is a product of the mutual adjustment of
an admixture of Chinese people who were divided by ethnic, territorial,
dialectal and ideological identifcations and who are suspicious of one
another, all the while confronted with the pressing need to deal with
the birth pains of a rapidly industrializing society.
Conceiving Hong Kong as a society of blended Chinese ethnicities, Lau invokes
old colonialist imaginaries about unruly natives incapable of self-government.
Then, he sneaks in a political argument for his sociological problem: it is because
of colonial rule that Hong Kong can facilitate its own rapid industrialization
and can thereby bring together again the already divided mainland Chinese,
as if colonialism is what the Chinese themselves ask for. He asserts, therefore,
that Hong Kong Chinese exhibit a hidden proclivity toward subservience to
the British colonizer. In explaining the legitimacy that the colonial government
enjoys, Lau states,
There is a certain a priori character to colonial authority. In the frst place,
it is very natural for the Chinese subjects to transfer their traditional
conception of authority as a given, a fxture in the cosmic order, to
their colonial master. (My emphasis)
(Lau, S.K. 1988: 20)
Rightly highlighted by Chiu, Laus diagnosis of the Chinese peoples innate
political apathy is nothing original. It echoes almost exactly Report of the
Working Party on Local Administration (1967), which was composed by the
colonial government just prior to the left-wing labor and urban riots of 1967.
The report discusses the Chinese political view: The people must impose their
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 166 3/5/09 12:42:19 PM

full trust and confdence in their rulers, and have cause to oppose them only if
the regime fails to provide the conditions of peace, order and security to which
the community is entitled (quoted by Chiu 1997: 295). The same image of
politically apathetic Chinese appears also in works by N. J. Miners (1975) and
Ambrose Y. C. King (1972); the latter adhered closer than Lau to the culturalist
paradigm of East Asian capitalism and, almost a decade before Lau, labored on
the similar Orientalist perception of Chinese. However, I see Laus writings as
texts whose problematic differs from that of the conventional culturalist or,
in Luddens (1993) words, of the Orientalist empiricist. Lau insists on Hong
Kongs distinct character, particularly in relation to the managed city life and
the urban structure of Hong Kong. In short, a close reading of Laus texts will
show that underpinning his presentation of empiricist data and his jugglery
of concepts is indeed a particular urban-political imaginary through which he
arrives at a complete phantasmagoric birds eye view of successful colonial rule
in Hong Kong.
Urban Society and Depoliticization
Lau stresses the important role that Hong Kongs urban setting plays in his
theoretical project about the citys colonial modernity:
First, the insignifcance of a rural sector in Hong Kong distinguishes
it from other developing countries where the sharp contrast between
the urban and the rural sectors is a highly destabilizing force...
Second, geographical mobility and the relaxation of social control in
an urban society make the continuation of Chinese families founded
on traditional principles impossible, thus allowing utilitarianistic
familism to fourish... Third...as a municipal government, these [public]
demands [for urban services], when they are forthcoming, are of such a
nature that confrontation between the government and large organized
groups in society can in the main be avoided. This is because of the
divisibility of urban services, which discourages the formation of
broadly-based demand-making groups.
(Lau, S.K. 1982: 180181)
For Lau, the politically (though defnitely not economically) self-contained
city of Hong Kong managed to weaken its ties to traditional Chinese familism,
which he conceived as unfavorable to modern economic development. Yet the
radical transformation of Chinese national character which is imputed by
many writers like Lau to its long and prevalent life of the peasantry would
still have been unsuccessful had it not been for the ways in which the colonial
government administered the citys life. In Laus view,
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 167 3/5/09 12:42:19 PM

The non-ideological nature of urban service demands renders them
amenable to pragmatic administrative resolution. The fragmentation
of demands for urban services makes aggregation of demands over
a large geographical area diffcult; therefore, they can be easily dealt
with by the bureaucracy, particularly when the level of demands is as
generally low as it is in Hong Kong. The urban nature of Hong Kong
thus contributes to pragmatic, ad hoc and piecemeal issue resolution.
The piecemeal nature of urban issues, as understood by Lau, plays a crucial role
in his framework of managerialism. He argues that it is only such a small urban
society that can minimize peoples demands, to which the responses constitute
only boundary politics. In this style of informal and non-institutionalized
politics, only incremental changes are possible. As a result, a fuller integration
of bureaucratic polity and Chinese society can be avoided; such integration is
asserted by Lau to be detrimental to political stability. Lau states,
Through the selection of enforcement or non-enforcement of rules, the
dampening of issues by means of persuasion, compromise, co-optation,
bargaining, cajoling, assuming threatening postures or deliberately
setting up informal rules, the government is able to avoid formal
restructuring of the political institutions in the colony. As informal
concessions granted are usually couched in secrecy and are highly
diversifed and individualistic in nature, they usually fail to aggregate
into system-changing forces.
(Lau, S.K. 1982: 169)
Laus quite idiosyncratic conception of city life may be stretching the teachings of
urban sociology; but, as a narrative device, it constitutes the essential part of an
imaginary landscape in which an aversion to any rural hinterland corresponds
to an image of a backward but turbulent China. By characterizing the Hong
Kong colonial system as an urban system, Lau abstracts out the rationalities
that have underlain postwar-war colonial rule and reconstitutes them as a set
of aptly applied governing technologies, with which local power aspirants
can indigenize or re-appropriate colonialism. However, the indigenization of
colonial power also requires Lau to redeploy the usual Orientalist stereotypes.
Displacing the Orientalist dichotomy between the traditional-unlawful-
mysterious East and the modern-legal-rational West, Lau metonymically slides
onto another internal-Orientalist binarism, at one end of which is traditional-
rural-unruly China and, at the other end, modern-urban-dutiful Hong Kong. In
Laus hands, this new set of contrasts, already made possible by the whole Cold
War discourse of modernization, undergoes a re-articulation that includes an
apologetic justifcation of colonialism. Much Cold War propaganda constantly
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 168 3/5/09 12:42:19 PM

and rhetorically reminded Hong Kong of its stable urban status quo; however,
Laus theorization of Hong Kongs modernization reinforces the ideology
that colonial governance is the essential ingredient in the magical formula
that a Chinese society must take to shake off its backward and despotic rural
traditions. Lau equates the governance of a small city with the political tricks
of persuasion, co-optation, bargaining, cajoling and other strategies common
to undemocratic colonial governments. In so doing, Lau, with a sleight of hand,
not only legitimizes colonial governance but also asserts that it is necessary
sustenance for the urban-citizen identity of Hong Kong Chinese. Lau paints
a picture of how rural obstacles to modernization have ceded to a small-scale
bureaucratic government that can remain small precisely because it has been a
detached colonial authority. Only through this institution has Hong Kong avoided
rural nightmares such as regionalism, ethnic conficts, and the fooding tides of
political demands. In short, Lau argues that Hong Kongs possession of both a
colonial status and an urban status has structurally privileged the territory in
comparison with differently colonized or less developed places.
At any rate, Laus apparent need to re-articulate the colonialist stereotype
of binary opposites, rather than present a coherent theory of urbanism, compels
him to meander along with the concept of city. However, Laus dystopian vision
of the city sits uneasily with his admiration of traditional Chinese societys
familistic values. At one point, Lau expresses his anxieties in a rather nostalgic
tone by warning against the secular process of disorganization that Chinese
society is undergoing. In one of his essays written in the early 1980s, he warns
against the process of industrialization, commercial growth, and the rise in
living standards, urbanization, and Westernization (Lau, S.K. 1983: 552553).
Moreover, Lau insists on shouldering the government with these problems, as
they cry out mainly for accelerated expansion of governmental services. But no
matter how effective the government is in dealing with these problems, they
upset the colonial-political formula that Lau set for Hong Kong because, he
argues, they will erode Hong Kongs alleged delicate balance between polity
and society.
As a matter of fact, the mutual seclusion of polity and society from each
other, or the clumsier neologism of a minimally integrated socio-political
system, is the founding myth of Hong Kong enshrined by Lau; he repeatedly
makes use of this myth to legitimize the colonial rule of Hong Kong as essential
in buttressing a depoliticized haven, however much the serious historical
scholarship on Hong Kong (cited in Chapter 1) has already contradicted this
entrenched myth. Lau is certainly not the frst person to circulate a counterfactual
fable. Ambrose King, in his early work, makes use of another neologism
administrative absorption of politics to characterize the operation of the
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 169 3/5/09 12:42:19 PM

colonial state. King compares Hong Kongs colonial rule to what Fairbank calls
synarchy, traceable to a long tradition of alien rule allegedly fostered by China
throughout its long history. Seemingly, Lau, King and Fairbank share among
themselves cognate terminologies and concepts. But, for our present purpose, it
is worth looking critically into their subtle differences.
Tani E. Barlow (1997) analyzes how Fairbanks historiographical narrative
set in motion an essential difference between the notion of a commonsensical,
universal, but static West and the notion of an endlessly fragmented, marginal
China; yet by making China and the West two internally friable, externally
discrete, boundaried, patterned, concrete entities, instead of organs and
sites of a world system integrated by colonial relations, Fairbank conditions
how colonialism disappears in his text. Therefore, a semi-colonial treaty port
setting would become, for Fairbank, just a lamentable type of hybrid rickshaw-
culture where the two sides rule collaboratively and on equal terms. The logic
of this binary fusion allows Fairbank to bypass colonial power relations as a
key issue and thus to play at the rhetorical level with words and metaphors
like symbiosis, diarchy, and bilateralism (Barlow 1997a: 391393). To Barlow,
Fairbanks conceptual constellation is indispensable to Cold War China-studies
scholarship, which constantly put colonialism under erasure. The criticism that
Barlow leveled against Fairbank can also apply to the case of King because
Kings technical ideas regarding, for example, the administrations absorption
of politics, had the same effect of making colonialism disappear.
However, it is worthwhile to look closer into Laus thought. In Barlows
eyes, Lau is undoubtedly the heir of Cold War China-studies scholarship as
constituted by its three main founders: Marion Levy, Lucian Pye, and Fairbank.
Yet, in the case of Lau, what is interesting is not that he perpetuates the basic
tenets of this dominating Cold War Sinological hegemony (surely he does) but
that he makes a managerialist twist on the hegemony a twist that allows him
to get beyond the vague and slightly romantic concept of synarchy, which best
fts the Westerners nostalgic longing for collaborative rule in the treaty ports.
If, according to Barlow, the main problem with the whole feld of Cold War
China-studies scholarship is that it erases Chinas (semi-)colonialism by treating
it as non-colonialism, Kings project and Laus project, representative of the
late-colonial local elite, mark themselves off from Fairbanks project by running
an opposite course: rather than put colonialism under erasure by denying its
existence, King and Lau try to explicitly valorize colonial experiences and the
colonial system by neutralizing them with a set of different terms. Barlow is
certainly right to characterize Fairbanks project as a kind of modern discourse
that always plays upon the system of logocentric binary oppositions and that
always inscribes othering relations on its very foundation. As such, Fairbank
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 170 3/5/09 12:42:19 PM

has no control on how these othering exercises can be furthered. Such a
legacy is clearly detectable in Laus effort to reformulate, along the urban-rural
axis, the self-other relation under colonialism an attempt to revalorize the
colonial hierarchy by mobilizing the Orientalist anxieties internalized in the
body politic of Hong Kong. Laus managerialist turn is crucial to ending the old
colonialist fantasy and to inaugurating an era marked not by the independence
or autonomy of the decolonized natives but by the indigenization or localization
of colonial power. It is understandable that Laus writings host a conceptual play
and that this play, informed by his managerialist-Machiavellian vision, submits
wholly neither to a positivist paradigm of knowledge nor to the conditions of
a consistent culturalist argument per se. Rather, what concerns him most is the
mechanics of social and cultural engineering, which work to put every variable
governable under the indigenized colonial power.
The Grand Political Design of Colonizer(s)
In the early 1980s, the menace of a disorganized metropolis once prompted Lau
to speak as a reformer when he criticized the restricted and ineffective extent of
local administrative reforms recommended by the 1980 Green Paper (Lau, S.K.
1983: 562). He made his own proposal, wherein he gave careful consideration
to the restoration of familistic Chinese societys self-regulatory capacity and to
the substitution of a modern outlook for the defunct traditionalist intermediate
organizations. To this end, he recommended that Hong Kong society run the
moderate risk of limited politicization. He wrote,
The insertion of an intermediate layer between the government and
the people will necessarily be depoliticising because it is comparatively
easier to co-opt a limited number of local leaders into the political process
than to control a huge, unruly mass of people.
This passage describes perfectly the spirit that characterized the local
administrative reforms of the early to mid-1980s. In other words, it was during
the next-to-last decade of British colonial rule in Hong Kong that the colonial
government launched these reforms. And by that time, Lau was already an
informal advisor to the colonial authorities, so his theory cast a dark shadow
on these reforms in terms of ideas, if not of actual operative calculations. The
limited reforms refected a conservative move of the late-colonial government
to introduce, at a staggering pace, a cumbersome and inegalitarian system of
functional constituency which is seldom found elsewhere in the world.
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 171 3/5/09 12:42:20 PM

Relying no more on the motivational support derived from utilitarian familists,
the reformers sought to better integrate the government into society and vice
versa; yet, by boosting the growth of interest groups (e.g., different professional,
sectional, or other lobby groups), the approach fragmented the emerging civil
society divided it into different functional castes. Informing all the reforms
was an urge to continue the colonial governing strategies: co-opt the elite and
approach nothing like democracy. Such a design was shot through with the
colonialist assumption that the natives are never ready for self-government. Well
short of thorough democratic electoral reform, functional constituencies, which
had been forming themselves politically for the past decades, scrambled to
squeeze into the narrow categories available for seats on the Legislative Council
or other political bodies. Such rapid politicization of social sectors has left Hong
Kong, even after 1997, trapped in the same old colonial situation of divide-
and-rule. At the same time, Hong Kong can turn to neither an offcial colonial
master who would curb the ever rising tides of sectoral political demands nor
a parliamentary democracy and a party system that might effectively integrate
social demands into government.
In the late 1980s, when the decline of British rule was imminent, Lau wrote
a number of infuential articles to win for himself a new career that, under the
newly confgured Chinese authorities, might fourish. For the fame he won by
writing these essays, he was co-opted by the Chinese authorities to give advices
on the drafting of the mini-constitution (Lau, S.K. 1988). Extending his thesis
of the political docility of Hong Kong Chinese, he sold the Chinese side a new
package of ideas on the architecture of future postcolonial governance. The
principle that society should make the best use of colonial governmentality
continued to guide Lau, who put aside his previous contradictory diagnoses
of the modernizing city and proposed to build a new governing coalition that
would consist of the old and new power elite and that would serve post-1997
Hong Kong. Believing himself to have perceived the essence of Hong Kongs
political culture, he was more unequivocal about the managerialist desire
underpinning his analysis. He concluded, in one of his essays, that it was only
by following the development of Hong Kong, [that] the relation between the
polity and the society should be tackled more skillfully (Lau, S.K. 1988: 117; ; my
emphasis). Amid the tide of changing political allegiances during Hong Kongs
late transitional period, Laus covert apologies for colonialism were relatively
less repugnant than the statements of many scholars in his feld. Therefore, Lau
gained a scholars reputation owing to the neutral analytical languages with
which he theorized Hong Kong and from which anyone could observe and
essentialize Hong Kong. The great success that has accompanied Laus efforts
to convince his supportive readers of the transposability of colonial experiences
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 172 3/5/09 12:42:20 PM

explains why the Chinese state so readily picked up on Laus ideas. The Basic
Law, effective after 1997, proscribes a political system that denies Hong Kong
citizens basic liberal democratic rights such as universal suffrage; but from that
point forward, the Law mixes different cumbersome and arbitrarily selected
forms of representation and co-optation that target nobles and notables. The
system has proved itself to be a disaster, a fact that one may verify by witnessing
Hong Kong citizens mass demonstrations against the National Security Bill
(Article 23 issues) during the Tung Chee-hwa administration of the HKSAR
government. The crisis cried out the need for a decolonization that was far
beyond the prediction of Lau and his likes.
The National Project of Recolonization
Despite the nationalist rhetoric about Hong Kongs return to its motherland
in 1997, public discourses obsessively draw parallels between Beijing and the
old British colonial master. For example, Stephen Vine (1998) hesitated not at
all to describe Hong Kong as Chinas new colony. And as the new masters of
Hong Kong, the PRC leaders often display a much greater interest in keeping
the colonial governance system intact than in liberating (as the old nationalist
clich goes) Hong Kong compatriots from the British colonial misdeeds. The
keenness of the PRC leader to learn the secret of colonial governance in Hong
Kong, itself illustrates the irony and the tension inherent in the Chinese nationalist
modernization project. In this sense, the subject merits our reconsideration.
Insofar as Chinese nationalism has already lost its moral appeal once in the past
century, re-conceptualizations of the current political reality are in line. Johnson
and Chiu note that:
As the colonialists vacate their spaces of control, the colonial has gone
native in the bodies of a stratum of the colonized. Nested within the
positional structure of the imperial, the original and continuing power
of the core states, a sub-imperial relation between the dominant of the
dominated and their periphery emerges.
(Johnson and Chiu 2000: 1)
Chiu also defnes sub-imperial as being colonized while seeking to colonize
(Chiu 2000: 104). To be sure, the sub-imperial cannot be treated as a simple
equivalent of the imperial, for the imperial whether before or after is bound
to overshadow, in specifc ways, the historicity of each sub-imperial relationship.
Therefore, while conventional criticisms of imperialism, which focus often on
economic exploitation or dependence, can explain very little of Hong Kongs
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 173 3/5/09 12:42:20 PM

current subjection under the new sub-imperial order, Hong Kongs special
(post)colonial problems might be explainable in terms of a psychoanalytic reality
embedded in the wider symbolic order.
It is commonplace that Hong Kong cannot exist in isolation from its
relationship with China. Yet, conversely, we may also see that China, in particular
the ruling CCP, cannot do without demonstrating to the world that they can
successfully incorporate Hong Kong into their nation. Therefore, in light of
Chinas eagerness to complete the nationalist-sub-imperial project of reclaiming
territories lost under the humiliating conditions that past Chinese regimes
endured, we may describe Hong Kong as Chinas indispensable other to be
recovered as well as to be recolonized. As a result, the discursive and symbolic
logic underlying this order may have less to do with deconstructive tendencies
(in Barlows sense of erasing the reality of colonialism) than to do with fetishist
ones: namely, China has had to both disavow and affrm Hong Kong, as well as
its colonialism.
Translated into a political and cultural logic, the perversity of such sub-
imperial fetishism presents itself as the dilemma of whether or not China should
let go of the coloniality that constitutes Hong Kong. Tailoring Hong Kong to
a thoroughly Chinese style that is, imposing stringent restrictions on Hong
Kongs political and cultural autonomy could no doubt demonstrate either
the Chinese peoples capacity to overpower and dominate a city on their own or
Chinas ability to eradicate its own colonial shame. However, what is sui generis
Hong Kong dynamic city life, cosmopolitan orientation, and modernity as
such would, thereby, risk its own destruction. In contrast, allowing Hong
Kong to pursue Western liberal ideals, which the British colonial presence had
both taught to and denied to Hong Kong, could trigger demands for genuine
decolonization. And this pursuit of self-government would threaten the psychic
stability of the new paternal master, beset by the paranoid belief that an outsider
(the Western powers) will again encourage the returned child to leave the
family.
This dilemma underscored the anxiety that the Chinese offcials showed as
1997 was fast approaching. And the best demonstration of this anxiety centers
on a metaphor used by Chinese reformist leader Li Ruihuan. He warned that
communist hardliners mishandling of Hong Kong affairs could result in the
mindless destruction of Hong Kong as it is. He likened Hong Kong and its values
to the tea stain that gives the Yi Xing teapot its renowned traditional taste: only
the dilettante would buy a precious antique teapot and be foolish enough to
clean away the stain, which was precisely the source of the teas unique taste.
The nightmarish scenario about the unconscious drive to keep the teapot clean
alludes to a real enough possibility: in an urge to demonstrate the triumph of
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 174 3/5/09 12:42:20 PM

nationalism, the hardliners might overdo it and rush to introduce the PRCs
system and style of governance into Hong Kong. Lis metaphor might be a
shrewd euphemistic expression of criticism against PRC dogmatists on the left.
Nevertheless, according to Lis metaphor, China feels ungraceful desires toward
Hong Kong because China, throughout its glorious past as a central empire,
regretfully missed out on Hong Kongs colonial experience.
The teapot metaphor can have greater resonance than the transitional politics
of the 1980s and the 1990s. Hong Kong, as a gateway to Western modernity via
colonialism, is too important to sacrifce for Chinas quest for modernity. It is
also the fragility of Hong Kong as a teapot that speaks of the illusory character
and double-edged nature of the national-sub-imperial fantasy held by China.
Hong Kong can be of use to China so long as it remains useful as a teapot; but
a broken teapot would be a terrifying disaster. Therefore, the current project
of re-colonization, which is to say, the replacement of the old colonizer by the
new, is complicated by the combination of Chinas triumphalist, revengeful
mindset with her own inferiority complex; in these circumstances, China has
often viewed Hong Kong as a threat.
9
Rosaldo describes imperialist nostalgia
as ones desire to have back the other or the others that one has participated in
destroying (Bammer 1995). For China, the impulse to destroy and the counter-
impulse to embrace Hong Kong run simultaneously; colonial legacies are hated
and loved at the same time.
In Beijings eyes, the measure of Hong Kongs patriotic devotion rests not
in the participation by Hong Kong citizens in street demonstrations against the
Japanese appropriation of the Diaoyu Islands but in Hong Kongs ability to teach
its coming ruler all about Hong Kongs colonial rule.
10
Within this sometimes
ambiguously redoubled colonization project, the positioning of the local elite
is less ambivalent, however. Arguably, Lau Siu-kais actions and positions
differ little from those of Zheng Guanxing, Ho Kai, and other members of the
colonial intelligentsia: a century ago, they pursued their own grand political
designs by offering political advice to offcials. But if Zhengs and Hos clarion
call for excellent statecraft and for superior civilization belonged to a genre of
enlightened thinking, Laus counsel to the colonial governmental that it adopt
technologies and skills to sustain the political acquiescence of native Hong Kong
Chinese might make him kin of the muchacho the Indians who cooked other
Indians, who helped the whites massacre other Indians, and who used their
local knowledge and skills to gain the colonizers acceptance (Taussig 1992;
Chiu 2000). Johnson and Chiu state that the muchacho, a rather extreme type of
collaborator, was not the mute tool of the colonizer but an active agent who
used the cultural capital bestowed by the colonizer to create a region of agency,
a space of control over the savage majority (Johnson and Chiu 2000: 2). Lau
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 175 3/5/09 12:42:20 PM
is just one case symptomatic of a larger trend wherein the local elite tried to
shift their political loyalty away from the previous anti-communist or British
loyalist stances toward Beijings coming dominance. This trend is evident in the
academies no less than in other social arenas.
Sub-imperialism needs its collaborators as much as imperialism does. Li
Ruihuans metaphor of the tea stain, however, implies the necessary existence of
muchacho without naming it. Regarding the tea stain, sediment from numerous
uses is a treasure only to connoisseurs; the inexperienced master would
need profcient experts to guide the formation of good taste. This reliance on
mastery explains why managerialism, as the ideology of the experts in colonial
governance, has to mediate between fagrant colonialism and paternalist
nationalism while the new, non-colonial power follows a decidedly colonial
course. Managerialist political discourse has thus become the basis of the post-
1997 untouchable principle of (so-called) administrative-led governance and
provides Hong Kong with a set of translated scripts for a re-staging of the same
old drama of collaborative colonialism.
ch.07(p.151-176).indd 176 3/5/09 12:42:20 PM
8
Northbound Colonialism:
Reinventing Hong Kong Chinese
H
ong Kongs colonial subjection to the Western powers in the past has not
denied the space for Chinese national identity of most of its citizens to grow
and transform. The co-evolution of colonialism and Chinese nationalism, the
strong continuity between nationalist and colonial governmentality, etc., have
almost made themselves indistinguishable from each other in many ways. Critical
scholarships, couched in all too simple binary opposite terms are, therefore,
hopelessly inadequate to grasp the complexity of coloniality manifested in Hong
Kong and China because dominance and resistance have always happened
within an ever-changing matrix of colonial power. This is especially true today
when the rhetoric of nationalism and modernization circulating across the Hong
Kong-China border is usually the product of complicity between power-holders
in both Hong Kong and China. The anti-colonial rhetoric sometimes invoked
by this new bloc of power-holders often serves, ironically, no more than as a
camoufage for the continuous exercise of the localized colonial power.
To make matters worse, unrefective recycling of reifed categories, which
regurgitate older imaginaries or fantasies, often smother public political
discussion and refection. Even those categories that are invoked by those who
wish to move beyond conventional conceptual binaries, or to break down certain
essentialisms for instance, certain ideas borrowed from post-colonialism
or post-structuralism risk being appropriated or misplaced, and may only
mystify the obscure circuits of coloniality. In the run-up to 1997, Hong Kong was
inundated by nationalist propaganda professing Beijing authorities as the best
warrant for the future of Hong Kong. The British authorities also exploited the
opportunity to paint for itself a benevolent fnal image of their long imperialist
history. Both sides exploited the continuation of their respective versions of
imperialist and anti-imperialist History as an excuse to ignore local political and
cultural demands.
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 177 3/5/09 12:42:36 PM

During that crucial transitional period toward sovereignty handover,
citizens of Hong Kong became increasingly concerned about their political rights
as well as their cultural identity. They were, however, barred from joining in
the political process by which they might negotiate with the present and future
power-holders on the issues of the forms and structures of their preferred ways
of life. Making their situation even harder was the fact that the issue of 1997
overshadowed, perhaps, too strongly at the expense of other independent or
critical thinking as well as political practices for the obsession with interstate
politics rendered these critical practices highly marginal and ineffective in
dealing with the reality of exploitation and domination in everyday life which,
paradoxically, were derived from the much deeper structure of the collaborative-
colonial power confguration. Within the mainstream mass media, in academic
circles, in circles of leading politicians, and in extended organs of the (CCP)
party-state camoufaged as civil associations, political thinking and debate were
strongly infected and framed within a 1997 discourse which absurdly reduced
all kinds of hope, imagination and politics to matters of rivalry, conspiracy, and
treachery between the two (imperial) states. The complex and complicit nature
of colonial power and the collaborative nature of Hong Kongs colonialism has
been buried within the renewed confguration of global and regional powers;
such novel power structures have been structured by processes and fows that
unsettle and refashion in different ways existing spatial entities and their mutual
relationships.
Struggling to break from the confnes of obsolete conceptual frames
unfortunately reinforced by the 1997 discourse critical intellectual practices
in the late transitional Hong Kong sought to take up the unheroic struggles in
cultural criticism to disrupt the hegemonic self-image of Hong Kong shared by
both the power establishment and the loyal opposition. In this chapter, I will
illustrate these postcolonial cultural politics by drawing upon a few examples
from a special issue of the Bulletin of Hong Kong Cultural Studies (BHKCS)
published in 1996 one year before the handover. The publication of this
special issue aroused concern and discussion both inside and outside Hong
Kong academies. These articles emerged as a response to the stifing political
and intellectual atmosphere of 1997 politics, in which Hong Kong people,
though excluded from any meaningful negotiation, were bombarded daily by
hollow Chinese nationalist rhetoric and British hypocrisy. They took to task the
unrefective transplantations of some critical frameworks onto transitional Hong
Kong, as those frameworks did not properly deal with Hong Kong colonialities.
Although the impact of the critical and dissident young authors cannot compare
with that of heads of state, high offcials, or local political leaders, they provided
something new to our understanding of Hong Kongs coloniality not just of its
past, but also of its changing face.
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 178 3/5/09 12:42:36 PM
Northbound Colonialism: Reinventing Hong Kong Chinese 179

Against Marginality, Down with Hybridity, No More In-
between
The frst article from the BHKCS I will analyze is Ip Iam Chongs Phantom of
Marginality and Hybridity. In this article, Ip criticizes the arbitrary characterization
of Hong Kong as a product of hybridity, for it conjures an unjustifed image
of Hong Kong as a helpless victim, or place suffering from its marginal status.
He takes to task the poet Leung Ping-kwan, who describes Hong Kong as a
place without its own story; where almost every attempt to tell its story fails,
in the end, to tell any stories other than ones internalized from elsewhere. In
Leungs eyes, Hong Kongs story can only be told as one within the narrow
gap emergent in-between other grand narratives, the results of which were
always rendering Hong Kong as exotic, bizarre or othered (Ip 1997). Basically
echoing a common discontent found among local critics, with the southbound
intellectuals imposition of cultural stereotypes on Hong Kong, this claim of
marginality is unacceptable to Ip although he admits the existence of such
Mainlander hauteur. He contends that southbound intellectuals might have
constructed an outdated cultural map that misguides, the one marked with all
self-designations of marginality cannot claim to be any better (Ip 1997: 46).
Ip also draws on the works of flm scholar Esther Yau to substantiate his
critique of the misguided conceptual dichotomy of Hong Kong and China as a
simple self-other relationship. Yau, in her study of mainland Chinas presence in
Hong Kong cinema, talks about a collective anxiety derived from the uncertain
political return to China. Using the theme of cross-border crime which appeared
in the movie Long Arm of the Law (dir. Johnny Mak 1984), Yau illustrates her
analysis of 1997 political anxiety, and in doing so attempts to capture the unfxed
identities of Hong Kong and China (Yau 1994). Although Yau uses the movie
to support an idea of a fuid psychoanalytic dynamic between Hong Kong and
China, Ip points out that yet another unrefective binary assumption frames this
analysis: namely, the opposition between developed and underdeveloped
societies. Ip criticizes Yau for her unconscious perpetration of a cultural
stereotype in which Hong Kong and China are always characterized by their
relative positions on a spectrum of economic development. Clichd images of
Hong Kong and China, thus derived, are not confned to the cross-border crime
genre, which usually evokes fears about Mainlanders, but are also prevalent in
the genre of nostalgia, in which the home in China is portrayed as full of
love.
Thus, either as a dangerous source of violence or as a realm of tranquil
and backward villages, Chinas image remains within a self-other structure
underscored by a discourse of modernization. In other words, China is framed
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 179 3/5/09 12:42:36 PM

invariably as an essentialized other, whose economic underdevelopment
compares with Hong Kongs development. To break away from such binary
stereotypes that risk being complicit with a modernization discourse, Ip calls for
a revised reading/viewing strategy, in order to re-map the power relationships
between Hong Kong and China.
Complicit Postcolonialism?
Following on from his interrogation of the uses of center-periphery spatiality
in such identity-building projects, Ip criticizes the notion of in-betweenness as
found particularly in the then-infuential writings of Rey Chow, who had put
forward the thesis of Hong Kong as a Third Space (Chow 1992). Ip concurs with
Chows criticism of Chinese nationalism, which rightly points out the danger of
nativism, seeing the longing for authentic native values and viewpoints as no
more than an excuse for the self-pity of an imagined victim; yet Ip departs from
Chow when she tries to valorize Hong Kong as a Third Space between two
colonizers, for this amounts to committing the same error she tries to attach to
the others.
Admittedly, Chow, who rejects both the closure entailed by the nativist urge
to restore national authenticity as well as the navet she sees as marring post-
modern hybridities, is fully aware of the political implications of cultural writings
as writing the self. In her politically conscious project of the self-writing of Hong
Kong, she thinks it of paramount importance to reject the illusory association of
the postcoloniality of Hong Kong with a rediscovered nationalism. According to
Chow, Hong Kong cultural expressions which emphasize a kind of interstitial
in-betweenness exemplify a search for a Third Space to emerge which would be
neither nationalist nor post-modern. Following upon that assertion, Chow lays
out a cultural project of self-writing which is fully aware of its own hybridity
one characterized by the impossibility of returning to a native past. This cultural
self-affrmation would be benefcial not only for Hong Kong: Chow argues that
Hong Kong can serve as a model for China, as the city represents postcolonial
awareness. The truth of this modernity-as-postcoloniality is not within the
intellectual range of many mainland Chinese intellectuals because they are still,
unfortunately, under the spell of national and nativist illusions. Chow writes:
First, in being a colony, is Hong Kong not in fact a paradigm of Chinese
urban life in the future? If we accept that it is in postcoloniality that the
modernity of Chinese cities, like the modernity of other non-western
cities, is most clearly defned, then Hong Kong has for the past 150
years lived in the forefront of Chinese consciousness of Chinese
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 180 3/5/09 12:42:37 PM

modernity, while the reality of modernity-as-postcoloniality has been
repressed in mainland China precisely by the illusion of the native
land and the folk itself.
(Chow 1992: 158)
Although Chow has tried somehow to distinguish this postcolonial awareness
from a naive fascination with the West as such, allegedly held by many
mainland Chinese intellectuals, Ip is disturbed by the teleological connotation
carried in such a characterization. Ip writes:
At this point, which Chow frst takes as crucial to the understanding
of this Third Space, Hong Kong seems to be a pioneer. In this way,
Chow indeed runs parallel to what is commonly found among those
who trumpet for modernization. They, following postwar American
modernization theories, take the U.S. as the model of modernization
to measure the degree of development of all other societies. They do so
to push forward the game of simulating U.S.-centered modernization.
Now all Rey Chow does is substitute the brand name Hong Kong in
this game, adding postcoloniality as the footnote, and omitting all the
complicated colonial relationships.
(Ip 1997: 36; my translation)
If postcoloniality means a justifcation for a transfgured version of modernization
rather than a deep refection of colonial relations, then the pitfalls of Hegelian
teleology in absorbing all others into the constitutive process of the self will be
repeated. Rey Chows version of postcolonial cultural politics would thus be
yet another rendition of the modernization discourse that has been haunting
the local younger elite generation since the 1970s (see Chapter 6). What
is at issue here is the omission of all traces of the Others in the project of
establishing a Hong Kong identity premised upon an image of Hong Kong as
being doubly victimized by the two dominating state powers. Granted the reality
of the absence of local voices in the politics of transition, Chows notion of
double victimization is indeed at odds with the postcolonial critics grammar of
neither-nor. As played out in Chows notion of the Third Space as in-between
two colonizers, this notion indeed makes a mockery of Chows own criticism
of the nativist strategy of imaging victimization. As Ip asks in his essay: if
China, as conceived as a nationalist/nativist entity, is essentialized and fxed,
and thus ripe for deconstruction, why should Hong Kong be exempted from a
similar postcolonial deconstruction? If Hong Kong is not, as it is argued, fully
subordinated as a colonized city, but is only a space in-between, the ethical
position of such criticism cannot be justifed by: frst attacking the Chinese
only to follow up by attacking the British. Insisting on the vulnerability of
181
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 181 3/5/09 12:42:37 PM

this self-pitying image, Ip concludes his essay by appealing for an unveiling
of the kinds of multiple and interlocking colonial relationships which Nicholas
Thomas describes as localizing colonialism (Thomas 1994). Ip argues that it
is only through such concrete analyses that we can avoid merely substituting
Manichean division of colonial antagonism for decontextualized notions
of postcolonialism remotely related to local cultural politics and struggles.
Without tying the analyses to potential situations of changing (neo)coloniality,
these analyses run not only the risk of perpetuating the idea that colonialism
is solely concerned with domination from outside and thereby ignoring how
Others are constituted and distorted in the process of building a postcolonial
self; but also the risk of themselves becoming involved in a kind of complicit
postcolonialism (Ip 1997: 50).
The concern to make cultural criticism accountable to the political context
prompts Ip to end his essay by alluding to how the Hong Kong mass media
transposed the victimized image of Hong Kong onto small Hong Kong
capitalists in China. Though notorious for the awful working conditions in the
factories they own, their responsibilities are always evaded because they appear
more often than not in the Hong Kong media as the ones who are forever being
bullied and intimidated by a backward Chinese bureaucracy. Ip quotes the
example of a terrible fre hazard in a Hong Kong-owned factory in southern
China, which led to heavy loss of life. What fooded the mass media was a
barrage of sentimental reports depicting how heroic and risky the Hong Kong
investors were in putting their effort into commercial ventures just as the new
generation of white settlers help to open a barbaric frontier in the present wild
China. The image of helpless but hard-working small businessmen, resonating
with the image of a politically powerless Hong Kong, helps almost to legitimize
acts of negligence. The free press, it seems, only has enough freedom to deal
tangentially with the sweatshop-style exploitation perpetuated by Hong Kong
investors in China. This blatant evasion of responsibility would not be possible
without the common belief that Hong Kong is always a victim, lost in an in-
between zone with other state powers on either side. Therefore, Ip concludes
that it is indeed perverse for cultural critics to keep on recycling this victimized
in-betweenness, a mythic fate that generates unearned sympathy for Hong
Kong.
Northbound Colonialism in Popular Literature
The theme of complicit postcolonialism is pursued further in Hung Ho Fungs
critique of Leung Fung Yee, a popular female fction writer. Basing his analysis
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 182 3/5/09 12:42:37 PM

on the narratives of several novels selected from Leungs voluminous oeuvre,
Hung sets up his task as stripping away the ideological structure of northbound
colonialism in his essay entitled Preliminary Exploration of Northbound Colonialism
(Hung 1997). As a rising star among the whizwoman writers, Leung excels
not so much in literary skill as in her unique focus on life and desire within the
Hong Kong business sector. Often attributed with the creation of a new fction
genre called the business novel, Leung successfully combines three ideological
themes in her imaginary world, China-loving: Hong Kong-loving and
capital-loving. The protagonists of her novels are always business tycoons
who, having gone through various trials and vicissitudes, in the end make
the right choice to stay in Hong Kong. Romance, life struggles (especially of
businesswomen) and moments of grace or heartbreak are all integrated against
the backdrop of historical political changes, with the business world as the main
stage. Leungs novels read like the autobiographies of strong women like the
author herself, but at the same time attempt to be epic Hong Kong stories that
capture the feelings and sensibilities of the new red capitalist class. This emergent
group of notables constitutes the pro-Beijing political camp, praised by the
Chinese authorities as truly patriotic and Hong Kong-loving (ai guo ai gang),
a term invoked to label those who are considered loyal enough to safeguard
and support offcial Chinese policy in Hong Kong. Recognized as faithful
compatriots, they are appointed to various political positions, which bestows
upon them the responsibility to realize the glorious objective of Dengs mission
to let Hong Kong people rule Hong Kong (gang ren zi gang). However, they
are in fact more a cross-border bourgeois class than a group of local capitalists.
Unlike the educated middle class, they do not face dilemmas in choosing their
identity, although most of them either have their children sent abroad or hold
passports issued by western countries.
Leungs novels express the zeitgeist and national attitude of this emergent
class, in which the proft motive and patriotic loyalty have been so seamlessly
intermingled. In her fctional world, almost every decision of the characters to
invest more in China or Hong Kong is acclaimed as having been made from
patriotic callings, or from the (re)discovery of the pride of being Chinese.
The impending uncertainty of 1997 is only a backdrop to these awakenings
of patriotism and identity. However, one must note that the novels do not
just repeat the familiar nationalistic theme of tales of heroic personal sacrifce
which emerged from the massive return of the patriotic overseas Chinese in
the late 1950s, when Maos socialist experiments did, in fact, move numerous
patriotic hearts from different social strata and throughout the globe. Instead,
every celebration of such patriotic acts is without exception accompanied by
an equally passionate championing of Hong Kong for its miraculous capitalist
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 183 3/5/09 12:42:37 PM

development, together with a disdain of Chinas own past. Here we fnd many
characters who, in early life, suffered from political turmoil and extremist
movements, often ending up as illegal exiles in Hong Kong or as migrants
overseas. Leungs heroes and heroines invariably succeed in the end as business
tycoons, strutting across the borders between Hong Kong, China and even the
western world.
In Zui hong chen (Drunk in the Red Dust), her most ambitious political
allegory, Leung develops a saga around a mongrel character, an abandoned
child born after the tragic end of an almost impossible interracial marriage
in the early nineteenth century (Leung, F.Y. 1990). With this the image of the
stray child, which we discussed in previous chapters, Leung comes up with a
variation of the victim theme. As an illegitimate son of political rape consequent
to the historic Sino-British clash, the hero, Wei, has been discriminated against
throughout his life. Having prevailed through grim struggles, Wei turns himself
into a big shipping baron presiding over a huge business empire. For Wei, this
commercial success brings about not only monetary rewards but also prominent
political status recognized by both the Chinese and the British Hong Kong
governments. With his enormous fnancial clout and the unique advantage of
bridging the two cultures as well as the two governments, he becomes the de
facto Czar of the South. If a superfcial reading of this story tempts readers
to recognize a silhouette of Tung Chee-hwa, the shipping tycoon-turned
present Chief Executive of the HKSAR, Hung defects this by disclosing here
the psychoanalytic structure of a northbound colonialism which, although
indiscernible in front-stage politics, is salient in the cultural realm. Displayed in
this political allegory, Hung argues, is a social fantasy incorporating the trauma
of a bastard and his triumphal comeback. Pure opportunity seeking is rewarded
indiscriminately as personal striving; frauds are credited as expediencies to
success. By hook or by crook, the curse of illegitimate birth is fnally transformed
into blessings. Weis dual identity no longer implies a self that is torn, but
ironically, promises privileged access to the two centers of power, giving the lie
to the denigration of miscegenation. Read as a political allegory, as Hung means
it to be, it tells us about the beginning and the end of an imagined Hong Kong.
The author fantasizes a commercial empire, which acts as the centre of both the
world of China and that of Hong Kong, and weaves them together with a hero
who alone can stride freely between these two worlds.
Contrary to the image of a grievous and tragic fall of Hong Kong, we
fnd here a chauvinistic self-assertion. The aggrandized self, in no way, is
cringing for the mercy of the national sovereign to grant living space to Hong
Kongs way of life. Instead, for the new breed of Hong Kong red capitalists,
the vast hinterland of China is an unlimited space, a new virgin frontier for
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 184 3/5/09 12:42:37 PM

capitalist colonization. Border-crossings between ones self and other, past and
present, material interests and spiritual redemption, etc. are possible within the
imaginary business empire where locality, nationality and global citizenship
are all negotiable terms. The foundation of all this is the smart hardworking
Hong Kong character. The affrmation of a Hong Kong identity is concomitant
with the assertion of an imperial desire. By imagining themselves as the steam
engines for Chinese modernization, capitalist bigwigs have every justifcation
for shifting their loyalty from the British colonial masters to the new ones, and
the novel quickly supplies them with a new kind of patriotism. However, they
cannot conceive of a patriotism which runs counter to their religious belief in
business success they have to defne money-loving as country-loving, and vice
versa. Thus, we witness the re-emergence of the genre of the legendary business
tycoon, which was popular in the 1970s. The only difference is that now the
legendary heroes are highlighted by their Chinese contacts and political clout.
Tales of their industrious entrepreneurship, perceptive foresight and brilliant
grasp of opportunities go hand in hand with the celebration of their skills in
seeking political patrons and allies. The additional virtue of these exemplary
citizens of Hong Kong is now captured in a catchphrase: political wisdom
being all things to all men.
Double talk is thus the highest of post-idealist ethics, and the major fgures
in Hong Kong are those who know which way the wind blows. In the language
of postcolonial criticism, this extraordinary politics of hybridity in Hong Kong
would posit a hybrid space of displacement, in contradistinction to its pure,
fxed and separate antecedents. That is why the story of an ever-changing and
dynamic Hong Kong can be told in conjunction with a history of a static but
lovable China, and why both are affrmed in Leungs imagined world. For the
emergent red capitalists, such a realpolitik displaces their past animosity to
communism and their affliation to the British colonial regime so much so
that they were indeed the frst to attempt to dissuade China from reclaiming
Hong Kong. The mother-child imaginary dynamic, in which Hong Kong
gains its self-recognition as a holy son by relating to China as a loving mother,
is indeed a reversal of the image of the stray child discussed previously
where Hong Kong was treated by the Chinese cultural nationalists as a poor
decadent city deprived of the love of its mother(land). Such a long-held trope
is re-inscribed within Leungs phantasmagorical world in such a way that the
mother love is now melodramatically returned. Growing older and older, she
is looking fearsome and despotic but always imbued with great feelings. Both
poor and backward (waiting only for more capital investment to bring her out
of poverty), the mother(land) now opens her embracing arms to welcome the
love of her returning son who has gained his strength and independence for
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 185 3/5/09 12:42:37 PM

the wealth he possesses. The latters masculine power of capital, i.e. the conceit
and arrogance of the new generation of nouveau riche is vividly demonstrated
in Leungs novels as lurking behind the creolized rhetoric of Hong Kong-styled
patriotism.
The Gospel of Patriotic Capitalism
To be sure, the ideological content of such archetypal versions of the Hong Kong
story is not something concealed from peoples consciousness, to be discovered
through a detached psychoanalytic reading. Rather, it is explicitly manifested
in Hong Kongs daily life. According to Hung, this chauvinistic sense of pride
in relation to a backward China is so widespread as to constitute a hegemonic
popular class ideology within which hatred and aspiration, anxiety and
complacency, are articulated. As we may note in the lyrics of the popular song
of Smart Ah Lec, a sense of frivolous superiority is unleashed in the shameless
applause given to Hong Kong businessmen for their competence in getting-rich-
quick across the border. This pride is never a matter of populism because even
the most elegant and pungent political criticisms are invariably imbued with
evocations of the same self-image of Hong Kong people: successful economic
animals. Even the sternest skeptics of the Chinese communist regime fnd solace
in being able to discern a Hong Kong cultural presence embodied in all the
commercial icons found in Chinese cities and other, more backward, places.
As a result, Hong Kong northbound colonialism is successfully under way,
as a creeping civilizing mission lacking only a church and clergy although,
to be sure, it is not short of missionaries and even crusaders, especially when
it can secure the sanction of the state. To this extent, northbound colonialism
is certainly not an imposition, but a variation, or an emergent aspect, of the
historical, continuously evolving cultural formation of collaborative colonialism
that dates back to early colonial Hong Kong. As an ideologue of this lay church,
suffused personally with a sense of mission, Leung offers her life and career as
an example, as she preaches the gospel of this patriotic capitalism. Her books
command huge sales in Chinese markets, and win acclaim from across the
social spectrum from the ordinary public to the established literature bureau
in China. She has successfully built huge networks of guanxi with both powerful
organs of the Chinese state (such as the New China News Agency) in Hong
Kong and with cultural establishments in Beijing, as well as with bodies in many
provinces of China. Thanks to her buddies in the bureaucracy, her books are
celebrated not only as quality literary works but also quite simply as guidebooks
to fnancial knowledge which can be put to good use in the booming speculative
Chinese fnancial markets (Qinjiayuan 1992).
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 186 3/5/09 12:42:38 PM

Although almost exactly a century later, Leungs phenomenal popularity is
reminiscent of that of Ho Kai and his times, when Chinese readers were equally
frantic for anything imported from the more progressive Western outside;
when Hong Kong served as a gateway (as it still does). At that time, Ho
Kais newspaper articles, frst published in Hong Kong, were soon translated
in Shanghai, and sold like hot cakes (see Chapter 4). More than just another
example of the devoted fansphenomenon, Leungs popularity has quickly
taken on a pedagogical dimension: her books have been revered as another
source which Chinese readers can draw upon for quick-fx pieces of western
learning.
However, nowadays, the proliferation of these celebrated market hero and
heroine fgures would not be possible without the collusion of the Chinese state
apparatus. Coincidentally to Leungs rise to fame, Deng Xiaopings tour to the
south in 1992 gave impetus to all these enthusiasms, and an unambiguous green
light was given to capitalization. At this point also, regaining Hong Kong began
to be used politically as a mission to unify the will of the whole country, and to
subdue post-1989 political disturbances. Leungs iconic status as a successful
writer with a patriotic heart was exalted at that moment by the reformist creed.
She was described by Chinese offcials as symbolizing the success of the Chinese
open door policy, evidencing the cultural prosperity under the present regime,
and being living proof of the perceptive One Country, Two Systems policy. In
addition to the tremendous sales of her books, she even became a spectacle of
consumption herself, and embodied the miracle of both her personal success and
the achievement of Hong Kong. As a blend of Hong Kong glamour and patriotic
sentiment, she became an object of fantasy symbolizing the cross-fertilization of
modernity and patriotic national identity.
The cultic dimension of the Leung phenomenon can be witnessed in events
such as the scrambling of the mobs waiting outside Chinese bookstores for her
autograph, with the occasional breaking of a window. In her prose, Leung always
expresses gratitude to her Chinese readers, but she never forgets to admonish
them solemnly for their indiscipline, ineffciency and uncivilized manners
(Leung, F.Y. 1992). Hung notes that she always makes explicit comparisons
between attitudes on the Mainland and the alleged hard-working attitudes,
speediness, effciency, and polite manners of the Hong Kong people. To bestow
blessings on the people she hopes to civilize (or to colonize), she always concludes
by investing her wish for a better China by proposing a step-by-step mode of
learning Hong Kongs ways of doing things. The Leung phenomenon is thus
clearly an indicator that Hong Kong has clawed back its tarnished image while
the slaughter of Chinese cultural nationalists from both the right and the left
during the past years was going on as the place which Sun Yat-sen could thank
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 187 3/5/09 12:42:38 PM

for giving him all the inspiration to re-form or re-make a new China by learning
from its ways of life.
Cultural Imperialism of the In-between
To many, Hungs analysis in the BHKCS is reminiscent of the old Marxist thesis
of cultural imperialism. However, there is a twist: it is not simply that a cultural
imperialism has brought about a leveling of taste and a standardization of
aesthetic judgment, thanks to a Western-imposed mode of consumption or way
of life. Instead, the imperialist/native divide, as personifed by the heroes in
Leungs novel, is always already mediated by the in-betweenness of Hong Kong,
which facilitates the negotiation between Western industrious/industrial culture
and Chinese ethnic identity. The divided imperialist/native is but a variant
of the caricatured economic man theorized by Lau Siu Kai as the utilitarian
familist (see Chapter 7). Whenever they are presented as antagonistic polar
opposites, the dialectic between imperialism and nativism works in such a way
that Hong Kong emerges as the third term, not as an alternative elsewhere but
as a moment leading toward the consummation of the rise of a new sovereign in
a new bout of regional business competitiveness. Native traditions and western
modernity are, thus, respectively reifed, and subsequently to be transcended, for
the sake of clearing out a space for Hong Kong. If this narrative is imbued with
old imperial tropes here and there, as Hung has noted, they are indispensable
ingredients in Leungs writings, evidence of a kind of imperial fantasy, and are
shared comfortably in the natives mind.
Hungs critique of Leungs northbound colonialism in the end brings out
its relationship with the discourse of marginality and hybridity raised in Ips
article. Although apparently there are two different descriptions of Hong Kong
(one is about fear and anxiety and the other is about supremacy and arrogance),
Hung takes them as two sides of the same coin, as emerging from a psychic
process in which China is taken as an essentialized other. With the help of
Spurrs categorization of the rhetoric of empire and his argument concerning
the complicity between different types of colonial imaginary, Hung insists that
the image of Hong Kongs victimization is in tacit collusion with its chauvinism
(Spurr 1993). The political powerlessness of the middle class accentuates its
desire to assimilate a threatening China as ominous Other; yet, its fear of
losing its freedom and cultural identity also buttresses its ignorance and gives an
excuse for the more aggressive northbound capitalists to conceal their ambition
to snatch money from China. This fear helps them to shirk their responsibility,
maintain appalling exploitation and colonize China culturally and economically
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 188 3/5/09 12:42:38 PM

as Hong Kong establishes itself as the paragon for Chinas modernization.
But lets make it absolutely clear that this is not driven either by a conspiracy or
by some false consciousness taking its effect deterministically. On the contrary,
the ideological domination of this particular red capitalist class was a hegemonic
project constituted contingently through rearticulating the post-1989 fears,
found among different strata, as elements constitutive of a consensus in support
of Dengs conservative capitalist reformist policies. Subsuming all kinds of
social antagonisms into a doomsday scenario, the doomsday discourse about
1997, which spoke of ensuring Hong Kongs autonomy as the highest political
goal, has ironically provided the ground for a reactionary backlash. Losing the
potential it had had for raising the political consciousness during the 1980s,
1997 became, in the late transition, a politically inhibiting sign. Although some
sectors of international capital tended to opt for a non-kowtowing strategy
towards China, they would not go beyond what has been prescribed for the 1997
discourse: i.e., to remain inattentive to anyone other than the British and Chinese
state. The result was a deepening depoliticization of Hong Kong society, as the
only politics left were confned to the little arena of international diplomacy.
Thus, there seemed no option for affrming Hong Kongs interests, voice
and identity other than cultural aggrandizement based on its past economic
achievements. Turning fear into conceit, the psychic economy of this (post)
colonial politics worked in an extraordinary way: the more widely and deeply
China became assimilated into Hong Kong culture and capitalist: ways of life,
the more public anxiety in Hong Kong about the future could be overcome. It
was not a situation where colonizer and colonized became indistinguishable,
as some postcolonial critics always presume; but a colonial project prompted,
ironically, by an urge to gain for the Chinese nation-state a vanity to end
colonialism.
Globalization and Northbound Colonialism
Both Ip and Hungs critiques try to make sense of the changing political and
cultural landscapes of Hong Kong and China by demonstrating the changing
politics of Chineseness in Hong Kong. However, a fuller picture could not be
painted without putting those changes in the context of rapid East Asian growth
and the prevalent developmentalist ideology in the region. One facet of this
image is the combination of nationalistic pride with the celebration of the global
millennium. In the special issue, which we have been discussing, another article,
written by Tam Man Kei and entitled The World without Strangers, geo-cultural
politics has been advanced to throw light on the multiculturalist rhetoric of global
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 189 3/5/09 12:42:38 PM

capitalism (Tam 1997). Through his analysis of a series of TV advertisements
created by Giordano, a Hong Kong-based Asian multinational fashion chain
store, Tam criticizes a multiculturalist gimmick: the advertisements using the
slogan The World Without Strangers. For Tam, this evidence of an illusory
representation of cross-cultural dialogue a la Benetton is made possible by the
proliferation of a pluralistic easy-going lifestyle. The picture of global harmony
is portrayed in the advertisement by images of people from widely separated
continents put together in an amicable, vibrant and energetic visual environment
which projects out from some mystic multicultural fairyland. However, according
to Tam, the scenes of the encounter between people with faces of different colors,
the mixture of musical motifs from American Rock & Roll, Chinese Erhu, and
Brazilian Samba, and the fantastic merging of soccer and folk dance, not only
fail to promote multicultural harmony but are highly ideologically charged, for
they happen only within a frame set for urban spectators to comfortably gaze
on rural strangers. The relaxed and idyllic mood of the villages, loaded both as
markers of cultural difference and the homogeneous and immobile innocence of
tradition, signifes more an empty stage for a dramatic playing out of cultural
transformation than it does living places for diverse cultures and ways of life in
their own right.
In Tams analysis, the contrast between the multicultural modern look of
the young fashion models and the always-blurred background, which alludes
to the shabby and dilapidated past, reinstates the myth of modernization in
its attempt to preserve, at the sensual level, the humanistic touch of voiceless,
tranquil rural space. The life and joy activated by the simple casual Giordano
gear affrms less the simplicity of life than the imperative to commodifcation.
In any case, regardless of its origins or ideological affliations, the message is
that the drive and energy to consume will always be mobilized in this symbolic
universe of multicultural capitalism. Even opposing political beliefs are treated
only as strange or foreign cultures to be transformed. While lInternationale is
sung by a Hong Kong rock band in the advertisement, it provides both the
pleasure of an imagined taming of a fearsome regime and a simultaneous
metonymic declaration for the contemporary revolutionary march of globalized
consumerism. All those fragments of cultures, which are made strange and
familiar almost simultaneously, are simply foating signifers waiting to be put
into the blender of commodity circulation. The only new product is the culture
of hybridity, as exemplifed by the Hong Kong prt-a-porter design of Giordano
clothes.
Tams engagement with the discourse of globalization here, as well as the
critiques of postcolonialism, does not advocate a crude nativist position or a
simple Marxist critique of capitalism. The writings reviewed here show that
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 190 3/5/09 12:42:38 PM

Hong Kong can be depicted neither as a cozy homeland for the local natives,
nor a springboard for the diasporic people. Rather, it is a community whose
political and cultural status is always in fux, a city which has been enmeshed
in the manifold games of power and desire which allow irony, hybridity and
pastiche to be occasional escapes which, however, can be easily turned into
cultural closure at any moment.
Therefore, the choice is never confned to that of choosing between seeking
self-affrmation or cynical self-parodying into disappearance (see Abbas 1997).
The essays in the special issue I reviewed above were written as a conjunctural
engagement with a set of political clichs in order to open up spaces for self-
refection and social practice. The image of Hong Kong thus depicted is not of a
place longing in vain for an identity that can be claimed as her own, or searching
for a coherent image in the globally striated space of media power. This Hong
Kong does not take her identity crisis as a problem per se or as a problem solvable
through being assigned a numerical place (such as Third Space) (Rey Chow)
or in a paralogical way (as a non-space) (Abbas) within the global cultural
hierarchy. What one will lose in this game of identity politics is the excess, the
residue, or the Other of the identity concerned.
A Misplaced Post-colonialism or a Feminized Colonialism?
The demise of the intellectualist cultural nationalism and the ellipsis of radical
political critiques since the 1970s gave way to the supreme reign of managerialism
in academies. It gave rise to a highly stifing intellectual atmosphere where
cultural criticism seldom took the form of theoretically vigorous academic
research. Against this background, the responses drawn by the special issue
of Northbound Colonialism were exceptionally enthusiastic. Located at an
undefned and ambiguous speaking position, the writers engaged in something
between political criticism of current affairs and academic research that might or
might not be counted in their research accounting. Quite a few respondents to
the special issue, expressed worries about the problem of travelling theory and
misplaced concreteness, as fashionable post- lexicons developed in western
academies seem to be repeatedly invoked in the Northbound Colonialism
discourse. In this light, Li Siu Leung was not alone in his perplexity over the often
unruly use of theory and the gesture of incessant deconstruction. He queries both
the appropriateness of relocating so many terms of postcolonial literature and
the writers general reliance on the canon-like problematization (a putatively
Foucaultian) strategy. Defending the positive use of Hong Kong as a speaking
position against the devastating deconstruction, Li calls for a problematization
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 191 3/5/09 12:42:38 PM

of the whole postcolonial discourse which originated from western academies
(Li 1997). He suggests that the imbalance might perhaps reveal more about the
dilemmas and ambiguities of using these post-discourses in analyzing Hong
Kong.
In contrast, Kwok Siu Tong seems to have gone to another extreme, worrying
less about the applicability of post- theories (as he never questions whether
Hong Kong has entered the post-industrial and post-modern age), but about
whether this advanced but culturally idiosyncratic Hong Kong can still manage
to attain for itself a role in the project of building a Cultural China (Tu Wei
Ming)(Kwok 1997; Tu 1999). His concern demonstrates the continued infuence
of diasporic nationalisms phantasmagorical projection of the greater Cultural
China. His unease is revealed in his anxiety that the Hong Kong mentality
as a whole is uncomfortably situated among the increasingly contradictory
calls coming from dominant authorities. On the one hand, fellowship among
compatriots is celebrated in every place that the offcial Chinese agents can lay
their hands on; but on the other hand, Hong Kong people are sternly warned,
by the same Chinese authorities, not to interfere in mainland political affairs
as implied by the dictum well water should not interfere with river water
(jing shui bu fan he shui). Pitying Hong Kong, caught between these mutually
contradictory calls for patriotism, Kwok rejects the plausibility of the thesis
of northbound colonialism. Rather, he characterizes Hong Kong as a place
suffering from an epidemic of schizophrenia (Kwok 1997).
Echoing Li Siu Leung, Shih Shumei queries whether the critiques against
marginality and in-betweenness are not themselves strongly shadowed by,
if not simply mimicking, what is going on in the western academic discourse
of postcolonialism (Shih 1997). Shih is doubtful whether there would be such
a heated debate about discourses and representations of Hong Kong if not for
the 1997 D-day and the fact that the languages of postcolonialism are in vogue.
Although the participants in such debates sprinkle them with novel ideas, they
might themselves, ironically, be prisoners of this feeting moment a temporality
existing under highly specifc historical, cultural and discursive pressures.
Therefore, it is diffcult to measure whether such discussion has really opened
up autonomous discursive space. Shih directs readers to the putative Achilles
heel of the northbound colonialism thesis: that the idea risks being in complicity
with the offcial leftist conservatism still alive in mainland China. She points
to the charge, made by the ultra-leftists in the CCP, that cultural imports from
Hong Kong and Taiwan are cultural imperialism. She insists that this idea
is currently gaining ground again among some Chinese intellectuals. As seen
in recent experiences, ideas concerning human rights and democracy are often
included in the defnition of such cultural imperialist invasions. Suggesting
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 192 3/5/09 12:42:39 PM

that Chinese intellectuals who are inclined to adopt certain kinds of postcolonial
theoretical positions might have a very subtle relationship with state-endorsed
nationalism, including xenophobic attitudes reminiscent of the extremist leftists
during the Cultural Revolution, Shih challenges the authors of the special issue
to consider how their northbound colonialism thesis can distance itself from
such a dangerous position.
A further and related point she raises concerns the neglected dimension of
gender in the special issue. Shih queries whether the hypermasculinist Chinese
midland-centric chauvinism would easily give way to the northbound
colonialism from Hong Kong. As Shih puts it,
If assimilation is equivalent to feminization, we can ask another question:
who can guarantee that all the ten billions of Chinese people would
willingly subordinate themselves to being assimilated or feminized,
giving up cultural sovereignty to the northbound colonial culture? If,
as Ashis Nandy says, the outcome of colonialism is the nativist reaction
of hypermasculinity, then in the context of the midland-centrism in
China, wouldnt this hypermasculinity easily be transformed into
rebellion against the northbound colonial culture? We should then
understand at this point that the northbound colonial imaginary is not
itself a stable agent of rights. If it is a kind of colonial consciousness, it
is itself, by and large, soft, or even feminine. It might just be a colonial
consciousness that can always recoil for a bigger leap, willowy soft, but
bound frmly (yi tui wei jin yi rou ke gang). It is in no way comparable
to the imperious and feverish (zhang kuang) neocolonial economy of
late capitalism. So, is that actually colonial consciousness? Ultimately,
is Hong Kong culture qualifed to be a colonial culture?
(Shih 1997: 157; my translation)
Preferring to describe the structure of cultural rights in mainland China and
Hong Kong as multi-layered, impalpable and ambiguous, Shih questions
whether the thesis of assimilating China into Hong Kong culture is exaggerated
and asks whether it isnt simply an illusory reaction to the 1997 anxiety.
I quote at length here Shihs comments because they come together to
make several very important and revealing points. She is defnitely right
in highlighting the possible effects or counter-effects of discursive politics
across geographical borders, and it is highly pertinent to bring out the gender
dimension. However, given all the talk about the second industrial divide,
fexible modes of accumulation, post-Fordism, etc., Shihs understanding of
what she calls the imperious and feverish economy is a bit too rough. It cannot
capture anything substantial about the relative strength between Hong Kong
and China in the context of the rapidly changing East Asian economy, which
might be characterized as both late-capitalist and neocolonial. Although,
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 193 3/5/09 12:42:39 PM

obviously, economics is an issue dealt with by Shih only in a passing manner,
I think that it is indeed a crucial one. For a productive criticism to be made
of the special issue, one should recognize that precisely the point the special
issue intends to make is that neocolonial relations are characterized by their
fexibility, mobility, pervasiveness, and even cunning nature; i.e., precisely that
they have the ability to recoil and to be willowy (as Shih nicely describes
them). Isnt it also true that the neocolonial forms of domination contingent
upon these fexible modes of global capital accumulation have to exhibit a subtle
cultural sensitivity a gentle touch so that a feminized face has to be included?
In a word, is the feminine face of Hong Kong culture enough for her to
plead innocence when confronted with the colonial relations in which she has
been enmeshed? How can we determine the gender and sexuality of a culture
without frst understanding how gender and sexuality work as both division
and hierarchy within the economy, within exploitative labor relations, within
the chains of command and control, or within the investment structures, etc.?
Readers may fnd the following responses of Hui Po Keung and Ren Hai to these
questions illuminating.
Forget Geo-politics or Watch out for Boomerang Colonialism?
Drawing upon the grand conceptual model of Braudels historical capitalism,
Hui Po Keung questions the validity of using the Hong Kong region as a
metaphor for the agent of capital (Hui 1997). Hui differentiates capitalism into
three analytical layers: material life, market economy and capitalism as such.
He then argues that the layer of capitalism as such is always fexible and
mobile in respect to geographical location. Agents of economic activities gain the
advantage of monopolistic status, all the time seeking political power to protect
their own interests. In contrast, the market economy is relatively transparent and
is governed by fair contracts and rules. The idea of Northbound Colonialism,
by presuming a juridico-politically defned spatial entity (i.e., a country or
city) as a valid unit of analysis, is fawed, because it cannot help us to gain a
thorough understanding of the trans-regional operation of capitalism. Besides
homogenizing the internal differences existing within given geographical
boundaries, it has a tendency to blur the useful distinction between monopolistic
operations of power and capital, on the one hand, and transparent and relatively
fair market exchange, on the other. The Hong Kong cultures found in China may
have elements of both.
By reminding us of the need to have more nuanced understandings of
capitalism, and cautioning against hasty adoption of spatial dichotomies,
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 194 3/5/09 12:42:39 PM

Huis analysis is indeed useful and timely. However, the implied suggestion to
replace local geo-political analysis with one that only makes sense on a global or
millennial scale risks abrogating the critical value of the category of colonialism
in general, and the specifc analysis of the domination and subordination in
Hong Kong and China, in particular. In contrast, Ren Hais response spells
out a much more place-specifc analysis, demonstrating the very complex
relationships of spatially-mediated cultural and economic domination (Ren
1997). These relations of domination, however, are not simply exercised through
space but as space. Spatial differences are not given apriority but are constituted
by the fows of capital and power. Yet, unlike in the classical case of colonialism,
the emergent hierarchical relation between places, within a created order
of space, does not simply depend on forces originating from defnite places.
Neither does it work outside multinational corporations, nor beyond the nation-
state. Against the simple model of globalization, the transnational circulation of
capital does not just render nation-states as fxed, located and passive recipients
of the spaceless power of the cash nexus. On the contrary, as the investigated
case of China Travel International Investment Hong Kong Limited (CTII), a
major Chinese multinational corporate, shows (see below), multinational capital
and the nation-state can be mutually implicated. Today, any transnational
corporation can play a dual role: both as the agent of a particular nation-state and
as a broker of anything foreign. It does not operate under a logic that would
make transnational capital denigrate cultural attachments, like nationalism, nor
the power of the nation-state; neither does it attenuate subjective and objective
spatial hierarchies.
As a state agent, CTII has huge investments in the tourist industry between
Hong Kong and China and plays an active role in Hong Kong cultural and art
sectors, thereby promoting, at a very mundane level, the cultural and leisure
activities that inculcate Chinese patriotism into the Hong Kong populace.
In Hong Kong, it is part of a grand project of building a unifcatory alliance
(tungjian) (engineered by Chinese state organs) to win the hearts and minds
of Hong Kong compatriots to support Hong Kongs return to China. It
tries by every means to make the Mainlands forms of cultural and political
expression, including CCP propaganda, less inimical to the Hong Kong people.
Yet, as a corporation driven by the proft motive, it sells Chinese landscapes,
cultures and even ethnicities as pure commodities. Adopting the Disneyland
style of turning ethnicities and cultures into exhibitons and carnivals, CTII, at
the several theme parks it owns in Shenzhen, repackages miniature Worlds
for mainland tourists, as well as a tourist-friendly image of a multicultural
China for foreign visitors.
1
(Ren draws our attention to the fact that it is
indeed predominantly male-tourist-friendly, for a large proportion of the
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 195 3/5/09 12:42:39 PM

representatives of ethnicities in the Cultural Village are female. This is for the
convenience of male photographers). Besides perpetuating and magnifying a
taste for an Orientalist, exoticist and male perspective in promoting a particular
China to the mainly Hong Kong tourists, CTII has invested in the fabrication of
a fairyland for mainland Chinese tourists visiting Shenzhen, leading them to
believe that they are already at the gateway to the wonderful modern world.
2

Like other Chinese multinationals capital, CTIIs capital functions in Hong Kong
as Chinese capital, and enjoys special political and economic treatment; yet in
mainland China, CTII does not only serve as broker for Hong Kongs access
to foreign technologies and investments, but also develops a huge knowledge
industry which makes fetishes of Hong Kong experiences, creating a holy
land of modernity-on-the-Chinese-soil for endless pilgrimage tours, which the
cadres and ordinary people presumably long for. CTIIs special privileged status
is refected in the fact that it is legally recognized as foreign capital on the
Mainland. In this interlocked structure of transnational capitalism, Hong Kong
is not simply a geographical entity but a signifer of advanced experiences and
of sources of capital, opportunities and even truth. Her foreignness is prone
to be preserved, appropriated and mimicked by all Chinese. In this light, we
may understand how the fortressing of Chinese patriotism here is in turn not
a negation of Hong Kong; nor are the state interests in promoting nationalism
inimical to the activities of multinational capital. Therefore, Ren contends, the
notion of the capitalist class advancing northward is ambiguous, for it is not
only the Hong Kong capitalists who are going northward. The Chinese capital,
with the backing of the Chinese state, would also go northward via Hong
Kong, along the trajectory of a boomerang.
Obviously, in Hong Kong we are facing far more complicated spatial
politics than our conventional wisdom about colonialism would allow us to
imagine. Yet, even Rens analysis does not eschew the uses of space as a vehicle
for dominance. If colonialism emerged frst in the sixteenth century primarily as
military and economic domination through geo-political processes, what do we
understand of geo-politics if we are still far from discarding, with legitimacy, the
notion of coloniality as a valid analytical category of power in the late twentieth
century? After giving up the too-neatly portrayed picture of the whole world as
a single but stratifed world-system, can we do more justice by singularizing
each place, assigning it with an ordinal marker or examining the gender of each
locality, in the belief that such a mosaic of local features can grant easy access
to cultural or political specifcity? Or, would the obsession with a dazzlingly
colorful postcolonial landscape of localities still blind us from recognizing the
power and desire of the mapping gaze itself? Whatever the answer is, we can
see that cultural processes are inseparable from the geography of politics and
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 196 3/5/09 12:42:39 PM

the politics of geography. If this is so, isnt it a task incumbent upon cultural
analysts to consider the politics of space and their bearing upon cultural politics,
and vice versa? Hui and Ren may be right, in adopting a multi-dimensional
view of the fows of dominating powers, to ask for a further specifcation of the
agents involved in colonizing processes; but would it not be equally evasive
politically to relegate power domination indiscriminately to non-place-specifc
global capitalism? Conversely, if cultural processes as fows of signifers are
so messed up by spatially deployed capital and production processes, isnt it
rather a naive belief to defend cultural sovereignty? Without probing further
into how our cultural imaginations work spatially i.e. how we conceive the
global, the national and the local, and how our social and political relations are
constituted by these imaginations as well as forces of space wouldnt it be too
hasty to call our colonialism post-?
ch.08(p.177-197).indd 197 3/5/09 12:42:39 PM
Conclusion:
Re-theorizing Colonial Power
A
s early as 1953, John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson (1953) in the article
The imperialism of free trade criticized the classical, including Marxist,
theories of imperialism for their Eurocentricity which seeks explanation for the
rise of colonial empires in terms of circumstances in Europe only. Almost twenty
years later, Robinson elaborated such criticism in a paper presented at a seminar
on imperialism at Oxford. In that paper entitled Non-European foundations of
European imperialism: sketch for a theory of collaboration (Robinson 1972), he
writes:
Today their analyses, deduced more from frst principle than empirical
observation, appear to be ideas about European society projected
outward, rather than systematic theories about the imperial process as
such. They were models in which empire-making was conceived simply
as a function of European, industrial political economy. Constructed
on the assumption that all active components were bound to be
European ones, which excluded equally vital non-European elements
by defnition, the old theories were founded on a grand illusion.
(Robinson 1972: 118)

Robinson wants thus to include in any new theory of imperialism, the
consideration of the non-European foundations of European imperialism, by
which he means the existence of collaboration or non-collaboration between the
Europeans and the indigenous. He writes:
The revised, theoretical model of imperialism has to be founded on
studies of the nature and working of the various arrangements for
mutual collaboration, through which the external European, and the
internal non-European components cooperated at the point of imperial
impact.
(Robinson 1972: 118)
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 199 3/5/09 12:42:56 PM

Robinsons focus on the collaborative arrangements with the non-European
natives is tied-in with his chief concern of asking why Europe was able to rule
large areas of the world so cheaply and with so few troops. He maintains that
the capitalist system was not inherently imperialistic at all times; but when it
was, the degree of imperialism was, to a large extent, a function of the political
and social conditions in the satellite countries. Rejecting the Eurocentric
explanations, he believes that domination is only practicable in so far as alien
power is translated into terms of indigenous political economy (Robinson 1972:
119).
Robinson is a very productive historian in the feld of history of imperialism,
his name and works, however, have seldom been referred to in the present feld
of postcolonial cultural criticism.
1
Even if postcolonial studies nowadays have
moved a long way beyond the economistic Marxist analysis of imperialism
in the line inaugurated by writers such as Lenin and Hilfreding, there are
extremely few echoes responding to the call to investigate how alien power
is translated into terms of indigenous political economy, let alone conceiving
imperialism as, following Robinson, a function of its victims collaboration or
non-collaboration of their indigenous politics, as it was of European expansion
(Robinson 1972: 118, my emphasis).
2
In other words, even when postcolonialists,
like Homi Bhabha, are interested in looking into how dualistic constructions
of the colonizer and the colonized are challenged in detecting the radical
ambivalence at the heart of colonial discourse, attempts to give a materialist
account of those ambivalences or hybridities are few and far between. Therefore,
even when cultural hybridities draw the attention of scholars, they are usually
framed as resulting from processes of the natives self-determination to defy,
erode and supplant the power of imperial cultural knowledge rather than as
facets of indigenous politics or operations of collaborative mechanisms.
Inspired by Robinsons revisionist theory of imperialism, chapters in Part
I describe the emergence of various institutional components of a collaboration
system that emerged in and around Hong Kong between 1842 and 1911.
Relationships between missionary bodies and the colonial government, the
Chinese quasi-self-governing bodies, the University of Hong Kong, etc.,
represented themselves as sequential outgrowths of a colonial power formation
which had gradually taken shape since the early colonial days. They came
together as a power confguration very effective for maintaining a stable British
colonial rule in Hong Kong.
However, my investigation of such a collaborative system is not geared
towards providing a case study of how the history of British imperialism can be
better understood in the East Asian context in order to substantiate a new theory
of imperialism. In other words, it does not try to look into, as Robinson does,
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 200 3/5/09 12:42:56 PM

the non-European foundations of European imperialism. Instead, my focus
was on the local infections of such collaborative mechanisms in order to invite a
reconsideration of the Chinese colonial experiences particularly in relation to
how such a neglected dimension of the cultural experience of colonialism was
tied into the subsequent politics of Chinese identities.
Chapters in Part II then examine different aspects of Hong Kong as culturally
and ideologically caught in-between. However, to get beyond the clichd notion
of Hong Kong being in-between Eastern and Western cultures, the in-betweenness
of Hong Kong is frst shown through a re-assessment of the historiography of a
prominent collaborative thinker, Ho Kai. By analyzing the complex confguration
of the colonial subjectivity of a collaborator, it raises challenges to the often-
assumed stability of Chinese identity. Contrary to those postcolonial studies
obsessed with the psychoanalytic dynamic of colonial encounter, the case of Ho
Kai serves to show that there are always strategic calculations and deliberations
not merely to carve out limited cultural spaces for the colonized for survival
but to try to enrich and appropriate the foreign colonial project to the service of a
local one. The results of such strategic calculations and negotiations are found to
be signifcant not only to the Western imperial project. In addition, those colonial
projects collaboratively established, had the effect of framing and coloring the
mosaic of cultural and political dominations against which nationalist and local
politics were played out.
As collaborative colonialism should not be understood simply as a set of
mechanisms that served to maintain power exclusively held by the Western
colonial master, there was never only a single anti-imperial/anti-colonial
political agenda involved in the indigenous experiences of colonialism. Self-
orientalization, internal colonialism, differential imaginaries of national unity,
civil war between factions affliated with different foreign powers, etc., were
very much results of the continuous processes in which colonial differences are
produced. Such colonial differences cannot be grasped as marking the deep gulf
between the colonizer and the colonized but a dispersion of hierarchies through
various technologies of coding and territorialization. As a result, national and
sub-national politics are invariably intertwined with the presence of colonial
power in one way or another.
Imbrications of colonialities on Chinese nationalism and sub-national
politics produced cultural and political in-betweenness in other ways; it produced
far-reaching effects discernable both in its Republican as well as in the Communist
period. Whereas Sun Yat-sens Republican Revolution has now been shown to
be closely linked with an attempt to further the collaborative colonial project in
which old imperial China was planned to be modernized under the tutelage
of Western powers, the turn to a Bolshevik-type of party-state, as witnessed
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 201 3/5/09 12:42:56 PM

both in the later KMT and CCP, did not push the presence of colonialism and
collaborative practices to the sideline. Transformed collaborative practices took
on new shapes as seen in Governor Clementis active appropriation of Chinese
traditionalism; the cultural Cold War provided opportunities for collaborative
mechanisms to be developed between the U.S. and the KMT. Although the latter
retreated to Taiwan, it exerted tremendous cultural infuence in Hong Kong
during the early post-WWII era.
All these changes refused to displace the political importance of colonialism
in Hong Kong. Nor did collaborative politics give way to Chinese nationalist
movements, in spite of the fact that party rivalry between the KMT and CCP
was often conducted rhetorically as ideological conficts. Cold War collaboration,
possible in the midst of the tragic communist rule in the Mainland, set the stage
for Hong Kong experiences of colonial rule to be re-assessed and re-negotiated.
Diasporic Chinese nationalism burgeoning then in Hong Kong, was feeding on
Hong Kongs location where colonial experiences could be affrmed, justifed,
distilled and re-packaged. Collaborative colonialism was revitalized as a result,
appearing in its positive face though rather paradoxically by a younger
generation of collaborators, who were initially interpellated by radical socialist
and nationalist ideas.
Transpositions and exchanges between energies unleashed by the advocates
of colonial rule and those elicited by the enthusiasm for Chinese nationalism,
explain the swift replacement of Cold War vocabularies concerning ideological
conficts. They were replaced by the discourse of modernizing managerialism
well embedded before the end of the young radical idealisms of the 1970s.
Faithful to their ambition to affliate with a strong Chinese state as much as
they admired colonial statecraft and governmental technologies the younger
elite generation, represented by some of the sociologists discussed here, actively
helped to refurbish a power formation that continues the colonial-styled
governance in Hong Kong. They were parts of the same ideological scenario that
later gave rise to the self-aggrandizing Hong Kong identity that actively turned
the 1997 Hong Kong return to China as an occasion for an unnamed project of
northbound colonialism.
Part III of this book shows not only stages of metamorphosis and the
vicissitudes of Hong Kong identity but accounts for those changes in terms
of how the formation of collaborative colonialism evolved and transformed.
Collaborative colonialism in Hong Kong has made possible the continual
refurbishment and re-appropriation of colonial imagery about the colonized
self. The simultaneous re-staging of this imagery in the run-up to 1997 provided
a quirky scenario in which the often-presumed temporal and spatial references
of colonialism were thrown into question.
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 202 3/5/09 12:42:56 PM

Revisiting Postcolonial Theory from Hong Kong
Postcolonial studies, as has emerged in the last two decades, have certainly
moved beyond the line of criticism that takes colonialism as functional merely
to advance the political and economic ambitions of imperialist states. The
tenacious psychological hold of the colonial past on the postcolonial present has
inaugurated, what Mannoni calls, the study of colonial psychology (Mannoni
1990). Probing further into the cultural legacies of colonialism, Said points to
the persistence of colonial hierarchies of knowledge and value (Said 1989).
Their efforts have led Benita Parry (1987) to distinguish between the coercive
and seductive aspects of colonial power; Ashis Nandys (1983) also makes
distinction between militaristic and civilizational imperialism. They have
undoubtedly broadened the horizon of the study of postcolonial societies,
encompassing the previously neglected cultural dimension of colonialism
and allowing one to examine the hierarchies of subjects and knowledge before
and after direct imperialist domination. They also help to reveal the symbiotic
relationships between colonizer and colonized. However, the full implications
of such symbiotic relationships have not yet been thoroughly explored insofar
as colonial power (cultural as much as political and economic) is still conceived
as the power possessed by the colonizer.
As such, postcolonial cultural politics is still, to a large extent, confned
to a rather constrained vision, which often poses nationalistic, anti-colonial
politics as the only choice for postcolonial politics. In place of this nationalistic
conception of colonial power, Stuart Hall urges us to re-theorize colonial power
as displaced and decentered vectors beyond a framework of the nation-sate.
Hall says,
Colonization had to be understood then, and certainly can only be
understood now, in terms, not only of the vertical relations between
colonizer and colonized, but also in terms of how these and other forms
of power-relations were always displaced and decentred by another set
of vectors the transverse linkages between and across nation-state
frontiers and the global/local inter-relationships which cannot be read
off against a nation-state template. (Hall 1996: 250)
This book has attempted to show that the transverse linkages across China, Hong
Kong, and the Western powers can be conceptualized as parts of a formation of
collaborative colonialism, within which different conceptions of Chineseness
were constituted and the associated identity politics were contested. Such
a confguration of colonial power, which cannot be read off from a nation-
state template, is incomprehensible if the taken-for-granted assumptions
203
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 203 3/5/09 12:42:56 PM

concerning location and identity about Hong Kong and China are unquestioned
theoretically.
Nicholas Thomas (1994) convincingly argues that there is never a single
discourse of colonial rule but different located colonial projects. In this light,
Ronald Robinsons notion of the imperialism of free trade can be borrowed to
describe not so much a certain stage of imperialism but a contingently fabricated
project of colonialism. However, the cultural implications of such an imperialist
project have rarely been addressed, especially in the many scholarly efforts
devoted to extending postcolonial cultural criticism to the East Asian context.
Without taking the specifcity of such a distinct confguration of the imperial/
colonial project seriously, there is a dangerous tendency to universalize colonial
experiences across different places. Assumptions about a generalized model of
colonial domination are often made unrefectively. They are easily found in the
now hackneyed Chinese patriotic discourses, increasingly prevailing in Hong
Kong, as well as those trying to assert Hong Kongs uniqueness and identity.
Current postcolonial critics on Hong Kong are to be faulted especially for
failing to break new ground from such a complicit colonial/national discourse
in which complicated colonial experiences are homogenized in the general
notion of western impacts. They have a tendency to valorize Hong Kong as
an exemplar of a postcolonial in-betweenness, yet fail to confront the limitations
of identity politics such a move entails.
Theoretically speaking, the location of Hong Kong cannot be conceptualized,
as Rey Chow (1992) has done, as the place of the in-between without frst
claiming that both Hong Kong and China (and their collaborative networks)
attain their respective identities as places within the in-between spaces of colonial
reality. As my study here has shown, the inadequacy of such postcolonial studies
to cope with the complex cultural politics of Hong Kong was very obvious in its
run-up to 1997 and, expectedly, very much so in its post-1997 future. What makes
even the postcolonialists slip up is their unwitting complicity in reaffrming the
temporality of the now conventional grand narrative of colonialism as well as
its double, anti-colonial nationalism without paying adequate attention to the
specifcity of the imperialist project(s) and colonialism(s) in which Hong Kong
has long been involved.
Failure to recognize the need to understand colonial reality in terms of
different temporal and spatial references from the complicit discourse is also
witnessed among those critics against postcolonialism. For example, Kwame
Anthony Appiah criticizes postcoloniality as the condition of comprador
intelligentsia (Appiah 1996); Arif Dirlik (1994, 2000), tries to trash postcolonial
analysis as merely, a child of postmodernism, culturalism without
history, refecting the interests of the diasporic intellectuals coming from the
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 204 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM

contact zone for their general neglect of the political economy of old and
new imperialisms. Aijaz Ahmad (1992) also raises the issue of the relationship
between academic practice and its site of production by attacking postcolonial
theorists for living and doing their theorizing in the privileged metropolitan
academies of First World countries. However, disputes over the usefulness of
the concept postcoloniality run as if the meanings and implications of coloniality
are already well agreed upon. Colonialism, as well as the experiences of it, seems
like a crystal clear, monolithic phenomenon and its murkiness is only a result of
the arrival of postcolonial critics. However, this does not appear to be the case.
Whereas Dirlik and Aijaz Ahmad are certainly correct to stress the dimensions
of history and political economy, they fail, however, to adequately theorize what
are supposed to be their main targets of attack.
For example, by accusing the metropolitan academies of being the chief
sites for the production of problematic postcolonial theory, Aijaz Ahmad risks
implicitly valorizing non-Western academic institutions. Also, by mapping
deterministically the spatial position of contact zones in the hierarchy of
the world capitalist system onto postcolonial cultural criticism, Dirlik indeed
colludes with what he tries to attack in reifying such zones as places to the
neglect of the complex politics, cultural or otherwise, within and without. In
short, his unrefective invoking of the geographical metaphor contact zone
fails precisely to allow the political struggles of and about such zones for
example, Hong Kong to be historicized. The additional cost of this strategy is to
neglect problematizing the more subtle operations of collaborative mechanisms
together with the perverse activities and psychic dynamic of the collaborators.
Complicit in the projects of collaborative colonialism may well be those non-
Western academic institutes and personalities saved from the attacks by Aijaz
Ahmads location reductionism.
Franz Fanon, a fgure who inspires many practitioners of postcolonial
studies, is certainly correct in insisting that the psychic economy of colonialism
should be revealed to be mediating material, historically grounded relations of
unequal power in social and institutional terms (Fanon 1965, 1990). However,
the historicity of each aspect of the effects of colonization in different contexts
should not be taken as licensing the simple re-staging of historicism concomitant
with an upsurge of location reductionism, for both are based upon an inadequate
theorization of colonial power and a dearth of empirical accounts of the forms
such colonial powers might take. It refects, on the one hand, an inadequate
evaluation of the diverse effects of colonization and, on the other hand, the
limitations of some of the unexamined assumptions about time and space
underlying colonial and postcolonial analysis.
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 205 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM

Arguing against the tendency to lump together the diverse effects of
colonization into a general concept of colonialism, I would suggest pushing a
little further, what is implied by Appiahs (1992) distinction between colonialism
and coloniality. In other words, (post)colonial analysis should look much closer
into the multifarious constitutions of coloniality, or, in other words, the diverse
effects and confgurations of colonial power, before making generalizations about
colonialism and, thus, postcoloniality. What is then called for is an integrated
historical cultural study of colonial power, which should go beyond the opposition
between, as Dirlik (2000) asserts, culturalism and historicism.
Spatiality and Colonial Power
To reject historicism, the binary schema in colonial study as well as the associated
location reductionism in colonial and post-colonial analysis involves a dual
task: (a) revisiting the nature of colonial power prior to assessing or presuming
any structure of colonial domination; (b) refusing the dialectical structure of
colonialist and nationalist discourses which treat space merely as a passive
particularity that specifes and fragments the universal progression of history.
Therefore, a re-theorization of colonial power as a power of space is called for.
There is no better place to start re-theorizing colonial power than the
teachings of Foucault. Indeed, it is scandalous for postcolonial studies that, even
though Foucault has been one of the most inspiring fgures among post-colonial
critics, his insistence upon the proliferating nature of power has not been taken
seriously in most cases; instead, colonial power is still often treated as a function
of the domination of one particular place over another. Or, in the case of Saids
Orientalism, Foucaults analysis of the power-knowledge complex leads only
to a political-cum-epistemological critique of Western academic institutions.
In these studies, colonial power is, without exception, conceived as being held
ultimately by the colonizer, something that prohibits, blocks or obstructs the
autonomy of the colonized. However, as Foucault insists, such a negative,
repressive account of power is dangerous as the critique of such repressive power
may indeed be part of the same historical network as the thing it denounces. In
our case, (nationalist) anti-colonial critiques of a repressive colonial power
may and indeed have been shown to be of the same historical network
of colonial power. What really needs to be further specifed is the formation
of the historical networks of colonial power in which both colonialists and
nationalists were imbricated. Such a network of colonial power should also be
discerned through an analysis that reveals both epistemological complicity and
institutional collaboration, for they are always interwoven together.
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 206 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM

Such an alternative theorization of colonial power as a net-like series of
relations takes the lead from Foucault who sees any power as never being a thing
invested in, or possessed by, an individual or an institution. Rather, power is seen
as realizable only in its being exercised, as it exists in circulation, producing local
effects. Therefore, as a strategic deployment of forces, colonial power is always
local, discernable in every locality, but never localized in a certain colonizer.
Moreover, Foucault also tells us that power is best able to disseminate itself
through the collaboration of its subjects (Foucault 1980). Individuals involved in
a network of power are not only its inert or consenting target; they are also
the elements of its articulation. In other words, individuals are like vehicles of
power, not its points of application (Foucault 1980: 98). Therefore, the questions
of how colonial power can be transposed, deployed and disseminated across
spaces and different domains are as important as the different effects it could
bring about. In this light, historical cultural studies of colonial power should
look into the tactics and strategies by which colonial power has been or is going
to be circulated; it also needs to expand its scope from the colonizers various
strategies to the colonized peoples cultural and political collaboration therein.
In other words, it should map out not just how the colonizers will-to-rule
changed, but how discursive and non-discursive complicity between colonizer
and colonized was made possible through, or conditioned by, a variety of self-
representations within imaginative spaces designated by the colonial power. In
this regard, it is crucial to see how different subjects and identities represent
themselves as a consequence of such power relations and to probe into the
processes of how colonial cultural forms have been deeply ingrained into the
discursive and institutional constitution of subjectivity of those involved in
cultural coloniality.
This book shows how Chinese collaboration and colonialism mutually
intertwined and conditioned each other in and around Hong Kong. It has tried to
unsettle the existing colonialist and nationalist historical narratives about China
and Hong Kong, laying bare their complicit historicist temporalization. It also
reinterprets the memories and events of East and Southeast Asian colonialism
by taking Hong Kong as a juncture in which colonial powers were played
out in a distinct formation characterized by the recurring transformations of
collaborative mechanisms. Thereby, it demonstrates how colonial powers
maintained and developed under the imperialism of free trade were not just
localized in a certain region or institution but proliferating through different
collaborative relationships and mechanisms contingently taking shape. The
spatiality of such a form of power cannot be fully grasped other than through
a genealogical retrieval of those existing or earlier mechanisms relegated to
oblivion by the historicist temporalization of colonial experiences and reifcation
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 207 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM

of colonial space. The limitations (or indeed the dead-end) of such ideas
show up in the diffculty of giving theoretical accounts for phenomena such
as internal colonialism or sub-imperialism. In an ironic way, northbound
colonialism, as it has been discussed here, is one more example of the present
conceptual inadequacy in describing and explaining colonial powers with all
their possible forms, mechanisms, transformations and mutations. The diffculty
of categorizing Hong Kong as a sub-national local of China, as discussed
in this book, also adds weight to the need to re-theorize the temporality and
spatiality of colonial power.
Lawrence Grossberg (1996) has recently tried to get out of the impasse
of identity politics and historicism still embedded in postcolonial or cultural
studies, by invoking Deleuze and Guattari as the basis of an alternative
theoretical framework which he calls spatial materialism. Redressing the
problem of the modern in privileging time over space, cultural studies call for
the attention to context. Yet Grossberg tries to get beyond a restricted view of
context defned as place or locality and calls for an examination of how place is
constructed, how notions of belonging, identity (and difference) and experience
are linked to the relations of place and space. In such a theory he specifes the
production of culture through the becoming of place and space, and defnes
reality not as reducible to a single dimension but as assemblages or apparatuses
of multiplicities constituted from the relations between lines of force. Space, in
his spatial materialism, is defned as a milieu of becoming. Reality is not a
matter of history but of orientations, directions, entries and exits, concerning
a geography of becomings, the pragmatics of the multiple and maps of
power that produce the real (Grossberg 1996: 180).
Grossbergs new theoretical formulation of the spatiality of power is helpful
for us to understand the effects of colonialism as a formation of colonial reality,
which is both productive and produced by, a multiplicity of forces. A machinic
rather than mechanical, organic or subjective conception of colonial
reality that we may understand better how colonial power is effective as an
agency without subjectivity. Extending Grossbergs methodology of treating the
real as becoming, i.e. transformations between different, even opposing terms,
we may also conceive of the colonial relationship alternatively in distinction
from the usual colonizer-colonized couplet.
It is matter of debate whether we should follow Grossbergs residual
adherence to the temporal distinction between the older form of globalization
and its newer form according to different types of machine (as modalities of
articulation), because, in my view, those different types of machine often co-
exist. Yet, I think it is certainly useful to extend Grossbergs insight by perceiving
colonial reality as the in-between (or milieu which becoming traverses). It is
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 208 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM

helpful enough for us to make sense of collaborative relationships as well as the
in-between fgure of collaborator as subjects without subjectivity, individuality
without identity.
Contra those short-circuited attempts to defne Hong Kong as the in-
between space (Rey Chow) between colonialism and China the nation, the
machinic view of colonial reality will, instead, take Hong Kong and China
as both produced by and productive of the collaborative colonialism which this
book has discussed. Studying the various shades of the collaborative fgures
the likes of people from Loo Aqui, Ho Kai, Sun Yat-sen down to Lau Siu-
kai may give a more fruitful perspective than those investigations focusing
exclusively on diasporic intellectuals of the contact zone, bicultural elite,
or coastal reformers as we commonly found in post-Fairbankian Chinese
historiography (e.g. Cohen 1970, 1974). The diverse roles and functions taken
by these collaborative fgures in the translations of colonial cultures, or in
what Stuart Hall calls transculturation, should not be looked at reductively
as refecting a predetermined class position, or that defned by their places
(of origin or destination), but as being possible under a certain colonial milieu
and confguration of colonial power. Therefore, other than individual fgures
and biographies, what needs to be looked into further are different types of
collaborative institutions, mechanisms and practices among collaborators and
the respective colonial or nationalist regimes. They should be taken as facets of
the deep colonialities exerting so-far unaccounted-for impacts on the formation
of place-specifc identities and power confguration of the post-colonial states.
I would venture to postulate that such an angle would provide a new entry
point for a postcolonial historiography that goes beyond the complicit historicism
accompanied by a nave view of spatial power. Only when space is no longer
conceived of as a passive particularity, which only serves to specify colonial
(or national) history, can subordinated narratives about places and spaces open
new possibilities for us to understand the manifold interrelationships between
colonialist projects and nationalist projects in a fuller scale. I would like to end
by repeating what has been put forward throughout this book: that the efforts
to revisit the lingering legacies of the colonial to be found within and
without the national are crucial for critical intellectual practices, for they
will help to foreground a more positive and located cultural criticism. Because
a renewed understanding of the spatiality of colonial powers is indispensable
for one to arrest the all-too-easy dismissal of the importance of the local,
amidst the current rush either to celebrate or to denounce the global, the
latter often ends up in a premature valorization of the transnational/the
international compounded with a cynicism towards the local. Often driven
by anxiety derivable from the critics urge to deconstruct or de-essentialize
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 209 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM
any notions hinting at fxity or origin, such a cynical outlook runs the risk of
reproducing the very colonial apoliticism so characteristic of Hong Kong,
and is, indeed, theoretically self-inhibiting. That is to say, it stops at precisely
where a new intellectual adventure should begin. For if one is right in learning
that the local is not about some naively-given authenticity, one should not
stop short at asserting that the local is always correspondingly beyond the
local at the same time. For one should know that the national on which
the transnational/the international is based should not be taken for
granted either. To lay bare the colonial makings of the national as well as the
transnational/the international is then an overdue task for us, in a bid to
get rid of the spurious national/local or global/local dichotomies, which are
still obstructing the success of the genuinely localized critical endeavors. In
short, if there is any effort devoted to reconceptualize the local as a domain
of politically engaging intellectual practices in Hong Kong, it requires not only
critical and refective distance toward Hong Kongs Chineseness allowing
one to multiply it or even to reject it but also a serious consideration of the
multifarious colonial makings of the Hong Kong Chinese.
Concl.(p.199-210).indd 210 3/5/09 12:42:57 PM
Character List
ai guo ai gang
Ah Lec
baihua
ban wen ban bai
Bao Cuoshi
Bao Yick Ming
ben sheng ren
biao diao yun dong
cha-shao
Chen Canyun
Chen Dingyan
Chiuchow
Da Xue Sheng Huo
da yi tong
da zhong yuan zhu yi
Dan Yan
Di Yuan
duli
Enping
Er Tong Le Yuan
fei qing yan jiu
feng hua xue yue
fu guo qiang bing
gang ren zi gang
guan du shang bian
guanxi
Guangsu
guo cui pai
guo fu
guo qing yan jiu
guoxue
guoyu
Hakkas
Ho Fuk Tong
Ho Kai
hou/po
Hu Liyuan
Hua zi ri bao
Huang Sheng
Huangpo
huaqiao
hui gui
huo hong nian dai
Jianhuang
Jin Ri Shi Jie
jing shui bu fan he shui
Jing Wen
Kaifong
Kaiping
ke ju
Lao Siguang
Lau Mei Mei
Leung Fung Yee
liansheng zizhi
Lim Boon Keng
ling gen zi zhi
dCharact.(p.211-213).indd 211 3/5/09 12:43:13 PM

Character List 212

Liu Shuxian
liu xue sheng
Lu Danlin
Lo Wai Luen
Lu Xiaomin
Lu Xun
Luo Xiesong
Man Mo Temple
Mou Zongsan
mu fu
mui tsai
Nam Pak Hong
Nanbeiji
nan lai wen ren
Nanbeiji
Ningpo
Panku
Po Leung Kuk
Qian Mu
qiaobao
Qinjiayuan
Qiu Zhenli
Quan Lin
Ren Hai
Ren Jiyu
Ren Ren Wen Xue
ren shi
ren tong
she hui pai
Shu Shicheng
Shui Hu Chuan
Shum Yat Fei
Siyi
Tai Ping Shan
Tan Bian
Tang Chun-I
Tang Shao-yi
Tang Ting-shu
Teipo
ti/yung
Tongshaan
Tse Tsantai
Tseng Jize, Marquis
Tsui Heng
Tu Yangci
Tung Wah Hospital
Tungjian
Tung-wen-kuan
Tung-yueh-fou-sheng
wai jian hua
wai jian lao
wai sheng ren
Wei Yuk
wen yan
Wong Yuk Man
Wu Xuanren
xianggang huaren
Xiangshan
Xiaosi
Xinhui
Xinning
Xiong Shili
Xu Dishan
Xu Fei
Xu Fuguan
Xu Naixiang
Ya Zhou Hua Bao
Yan Suzhi
yang wu yun dong
Yang Yanqi
Yesi
yi dang jian guo
yi dang zhi guo
yi rou ke gang
yi tui wei jin
You Lian
yueren zhi yue
Zhan Buji
zhang kuang
Zhao Ming

Character List 213

zhong hua wen hua de
hua guo piao ling
zhong yuan hua
Zhongguo xue sheng
zhou bao
zili
zu guo
zui hong chen


Notes
Introduction
1. For a thorough critique of the historical narrative of Hong Kongs past produced by
mainland Chinese writers, see Wong (2000) and the introduction of Munn (2001).
Chapter 1
1. In 1845, there were as many brothels as families: twenty-fve families and twenty-six
brothels. It was only by the end of the 1840s that the number of families had increased to
one hundred and had overtaken the number of brothels (Smith 1985: 113).
2. Lethbridge alleges that before the Tung Wah Hospital was founded, the leaders among the
Chinese were members of secret societies like the Triad groups (Lethbridge 1978: 54-5).
3. The cadet service was a regular training program that equipped the colonial administrators
from the homeland with an understanding of the Chinese language and Chinese culture.
For details, see Lethbridge (1978: ch. 2)
4. The purchase of a degree from the Qing authority was offcially endorsed in late imperial
China, and many overseas Chinese spent huge sums of money for such honors. This
practice was especially common in Malaysia and Singapore. See Yen (1970).
Chapter 2
1. Robert Morrison, for example, was in the East India Companys employ as a translator and
later acted as the secretary for Lord Napier, the Commercial Consul of the British Government
(Chan 1988: 435). His son, J. R. Morrison, was Chinese Secretary for Henry Pottinger, the
frst governor of Hong Kong (Endacott 1964: 43). He moved the Anglo-Chinese School
originally established in Malacca to Hong Kong soon after it fell under British control. Rev.
Karl Gutzlaff, who suggested a grant to village schools in 1845, worked for the Jardine
Company on an opium clipper and later succeeded J. R. Morrison as Pottingers Chinese
Secretary (Endacott 1962: 106107). In addition, Gutzlaff was a secretary and interpreter
for the British feet and was present at many of the operations during the First Opium War
(Lutz 1987).
2. The most prominent ones included the Anglo-Chinese College of the London Missionary
Society, St. Pauls College of the Anglicans, and Morrison Memorial School of the Morrison
Education Society.
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 215 5/21/09 11:08:52 AM
3. Tensions and conficts over the states role in education existed between Anglicans and
Nonconformists. The latter tried to squelch any possible infuence from the Church of
England, while the former refused to give up its control. For the controversies of church
dominance and national education in England, see Best (1956); Curtis and Boultwood
(1966); Curtis (1967); Wardle (1976).
4. Christian missionaries had long recognized the absence of an institutionalized religion
among the Chinese and had therefore considered them to be secularists who indulged
in ancestor worship, a faith traceable to the long interpretative tradition of the Chinese
classics. Christian missionaries in the sixteenth century soon found that the key persons
holding the power of that interpretative tradition were the Chinese gentry, who not only
were learned but also politically linked the emperor to the villagers. Therefore, most of
those missionaries believed that if they converted Chinas gentry class by applying religious
interpretations to the Chinese classics that members of the Chinese gentry held dear, then
the missionaries would greatly improve their ability to convert the whole of China. This
approach remained almost unchanged until the nineteenth century, when the Qing Empire
began to decline: whether or not they relied on the power of warships, more missionaries
felt the need to preach directly to the people.
5. Wong Man Kong (1996) and Leung Yuen Sang (1983) record how the stories of the conversion
and baptism of a few Chinese pupils at the Anglo-Chinese College drew attention in British
society when James Legge brought the recent converts to England in person. The converts
received substantial attention in newspapers and were even guests of Queen Victoria.
However, after their return to Hong Kong, none of them remained a lasting promise for the
Christian mission (Leung 1983: 55-9; Wong, M. K. 1996: 6467).
6. This was contentious but had far-reaching consequences. One example is his famous
translation of the word God as Shangdi (Lord on High), who, he argued, was mentioned
in the earliest parts of two Confucian canonical classics, the Book of Historical Documents
(Shujing) and the Book of Poetry (Shijing) (Spelman 1969; Lee 1991: 16074; Wong 1996: ch.
5). In 1852, this usage aroused a heated debate in theological circles; Legges opponents
maintained that the term actually referred to a number of Daoist deities and would mislead
Chinese readers of the Bible. Despite all the criticism in theological circles, Legge insisted
that ancient China had featured imperial worship rites with monotheistic characteristics
and that this translation was valuable because it could serve as a bridge between Chinese
traditions and Christianity.
7. The label of Leggism circulated after Legge elaborated his views to a group of Chinese at
the 1877 Shanghai General Conference of Missionaries.
8. Interpretations of Legges swinging commitment to the evangelization of China and to
a so-called secularist position are in evidence throughout writings concerning early Hong
Kong education. See Ng (1984); Sweeting (1990); Wong (1996).
9. Legges reform met with great resistance in Governor Bowrings era (18541859), but
Governor H. Robinson, who soon succeeded him, favored Legges plan. With his support,
Legge seized power away from the churchmen: the government established a new Board
of Education that replaced the clergy-dominated Education Committee, and an Inspector
of Schools was appointed with direct responsibility to the governor. No sooner had the
missionary-favored Inspector Rev. Lobscheid tendered his resignation than the Department
of Government Schools replaced the Board of Education. After such a full-scale shake-up,
the Anglican Bishop was sidelined in the administrative structure, and the churchmen,
who were in retreat, had to re-open their own missionary schools. Some historians attribute
the reform to the young and energetic Governor Robinson; however, James Legge was the
man behind all those important reforms (Ng 1984).
Notes to pages 3436 216
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 216 5/21/09 11:08:52 AM
10. Stokes, in her study of Queens College, remarks that this kind of deprecatory rhetoric
appeared frequently in the government reports on visits to village schools. She writes, Lest
the English reader should smile too smugly at this description of Chinese village schools, it
must be noted that a hundred odd years ago, in same schools and elsewhere, many English
children did their rudimentary lessons in wretched, insanitary hovels, under teachers
untrained and ignorant of all but the most elementary knowledge. Like Chinese children,
they learnt their lessons by heart, often without any explanation being given. Learning by
rote was, of course, the long-established tradition in China, and not only there. If little Sun
Yat-sen at his frst school in the village of Tsui Heng was beaten when he asked his teacher
to explain the meaning of a passage in The Three Character Classics, he no doubt had his
counterparts in England. (Stokes 1962: 8-9).
11. At the expense of coherence in Legges thought, Ng almost relies on the ad hoc explanation
that Legge somehow gave up the policy of propagating Christianity through letters (Ng
1984: 40-41).
12. Girardot tries to characterize Edward Saids positions on Orientalism as over-sweeping
generalizations; Girardot contends that it is crucial to distinguish among different types of
Orientalism and to question the extent to which the process of cross-cultural intercourse
derives from some monolithic scheme of Western domination. He takes Legge and the
Sinological Orientalism with which he is associated as proof of how certain elite Asian
traditions could infuence and even transgressively appropriate Western forms of
Orientalism.
13. For example, Karl Gutzlaff, Chief Secretary from 1842 to 1851, was both a linguist and a
translator; Governor John Davis (1844-1848) was a famous scholar of Chinese studies. For
more, see Endacott (1962).
14. Also, R. G. Milne employed Sinim as a scriptural basis that would justify the Christian
missions participation in the British imperial project in China. He stated, Do we now
wait for China? No! China waits for us! Providence, by commerce, has given us access to
no fewer than fve ports of that magnifcent nation, and by conquest has facilitated our
entrance among its inhabitants, as bearers of celestial light, as apostles of good tidings.
(Milne 1843: 3; Wong 1996: 38).
15. Central School began to teach Shakespearian literature in 1888 (Stokes 1962: 55).
Chapter 3
1. Cecil even said, I should think two ideas will probably fll your University number one,
China for the Chinese and death to the foreigner, number two the equality of man and its
two developments socialism and anarchism The worst that could happen to you is that
you will be called intolerant, while to foster a crowd of bomb-throwing patriots in your
midst will be extremely unpleasant (Mellor 1992: 113).
2. Indirect Rule is the most debated concept in the study of European colonialism in Africa.
Lord Hailey distinguishes between indirect rule as an administrative device, a political
doctrine, and religious dogma (Hailey 1939). Although there are many different versions
of indirect rule and divergent evaluations, scholars agree that Lugard was the one who
gave the concept its clearest defnition and that he was the most infuential propagator of
the concept and its associated practices. Although most of the colonial studies on indirect
rule focus on how its principles and practices affected colonial rule in Africa, there is a
burgeoning interest in Southeast Asian and Pacifc studies, which explores the effects of
the indirect-rule doctrine. See e.g. Emerson (1964); Lawson (1996); Kershaw (2001). My
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 217 5/21/09 11:08:52 AM
interest lies not in engaging in the political science debate as to whether or not indirect rule
is detrimental to the colonized. Rather, I take indirect rule as a concept integral to the power
formation of collaborative colonialism, which spread its effects well beyond Lugards era
of governance. Also, I try in this chapter to pinpoint the pedagogical dimension of indirect
rule.
3. Tellingly, the negotiations for the abdication of the Emperor were carried out between
Wu Tingfang and Tang Shaoyi; the former represented the Emperor and the later the
Republicans. Yet, the two men were English-educated Cantonese elite from Hong Kong
(Chung 1998: 43).
Chapter 4
1. The infow of returned-migrant capital during the last decade of the nineteenth century
was prompted by the exclusion policy of the United States and Australia (Pomerantz-
Zhang 1984).
2. Although the Hundred Days Reform in 1898 failed, the Qing court was forced to adopt
most of the recommended measures proposed by the reformists. In 1904, the government
not only abolished the Imperial Civil Service Examination but introduced a new commercial
law code, as well.
3. The Siyi men were also active culturally. For example, they fnanced and organized the frst
Chinese Young Mens Christian Association and the frst Christian church. Located next to
the Tung Wah Hospital, the YMCA symbolized a parallel Chinese political and economic
force coming from the overseas Chinese community. They developed a heated rivalry with
the original Chinese-elite establishment in Hong Kong (Smith 1985).
4. For example, Choas detailed biography of Ho Kai takes as its main concern Hos
contribution to colonial governance, and especially to medical affairs, in Hong Kong
(Choa 1981). Lo sings the praises of Sun Yat-sen and Ho Kai but glosses over their mutual
interactions concerning ideas (Lo 1961). Chius doctoral study dwells on some documents
but mentions nothing about Ho Kais more controversial position regarding the Open Door
policy of China (Chiu 1968). Xus recent book is merely an exposition on the facets of Ho
Kais political ideas and praises Ho as a pioneer of the conception of peoples rights (Xu
1992). Finally, Schiffrins seminal study of Sun Yat-sen uncovers very important records
concerning the interaction between Ho Kai and Sun Yat-sen, yet does not touch on Ho Kais
ideas and thought (Schiffrin 1968). All of these works constitute a rich and invaluable body
of research on Ho Kai but paint highly fragmentary portraits of this person.
5. Because Hu co-authored or translated many of Hos essays, readers nowadays cannot
easily separate Hos thoughts from Hus and often treat them as one.
6. For an evaluation of Duaras Rescuing History from the Nation (1995), please consult the
essays in a related symposium published in the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, vol. 29,
no. 4. See especially Bulag (1997); Fitzgerald (1997); Lie (1997).
7. A recent study of Liang Qichao by Tang Xiaobing also illustrates how Liang pioneered
the adoption of an Enlightenment mode of history-writing (Tang 1996). Representing the
tendency to treat history as a weapon for nationalist politics, Liang was perhaps the frst
to see how history concerns the mobilization of peoples full consciousness and, thus, of
people as modern subjects. To underline the political urgency of writing national history,
he argued that traditional Chinese historiography failed to tell the story of how the nation
came into its own being and that this historiography instead divided national unity into
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 218 5/21/09 11:08:52 AM
monarchical reigns, an approach that neglects the evolutionary development of the people-
nation (Liang 1901, 1902). Liang called for a revolution in historiography, and this call
found echoes in the next few decades from modern historians such as Fu Sinian (1928), Lei
Haizong (1936), and Wang Jingwei (1905) who subscribed, respectively, to a wide range of
different political persuasions.
8. History-writing has long been diverse with regard to style, orientation, and approaches
to traditional classic texts. The moulding of Chinese pasts into this Enlightenment mode
was not without diffculty. Such exercises generated various problems and dissent by
remoulding the huge archives of Chinese history. In the whole Republican period, Gu
Jiegang came closest to challenging the project of National History by revealing that
there were indeed a number of alternative and concealed traditions in Chinese historical
culture (Schneider, L. 1971). Obviously, such a project would necessarily involve a more
thorough re-examination of how historians have mobilized different meticulous crafts to
reconfgure the huge archives of ancient Chinese historical writings, ftting them into the
project of a unifed Chinese national history. For a general review of the problem related
to modern Chinese historiography, please see Crossley (1997). See also the special issue
of History and Theory, vol. 35, no. 4, especially Dirlik (1996); Schneider, A. (1996). In Dirlik
(1996), the author extends his critique of the Orientalism that is found in modern Chinese
historiography. Philip C. C. Huang defends empiricism against the methodological critique
of Sinology represented by cultural studies. See Huang (1998).
9. At the level of real politics, there is a worrying tendency in Hong Kong to vindicate people
who are saving the nation in crooked ways (qu xian jiu guo). Such a tendency endorses
stretching the defnition of patriotism according to no standard. A saying goes like this in
Hong Kong: Even the mafa can be patriotic. The quotable remark came from a Chinese
offcial before 1997 and was popularized by the movie Election 2 directed by Johnnie To
(2006).
10. I consider it a matter of historiographical paradigms rather than of personal political
inclinations that Tsai Jungfang, in his highly readable Chinese book Xianggang ren zhi
Xianggang shi (Tsai 2001), makes a laudable critique of the pro-PRC patriotic historiography,
although his oxymoronic treatment of Ho Kai remains.
11. For the complexity of the Boxer Rebellion, see Esherick (1987).
12. Only Choas (1981) biography of Ho Kai quotes his open letter to John Bull at length; yet
many of the crucial statements I have cited here are still missing.
13. For critiques of Bhabha, see Parry (1987); Loomba (1991); Ahmad (1992); Parry (1994).
Ahmads hostile polemic attacks Bhabhas exorbitation of discourse. Robert Young
defends Bhabha on the grounds that Bhabhas focus on the discursive construction of
[neo]colonialism does not seek to replace or exclude other forms of analysis (Young
1995).
14. Another example is Wu Tingfang. His pursuit of a barrister title at Lincolns Inn in
London was not only a personal reaction to the racial discrimination he experienced as
a court interpreter but also coincidental upon an active recruitment exercise of Western
legal experts by the reformist offcials Kuo Sungtao and Liu Hsihung. He turned down
the recruitment offers after bargaining hard over the salary. His colonial career as the frst
appointed Chinese member in the Legislative Council started in 1877 and coincided with
a speculative craze in land purchases in which Wu joined. The sudden collapse of the land
speculation in 1882 left Wu deeply in debt, and he once again turned to Li Hongzhang (Shin
1976).
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 219 5/21/09 11:08:53 AM
Chapater 5
1. For the history and the evolution of the KMT, see Friedman (1974).
2. The naming of Zhongguo has been a topic of debate in modern China. For a review of the
different perspectives held respectively by reformists and by revolutionaries, one may refer
to Wang, E. (1977); Shen (1997).
3. In response to the massacre of demonstrators at the Shanghai Concession, by British police
offcers, the radical forces within the KMT, including the newly emerging CCP, organized
nation-wide waves of protests and boycotts. A general strike broke out, in which workers
from both Hong Kong and Canton joined. The strikes lasted for more than a year and
were hugely successful in demonstrating the power of the poorer masses when mobilized
(Chung, L.C. 1969; Chan, M.K. 1975; Chan, Lau K.C. 1990; Yu and Liu 1995: ch. 6). However,
the strike aggravated the conficts between the left and right wings of the KMT, and this
ultimately led to the Party Purifcation Movement (Chan, Lau K.C. 1999: ch. 4, 5).
4. According to the perspective of KMT offcial history, Chen Jiongming was no more than
a feudal warlord. Offcial histories of both the KMT and the CCP all point to the Canton
merchant strike and insurrection of 1924 as Chens betrayal of Sun, which led him to break
completely with the old political approach and, thus, start a mass revolution. However,
such a verdict has been contested rigorously by some new interpretations based on newly
found historical documents. See Hsieh (1962); Chen, D. and Gao (1997).
5. Ma Jianzhong was the frst scholar to attempt to describe the Chinese language by using
the grammatical concepts of Latin (Ma 1898). After the May Fourth Movement in 1911,
great interest in using baihua emerged. Li Jinxis Xin zhu guo yu wen fa (New Grammar of
the National Language) was highly infuential (Li, Jinxi 1924). Linguist Zhao Yuanren was
also a signifcant contributor to the baihua movement.
6. CO refers to Colonial Offce Records.
7. He was irritated most by Clementis appropriation of a nationalist poem, written originally
for the Republican Revolutionaries struggle against the Manchus, a strug gle that reminds
the reader of the greatness of the Han people and Han culture (Abbas 1997: 112116).
8. Xu Dishan, a famous Chinese writer who was chair of the Chinese Department of the
University of Hong Kong from 1935 to 1941, distinguished between two types of Chinese
education in Hong Kong: one was huaren education, which followed the British system;
the other was huaqiao education, which followed the Republic of Chinas system (Xu, D.
1939).
9. The stray-child image is vividly exemplifed by Wen Yiduos poem The Song for the
Seven Children, in which Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macao, Canton Bay, Taiwan, Dalian, and
Vladivostok are all depicted as lost children weeping for their return to their mothers
fold.
10. For the pro-CCP leftists, the politically correct naming of Hong Kong Chinese is tongbao; the
KMT government holding power in Taiwan after 1949 offcially awarded the name qiaobao
to Hong Kong Chinese.
11. In the same vein, although I have characterized the confict between wenyan and baihua in
Hong Kong as a simple binary opposition, a closer examination of the matter will reveal
that to describe the relationship in terms of the degree to which baihua was to replace
wenyan is only possible within the narrow confnes of a modernist-nationalist evolutionary
discourse. In reality, the hegemonic status of this newly reformed Chinese language was
not stabilized until after the CCP took over China.
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 220 5/21/09 11:08:53 AM
12. The belief in the close relationship between spoken language, national consciousness, and
nationalism was extremely prominent in the May Fourth Movement; yet it was hardly a
specifcally Chinese phenomenon. Many recent researchers on nationalism have already
pointed to linguistic nationalism as a widely circulated perception particularly infuential
in non-European places. In China, it was commonly believed that vernacularism was
integral to nationalism and that the source of this model was Europe. The validity of this
perception, particularly in European cases, is challenged by Hobsbawm (1990). However,
as argued by Anderson (1983), regardless of whether such a perception of linguistic
nationalism represented a European experience, it still served as a model that the late
followers of European nationalism pirated. See Anderson (1991: ch. 5).
13. The most prominent popular writer in Hong Kong in the 1930s and the 1940s was Jie Ke
(19001983).
14. In the mid-1930s and the early 1940s, whenever the gap between the supposed national
language (guoyu) and the different local languages received mention, many writers simply
referred to the ongoing new-language movement, in which different regional and local
languages were formalised. The writers bet on the success of these local movements in
attempting to break away from the constraints of baihua. In the late 1930s, there were active
campaigns to promote the Latinization of local languages. Similarly, there was a movement
to promote Esperanto, with some towns even holding street parades in which thousands of
participants promoted the international language (Di 1937). However, for various reasons,
the movements for new regional languages and for Latinization did not achieve concrete
results.
15. In Britain and Europe from the 1920s onward, both the left and the right issued common
criticisms of newly emergent forms of popular culture. Leavis (1930), Ortega y Gasset (1932),
and Eliot (1962) were among the most infuential in developing a thesis later called the
decline of culture (see Swingewood (1977).For criticisms of this thesis, see also Huyssen
(1986), and Petro (1987)) and what contemporary cultural studies calls the culture and
civilization tradition, traceable to writers like Matthew Arnold (1869) and Nietzsche.
According to this thesis, the development of popular culture is responsible for the decline of
the more organic communal or folk cultures that preceded the spread of industrialization.
Chinese intellectuals in the 1930s were obviously infuenced by such elitist criticism, as
writers such as Eliot and Nietzsche were widely read. However, the attack on Cantonese
popular culture had little to do with peoples nostalgia for the folkloric; rather, the attack
refected a process of internal othering, which developed according to the political ideals
of the May Fourth Movements new Chinese national subjectivity. Leftist criticisms
particularly singled out the colonial read as yang nu (slavish mentality) and feudal
characteristics of Cantonese movies. As a whole, it was not the commodity form of these
popular cultural products that aroused criticism but the ideological content, which critics
associated with their regional origins. For example, the non-Chinese lifestyle of Hong Kong
kids and the personal background of Chinese directors returned from the United States
were frequently highlighted as problems of Cantonese movies. See, for example, Chen, C.
Y. (1999).
16. That this was only alleged to have been the model cannot be overemphasized (Hobsbawm
1990; Anderson 1991).
17. Tongshaan loosely refers to Fujian and Guangdong provinces, from which most of the
Chinese emigrants came. Overseas Chinese communities use the term widely to refer to the
homeland. The concept of China (Zhongguo) appeared only near the very end of the Qing
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 221 5/21/09 11:08:53 AM
dynasty, quite late in relation to the overall period of these massive emigrations overseas, so
that Tongshaan was indeed a more ancient term for designating contemporary China.
18 Also, France exemplifes a community that suppressed local dialects to make way for a
language unifcation believed to be serviceable to the nation-state. For the exterminationist
policies and consequences of such state-sanctioned monolingualism, please see de Certeau
et al. (1975); a short English summary of this study can be found in Ahearne (1995: 136
142).
Chapter 6
1. The most important left-wing cultural institutions include the Wen Hui Pao, Da Gong Pao,
Joint Publishing Company, and the Commercial Press.
2 . Journals or magazines supported by You Lian included Zu Guo (Homeland), which
targeted general readers interested in politics; Ren Ren Wen Xue (Everybodys Literature),
which concerned literature; Da Xue Sheng Huo (University Life), for college students; and
Er Tong Le Yuan (Childs Paradise), for children.
3 . For political and diplomatic reasons, Chinese schools in Southeast Asian countries were
reluctant to use textbooks published by the Republican (ROC) government in Taiwan.
Textbooks published by a Hong Kong-based publisher could avoid sensitive issues.
4. For example, Taiwan writer Chen Yingzhen has been well known for his strong criticism
against what he terms cultural colonialism. He focuses on the institutional and ideological
dependency of Taiwan intellectuals. See http://www.china-tide.org.tw/leftcurrent/
currentpaper/change.htm; see also Dan (1998) for an analysis of the analogous situation of
cultural colonialism in mainland China since the 1980s.
5. Overseas Chinese remittances to the Mainland were then Chinas major source of foreign
exchange because of the embargo that the US imposed on China after the Korean War.
6. Shum Yat Fei was a student of Neo-Confucianist scholar Mou Zongsan, although, in the
mid-1960s, Shum was also an enthusiast of socialism. He remains a very prolifc columnist
in Hong Kong newspapers.
7. To a certain extent, diasporic Chinese nationalism in Hong Kong had no clearer political
agenda than its united opposition to the Taiwan independence movement. In both the
1960s and the 1970s, the issue aroused great concern in Hong Kongs young intellectuals
both from the left and the right. See e.g. Panku Editorial (1970).
8. In 1958, Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, Zhang Junmai, and Xu Fuguan co-signed a monumental
declaration, Wei Zhong guo wen hua jing gao shi jie ren shi xuan yan (A Declaration for Chinese
Culture to All People of the World) in which the signatories point out several elements of
Eastern wisdom from which Western culture should learn (Tang 1974: 172188).
9 . New Asia College was founded in 1950, when Tang Junyi, Qian Mu, Zhang Pijie, and
others immigrated to Hong Kong. The KMT government in Taiwan funded the college
for the following four years before the Yale-in-China Foundation and the Ford Foundation
became its chief funding sources in 1954. In 1963, New Asia College, United College, and
Chung Chi College became the constituent colleges of the Chinese University of Hong
Kong. They were integrated under a federal structure, by which each college had a high
degree of autonomy. However, the colonial government retracted its promise to respect
this autonomy and forced the installation of a central administration system, which drew
protests and criticisms from members of the colleges. New Asia responded strongly to this
move toward centralization: some members of its directorate resigned in protest of the plan
(SUNACUHK 1974).
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 222 5/21/09 11:08:53 AM
10. The co-signed declaration affrms the goal of building a democratic country (Tang 1974:
125192). Mou Zongsans work Zheng dao yu zhi dao (The Political Way and the Governing
Way) refected an important attempt to inject Confucian thought into the establishing of a
modern Western political system in China (Mou 1961).
11. SUNA stands for Student Union of New Asia College.
12. The Lifestyle Innovation Movement was launched frst as an activity for readers in the
Panku magazine Panku New Year. See the special report in Panku (1968: vol. 11).
13. During postwar Hong Kongs frst two decades, student publications, including newspapers
run by the student unions, commanded wide social recognition as more than mere campus
publications; they were sold through commercial distribution channels, and their content
was often reported or quoted by other mass media.
14. Details of these debates can be found in Ip (1997: 26).
Chapter 7
1. The connections between the 1967 riots and pro-CCP forces in Hong Kong have long been
a sensitive issue and have therefore been one of the least researched. For exceptions, see
Leung, K. K. (2001); Cheung, K. W. (2000).
2. A certain sociological humor circulated to explain the emergence of radical students after,
but not during, the 1967 riots: a sizeable population of children of the Chinese elite class
went abroad to study, as they were frightened by the political riots of 1967. Their absence
left room for students of non-elite backgrounds to gain entrance to Hong Kongs schools.
Hostels at HKU which Lugard had originally intended to be instruments for character
formation, to stamp out the germs of native student radicalism (see Chapter 3) turned
out, quite ironically, to be a hotbed of nationalist aspirations (Deng 1990). At CUHK, the
unbalanced treatment of the two educational systems provided additional political impetus
to the students decision to turn frustration into politicized energy.
3. The unpopulated Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are located between Japan and Taiwan. Some
Chinese records lend support to the claim that the Diaoyus had been recorded in Chinese
offcial documents and on maps as far back as the Ming Dynasty (13681644). After the
Sino-Japanese War of 18941895, the Qing government ceded Taiwan to Japan. Some ffty
years later, China regained Taiwan and its surrounding islands, after the defeat of Japan
in WWII. However, in a treaty between Japan and the United States, the Diaoyus were
demarcated as the southernmost tip of Japans Ryukyu Archipelago rather than as outlying
islands of Taiwan. The islands then fell under U.S. military control. Washington signed
another treaty with Tokyo in 1971 returning the Ryukyu Archipelago to Japan. The Diaoyus
were included therein.
4. She hui pai here does not mean socialist in the sense that the latter term carries in the West;
therefore, because liberal democrat signifes local social concerns, liberal democrats are
social-ist.
5. The CCP did not want to see a radical Hong Kong because Hong Kong served as one
of Chinas outlets to the outside world. Hong Kong also earned huge sums of foreign
exchange for China. However, the widely accepted excuse for the CCPs attitude was
couched in Maoist language: Hong Kong should not be destabilized because socialist
imperialist (USSR) infltration was immanent. In attacking the Trotskyist students, the guo
cui pai unrelentingly accused them of being spies for the USSR.
6. Bao Yiming is Bao Cuoshis pen name.
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 223 5/21/09 11:08:54 AM
7. For example, student leaders Ying Chan et al. (1968), in a rejoinder to Baos essay, criticized
the Panku Fair (discussed above) for its lack of a mass-movement spirit. They referred
to the then newly published Israeli Society, by sociologist Eisenstadt, and declared that
we should all feel ashamed (Eisenstadt 1967). Bao also, in another article, attempted at
length to substantiate his point about mass mobilization by referring to the Jewish Zionist
movement (Bao, Y.M. 1968).
8. Capitalizing on such records of patriotic pasts, many of these ex-radicals have now become
core members of the SAR ruling bloc.
9. People are apt to regard the transfer-of-sovereignty process as recolonization, and nowhere
is this aptness more evident than in the Preparatory Working Committees (PWC) proposal
to restore a number of previous laws amended under the Bill of Rights. The aim of this
move was to ensure that the new SAR Government retains the extensive state powers
enjoyed by the previous colonial authority.
10. The Chinese united front co-optation policy is more extensive than the British one. The
Chinese authorities have used appointments to positions like Hong Kong Affairs Advisor
and District Affairs Advisor to co-opt loyalists. Prominent in number among those co-
opted elite are those who used to serve the colonial government. Local critics ridicule them
as worn-out batteries.
Chapter 8
1. Even after the handover, Hong Kong people are still considered foreign in cultural and
economic, and perhaps more so in political, terms.
2. In Florida, a Splendid China, a copy of the ethnicity theme park in Shenzhen, also opened
in 1993. It is also owned and run by the CTII.
Conclusion
1. The only exception I have noticed is perhaps Edward Saids article, Collaboration,
Independence, and Liberation, in his book Culture and Imperialism (Said 1993).
2. Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher interpret the rise of modern Japan as the history
of a successful collaboration in translating the forces of western expansion into terms of
indigenous politics, whereas the collaborative mechanism in China worked superfcially
(Robinson 1972: 127). Apart from Robinson and Gallagher, Osterhammel (1997) and Brook
(2005) also take considerable interest in putting in focus the role of collaboration in the
history of colonialism.
eNotes(p.215-224).indd 224 5/21/09 11:08:54 AM
Bibliography
Abbreviations
CO 129: Great Britain. Colonial Offce Records. Series CO 129. Governors Dispatches and
Replies from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. 18411913.
Documentations
Colonial Offce Records, Series 129.
The Conception and foundation of the University of Hong Kong: Miscellaneous documents, 19081913.
(1974) Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.
British Board of Education (1915) Educational Systems of the Chief Colonies Not Possessing
Responsible Government, London: Broad of Education.
Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 18841914
Report of the Committee on Education, 1902. (1902) Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government.
Report of the Chinese Studies Committee, 1953. (1953) Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government.
Report of the Education Commission appointed by His Excellency Sir John Pope Hennessy, K.C.M.G
to consider certain questions connected with Education in Hong Kong, 1882. (1883) Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Government.
Report of the Fulton Commission, 1963. (1963) Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government.
Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Advise on the Teaching of Chinese. (1932) Hong Kong:
University of Hong Kong.
Christian Education in China: The Report of the China Educational Commission of 19211922, (1922).
Shanghai.
Report on the Central School. Hong Kong Government Gazette (1867) Hong Kong: Hong Kong
Government.
Newspapers and School Magazine
Catholic Post Secondary (Shu Hui) (Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students publication),
19691974 (incomplete).
China Mail, 18951903 (incomplete).
Chung-chi Student Press (Chong Ji xue sheng bao), 19691972 (incomplete).
Chinese Student Weekly (Zhongguo xue sheng zhou bao), 19521972 (incomplete).
CU Students (The Chinese University of Hong Kong student publication), 19701985
(incomplete).
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 225 3/5/09 12:44:02 PM
Bibliography 226

The Federation (Hong Kong Federation of Students publication), 19661970 (incomplete).
Jianhuang, 19601973 (incomplete).
New Asia Student Magazine (Xin Ya xue sheng bao), 19661972 (incomplete)
Panku, 19671973 (incomplete).
Undergrad (The University of Hong Kong Student Union publication), 19631974 (incomplete).
The Yellow Dragon (The Queens College publication), 19031909 (incomplete).
Books, Articles and Dissertations
Abbas, Ackbar (1996) Cultural Studies on a Postculture, The Second International Symposium
on Cultural Criticism Cultural Politics of Cosmopolitanism: Critiques of Modernity in the
Non-Western Context, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 46 January,
1996.
Abbas, Ackbar (1997) Hong Kong. Culture and the Politics of Disappearance, Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press.
Acton, T. A. (1981) Education As A By-Product of Fish Marketing, Journal of the Hong Kong
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 21, pp. 12043.
Ahearne, Jeremy (1995) Michel de Certeau. Interpretation and Its Other, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ahmad, Aijaz (1992) In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ahmad, Aijaz (1995) Postcolonialism: Whats in a Name? in Roman DeLaCampa, et al. (eds.)
Late Imperial Culture, London: Verso.
Alitto, Guy (1979) The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of modernity,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities: Refections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism, London: Verso.
Ang, Ien (1993) The Differential Politics of Chineseness Communal/Plural, 1, pp. 1726.
Ang, Ien (1998) Can One Say No to Chineseness? Pushing the Limits of the Diasporic Paradigm
Boundary 2, 25, 3, pp. 22342.
Ang, Ien (2001) On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, London: Routledge.
Appadurai, Arjun (1996) Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, London:
University of Minnesota Press.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1992) In My Fathers House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, London:
Methuen.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1996) Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?
in Padmini Mongia (ed.) Contemporary Postcolonial Theory. A Reader, London: Arnold, pp.
5571.
Arensmeyer, Elliott C. (1979) British Merchant Enterprise and the Chinese Coolie Labour Trade:
18501874, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii.
Arnold, Matthew (1869) Culture and Anarchy, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ashcroft, Bill, et al. (1995) General Introduction, in Bill Ashcroft, et al. (eds.) The Post-Colonial
Studies Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 14.
Ball, Stephen J. (1983) Imperialism, Social Control and the Colonial Curriculum in Africa,
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 15, 3, pp. 23763.
Bammer, A. (1995) Xenophobia, Xenophilia, and No Place to Rest, in G. Brinker-Gabler (ed.)
Encountering the other(s). Studies in Literature, History, and Culture, Albany: SUNY Press.
Banfeld, Edward C. (1958) The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, New York: Free Press.
Bao, Cuoshi (1967a) Yan jiu quan zhong guo. cong fei qing dao guo qing (Studying China: from the
Studies of the Bandit Regime to the Studies of the Nation) Part I, Panku, 8, pp. 248.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 226 3/5/09 12:44:02 PM
Bibliography 227

Bao, Cuoshi (1967b) Yan jiu quan zhong guo. cong fei qing dao guo qing (Studying China: from the
Studies of the Bandit Regime to the Studies of the Nation), Part II, Panku, 9, pp. 317.
Bao, Cuoshi (1968) Hai wai zhong guo ren de fen lie, hui gui yu fan du (Separation, Return and
Anti-independence of the Overseas Chinese), Panku, 10, pp. 216.
Bao, Yiming (1968) Morality of Mobilization in Democratic Society. Majority, Minority and
Intellectuals, Ming Pao Monthly, pp. 213.
Barker, Kathleen E. (1996) Change and Continuity. A History of St. Stephens Girls College, Hong
Kong, 19061996, Hong Kong: St. Stephens Girls College.
Barker, Kathleen E. (1996) Change and Continuity. A History of St. Stephens Girls College Hong Kong
19061996, Hong Kong: St. Stephens Girls College.
Barlow, Tani E. (ed.)(1997) Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia, Durham: Duke
University Press.
Barlow, Tani E. (1997a) Colonialism Career in Postwar China Studies in Barlow, Tani E. (ed.)
Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia, Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 373412.
Barnett, Suzanne Wilson (1972) Protestant Expansion and Chinese Views of the West, Modern
Asian Studies, 6, 2, pp. 12949.
Barnett, Suzanne Wilson (1973) Practical Evangelism: Protestant Missions and the Introduction
of Western Civilization into China, 18201850. unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard
University.
Barnett, Suzanne Wilson (1976) National Image: Missionaries and Some Conceptual Ingredients
of Late Ching Reform, in P.A. Cohen and J. E. Schrecker (eds.) Reform in Nineteenth-Century
China, New York: East Asia Research Centre, Harvard University.
Barnett, Suzanne Wilson and John K. Fairbank (eds.) (1984) Christianity in China: Early Protestant
Missionary Writings, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bays, Daniel H. (1978) China Enters the Twentieth Century: Chang Chih tung and the Issues of a New
Age, 18951905, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Beattie, Hilary J. (1969) Protestant Missions and Opium in China, 18581895, Papers on China,
22A, pp. 10433.
Beeching, Jack (1975) The Chinese Opium Wars, London: Hutchinson.
Bennett, A. A. (1967) John Fryer: The Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth
Century China, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University.
Bentley, M. (ed.) (1997) Companion to Historiography, London: Routledge.
Beresford (1899) The Break-up of China, London: Harper & Brothers.
Berwick, John (1986) Chhatrasamaj: the Social and Political Signifcance of the Student Community in
Bengal c.18701922. unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Sydney.
Best, G. P. A. (1956) The Religious Diffculties of National Education in England, 18001870,
Cambridge Historical Journal, 7, pp. 15573.
Bhabha, Homi (1984) Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse, October,
28, pp. 12533.
Bhabha, Homi (1986) The Other Question: Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse
of Colonialism, in Francis Barker, et al. (eds.) Literature, Politics and Theory, London:
Methuen.
Bhabha, Homi (1994a) Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority
under a Tree Outside Delhi, May 1817, in The Location of Culture, London: Routledge.
Bhabha, Homi (1994b) The Postcolonial and the Postmodern, in The Location of Culture,
London: Routledge.
Bhabha, Homi (1994c) The Location of Culture, London: Routledge.
Bickley, Gillian (1997) The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart (18361889), Hong
Kong: David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 227 3/5/09 12:44:02 PM
Bibliography 228

Bickley, Gillian (2002) The Development of Education in Hong Kong 18411897: as Revealed by
the Early Education Reports of the Hong Kong Government 18481896, Hong Kong: Chinese
Blaut, James Morris (1993) The Colonizers Model of The World: Geographical Diffusionism and
Eurocentric History, New York: Guilford Press.
Bohr, Paul R (1972) Famine in China and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator
and Advocate of National Reform, 18761884, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Centre,
Harvard University.
Boorman, Howard L. (1968) Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, New York: Columbia
University Press.
Breckenridge Carol A. and Peter van der Veer (1993) Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament.
Perspectives on South Asia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Bredon, Juliet (1909) Sir Robert Hart and the Romance of a Great Career, New York: Hutchinson.
Brook, Timothy and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (eds.) (2000) Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and
Japan, 18391952, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Brook, Timothy (2005) Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard.
Brown, Rajeswary Ampalavanar (1994) Capital and Entrepreneur in South-East Asia, New York:
St. Martins Press.
Bulag, Uradyn E. (1997) Mongols, Buddhism, and Modernity, Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars, 29, 4, pp. 625.
Butenhoff, Linda (1999) Social Movements and Political Reform in Hong Kong, London: Praeger.
Cameron, Meribeth E. (1931) The Reform Movement in China, 18981912, Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Campbell, Persia Crawford (1923) Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries within the British Empire,
London: Cass.
Cantile, James and C. Sheridan Jones (1912) Sun Yat Sen and the Awakening of China, New York:
Fleming H. Revell Co.
Carroll, John M. (1997) Colonialism and Collaboration: Chinese Subjects and the Making of
British Hong Kong, China Information, 12, 12, pp. 1235.
Carroll, John M. (1999) Chinese Collaboration in the Making of British Hong Kong, in Tak-Wing
Ngo (ed.) Hong Kongs History. State and Society under Colonial Rule, London: Routledge, pp.
1329.
Carroll, John M. (2005) Edges of Empires, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Cell, John Whitson (1970) Title British Colonial Administration in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. The
Policy-Making Process, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cen, Qiao (1938) Guan yu xiang gang de wen hua ren (Concerning Hong Kongs intellectuals),
Da Zhong Ri Bao, 14 September.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh (1987) Towards a Discourse on Nationalism, Economic and Political Weekly
(Delhi), 11 July, pp. 1137.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000) Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference,
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chambers, Iain and Lidia Curti (eds.) (1996) The Post-Colonial Question, London: Routledge.
Chan, Elaine (2002) Beyond Pedagogy: Language and Identity in Post-Colonial Hong Kong
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23, 2, pp. 27186.
Chan, Joseph Man, et al. (1996) Hong Kong Journalists in Transition, Hong Kong: Hong Kong
Institute of Asia-Pacifc Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Chan, Wellington K.K. (1977) Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise in Late Ching China,
Cambridge: Harvard University East Asian Research Center.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 228 3/5/09 12:44:02 PM

Chan, Lau Kit-ching (1990) China, Britain, and Hong Kong, 18951945, Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press.
Chan, Lau Kit-ching (1999) From Nothing to Nothing: The Chinese Communist Movement and Hong
Kong, 19211936, New York: St. Martins Press.
Chan, Ming Kou (1975) Labor and Empire: The Chinese Labor Movement in the Canton Delta, 1895
1927. unpublished PhD dissertation, Stanford University.
Chan, Ming Kou (1979) A Tale of Two Cites: Canton and Hong Kong in Dilip Basu (ed.) The
Rise and Growth of the Colonial Port Cities in Asia, Santa Cruz., Calif.: Center for South Pacifc
Studies, University of California.
Chan, Ming Kou (ed.) (1994) Precarious Balance: Hong Kong Between china and Britain, 18421992,
Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Chan, Ming Kou (1995) All in the Family: The Hong Kong-Guangdong Link in Historical
Perspective, in Alvin Y. So (ed.) The Hong Kong-Guangdong Link: Partnership in Flux,
Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, pp. 3163.
Chan, Mary Man Yue (1963) Chinese Revolutionaries in Hong Kong, unpublished Master Thesis,
Chan, Stephen Ching-kiu (ed.) (1997) Shen fen ren tong yu gong gong wen hua: wen hua yan jiu lun
wen ji (Identity and Public Culture: Essays of Cultural Studies), Hong Kong: Oxford University
Press.
Chan, Stephen Ching-kiu (ed.) (1997) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai: dang dai Xianggang
wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary Hong Kong Culture
and Politics Review), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Chan, Wai Kwan (1991) The Making of Hong Kong Society: Three Studies of Class Formation in Early
Hong Kong, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chan, Wellington K. K. (1977) Merchant, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise in Late Ching China,
Cambridge, M.A.: East Asian research Centre, Harvard University.
Chan, Yuen Ying, et al. (1968) Di yi kuai shi tou wo men dui hui gui yun dong de yi xie jian yi
(The First Stone: A Few Suggestions in Response to the Return Movement), Panku, 13, pp.
4852.
Chang, Hao (1971) Liang Chi-chao and Intellectual Transition in China, 18901907, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Chang, Hao (1976) New Confucianism and the Intellectual Crisis Contemporary China, in
Charlotte Furth (ed.) The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican
China, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Chang, Hao (1987) Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (18901911),
Chang, Pin-tsun (1991) The First Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia in the Fifteenth Century,
in Roderich Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund (eds.) Emporia, Commodities and entrepreneurs in
Asian Maritime Trade, C. 14001750, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 234l.
Chatterjee, Partha (1986) Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse,
London: Zed Books.
Chatterjee, Partha (1993) The Nation and Its Fragments. Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Chen, Canyun (1999) Guan yu yue yu dian ying de ji ge wen ti (A few Problems Concerning
Cantonese Movies), in Kai Chi Wong, et al. (eds.) Guo gong nei zhan shi qi Xianggang wen xue
zi liao xuan: 19451949 (Research Materials of Hong Kong Literature in the KMT-CCP Civil War),
Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu, pp. 2006.
Chen, Duxiu (1922) Wu ren zui hou zhi zi jiao (Our last awakening), in Duxiu wen cun (Collected
Works of Chen Duxiu), Shanghai: Ya dong tu shu guan.
Erich Auerbach and Invention of Man 229
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 229 3/5/09 12:44:02 PM
Bibliography 230

Chen, Da (1990) Nanyang hua qiao yu Min Yue she hui (Chinese Migrants in Nanyang and the Fujian
and Guangdong), Shanghai: Shanghai Shu Dian.
Chen, Dingyan and Zonglu Gao (1997) Yi zong xian dai shi shi da fan an: Chen Jiongming yu Sun
Zhongshan, Jiang Jieshi de en yuan zhen xiang (A Re-interpretation of a case in Modern Chinese
History: Chen Jiong Ming, Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek), Hong Kong: Berlind Investment
Ltd.
Chen, Jiongming (1928) Zhongguo tong yi chu yi (A Proposal for Chinese Unifcation), S.l.: S.n .
Chen, Jiageng (1989) Chen Jiageng jiao yu wen ji (Essays of Education by Tan Kah Kee), Fuzhou:
Fujian jiao yu chu ban she.
Chen, Kuan-Hsing (1998) Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London: Routledge.
Chen, Kuan-Hsing (1998) Introduction: The Decolonizing Question, in Kuan-Hsing Chen (ed.)
Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London: Routledge, pp. 153.
Chen, Leslie H. (1988) A Collection of Historical Materials for a Biography of Chen Chiung-
ming [18781933]. Alexandria, VA.
Cheng, Tung Choy (1949) The Education of Overseas Chinese A Comparative Study of Hong Kong,
Singapore and the East Indies, unpublished MA Thesis, London University.
Cheng, Tung Choy (1969) Chinese Unoffcial Members of the Legislative and Executive
Councils in Hong Kong up to 1941, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society, 9, pp. 730.
Chere, Lewis M. (1980) The Hong Kong Riots of October 1884: Evidence for Chinese
Nationalism? Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 20, pp. 5465.
Chesneaux, Jean (1969) The Federalist Movement in China, 19203, in Jack Gray (ed.) Modern
Chinas Search for a Political Form, London: Oxford University Press,, pp.
Chesneaux, Jean and Le Barbier, Francoise and Bergere, Marie-Claire (1977) China from the 1911
Revolution to Liberation, New York: Pantheon Books.
Cheung, Ka Wai (2000) Xianggang liu qi bao dong nei qing (Inside Story of 1967 Riot in Hong Kong),
Hong Kong: Pacifc Century Press.
Cheung, Tak Shing (1972) Xiang gang zhong guo qing nian dui zhong gong de ren shi yu ren tong
(Hong Kong Chinese Youngsters Cognizance of and Identifcation with Communist
China), Panku, 50, pp. 4953.
Chirol, Valentine (1910) Indian Unrest, London: Macmillan.
Chirot, Daniel and Anthony Reid (1997) Essential Outsiders: Chinese and Jews in the Modern
Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe, Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Chiu, Fred Y. L. (1997) Politics and the Body Social in Colonial Hong Kong in Tani E. Barlow (ed.)
Formation of Colonial Modernity in East Asia, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press
Chiu, Fred Y. L. (1996) Rearing Tigers: Politics and the Body of the Social in Colonial Hong
Kong, The Second International Symposium on Cultural Criticism Cultural Politics of
Cosmopolitanism: Critiques of Modernity in the Non-Western Context, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 46 January, 1996.
Chiu, Ling Yeong (1968) The Life and Thoughts of Sir Kai Ho Kai, unpublished PhD dissertation,
University of Sydney.
Choa, G. H. (1981) The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai. A Prominent Figure in Nineteenth-Century
Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Choi, Alex H. (1999) State-Business Relations and Industrial Restructuring, in Tak-Wing Ngo
(ed.) Hong Kongs History. State and Society under Colonial Rule, London: Routledge.
Choi, Po King (1990) A Search for Cultural Identity: The Students Movement of the Early
Seventies, in Anthony Sweeting (ed.) Differences and Identities: Educational Argument in
Later Twentieth Century Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Faculty of Education, University of Hong
Kong,.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 230 3/5/09 12:44:03 PM
Bibliography 231

Choi, Po King (1990) From Dependence to Self-Suffciency: Rise of the Indigenous Culture of
Hong Kong, 19451989, Asian Culture.
Chow, Lo Sai (1987) Ho Kai and Lim Boon Keng: A Comparative Study of Tripartite Loyalty of Colonial
Chinese Elite, 18951912, unpublished MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Chow, Rey (1992) Between Colonizers: Hong Kongs Postcolonial Self-Writing in the 1990s,
Diaspora, 2, 2, pp. 15170.
Chow, Rey (1993) Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Chow, Rey (1993) Things, Common/Places, Passages of the Port City: On Hong Kong and
Hong Kong Author Leung Ping Kwan, Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 5,
3, pp. 179204.
Chow, Rey (1997) Can One Say No to China? New Literary History, 28, 1, pp. 14751.
Chow, Rey (1998) King Kong in Hong Kong: Watching the Handover from the USA, Social
Text, 16, 2, pp. 1998.
Chow, Rey (1998) Introduction: On Chineseness as a Theoretical Problem Boundary 2, 25, 3,
pp. 124.
Chow, Tse Tsung (1960) The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China,
Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Chun, Allen (1996) Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity
boundary 2, 23, 2, pp. 11138.
Chun, Allen (2000) Colonial Govern-Mentality in Transition: Hong Kong as Imperial Object
and Subject, Cultural Studies, 14, 34, pp. 43061.
Chung, Lu Cee (1969) A Study of the 192526 Canton-Hong Kong Strike-Boycott. unpublished MA
thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Chung, Stephanie Po Yin (1998) Chinese business groups in Hong Kong and political change in South
China, 190025, Basingstoke, England: Macmillan Press.
Clyde, Paul H. and Burton F. Beers (1966) The Far East: A History of the Western Impact and the
Eastern Response (18301965), New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Clifford, James (1997) Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Cohen, Paul A. (1961) The Anti-Christian Tradition in China, Journal of Asian Studies, 20, 2, pp.
16975.
Cohen, Paul A. (1962) Some Sources of Antimissionary Sentiment During the Late Ching,
Journal of the China Society, 2, pp. 49.
Cohen, Paul A. (1963) China and Christianity: the Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese
Antiforeignism, 18601870, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Cohen, Paul A. (1970) A New Class in Chinas Treaty Ports: the Rise of the Compradore-
merchants, Business History Review, 44, 4, pp. 44659.
Cohen, Paul A. (1974) Between Tradition to Modernity: Wang Tao and Reform in Late Ching China,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Cohen, Paul A. (1974) Littoral and Hinterland in Nineteenth-Century China: the Christian
Reformers, in John K. Fairbank (ed.) The Missionary Enterprise in China and America,
Cohen, Paul A. (1976) The New Coastal Reformers, in P. A. Cohen and J. E. Schrecker (eds.)
Reform in Nineteenth-Century China, New York: East Asia Research Centre, Harvard
University, pp. 25564.
Cohen, Paul A. (1978) Christian Missions and Their Impact to 1900, in John K. Fairbank (ed.)
The Cambridge History of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, vol. 10: Late
Ching 18001911, Part 1.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 231 3/5/09 12:44:03 PM
Bibliography 232

Cohen, Paul A. (1984) Discovering History in China, New York: Columbia University Press.
Cohen, Paul A. and J. E. Schrecker (eds.) (1976) Reform in Nineteenth Century China., Cambridge,
Commerce, Hong Kong General Chamber of (1928) Hong Kong University as an Imperial Asset,
Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, Ltd.
Coolidge, Mary (1909) The Chinese Immigration, New York: Henry Holt.
Cooper, John (1970) Colony in Confict: the Hong Kong Disturbances May 1967January 1968, Hong
Kong: Swindon Book Company.
Costin, W. C. (1937) Great Britain and China, 18331860, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Crisswell, Colin (1979) Hong Kong: The New Territories War, Orientations, 10, 2, pp. 415.
Crisswell, Colin N. and Mike Watson (1982) The Royal Hong Kong Police, 18411945, Hong Kong:
Macmillan.
Crocker, W. R. (1936) Nigeria: A Critique of British Colonial Administration, London: Allen and
Unwin.
Crossley, Pamela Kyle (1997) The Historiography of Modern China, in M. Bentley (ed.)
Companion to Historiography, London: Routledge.
Crow, Carl (1913) The Travellers Handbook for China, Shanghai: Hwai-mei.
Crowley, James (ed.) (1970) Modern East Asia: Essays in Interpretation, New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World.
Curtis, Stanley James (1967) History of Education in Great Britain, London: University Tutorial
Press.
Curtis, Stanley James and M.E.A. Boultwood (1966) An Introductory History of English Education
since 1800, London: University Tutorial Press.
Dai, Shaoyao (1982) Min zu xing shi lun zheng zai ren shi (A Reconsideration of the National
Forms Debates), Chongqing Normal College Journal, 2.
Dan, Yang (1998) Hui gui de lu tu: ji Wen-qi de shi wu feng xin (Journey of Return), Taipei: Ren jian
chu ban she.
Dawson, Raymond (1967) The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Conceptions of Chinese
Civilization, London: Oxford University Press.
de Certeau, Michel (1988) The Writing of History, New York: Columbia University Press.
de Certeau, Michel, et al. (1975) Une politique de la langue (The Politics of Language), Paris:
Gallimard.
Deng, Guang Yi (1990) Xiang gang da xue ming yuan tang er si zhou nian ji nian te kan (A Special
for the Twentieth Anniversary of Old Hall), Hong Kong: Ming yuan tang er shi zhou nian qing
zhu ji ji nian huo dong chou wei hui.
Deng, Kaisong and Xiaomin Lu (1997) Yue Gang guan xi shi: 18401984 (Relations between Canton
and Hong Kong: 18401984), Hong Kong: Qi lin shu ye.
Department, Education (1953) Report of the Chinese Studies Committee, Hong Kong: Hong Kong
Government.
Derrida, Jacques (1974) Of Grammatology, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Di, Yuan (1937) Hua nan yu wen yun dong lun (On the Language Movements in Southern China),
in Kai Chi Wong, et al. (eds.) Zao qi Xianggang xin wen xue zuo pin xuan (Collection of Works of
the Early Hong Kong New Literature), Hong Kong: Tain di tu shu, pp. 31822.
Dikotter, Frank (1992) The Discourse of Race in Modern China, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press.
Dirlik, Arif (1975) The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in
Counterrevolution, Journal of Asian Studies, 34, 4, pp. 94580.
Dirlik, Arif (1994) The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global
Capitalism, Critical Inquiry, 20, pp. 32856.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 232 3/5/09 12:44:03 PM
Bibliography 233

Dirlik, Arif (1995) Confucius in the Borderlands: Global Capitalism and the Reinvention of
Confucianism, Boundary 2, 22, 3, pp. 22973.
Dirlik, Arif (1996) Reversals, Ironies, Hegemonies. Notes on the Contemporary Historiography
of Modern China, Modern China, 22, 3, pp. 24384.
Dirlik, Arif (1996) Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism, History and Theory, 35, 4,
pp. 96118.
Dirlik, Arif (1997) Critical Refections on Chinese Capitalism as a Paradigm Identities: Global
Studies in Culture and Power, 3, 3, pp. 30330.
Dirlik, Arif (2000) Is there History After Eurocentrism? Globalism, Postcolonialism, and the
Disavowal of History, in Dirlik, A., et al. (eds.) History After the Three Worlds, Oxford:
Rowman & Littlefld Publishers.
Dirlik, A., et al. (eds.) (2000) History After the Three Worlds, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefld
Publishers.
Dittmer, Lowell and Samuel Kim (eds.) (1993) Chinas Quest for National Identity., London:
Cornell University Press.
Douw, Leo, et al. (1999) Qioxiang Ties: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cultural Capitalism in
South China, Kegan Paul International in association with International Institute for Asian
Studies.
Duan, Yunzhang (1989) Chen jiong ming de yi sheng (The Life of Chen Jiong Ming, Zheng Zhou:
He nan ren min.
Duara, Prasenjit (1993) De-constructing the Chinese Nation, The Australian Journal of Chinese
Affairs, 30, pp. 126.
Duara, Prasenjit (1995) Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Duara, Prasenjit (1997) A Response, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 29, 4, pp. 678.
Duara, Prasenjit (1998) Why Is History Antitheoretical? Modern China, 24, 2, pp. 10520.
Eastman, Lloyd E. (1968) Political Reformism in China before the Sino-Japanese War, Journal
of Asian Studies, 27, 4, pp. 695710.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1967) Israeli society, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Eitel, Ernest John (1877) Chinese Studies and Oriental Interpretation in the Colony of Hong
Kong, China Review, 6, pp. 113.
Eitel, Ernest John (18901891) Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong, China
Review, 19, pp. 30824 & 33568.
Eitel, Ernest John (1895) Europe in China: the History of Hongkong from the Beginning to the Year
1882, London: Luzac & Co.
Eldridge, C. C. (1973) Englands mission; the imperial idea in the age of Gladstone and Disraeli, 1868
1880, London: Macmillan.
Eliot, Charles (1907) Letters from the Far East, London: Arnold.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns (1962) Notes Towards a Defnition of Culture, London: Faber.
Emerson, Rupert (1964) Malaysia, A Study in Direct and Indirect Rule, Kuala Lumpur: University
of Malaya Press.
Endacott, George B. (1958) Europe in China, by E.J. Eitel: the Man and His Work, Journal of
Oriental Studies, 4, pp. 4163.
Endacott, George B. (1962a) A Biographical Sketch-Book of Early Hong Kong, Singapore: D. Moore
for Eastern Universities Press.
Endacott, George B. (1962b) The Beginners, in Brian Harrison (ed.) University of Hong Kong.
The First 50 Years, 19111961, Hong Kong: Cathay Press.
Endacott, George B. (1964a) A History of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 233 3/5/09 12:44:03 PM
Bibliography 234

Endacott, George B. (1964b) Government and People in Hong Kong, 18411962, Hong Kong: Hong
Endacott, George B. (1964c) An Eastern Entrepot, London: Her Majestys Stationery Offce.
Esherick, Joseph W. (1976) Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and
Hubei, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Esherick, Joseph W. (1972) Harvard on China: The Apologetics of Imperialism, Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars, 4, 4, pp. 916.
Esherick, Joseph W. (1987) The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Evans, Dafydd Emrys (1970) Chinatown in Hong Kong: The Beginning of Taipingshan, Journal
of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 10, pp. 6978.
Evans, Grant and Siu Mi Tam (eds.) (1997) Hong Kong. The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis.,
Hong Kong: Curzon Press.
Fairbank, John K. (1953) Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports,
18421854, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Fairbank, John K. (ed.) (1957) Chinese Thought and Institutions, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Fairbank, John K. (ed.) (1974) The Missionary Enterprise in China and America., Cambridge, Mass.:
Fairbank, John K. (ed.) (1978a) Cambridge History of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. Vol. 10: Late Ching, Part 1.
Fairbank, John K. (ed.) (1978b) Cambridge History of China, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. Vol. 12, Republican China, Part. 1.
Fairbank, John K. and Kwang-ching Liu (eds.) (1980) Cambridge History of China., Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Vol. 10: Late Ching, Part 2.
Fairbank, John K. and James Peck (1970) An Exchange, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 2,
3, pp. 514.
Fairbank, John K., et al. (1965) East Asia: The Modern Transformation, Boston: Houghton Miffin.
Fang, Meixian (1975) Xianggang zao qi jiao yu fa zhan shi (History of Education in Early Hong Kong),
Hong Kong: Zhongguo xue she.
Fanon, Frantz (1965) A Dying Colonialism, New York: Grove Press.
Fanon, Frantz (1968) Black Skin, White Masks, New York: Grove Press.
Fanon, Frantz (1990) The Wretched of the Earth, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Faure, David (1986) The Structure of Chinese rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New
Territories, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Faure, David (2003) Colonialism and the Hong Kong Mentality, Centre of Asian Studies, The
Featherstone, W. T. (1930) The Diocesan Boys School and Orphanage, HongKong: the History and
Records, 1869 to 1929, Hong Kong: the School.
Feng, Naichao and Lin Quan (1948) Fang yan wen ti lun zheng zong jie (A Concluding Remark
on the Debates over the issues of Dialect), in Kai Chi Wong, et al. (eds.) Guo gong nei zhan
shi qi Xianggang ben di yu nan lai wen ren zuo pin xuan: 19451949 (Collection of works by Hong
Kongs Local and South-settled Writers in the KMT-CCP Civil War, 19451949), Hong Kong:
Tan di tu shu.
Feng, Ziyou (19281930) Zhong hua min guo kai kuo qian ge ming shi (A History of Revolutionary
Activities before the Establishment of the Republic of China), Shanghai: Ko ming shih pien chi
she.
Feng, Ziyou (1947) Hua qiao ge ming kai guo shi (History of the Revolution and the Overseas Chinese),
Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu kuan.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 234 3/5/09 12:44:03 PM
Bibliography 235

Feng, Ziyou (1969) Ge ming yi shi (Reminiscence of the Revolution), Taipei: Shang wu yin shu
kuan.
Feuerwerker, Albert (1958) Chinas Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai, 18441916, and
Mandarin Enterprise, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Feuerwerker, Albert (1995) The Chinese economy, 18701949, Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese
Studies, The University of Michigan.
Feuerwerker, Albert, et al. (eds.) (1967) Approaches to Modern Chinese History., Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Fincher, John H. (1981) Chinese Democracy: The Self-Government Movement in Local, Provincial and
National Politics, 19051914, New York: St. Martins Press.
Fitzgerald, John (1982) A Rival to Mass and Military Politics: Parliamentary Politics and the
Guomindan, 19191925, Papers on Far Eastern History, 25.
Fitzgerald, John (ed.) (1989) The Nationalists and Chinese Society, 19231937: A Symposium.,
Melbourne: Melbourne University History Monographs.
Fitzgerald, John (1989) The Irony of the Chinese Revolution: The Nationalists and Chinese
Society, 19231927, in John Fitzgerald (ed.) The Nationalists and the Chinese Society, 1923
1937: A Symposium, Melbourne: Melbourne University Monographs.
Fitzgerald, John (1990) The Misconceived Revolution: State and Society in Chinas Nationalist
Revolution, 192326, The Journal of Asian Studies, 49, 2, pp. 32343.
Fitzgerald, John (1995) The Nationless State: The Search for a Nation in Modern Chinese
Nationalism, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 33, pp. 75104.
Fitzgerald, John (1996) Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the National Revolution,
Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Fitzgerald, John (1997) Chinese, Dogs and the State that Stands on Two Legs, Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars, 29, 4, pp. 5461.
Fitzgerald, Stephen (1972) China and the Overseas Chinese: A Study of Pekings Changing Policy,
19491970, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fitzpatrick, J. F. J. (1924) Nigerias Curse. The Native Administration, The National Review,
LXXXIV, 502, pp. 51724.
Fok, K. C. (1990) Lectures on Hong Kong History: Hong Kongs Role in Modern Chinese History,
Hong Kong: The Commercial Press.
Folsom, Kenneth E. (1968) Friends, Guests, and Colleagues: the Mu-fu System in the Late Ching
Period, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Forsythe, Sidney A. (1971) An American Missionary Community in China, 18951905, Cambridge,
Foucault, Michel (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge, New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, Michel (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 19721977,
Hertfordshire: Harvester Press.
Foucault, Michel (1991) Governmentality, in Graham Burchell, et al. (eds.) The Foucault Effect.
Studies in Governmentality: with Two Lectures by and an interview with Michel Foucault, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Franke, Wolfgang (1960) The Reform and Abolition of the Traditional Chinese Examination System,
Cambridge, Mass.: Centre for East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
Freedman, Maurice (1958) Lineage Organization in Southeastern China, London: Athlone.
Freedman, Maurice (1966) Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung, London: Athlone.
Friedman, Edward (1974) Backward Toward Revolution, The Chinese Revolutionary Party, Berkeley:
University of California.
Friedman, Edward and Mark Seldon (eds.) (1971) Americas Asia: Dissenting Essays on Asian-
American Relations., New York: Vintage Books.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 235 3/5/09 12:44:04 PM
Bibliography 236

Fu, Sinian (1928) Zhongguo lishi fenqizhi yanjiu (Researches in the Periodization of Chinese
History), in Fu Si Nian Quan Ji, Taipei: Lian jing chu ban shi ye, Vol. 4, pp. 17685.
Gallagher, John and Ronald Robinson (1953) The Imperialism of Free Trade, Economic History
Review, March, pp. 56.
Gandhi, Leela (1998) Postcolonial Theory. A Critical Introduction, St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.
Gao, Xin and Xizhe Zhang (eds.) (1963) Hua qiao shi lun ji (Collected Essays on History of Overseas
Chinese), Taipei: Kuo fang yen chiu yuan.
Garrett, Shirley (1970) Social Reformers in Urban China: the Chinese Y.M.C.A., 18951926,
Gasster, Michael (1969) Chinese Intellectuals and the Revolution of 1911: the Birth of Modern Chinese
Radicalism, Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Gedalecia, D. (1974) Excursion into Substance and Function: The Development of the ti-yung
Paradigm in Chu Hsi, Philosophy East and West, 24, pp. 44352.
Gellner, Ernest (1983) Nations and Nationalism, Oxford,: Blackwell.
Gellner, Ernest (1997) Nationalism, Washington Square, N.Y.: New York University Press.
Giles, Herbert (1915) Confucianism and Its Rivals, London: Williams and Norgate.
Girardot, Norman J. (2002) The Victorian Translation of China. James Leggs Oriental Pilgrimage,
Godley, Michael R. (1981) The Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang, Overseas Chinese Enterprises in
the Modernization of China, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Gray, Jack (ed.) (1969) Modern Chinas Search for a Political Form, London: Oxford University
Press.
Gregg, Alice H. (1946) China and Educational Autonomy: the Changing Role of the Protestant
Educational Missionary in China, 18071937, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Grieder, Jerome B. (1970) Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution,
Grossberg, Lawrence (1996) The Space of Culture, the Power of Space in Chambers, Iain and
Lidia Curti (eds.) The Post-Colonial Question, London: Routledge.
Grossberg, Lawrence (1997) Cultural studies, Modern Logics, and Theories of Globalisation,
in Angela McRobbie (ed.) Back to Reality? Social Experience and Cultural Studies, New York:
Manchester University Press, pp. 735.
Gu, Changsang (1991) Chuanjiaoshi yu jindai zhongguo (Missionaries and Modern China), Shanghai:
Shanghai Remen Publisher.
Guldin, Gregory Eliyu (1997) Hong Kong Ethnicity of Folk Models and Change, in Grant
Evans and Siu Mi Tam (eds.) Hong Kong. The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis, Hong
Kong: Curzon Press.
Gutzlaff, Karl Friedrich August (1838) China Opened, or, a Display of the Topography, History,
Customs, Manners, arts, Manufactures, Commerce, Literature, Religion, Jurisprudence, etc. of the
Chinese Empire, London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Hall, Stuart (1991) Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities, in Anthony D. King (ed.)
Culture, Globalization and the World-System, London: Macmillan.
Hall, Stuart (1996) When was the Post-Colonial? Thinking at the Limit, in Chambers, Iain
and Lidia Curti (eds.) The Post-Colonial Question, London: Routledge.
Hamilton, Gary (ed.) (1991) Business Networks and Economic Development in East and Southeast
Asia, Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.
Hamilton, Gary (1999) Hong Kong and the Rise of Capitalism in Asia in Hamilton, Gary (ed.)
Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the End of the 20
th
Century,
Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Hamilton, Gary (ed.) (1999) Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the
End of the 20
th
Century, Seattle: University of Washington Press.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 236 3/5/09 12:44:04 PM
Bibliography 237

Hao, Yen Ping (1969) Cheng Kuan Ying: The Comprador as Reformer, Journal of Asian Studies,
29, 1, pp. 1522.
Hao, Yen Ping (1970) The Comprador in Nineteenth Century China: Bridge between East and West,
Hao, Yen Ping (1986) The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: the Rise of Sino-
Western Mercantile Capitalism, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Harris, Peter (1978) Hong Kong. A study in Bureaucratic Politics, Hong Kong: Heinemann Asia.
Harris, Paul W. (1986) Missionaries, Martyrs, and Modernizers: Autobiography and Reform Thought
in American Protestant Missions. unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.
Harrison, Brian (ed.) (1962) University of Hong Kong. The First 50 Years , 19111961., Hong Kong:
Cathay Press.
Harrison, Brian (1979) Waiting for China: The Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, 18181843, and
Early Nineteenth-Century Missions, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Harrison, James Pinckney (1972) The Long March to Power: A History of the Chinese Communist
Party, 192172, New York & Washington, D.C.: Praeger.
Haslewood, Hugh Lyttleton (1930) Child Slavery in Hong Kong: The Mui Tsai System, London:
Sheldon Press.
Hayes, James (1977) The Hong Kong Regions 18501911: Institutions and Leaderships in Town and
Countryside, Hamden: Archon.
Hayes, James (1985) Forward, in Carl Smith(ed.) Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the
Church in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Headrick, Daniel R. (1981) The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the
Nineteenth Century, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hechter, Michael (2000) Containing Nationalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hicks, G. (1993) Chinese Remittances in Southeast Asia, 19101940, Singapore: Select Books.
Ho, Kai (1887) To the Editor of The China Mail, China Mail, February 12.
Ho, Kai (1898) Quan xue pian shu hou (A Review of Exhortation to Study), in Hu Yinan xiansheng
quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), Hong Kong: Hu shi shu zhai.
Ho, Kai (1900) An Open Letter to the Situation to John Bull, China Mail, August 22.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1887) Zenglun shuhou (A Review of Tseng Jizes article), in Hu Yinan
xiansheng quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), Hong Kong: Hu shi shu zhai, juan 34.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1895) Xinzheng lunyi (Discourse on the New Government), in Hu
Yinan xiansheng quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), Hong Kong: Hu shi shu zhai, juan
46.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1898) Xinzheng an xing (The Practice of New Government), in Hu
Yinan xiansheng quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), China: Ju zhen lou, juan 102.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1898) Xinzheng shiji (Foundations of the New Government), in Hu
79.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1898) Kangshuo shuhou (A Review of Kang Youweis Speech), in Hu
134.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1899) Quanxue pian shuhou (Review of the Exhortation to Learning),
in Hu Yinan xiansheng quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), Hong Kong: Hu shi shu zhai,
juan 158.
Ho, Kai and Liyuan Hu (1899) Xinzheng biantong (Accommodations of the New Government),
in Hu Yinan xiansheng quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), Hong Kong: Hu shi shu zhai,
juan 1922.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 237 3/5/09 12:44:04 PM
Bibliography 238

Ho, Kai and Wei Yuk (1899) Letter to Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, C.B., M.P., in
Charles Beresford (ed.) The Break-up of China, New York: Harper and Row.
Ho, Ping-ti and Tang Tsou (eds.) (1968) China in Crisis., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hobsbawn, Eric (1990) Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Hong, Sisi (1982) Xin hai ge ming yu Hua qiao (The 1911 Revolution and Overseas Chinese), Beijing:
Ren min chu ban she.
Hong, Sanxiong (1993) Feng huo du juan cheng: Qi liang nian dai tai da xue sheng yun dong (Saga of
the Cuckoo City: Student Movement of University of Taiwan in the 1970s), Taipei: Zi li wan bao.
Hong, Yonghong (1990) Xiamen da xue xiao shi (History of the University of Amoy), Xiamen:
Xiamen University Press.
Hong-Kong-Affairs-Group (eds.) (1982) Xue yun chun qiu (Vicissitudes of Student Movement),
Hong Kong: Yuan dong shi wu ping lun she.
Hong Kong Federation of Students (1983) Xiang gang xue sheng yun dong hui gu (Retrospection of
Student Movements in Hong Kong), Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press
Hong Kong Research Project (1974) Hong Kong. A Case to Answer, London: The Research
Project.
Hornell, William Woodward (1925) The University of Hong Kong: Its Origin and Growth, Hong
Kong: Ye Olde Printerie.
Hsieh, Winston (1962) The Ideas and Ideals of a Warlord: Chen Chiung-ming. Papers on China.
East Asia Research Center, Harvard University. 16, 198251.
Hsu, Immanuel C. Y. (1975) The Rise of Modern China, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hu, Bin (1964) Zhongguo jin dai gai liang zhu yi si xiang (Reformism in Modern China), Beijing:
Zhonghua shu ju.
Hu, Chunhui (1983) Min chu de di fang zhu yi yu lian sheng zi zhi (Localism and Federal Self-
government in Early Republican China), Taipei: Zheng zhong shu ju.
Hu, Feng (1941) Lun min tsu hsing shih wen ti (On the question of National Forms), Chung Ching:
Hsueh shu chu pan she.
Hu, Liyuan (1917) Hu Yinan xiansheng quanji (Complete Works of Hu Liyuan), Hong Kong: Hu
shi shu zhai.
Hu, Shih (1935) Nan you za yi (Memories of the Tour to the South), in Wai Luen Lo (ed.)
Xiangang de Youyu (Hong Kongs Melancholy), Hong Kong: Huafeng Bookstore, pp. 5561.
Huang, Ao Yun (1996) Xianggang wen xue de fa zhan yu ping jia (The Development and Evaluation
of Hong Kong Literature), Hong Kong: Qiu hai tang wen hua qi ye.
Huang, Philip C. C. (1998) Theory and the Study of Modern Chinese History: Four Traps and
a Question, Modern China, 24, 2, pp. 183208.
Huang, Philip C. C. (2000) Biculturality in Modern China and in Chinese Studies, Modern
China, 26, 1, pp. 331.
Huang, Sheng (1939) Min zu xing shi yu yu yan wen ti (National Forms and the Language Issue),
Da Gong Bao, 15 December.
Hughes, Richard (1976) Borrowed Place Borrowed Time: Hong Kong and Its Many Faces, London:
Andre Deutsch.
Hui, Po Keung (1997a) Shi jie zi ben zhu yi xia de bei jin xiang xiang (The Northbound Imaginary
under Global Capitalism), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi
xing tai: dang dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology:
Contemporary Hong Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press,
pp. 11525.
Hui, Po Keung (1997b) The Development of Hong Kong Chinese Business in the Mid-19th to
Early 20th Century: A Transnational Perspective, China Information, 12, 12, pp. 11434.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 238 3/5/09 12:44:04 PM
Bibliography 239

Hui, Po Keung (1999) Comprador Politics and Middleman Capitalism, in Tak-Wing Ngo (ed.)
Hong Kongs History. State and Society under Colonial Rule, London: Routledge, pp. 3045.
Hung, Ho Fung (1997) Qian nian de ya po, qian nian de fan kang (A Thousand Years of Domination.
A Thousand Years of Resistance: The Tanka People in Tai O Before and After Colonialism),
in Wing Sang Law (ed.) Shui de cheng shi?: zhan hou Xianggang de gong min wen hua yu zheng
zhi lun shu (Whose City? Post-War Hong Kongs Civic Cultures and Political Discourses), Hong
Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 11340.
Hung, Ho Fung (1997) Chu tan bei jin zhi min zhu yi (Preliminary Exploration of Northbound
Colonialism), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai: dang
dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary Hong
Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 5388.
Hunter, Ian (1988) Culture and Government: The Emergence of Literary Education, Basingstoke:
Macmillan Press.
Hunter, Ian (1994) Rethinking the School: Subjectivity, Bureaucracy, Criticism, St. Leonards, N.S.W.:
Allen & Unwin.
Hutchinson, John (1994) Modern Nationalism, London: Fontana Press.
Huyssen, Andreas (1986) After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism,
Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press.
Hyatt, Irwin T., Jr. (1963) Protestant Missions in china (18771890): the Institutionalization of
Good Works, Papers on China, 17, pp. 67100.
Ip, Iam Chong (1997) Bian yuan yu hun za de you ling (Phantom of Marginality and Hybridity:
On the Hong Kong Identity in Cultural Criticism), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen
hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai: dang dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural
Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary Hong Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong:
Oxford University Press, pp. 3152.
Ip, Iam Chong (1997) Yi zhong bu he shi yi de pi pan (An Untimely Critique. Criticisms and
Rejoinder), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai: dang dai
Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary Hong
Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 11781.
Ip, Iam Chong (1997) Ben di ren cong na li lai (Where does the Hong Kongese come from?),
in Wing Sang Law (ed.) Shui de cheng shi?: zhan hou Xianggang de gong min wen hua yu zheng
zhi lun shu (Whose City? Post-War Hong Kongs Civic Cultures and Political Discourses), Hong
Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 1338.
Irick, Robert L. (1982) Ching policy toward the coolie trade, 18471878, Taipei: Chinese Materials
Center.
Irving, Edward Alexander (1915) Education Systems of Hong Kong, in The British Board of
Education (ed.) Educational Systems of the Chief Crown Colonies Not Possessing Responsible
Government, London: pp. 170.
Irving, Edward Alexander (1986) Educational Systems of the Chief Crown Colonies and Possessions
of the Training of Native Races, Part 3, London: Wyman and Sons, Ltd.
Jansen, Marius B. (1992) China in the Tokugawa World, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Jaschok, Maria and Suzanne Miers (eds.) (1994) Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission,
Servitude and Escape., Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Jayapalen, N. (2000) History of education in India, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers.
Jensen, Lionel M. (1997) Manufacturing Confucianism. Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization,
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Jin, Yaoru (1998) Zhong gong Xianggang zheng ce bi wen shi lu: Jin Yaoru wu shi nian xiang jiang
yi wang (Witnesses of the Confdential CCPs Hong Kong Policies: Jin Yao Rus Memoir of Hong
Kongs 50 Years), Hong Kong: Tian yuan shu wu.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 239 3/5/09 12:44:04 PM
Bibliography 240

Jing, Wen (1948) Fang yan wen xue shi lun (A thesis on Dialect Literature), in Kai Chi Wong, et
al. (eds.) Guo gong nei zhan shi qi Xianggang ben di yu nan lai wen ren zuo pin xuan: 19451949
(Collection of works by Hong Kongs Local and South-settled Writers in the KMT-CCP Civil War,
19451949), Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu, pp. 11428.
Johnson, Marshall and Chiu, Y. L. Fred (2000) Guest Editors Introduction positions. East Asia
Cultures Critique, 8, 1, pp. 17.
Kang, Youwei (1985) Ou zhou shi yi guo you ji er zhong (Travel-writings of the Journey in eleven
European countries), Chang Sha: Yue Lu.
Kang, Youwei (1995) Da Tong Shu (The Book of Great Harmony), Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu
ban she.
Kani, Kiroaki (1967) A General Survey of the Boat People in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Southeast
Asia Studies Sections, New Asia Research Institute, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Kedourie, Elie (1966) Nationalism, London: Hutchinson.
Kedourie, Elie (ed.) (1970) Nationalism in Asia and Africa, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Kershaw, Roger (2001) Monarchy in South-East Asia: the Faces of Tradition in Transition, London:
Routledge.
Kershaw, Roger (2001) Monarchy in South-East Asia: the Faces of Tradition in Transition, London:
Routledge.
King, Ambrose Y. C. (1972) The Political Culture of Kwun Tong: a Chinese Community in Hong Kong,
Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong.
King, Ambrose Y. C. (1973) The Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong, with Special
Emphasis on the City District Offcer Scheme, Hong Kong: Social Research Centre, Chinese
King, Ambrose Y. C. and Rance P. L. Lee (1981) Social Life and Development in Hong Kong, Hong
Kong: The Chinese University Press.
King, Frank H. H. (19881990) The History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
King, Frank H. H. and Prescott Clarke (1965) A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822
1911, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University.
Kohn, Hans (1946) The Idea of Nationalism, New York: Macmillan.
Kojin, Karatani (1996) Nationalism and Ecriture, Xue Ren (The Scholar), 9.
Kopf, David (1969) British Orientalism and the Bengal renaissance: the dynamics of Indian
modernization, 17731835, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ku, Hung Ting (1994) Dong nan Ya Hua qiao de ren tong wen ti. Malaixiya pian (Problems of Identities
of Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia), Taipei: Lian Jing chu ban she.
Kuan, Hsin Chi and Siu Kai Lau (1979) Development and the Resuscitation of Rural Leadership
in Hong Kong: the case of Neo-Indirect-Rule. Occasional Paper, No.81, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong Social Research Centre. Hong Kong, Social Research Centre, Chinese University
of Hong Kong.
Kubler, Cornelius C. (1985) Bai hua wen Ou hua yu fa zhi yan jiu (A study of Europeanized grammar
in modern written Chinese), Taipei: Student Books Co.
Kwan, San San (1997) The Diaoyu Islands, Arena, 8, pp. 2937.
Kwok, Siu Tong (1997) Wu bian de lun shu (Borderless Discourses. From Cultural China to
the Post-colonial Refections), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi
shi xing tai: dang dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology:
pp. 15976.
Laclau, Ernesto (1990) New Refections on the Revolution of Our Time, London: Verso.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 240 3/5/09 12:44:05 PM
Bibliography 241

Laclau, Ernesto and Lilian Zac (1994) Minding the Gap: The Subject of Politics, in Ernesto
Laclau (ed.) The Making of Political Identities, Hong Kong: Verso, pp. 1139.
Lam, Wai Man (2004) Understanding the Political Culture of Hong Kong The Paradox of Activism
and Depoliticization. New York: M. E. Sharpe
Lao, Siguang (1968) Cong tai wan wen ti tan hai wai hua ren de hui gui (From Taiwan issue to the
Return of the Overseas Chinese), Jianghuang, 156, pp. 145.
Lary, Diana (1974) Region and Nation: the Kwangsi Clique in Chinese Politics, 19251937, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lary, Diana (1985) Warlord Soldiers, Chinese Common Soldiers, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott (1929) A History of Christian Missions in China, London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Lau, Joseph Siu Ming (1971) Cong xing ma kan zhong wen da xue (Considering CUHK from
Singapore and Malaysia), Nanbeiji, 18, 89.
Lau, Mei Mei (1971) Gei xin ya shu yuen xiao chang ji ge wei shi chang de gong kai xin (An Open
Letter to the President and All Teachers of New Asia College), Xin Ya Xue Sheng Bao (New
Asia Students), 10 September.
Lau, Siu Kai (1969) Zhong guo chuan tong jing ji si xiang ji zhi du de te zheng (Features of Chinese
Traditional Economic Thoughts and Economic System. On the Obstacles to Modernization),
Panku, 27, pp. 147.
Lau, Siu Kai (1980) Social Accommodation of Politics: The case of the Young Hong Kong
Workers. Occasional Paper, No.89, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Social Research Centre.
Lau, Siu Kai (1981) Utilitarianistic Familism: The Basis of Political Stability in King and Lee
(eds.) Social Life and Development in Hong Kong, pp. 195216.
Lau, Siu Kai (1981) The Government, Intermediate Organizations, and Grass-roots Politics in
Hong Kong, Asian Survey, 21, 8, pp. 86584.
Lau, Siu Kai (1982) Society and Politics in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Chinese University
Press.
Lau, Siu Kai (1983) Social Change, Bureaucratic Rule, and Emergent Political Issues in Hong
Kong, World Politics, 35, 4, pp. 54462.
Lau, Siu Kai (1988) Xianggang de zheng zhi gai ge yu zheng zhi fa zhan (Reform of Political System
and Political Development in Hong Kong), Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press.
Lau, Siu Kai (1990) Institutions without Leaders: the Hong Kong Chinese View of Political
Leadership, Pacifc Affairs, vol.63, 63, 2, pp. 191209.
Lau, Siu Kai and Kuan Hsin Chi (1988) The Ethos of the Hong Kong Chinese, Hong Kong: The
Chinese University Press.
Law, Wing Sang (1997) Shui de cheng shi?: zhan hou Xianggang de gong min wen hua yu zheng zhi
lun shu (Whose City? Post-War Hong Kongs Civic Cultures and Political Discourses), Hong
Kong: Oxford University Press.
Law, Wing Sang (1998) Managerializing Colonialism, in Kuan Hsing Chen (ed.) Trajectories.
Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, London: Routledge,, pp. 10921.
Law, Wing Sang (2000) Northbound Colonialism: A Politics of Post-PC Hong Kong, Positions.
East Asia Cultures Critique, 8, 1, pp. 20133.
Law, Wing Sang (2006) The Violence of time and memory undercover: Hong Kongs Infernal
Affairs Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 7, 3, pp. 381400.
Lawson, Stephanie (1996) Tradition versus democracy in the South Pacifc: Fiji, Tonga, and Western
Samoa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leavis, Frank Raymond (1930) Mass Civilization and Minority, London: Heffer.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 241 3/5/09 12:44:05 PM
Bibliography 242

Lee, Gregory Benjamin (ed.) (1993) Chinese Writing and Exile, Chicago: Centre for East Asian
Studies, University of Chicago.
Lee, Ka Kui (1991) Yichang shen huo shangdai da zhenglun - zaoqim laihau xinjiao jiaoshi duiyu
God yici da fanyi yu jieshi (18071877) (Controversies over the term Shen or Shangdi: Early
Protestant Missionaries Translation and Interpretation of the term God. unpublished MPhil
Thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Lee, Leo Ou Fan (1971) Wo dui zhong wen da xue de guan gan i (My Impressions of CUHK),
Nanbeiji, 18, pp. 103.
Lee, Leo Ou Fan (1994) On the Margins of Chinese Discourse: Some Personal Thoughts on
the Cultural Meaning of the Periphery in Tu, Wei Ming (ed.) (1994) The Living Tree: the
Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Lee, Leo Ou Fan (1995) Xiang gang wen hua de bian yuan xing chu tan (A Preliminary Exploration
of the Marginality of Hong Kong Culture), Today Literary Magazine, 28, pp. 7580.
Lee, Leo Ou Fan (1999) Shanghai Modern: the Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930
1945, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University.
Lee, Vicky (2004) Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides, Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press.
Legge, James (1859) The Land of Sinim: A Sermon Preached in the Tabernacle, Moorfelds, at the Sixty-
Fifth Anniversary of the London Missionary Society, London: John Snow.
Legge, James (1971) The Colony of Hong Kong, China Review (1874), Vol. 3, reprinted in Journal
of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 11, pp. 17293.
Lei, Haizong (1936) Duandai wenti yu Zhongguo lishi di fenqi (The Problem of Periodization and
the Division of Chinese History), in Zun Peng Bao, et al. (eds.) Zhongguo Jindaishi Luncong,
Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju,, pp. 271305.
Lethbridge, Henry J. (1970) Hong Kong Cadets, 18621941, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society, 10, pp. 368.
Lethbridge, Henry J. (1972) The Evolutions of a Chinese Voluntary Association in Hong Kong:
The Po Leung Kuk, Journal of Oriental Studies, 1972, 10.
Lethbridge, Henry J. (1973) A Chinese Association in Hong Kong, the Tung Wah, Asian Studies,
1, 10, pp. 14458.
Lethbridge, Henry J. (1978) Hong Kong: Stability and Change: A Collection of Essays, Hong Kong:
Oxford University Press.
Leung, Fung Yee (1990) Zui hong chen (Drunk in the Red Dust), Hong Kong: Qinjiayuan Press.
Leung, Fung Yee (1992) Ren ren you lei bu qing dan (Nobody Sheds Easy Tears), Hong Kong:
Qinjiayuan.
Leung, Ka Keun, et al. (2001) Bao dong mi xin (The Secrets of the Riots), Hong Kong: ET Press.
Leung, Wing Sze (1997) The Historical Formation of Bilingual Intellectual Identity in Hong Kong: The
Case of Language Educational Policy, Paper presented at The Third International Conference
on Cultural Criticisms: Culture, Media and the Public, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong, Hong Kong, 812, January.
Leung, Yuen Sang (1983) Some Found It, Some Lost It Legge and the Three Chinese Boys
from Malacca, Asian Culture, 1, pp. 559.
Leung, Yuen Sang (1988) Shijiu shiji mo xinjiapo de ruxue yundong (The Confucianism Movement
in the Nineteenth Century), Asian Culture, 11, pp. 313.
Levenson, Joseph R. (19581964) Confucian China and its Modern Fate, London: Routledge and
Paul.
Levenson, Joseph R. (1959) Liang Chi Chao and the Mind of Modern China, Berkeley: University
of California Press.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 242 3/5/09 12:44:05 PM
Bibliography 243

Lewis, Oscar (1959) Five Families, New York: Basic Books.
Li, Changfu (1937) Zhongguo zhi min shi (History of Chinese Colonialism), Shanghai: Shang Wu Yin
Shu Guan (Commercial Press).
Li, Dajia (1986) Min guo chu nian de lian sheng zi zhi yun dong (The Federal Self-government
Movement in the Early Republic), Taipei: Hong wen guan chu ban she.
Li, Huoren (1973) Min zu xing shi wen yi lun zheng (The Debates on National Forms in Literature
and Art), Wenjin, 1.
Li, Jinxi (ed.) (1924) Xin zhu guo yu wen fa (New Grammar of National Language), Shanghai: Shang
wu yin shu guan.
Li, Jinwei (1948) Xianggang bainian shi (Centenary History of Hong Kong), Hong Kong: Nan zhong
bian yi chu ban she.
Li, Jiannong (1956) Zhongguo jin bai nian zheng zhi shi (Chinese Political History of the Last Hundred
Years), Taipei: Commercial Press.
Li, Jiayuan (1989) Xiang gang bao ye za tan (Hong Kong Newspapers), Hong Kong: Joint Publishing
Co.
Li, Siu Leung (1997) Bei jin xiang xiang de duan xiang (Fragments of Thinking on Northbound
Imaginary), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai: dang
dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary Hong
Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 103-13.
Li, Yuanjin (1991) Lin wen qing de si xiang: Zhong xi wen hua de hui liu yu mao dun (The thought of
Lim Boon Keng: convergency and contradiction between Chinese and western culture), Singapore:
Singapore Asian Studies Society.
Li, Yuanjin (2001) Dong xi wen hua de zhuang ji yu Xin Hua zhi shi fen zi de san zhong hui ying: Qiu
Shuyuan, Lin Wenqing, Song Wangxiang de bi jiao yan jiu (Responding to Eastern and Western
Cultures in Singapore: A Comparative Study of Khoo Seok Wan, Lim Bong Keng and Song Ong
Siang), Singapore: Department of Chinese, Singapore National University.
Liang, Qichao (1900) Zhongguo jiruo suyuan lun (On the Source of Chinas Weakness, in Collected
Essays from the Ice-Drinkers Studio, Shanghai: Zhonghua shu ju, vol. 2, coll. 5, pp. 1242.
Liang, Qichao (1901) Zhongguoshi xulun (A Systematic Discussion of Chinese History), in Zhi
Jun Lin(ed.) Yinbingshi wenji (Collected Essays from an Ice-Drinkers Studio), Taipei: Taiwan
Zhonghua shuju, 3, pp. 112.
Liang, Qichao (1902) Xinshixue (New History), in Zhijun Lin (ed.) Yinbingshi wenji (Collected
Essays from an Ice-Drinkers Studio), Taipei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 4, pp. 133.
Liang, Qichao (1904) Zhongguo zhi min ba da wei ren zhuan (Biographies of eight famous Chinese
colonizers), Xin Min Ye Bao, 3, 15.
Liang, Qichao (1959) Wuxu zhengbian ji (A History of the Coup detat of 1898), Taipei: Zhonghua.
Liang, Qichao (1985) Xin da lu you ji (Travel Notes of the New Continent), Chang Sha: Yue Lu.
Liao, Kuang Sheng (1984) Antiforeignism and Modernization in China, 18601980. Linkage between
Domestic Polities and Foreign Policy, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Lie, John (1997) Rummaging through the Dustbin of History, Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars, 29, 4, pp. 667.
Lim, Linda Y.C. and L.A. Peter Gosling (eds.) (1983) The Chinese in Southeast Asia, Singapore and
Ann Arbor: Maruzen and University of Michigan, Centre for South and Southeast Asian
Studies.
Lin, Angel M.Y. (2005) Critical, Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Language-in-Education
Policy and Practice in Postcolonial Contexts: The Case of Hong Kong in Angel M.Y. Lin
& Peter Martin (eds.) Decolonization, Globalization. Language-in-education Policy and Practice,
Toronto: Multilingual Matters, pp. 3854.
Lin, Yusheng (1979) The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical Antitraditionalism in the May
Fourth Era, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 243 3/5/09 12:44:05 PM
Bibliography 244

Lin, Zixun (1976) Zhongguo liu xue jiao yu shi: 18471975 (History of Chinese Students Studying
Abroad: 18471975), Taipei: Huagang chu ban.
Liu, Jixuan and Shicheng Shu (1990) Zhonghua Min Zu Tuo Zhi Nanyang Shi (History of Colonization
of Southeast Asia by the Chinese), Shanghai: Shanghai Shu Dian.
Liu, Kwang-ching (1960) Early Christian Colleges in China, Journal of Asian Studies, 20, 1, pp.
718.
Liu, Kwang-ching (1963) Americans and Chinese: A Historical Essay and A Bibliography, Cambridge,
Liu, Kwang-ching (ed.) (1966) American Missionaries in China: Papers from Harvard Seminars.,
Liu, Kwang-ching (1967) Li Hung Chang in Chihli: the Emergence of a Policy, 18701875, in
Albert Feuerwerker, et al. (eds.) Approaches to Modern Chinese History, Berkeley: University
Liu, Kwang-ching (1968) Nineteenth-century China: the Disintegration of the Old Order
and the Impact of the West, in Ping-ti Ho and Tang Tsou (eds.) China in Crisis, Chicago:
Liu, Kwang-ching (1970) The Confucian as Patriot and Pragmatist: Li Hung-changs Formative
Years, 18231866, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30, pp. 1422.
Liu, Kwang-ching (1976) Politics, Intellectual Outlook and Reform: the Tung-wen Kuan
Controversy of 1867, in Paul A. Cohen and J. E. Schrecker (eds.) Reform in Nineteenth
Century China, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Liu, Lydia He. (1995) Translingual practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity
- China, 19001937, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Liu, Shu Yong (1997) Hong Kong: A survey of its political and economic development over the
past 150 years, China Quarterly, 151, p. 583.
Liu, Tailong (1980) Guan yu ming zu xing shi lun zheng (On Debates of National Forms), Xue
Shu Lun Tan, 3.
Liu, Tailong (1981) Shi tan ming zu xing shi lun zheng de ping jia zhong de ji ge wen ti (Exploring
Several Questions Regarding the Evaluation of the National Forms Debate), Zhong guo xian
dai wen xue yan jiu cong kan (Studies in Modern Chinese Literature Series, 1.
Liu, Yaoquan (1988) Zhong guo xue sheng zhou bao hui gu (Chinese Students Weekly in
Retrospect), Bo Yi Yue Kan, 14.
Lo, Chi Kin (ed.) (1984) Min zhu Xianggang tan suo (In Search of a Democratic Hong Kong)., Hong
Kong: Twilight Books.
Lo, Hsiang Lin (1961) Xianggang yu Zhong xi wen hua zhi jiao liu (Hong Kong and Cultural
Exchanges Between the East and the West), Hong Kong: Zhongguo xue she.
Lo, Wai Luen (1981) The literary activities of Chinese writers in Hong Kong, 19371941. unpublished
MPhil thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Lo, Wai Luen (1983) Xiangang de Youyu (Hong Kongs Melancholy), Hong Kong: Huafeng
Bookstore.
Lo, Wai Luen (1987a) Kang ri shi qi xianggang de wen yi huo dong (Cultural Activities in Hong Kong
during the Anti-Japanese War), Hong Kong: S.n.
Lo, Wai Luen (1987b) Xianggang wen zong : Nei di zuo jia nan lai ji qi wen hua huo dong (Traces
of Hong Kong Literature: The Southward Migration of Mainland Writers and their Cultural
Activities), Hong Kong: Hua Han.
Lo, Wai Luen (1996a) Xianggang gu shi: ge ren hui yi yu wen xue si kao (Hong Kong Story: Personal
Memoir and the Thinking on Literature), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Lo, Wai Luen (1996b) Xiang gang wen xue yan jiu de ji ge wen ti (A few Questions of Hong Kong
Literary Studies), in Wai Luen Lo (ed.) Xianggang gu shi: ge ren hui yi yu wen xue si kao (Hong
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 244 3/5/09 12:44:05 PM
Bibliography 245

Kong Story: Personal Memoir and the Thinking on Literature), Hong Kong: Oxford University
Press, pp. 12945.
Lo, Wai Luen (1996c) Qing nian de dao hang zhe. cong zhong xue sheng zhou bao (Guides of the
Youth. From Secondary School Students to Chinese Students Weekly, in Wai Luen Lo (ed.)
Xianggang gu shi: ge ren hui yi yu wen xue si kao (Hong Kong Story: Personal Memoir and the
Thinking on Literature), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 4653.
Lobscheid, W. (1859) Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of
Hong Kong, Hong Kong: China Mail Offce.
Lodwick, Kathleen L. (1996) Crusaders Against Opium: Protestant Missionaries in China, 1874
1917, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
Loomba, Ania (1991) Overworlding the Third Word, in P. Williams and L. Chrisman (eds.)
Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, New York: Columbia University Press.
Lu, Danlin (1939) Shanghai ren yan zhong de xiang gang (Hong Kong in the eyes of the
Shanghainese), in Wai Luen Lo (ed.) Xiangang de Youyu (Hong Kong Melancholy), Hong
Kong: Huafeng Bookstore, pp. 14347.
Ludden, David (1993) Orientalist Empiricism: Transformations of Colonial Knowledge
in Breckenridge Carol A. and Peter van der Veer (1993) Orientalism and the Postcolonial
Predicament. Perspectives on South Asia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp.
25078.
Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry (1906) Political Memoranda, Revision of Instructions to Political
Offcers on Subjects Chiefy Political and Administrative 19131918, London: F. Cass.
Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry (1910) Hong Kong University: Objects, History, Present Position and
Prospects, with appendices containing estimates of revenue and expenditure, and plans of buildings,
etc., Hong Kong: Noronha.
Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry (1914) Education in the Colony and Southern Provinces of Nigeria,
Lagos: S.n.
Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry (1923) Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa,
Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry (1928) Hong Kong University as An Imperial Asset, Hong Kong:
South China Morning Post.
Lui, Tai Lok and Stephen W. K. Chiu (2000) Introduction Changing Political Opportunities
and the Shaping of Collective Action Social Movements in Hong Kong, in Tai Lok Lui and
Stephen W. K. Chiu (eds.) The Dynamics of Social Movement in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press,, pp.
Lui, Tai Lok and Stephen W. K. Chiu (2000) Introduction Changing Political Opportunities
and the Shaping of Collective Action: Social Movements in Hong Kong, in Tai Lok Lui and
Stephen W. K. Chiu (eds.) The Dynamics of Social Movement in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong
Lui, Tai Lok and Thomas W.P. Wong (1992) From One Brand of Politics to One Brand of Political
Culture, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacifc Studies, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong.
Luk, Bernard Hung Kay (1991) Chinese Culture in the Hong Kong Curriculum, Comparative
Education Review, 35, 4, pp. 65068.
Lun, Alice Ngai Ha (1967) Educational Policy and the Public Response in Hong Kong, unpublished
MA Thesis, University of Hong Kong.
Luo, Xiesong (1972) Liu Shu Xian xiang sheng yu tang guo (Mr. Liu Shusheng and Candies),
Panku, 47, pp. 7983.
Lutz, Jessie Gregory (1971) China and the Christian colleges, 18501950, Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 245 3/5/09 12:44:06 PM
Bibliography 246

Lutz, Jessie Gregory (1987) The Missionary-Diplomat Karl Gutzlaff and the Opium War, in
Proceedings of the First International Symposium on church and State in China: Past and Present,
Taipei: Department of History, Tamkang University.
Ma, Eric Kit Wai (2001) Dian shi bu si (Television will not die), in Chun Hung Ng and Chi Wai
Cheung (eds.) Yue du xiang gang pu ji wen hua (Reading Hong Kong Popular Culture), Hong
Ma, Jianzhong (1898) Ma shi wen tong (Mas General Linguistic), Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu
guan.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1835) Minute on Indian Education, in T. Pinney and J. Clive
(eds.) Thomas Babington Macaulay, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 23751.
Mackie, J.A.C. (1989) Chinese Businessmen and the Rise of Southeast Asian Capitalism,
Solidarity (Manila), 123, Special Issue on the Chinese in Southeast Asia.
MacKinnon, Stephen R. (1973) The Peiyang Army, Yuan Shikai, and the origins of Modern
Chinese Warlordism, Journal of Asian Studies, 32, pp. 40523.
MacKinnon, Stephen R. (1980) Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shikai in Beijing and
in Tianjin 19011908, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mamdani, Mahmood (1996) Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late
Colonialism, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Mangan, J. A. (1985) The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal,
Harmondsworth: Viking.
Mangan, J. A. (ed.) (1988) Benefts Bestowed? Education and British Imperialism., Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Mannoni, Octave (1990) Prospero and Caliban: the Psychology of Colonization, Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Mao, Dun (1948) Za tan fang yan wen xue (A Few Thoughts on Dialect Literature), in Kai Chi
Wong, et al. (eds.) Guo gong nei zhan shi qi Xianggang wen xue zi liao xuan: 19451949 (Research
Materials of Hong Kong Literature in the KMT-CCP Civil War), Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu,,
pp. 11014.
Mao, Zedong (1920) Hunan shou Zhongguozhi lei yi lishi ji xianzhuang zhengmingzhi (Hunan is
Burdened by China: Historical and Contemporary Evidence), in Mao Zedong wenxian
ziliao yanjiuhui (ed.) Mao Zedongji bujuan (Supplementary Volumes to Mao Zedongs Collected
Writings), Tokyo: Zozosha, vol. 1., pp. 2257.
Mao, Zedong (1920) Hunan jianshe wentidi genben wenti Hunan gongheguo (The Basic Issue
in Hunans Reconstruction The Republic of Hunan), in Mao Zedong wenxian ziliao
yanjiuhui (ed.) Mao Zedonji bujuan (Supplementary Volumes to Mao Zedongs Collected Writings,
Tokyo: Zozosha, vol. 1., pp. 2179.
Mao, Zedong (1920) You hunan geming zhengfu zhaoji Hunan renmin xianfa huiyi zhiding
Hunan xianfa yi jianshe Xin Hunan zhi jianyi (Proposal for the Revolutionary
Government of Hunan to Convene a Hunan Peoples Constitutional Convention to
Enact a Hunan Constitution in order to Establish a New Hunan), in Mao Zedong
wenxian ziliao yanjiuhui (ed.) Mao Zedonji bujuan (Supplementary Volumes to Mao Zedongs
Collected Writings, Tokyo: Zozosha, vol. 1., pp. 23945.
Mao, Zedong (1938) The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War, in Selected
Works, New York: International Publishers.
Mao, Zedong (1939) xin min zhu zhu yi lun (On New Democracy), in Mao Tse-tung hsuan chi
(Collected Works of Mao Zedong, Beijing: Ren min chu pan she.
Martin, W.A.P. (1907) The Awakening of China, New York: Doubleday, Page and Company.
Mathews, Gordon (1996) Names and Identities in the Hong Kong Cultural Supermarket,
Dialectical Anthropology, 21, pp. 399419.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 246 3/5/09 12:44:06 PM
Bibliography 247

Mathews, Gordon (1997) Culture, State, and Market in the Shaping of Hong Kongs Chinese
Identity, The Hong Kong Anthropologist, 11, pp. 2246.
Mathews, Gordon (1997) Heunggongyahn: On the Past, Present, and Future of Hong Kong
Identity, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 29, 3, pp. 313.
Mathews, Gordon (1999) A Collision of Discourses. Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese during the
Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Crisis, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacifc Studies,
Chinese University of Hong Kong.
McCoed, Edward A. (1993) The Power of the Gun, the Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism,
McDonald, Angus W., Jr. (1976) Mao Tse-tung and the Hunan Self-government Movement,
1920: An Introduction and Five Translations, China Quarterly, 68, pp. 75177.
McNair, Harley Farnsworth (1925) The Chinese Abroad, Their Position and Protection: A Study in
International Law and Practice, Shanghai: Commercial Press.
Mei, June (1979) Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration: Guangdong to California, 18501882,
Modern China, 5, 4, pp. 463501.
Meisner, Maurice (1967) Li Ta-chao and the origins of Chinese Marxism, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Mellor, Bernard (1980) The University of Hong Kong. An Informal History, Hong Kong: Hong
Mellor, Bernard (1992) Lugard in Hong Kong. Empires, Education and a Governor at Work, 1907,
Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Memmi, Albert (1967) The Colonizer and the Colonized, Boston: Beacon Press.
Memmi, Albert (1968) Dominated Man: Notes Towards A Portrait, London: Orion Press.
Metzger, Thomas A. (1968) Review of Kenneth E. Folsom, Friends, Guests, and Colleagues: the
mu-fu System in the Late Ching Period, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 29, pp. 31520.
Metzger, Thomas A. (1973) The Internal Organization of Ching Bureaucracy: Legal, Normative, and
Communication Aspects, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies (1969) The Chinese Economy, ca. 18701911. Ann Arbor.
Miller, Stuart C. (1974) Ends and Means: Missionary Justifcation of Force in Nineteenth
Century China, in John K. Fairbank (ed.) The Missionary Enterprise in China and America,
Milne, R. G. (1843) Sinim: A Plea for China; A discourse Delivered in Providence Chapel, Whitehaven,
London: John Snow.
Min, Tu Ki (1989) National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of late Imperial China,
Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
Miners, N. J. (1975) The Government and Politics of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Oxford University
Press.
Miners, N. J. (1983) The Hong Kong Government Opium Monopoly, 19141941, The Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History, 11, 3, pp. 27599.
Mommsen, Wolfgang J. and Jurgen Osterhammel (eds.) (1986) Imperialism and After: Continuities
and Discontinuities, London: German Historical Institute.
Morris, Jan (1997) Hong Kong, London: Penguin Books.
Mou, Zongsan (1961) Zheng dao yu zhi dao (The Political Way and Governing Way), Taipei: Guang
wen shu ju.
Mu, Shiying (1938) Ying di guo de qian shao: xiang gang (The frontier of British Empire: Hong
Kong), Yu Zhou Feng, 61, pp. 8891.
Munn, Christopher (1999) The Criminal Trial Under Early Colonial Rule, in Tak-Wing Ngo
(ed.) Hong Kongs History. State and Society under Colonial Rule, London: Routledge.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 247 3/5/09 12:44:06 PM
Bibliography 248

Munn, Christopher (2000) The Hong Kong Opium Revenue, 18451885, in Timothy Brook
and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (eds.) Opium regimes : China, Britain, and Japan, 18391952,
Munn, Christopher (2000a) Colonialism in a Chinese atmosphere: the Caldwell affair and
the perils of collaboration in early colonial Hong Kong in Robert Bickers and Christian
Henriot (eds.) New Frontiers. Imperialisms New Communities in East Asia, 18421953, pp.
1237.
Munn, Christopher (2001) Anglo-China: Chinese people and British Rule in Hong Kong, 18411870,
London: Curzon Press.
Murphey, Rhoads (1970) The Treaty-Ports and Chinas Modernization: What Went Wrong? Ann
Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.
Murphey, Rhoads (1976) The Outsiders: the Western Experience in India and China, Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Nanbeiji (1971) Zhong wen da xue yu she hui liang xin (CUHK and Social Conscience), Nanbeiji,
1, 7 pp. 13
Nam Pak Hong (1979) The Nam Pak Hong Commercial Association of Hong Kong, Journal of
the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 19, pp. 21626.
Nandy, Ashis (1983) The Intimate Enemy, Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Neill, Stephen (1966) Colonialism and Christian Missions, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing
Co.
Ng, Chun Hung (2001) Xun zhao xiang gang ben tu yi shi (Searching Hong Kong Local
Consciousness), in Chun Hung Ng and Chi Wai Cheung (eds.) Yue du xiang gang pu ji wen
hua (Reading Hong Kong Popular Culture), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Ng, Chin Keong (1983) Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast, 16831735,
Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Ng, Lun Ngai Ha (1976) Development of Government Education for the Chinese in Hong Kong.
unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota.
Ng, Lun Ngai Ha (1983) The Role of Hong Kong Educated Chinese in the Shaping of Modern
China, Modern Asian Studies, 17, 1, pp. 13767.
Ng, Lun Ngai Ha (1984) Interactions of East and West. Development of Public Education in Early
Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Ng, Lun Ngai Ha (1985) The Making of a Revolutionary Hong Kong in the Shaping of Sun
Yat-sens Early Political Thought, The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, 16, pp. 11131.
Ng, Lun Ngai Ha (1986) Sun Zhongshan zai Gang Ao yu hai wai huo dong shi ji (Historical traces of
Sun Yat-sens activities in Hong Kong, Macao, and overseas), Canton: Zhongshan da xue Sun
Zhongshan yan jiu suo.
Ngo, Tak Wing (ed.) (1999) Hong Kongs History. State and Society under Colonial Rule, Asias
Transformations. London: Routledge.
Norton-Kyshe, James W. (1971) The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong from the Earliest
Period to 1898, Hong Kong: Vetch and Lee.
Nurullah, Syed and J. P. Naik (1951) A History of Education in India, Bombay: Macmillan.
Ortega y Gasset, Jose (1932) The Revolt of the Masses, New York: Norton.
Osterhammel, Jurgen (1997) Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Princeton: Marcus Wiener.
Ou, Qujia (1981) Xin Guangdong (New Guangdong), in Yufa Zhang (ed.) Wan Qing ge ming wen
xue (Revolutionary Literature in Late Qing), Taipei: Jing shi shu ju.
Ong, Aihwa & Donald M. Nonini (eds.) (1997) Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of
Modern Chinese Transnationalism, New York: Routledge.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 248 3/5/09 12:44:06 PM
Bibliography 249

Panku Editorial (1970) Declaration against Taiwan Independence, Panku, 31, p. 1.
Panku Editorial (1972) Declaration of War to all Devil and Demonic Opinions, Panku, 44, pp.
15.
Pan, Ling (ed.) (1998) Hai wai Hua ren bai ke quan shu (Encyclopedia of the Chinese overseas), Hong
Kong: Joint Publishing Co.
Pan, Zinian (1944) Lun wen yi de min zu xing shi (On National forms in Literature and the Arts),
Wen XueYue Bao (Literature Monthly), 1, 2.
Parry, Benita (1987) Problems in Current Theories of Colonial Discourse, Oxford Literary
Review, 9, 12, pp. 2758.
Parry, Benita (1994) Signs of Our Times: Discussion of Homi Bhabhas Location of Culture,
Third Text, 289, pp. 124.
Peck, James (1969) The Roots of Rhetoric: The Professional ideology of Americas China
Watchers, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 2, 1, pp. 5969.
Pelcovits, Nathan Albert (1948) Old China Hands and the Foreign Offce, New York: Octagon
Books.
Pennycook, Alastair (1994.) The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language, New
York: Longman.
Pennycook, Alastair (1998) English and the Discourses of Colonialism, New York: Routledge.
Perham, Margery Freda (1934) A Re-statement of Indirect Rule, Africa, 7, pp. 3213.
Perham, Margery Freda (1956) Lugard. The Years of Adventure, 18581898, Hamden, C.T.: Archon
Books.
Perham, Margery Freda (1968) Lugard. The Years of Authority, 18981945, Hamden, Connecticut:
Archon Books.
Petro, Patrice (1987) Modernity and Mass Culture in Weimar, New German Critique, 40, pp.
11546.
Pfster, Lauren F. (1990) Some New dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge
(18151897): Part 1, Sino-Western Cultural Relation (16th18th centuries), 12.
Pfster, Lauren F. (1991) Some New dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge
(18151897): Part 2, Sino-Western Cultural Relation (16th18th centuries), 12.
Pfster, Lauren F. (1993) Clues to the Life and Academic Achievements of One of the Most
Famous Nineteenth Century European Sinologist James Legge (A.D. 18151897), Journal
of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 30.
Pfster, Lauren F. (1998) The Legacy of James Legge, International Bulletin of Missionary Research,
22, 2, pp. 7782.
Pinney, Thomas and John Clive (eds.) (1972) Thomas Babington Macaulay. Selected Writings.,
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Pomerantz-Zhang, Linda (1984) The Chinese Bourgeoisie and the anti-Chinese Movement in
the United States, 18501905, Amerasia Journal, 11, 1, pp. 130.
Pomerantz-Zheng, Linda (1992) Wu Tingfang (18421922). Reform and Modernization in Modern
Chinese History, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Postiglione, G. A. and Julian Y. M. Leung (eds.) (1992) Education and Society in Hong Kong: Toward
One Country and Two Systems, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Ptak, Roderich and mar Rothermund (eds.) (1991) Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in
Asian Maritime Trade, C. 14001750, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Purcell, Victor (1936) Problems of Chinese Education, London: Kegan Paul.
Purcell, Victor (1965) The Chinese in Southeast Asia, London: Oxford University Press.
Qinjiayuan (1992) Hai xia liang an de liang feng yi (Leung Fung Yee in both Taiwan and Mainland),
Hong Kong: Qinjiayuan.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 249 3/5/09 12:44:06 PM
Bibliography 250

Qu, Qiubai (1932) Qu Qiubai xuan ji (Collected Works of Qu Qiu Bai), Hong Kong: Shen-chou tu
shu.
Rabushka, Alvin (1973) The Changing Face of Hong Kong: New Departures in Public Policy,
Washington, DC: American Enterprise for Public Policy Research.
Rabushka, Alvin (1979) Hong Kong: a study in economic freedom, Chicago: Graduate School of
Business, University of Chicago.
Reid, Anthony (1990) The Seventeenth Century Crisis in South-East Asia, Modern Asian
Studies, 24, pp. 6524.
Reid, Anthony (1996) Flows and Seepages in the Long-term Chinese Interaction with Southeast
Asia, in A. Reid (ed.) Sojourners and Settlers Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese,
Sydney: ASAA/Allen & Unwin.
Reischauer, Edwin O. (1955) Wanted: An Asian Policy, New York: Knopf.
Ren, Hai (1997) Xiang gang yu zhong guo da lu zhi jian de kua guo zi ben zhu yi (Cross-National
Capitalism Between Hong Kong and Mainland China), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.)
Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai: dang dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural
Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary Hong Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong:
Oxford University Press, pp. 127-50.
Ren, Jiyu (1958) Zhongguo jin dai si xiang shi lun wen ji (Collection of Essays on Modern Chinese
Thoughts), Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she.
Reynolds, Douglas R. (1993) China, 18981912. The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan, Cambridge,
Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
Rhoads, Edward J. M. (1975) Chinas Republican Revolution: The Case of Kwangtung, Cambridge:
Richard, Timothy (1916) Forty-fve Years in China: Reminiscences, New York: Frederick A.
Stokes.
Ride, Lindsay (1957) Robert Morrison: The Scholar and the Man, Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press.
Roach (1986) A History of Secondary Education in England, 18001870, London: Longman.
Roberts, Moss and David Horowitz (1971) Politics and Knowledge: An Unorthodox History
of Modern China Studies, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 3, 34, Special Supplement:
Modern China Studies, pp. 91168.
Robinson, Ronald (1972) Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for
a Theory of Collaboration, in Robert B. and Owen Sutcliffe, Edward Roger John (eds.)
Studies in the Theories of Imperialism, London: Longman.
Robinson, Ronald, et al. (1981) Africa and the Victorians: the Offcial Mind of Imperialism, London:
Macmillan Press.
Said, Edward (1989) Representing the Colonized: Anthropologys Interlocutors, Critical
Inquiry, 15, 2, pp. 20525.
Said, Edward (1993) Collaboration, Independence, and Liberation in Culture And Imperialism,
New York: Knopf.
Saneto, Keishu, et al. (1982) Zhongguo ren liu xue Riben shi, Hong Kong: Chinese University
Press.
Sang, Bing (1991) Wan Qing xue tang xue sheng yu she hui bian qian (Schools in Late Qing: Students
and Social Change), Taipei: dao he chu ban she.
Sang, Bing (1995) Qing mo xin zhi shi jie de she tuan yu huo dong (Communities and Activities of the
New Intelligentsia in Late Qing), Beijing: san lian shu dian.
Saunders, Frances Stonor (1999) Who paid the piper? : the CIA and the cultural Cold War, London:
Granta Books.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 250 3/5/09 12:44:07 PM
Bibliography 251

Sayer, G. R. (1937) Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Schiffrin, Harold (1968) Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution, Berkeley: University
Schiller, Herbert (1969) Mass Communications and American Empire, New York: A. M. Kelley.
Schiller, Herbert (1976) Communication and Cultural Domination, New York: International Arts
and Sciences Press.
Schlesinger, Arthur (1974) The Missionary Enterprise and Theories of Imperialism, in John K.
Fairbank (ed.) The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Schlyter, Herman (1946) Karl Gutzlaff, A Missionary in China, Copenhagen: C. W. K. Gleerup.
Schneider, Axel (1996) Between Dao and History: Two Chinese Historians in Search of A
Modern Identity for China, History and Theory, 35, 4, pp. 5473.
Schneider, Laurence A. (1971) Ku Chieh-kang and Chinas New History: Nationalism and the Quest
for Alternative Traditions, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schoppa, R. Keith (1977) Province and Nation: The Chekiang Provincial Autonomy Movement,
19171927, Journal of Asian Studies, 36, 4, pp. 661-74.
Schwartz, Benjamin (1964) In Search of Wealth and Power. Yen Fu and the West, Cambridge:
Scott, Ian (1989) Political Change and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Hong Kong, Hawaii: University of
Hawaii Press.
Seal, Anil (1968) The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Later
Nineteenth Century, London: Cambridge University Press.
Seton-Watson, Hugh (1977) Nations and States: An enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the
Politics of Nationalism, Boulder, CO.: Westview Press.
Seventies, The (ed.) (1971) Diaoyutai shi jian zhen xiang (The Truth of the Diaoyu Incident), Hong
Kong: The Seventies.
Shen, Sungchiao (1997) The Myth of Huang-ti (Yellow Emperor) and the Construction of
Chinese Nationhood in Late Qing, Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies, 28, pp.
177.
Shen, Sungchiao and Y. S. Sechin Chien (1999) Delimiting China: Discourses of Guomin and the
Construction of Chinese Nationality in Late Qing, The Conference on Nationalism: The East
Asia Experience, Academia Sinica, Taipei,
Sheridan, James E. (1975) China in Disintegration: The Republican Era in Chinese History, 1912
1949, New York: Free Press.
Shih, Shumei (1997) Bei jin xiang xiang de wen ti (Problems of Northbound Imaginary: Politics
of Cultural Identity in Hong Kong), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu
yi shi xing tai: dang dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology:
pp. 151-8.
Shin, Linda P. (1976) Wu Ting-fang: A Member of a Colonial Elite as Coastal Reformer, in P.
A. Cohen and J. E. Schrecker (eds.) Reform in Nineteenth Century China, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, pp. 265-71.
Shu, Xincheng (1927) Jin dai Zhongguo liu xue shi (History of Overseas Education in Modern Chinese),
Shanghai: Zhonghua shu ju.
Shum, Yat Fei (1968) The Origin of Panku Nianhua, Panku, 11, pp. 40-1.
Shum, Yat Fei (1968) Tai wan jue dui bu neng du li. cong chen ying zhen bei ju shi jian shuo qi
(Taiwan Can Never Go Independent), Panku, 18, pp. 19
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 251 3/5/09 12:44:07 PM
Bibliography 252

Sigel, Louis T. (1976) Foreign Policy Interests and Activities of the Treaty-Port Chinese
Community, in P. A. Cohen and J. E. Schrecker (eds.) Reform in Nineteenth-Century China,
New York: East Asian Research Centre, Harvard University, pp. 272-81.
Sinn, Elizabeth (1982) The Strike and Riot of 1884 - A Hong Kong Perspective, Journal of the
Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22, pp. 6598.
Sinn, Elizabeth (1982) Materials for Historical Research: Source Materials on the Tung Wah
Hospital, 18701941: The Case of a Historical Institution. The Hong Kong Studies Seminar
Program, the University of Hong Kong, 141. October, 1982
Sinn, Elizabeth (1989) Power and Charity: the Early History of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong:
Oxford University Press.
Sinn, Elizabeth (1990) A History of Regional Associations in Pre-War Hong Kong, in Elizabeth
Sinn (ed.) Between East and West. Aspects of Social and Political Development in Hong Kong,
Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.
Sinn, Elizabeth (1990) Between East and West: Aspects of Social and Political Development in Hong
Kong, Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.
Sinn, Elizabeth (1995) Emigration from Hong Kong before 1941: General Trends, in Ronald
Skeldon (ed.) Emigration from Hong Kong Tendencies and Impacts, Hong Kong: The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, pp. 1134.
Sinn, Elizabeth (1997) Xin Xi Guxiang: A Study of Regional Associations as a Bonding
Mechanism in the Chinese Diaspora. The Hong Kong Experience, Modern Asian Studies,
31, 2, pp. 375-97.
Siu, Helen (1993) Cultural Identity and the Politics of Difference in South China, Daedalus,
122, 2.
Smith, Carl (1970) The Chinese Settlement of British Hong Kong, Chung Chi Journal, 48, pp.
2632.
Smith, Carl (1971) The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong, Journal of the Hong Kong
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 11, pp. 74115.
Smith, Carl (1975) English-Educated Chinese elites in Nineteenth-Century Hong Kong, in
Marjorie Topley (ed.) Hong Kong, the Interactions of Traditions and Life in the Towns, Hong
Kong: Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 6596.
Smith, Carl (1981) The Chinese Church, Labour, Elites and the Mui Tsai Question in the 1920s,
Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 21, pp. 91113.
Smith, Carl (1985) Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong, Hong
Smith, Carl (1995) A Sense of History: Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishing Co.
Smith, Richard J. (1976) Foreign Training and Chinas Self-Strengthening: the Case of Feng-
Huang-shan, 18641873, Modern Asian Studies, 10, 1, pp. 83111.
Smith, Simon C. (1998) British Imperialism, 17501970, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
So, Kwan Sai (1950) Western Infuence and the Chinese Reform Movement of 1898. unpublished PhD
dissertation, University of Wisconsin.
Song, Ong Siang (1984) One hundred years history of the Chinese in Singapore, Singapore: Oxford
University Press.
Spelman, Douglas G. (1969) Christianity in Chinese: The Protestant Term Question, Papers on
China, 22A, pp.
Spence, Jonathan D. (1969) The China Helpers: Western Advisers in China, 16201920, London:
Bodley Head.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 252 3/5/09 12:44:07 PM
Bibliography 253

Spence, Jonathan D. (1974) The American Missionary Endeavour, 18301910, in Z. Bowers
and Elizabeth F. Purcell (eds.) Medicine and Society in China, New York: Josiah Macy, Jr.
Foundation.
Spurr, David (1993) The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and
Imperial Administration, London: Duke University Press.
Steinberg, David Joel (1987) In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History, Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press.
Stewart, Frederick (1866) Report of the Headmaster and Inspector of Schools for 1865, Hong
Kong Government Gazette, pp.
Stokes, Gwenneth (1962) Queens College, 18621962, Hong Kong: S.n.
Su, Xiaokang and Luxiang Wang (1988) He shang (River Elegy), Hong Kong: Zhongguo tu shu
kan xing she.
Sun, Yat-sen (1923) Geming sixiang zhi chansheng (The Birth of Revolutionary Thought), in Yat
Sen Sun (ed.) Guo fu quan ji (Complete Works of Sun Yat Sen), Taipei: Zhongguo guo min dang
zhong yang wei yuan hui dang shi wei yuan hui.
Sun, Yat-sen (1973) Guo fu quan ji (Complete Works of Sun Yat Sen), Taipei: Zhongguo guo min
dang zhong yang wei yuan hui dang shi wei yuan hui.
SUNA (ed.) (1974) Xin Ya shu yuan er shi wu zhou nian ji nian te kan (A Special for the 25 Anniversary
of New Asia College), Hong Kong: Student Union, New Asia College, CUHK.
Suryadinata, Leo (ed.) (1995) Southeast Asian Chinese and China. The Politico-Economic Dimension,
Singapore: Times Academic Press.
Sutcliffe, Robert B. and Edward R. J. Owen (eds.) (1972) Studies In the Theory of Imperialism,
London: Longman.
Sutton, Donald S. (1980) Provincial Militarism and the Chinese Republic: the Yunnan Army, 190525,
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Sweeting, Anthony (1990) Controversy Over the Re-Opening of The University of Hong Kong,
19421948, in Elizabeth Sinn (ed.) Between East and West. Aspects of Social and Political
Development in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong
Kong.
Sweeting, Anthony (1990) Education in Hong Kong, Pre-1841 to 1941, Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press.
Sweeting, Anthony (1992) Hong Kong Education within Historical Processes, in G. A. and
Leung Postiglione, Julian Y. M. (ed.) Education and Society in Hong Kong. Toward One Country
and Two Systems, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Sweeting, Anthony (1993) A Phoenix Transformed: The Reconstruction of Education in Post-War
Hong Kong., Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Swingewood, Alan (1977) The Myth of Mass Culture, London: Macmillan.
Tam, Man Kei (1997) Mei you mo sheng ren de shi jie (The World without Strangers: The Global
Map of Giordano), in Stephen Ching-kiu Chan (ed.) Wen hua xiang xiang yu yi shi xing tai:
dang dai Xianggang wen hua zheng zhi lun ping (Cultural Imaginary and Ideology: Contemporary
Hong Kong Culture and Politics Review), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press,, pp. 89102.
Tambiah, S. J. (1986) Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, Chicago:
Tan, Bian (1956) Wan qing de bai hua wen yun dong (Baihua Movement in Late Qing), Wuhan: Hubei
ren min chu ban she.
Tan, Kah Kee (1994) Nan qiao hui yi lu (The Memoirs of Tan Kah Kee), Taipei: Long wen chu ban
she.
Tang, Chun-I (1974) Shuo Zhonghua min zu zhi hua guo piao ling (The Dispersing Flowers and The
Withering Fruits of the Chinese Nation), Taipei: San min shu ju.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 253 3/5/09 12:44:07 PM
Bibliography 254

Tang, Chun-I (1981) Xin ya de guo qu xian zai yu jiang lai (The Past, Present and Future of New
Asia College), in Xin Ya yan jiu suo (ed.) Xin ya jiao yu (New Asia Education), Hong Kong:
Xin Ya yan jiu suo.
Tang, Xiaobing (1996) Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: the Historical
Thinking of Liang Qichao, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Tate, D.J.M. (1979) The Making of Modern South-East Asia, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University
Press.
Taussig, Michael (1992) Culture of Terror, Space of Death in Dirks, Nicholas B. (ed.) Colonialism
and Culture, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 135-73.
Taylor, W. C. (1835) On the Present State and Future Prospects of Oriental Literature, viewed
in connexion with the Royal Asiatic Society: read 6th December 1834, Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2, pp. 89.
Teng, Ssu Yu and John K. Fairbank (1954) Chinas Response to the West. A Documentary Survey,
18391923, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Thomas, Nicolas (1994) Colonialisms Culture: Anthropology, Travel, and Government, Cambridge:
Polity.
Thornton, A. P. (1959) The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies: A Study in British Power, London:
Macmillan Press.
Ting, Joseph Sun Pao (1989) Xianggang zaoqi zhi huaren shehui, 18411870 (Early Chinese community
in Hong Kong, 18411870). unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong.
Tomlinson, John (1991) Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction, New York: Pinter Publisher.
Townsend, James (1992) Chinese Nationalism, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 27, pp.
97130.
Trocki, Carl A. (1990) Opium and empire: Chinese society in colonial Singapore, 18001910, Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
Trocki, Carl A. (1999) Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy A Study of the Asian Opium
Trade 17501950, London: Routledge.
Tsai, Jungfang (1975) Comprador Ideologists in Modern China: Ho Kai (Ho Chi. 18591914) and
Hu Lin-Yuan (18471916). unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California at Los
Angeles.
Tsai, Jungfang (1978) Syncretism in the Reformist Thought of Ho Kai (Ho Chi, 18591914) and
Hu Li-yuan (18471916), Asian Profle, 6, 1, pp. 1933.
Tsai, Jungfang (1981) The Predicament of the Comprador Ideologists, Modern China, 7, 2, pp.
191225.
Tsai, Jungfang (1984) The 1884 Hong Kong Insurrection: Anti-Imperialist Popular Protest
During the Sino-French War, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 16, 1, pp. 214.
Tsai, Jungfang (1993) Hong Kong in Chinese History. Community and Social Unrest in the British
Colony, 18421913, New York: Columbia University Press.
Tsai, Jungfang (1994) From Antiforeignism to Popular Nationalism: Hong Kong Between China
and Britain, 18391911, in Ming Kou Chan (ed.) Precarious Balance: Hong Kong Between China
and Britain, 18421992, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, pp. 926.
Tsai, Jungfang (2001) Xianggang ren zhi Xianggang shi, 18411945 (The Hong Kong peoples history
of Hong Kong, 18411945), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Tsang, Steve Y.S. (ed.) (1995) Government and Politics. A Documentary History of Hong Kong:
Government and Politics, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Tse, Tsantai (1924) The Chinese Republic. Secret History of the Chinese Revolution, Hong Kong:
SCMP.
Tseng, Marquis Jize (1887) China. The Sleep and the Awakening, Asiatic Quarterly Review, 3,
pp. 110.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 254 3/5/09 12:44:07 PM
Bibliography 255

Tsien, Tsuen Hsuin (1954) Western Impact on China through Translation, Far Eastern Quarterly,
13, pp. 30527.
Tu, Wei Ming (ed.) (1991) The Triadic Chord: Confucian Ethics, Industrial East Asia and Max Weber:
Proceedings of the 1987 Singapore Conference on Confucian Ethics and the Modernisation of
Industrial East Asia, Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies.
Tu, Wei Ming (ed.) (1994) The Living Tree: the Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Tu, Wei Ming (1999) Wen hua Zhongguo de ren zhi yu guan huai (The Understanding and Care of
Cultural China), Taibei Xian Banqiao Shi, Taiwan: Dao xiang chu ban she.
Tu, Yangci (1939) Ji huai shanghai (My passion to Shanghai), in Wai Luen Lo(ed.) Xiangang de
Youyu (Hong Kongs Melancholy), Hong Kong: Huafeng Bookstore,, pp. 157-60.
Tu, Yangci (1941) Ou zhan bian dong zhong de xiang gang (Hong Kong in the European War), Yu
Zhou Feng, 104, pp. 2256
Tung-yueh-fou-sheng (1922) Chen Jiongming li shi (History of Chen Jiongming), S.l.: Chung cheng
hsueh she.
Turnbull, C. M. (1984) Sir Cecil Clementi and Malaya: The Hong Kong Connection, Journal of
Oriental Studies, 22, 1, pp. 3360.
Uchida, Naosaku (1959) The Overseas Chinese, Stanford: Hoover Institution, Stanford
University.
Unger, Jonathan (ed.) (1996) Chinese Nationalism, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Vines, Stephen (1998) Hong Kong. Chinas New Colony, London: Aurum Press.
Viswanathan, Gauri (1987) The Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India, Oxford
Literary Review, 9, 12, pp. 226.
Viswanathan, Gauri (1990) Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India, London:
Faber and Faber.
von Gumpach, Baron Johannes (1872) The Burlingame Mission: A Political Disclosure, Shanghai:
S.n.
Waldron, Arthur (1991) The Warlord: Twentieth-Century Chinese Understandings of Violence,
Militarism, and Imperialism, American Historical Review, 96, 4, pp. 1073100.
Wang, Ching Yu (1984) Birth of a Chinese Bourgeoisie: A Tentative Discussion, Chinese Studies
in History, 17, 4, pp. 2748.
Wang, Ermin (1966) Shangzhan guannian yu zhongshang sixiang (The idea of commercial warfare
and the importance attached to commerce), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan,
5, pp. 191.
Wang, Ermin (1969) Wan Qing zheng zhi si xiang shi lun (Studies on the History of Political Thought
in Late Ching Times), Taipei: Taiwan xue sheng shu ju.
Wang, Ermin (1977) Zhongguo jin dai si xiang shi lun (Essays on Modern Chinese Thoughts), Taipei:
Hua shi chu ban she.
Wang, Ermin (1977) Zhongguo mingcheng suyuan ji qi jindai quan shi (The Origins of the Name of
China and its Modern Interpretations), Taipei: Hua shi chu ban she.
Wang, Fengjie (1979) Zhongguo jiao yu shi (History of Education in China), Taipei: Guo li bian yi
guan.
Wang, Gungwu (1981a) The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca, 14031405,
in Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese, Singapore: ASAA/
Heinemann, pp. 8196.
Wang, Gungwu (1981b) China and Southeast Asia, 14021424, in Community and Nation: Essays
on Southeast Asia and the Chinese, Singapore: ASAA/Heinemann, pp. 5896.
Wang, Gungwu (1981c) Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese,
Singapore: ASAA/Heinemann.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 255 3/5/09 12:44:08 PM
Bibliography 256

Wang, Gungwu (1985) External China as a New Policy Area, Pacifc Affairs, 58, 1, pp. 2843.
Wang, Gungwu (1989) Lu Xun, Lim Boon Keng and Confucianism. Papers on Far Eastern History.
Australian National University.39, 7591.
Wang, Gungwu (1991) China and the Chinese Overseas, Singapore: Times Academic Press.
Wang, Gungwu (1995) The Southeast Asian Chinese and the Development of China, in
Leo Suryadinata (ed.) Southeast Asian Chinese and China. The Politico-Economic Dimension,
Singapore: Times Academic Press.
Wang, Hui (1997) Local Form, Dialects and the Discussion on National Form in the War of
Resistance Against Japan, in Wang Hui zi xuan ji (Wang Hui: Self-selected Essays), Kwangsi:
Kwangsi Normal University Press.
Wang, Hui (1998) Local Forms, Vernacular Dialects and the War of Resistance Against Japan:
The National Forms Debate. Part 1, UTS Review, 4, 1, pp. 2541.
Wang, Hui (1998) Local Forms, Vernacular Dialects and the War of Resistance Against Japan:
The National Forms Debate. Part 2, UTS Review, 4, 2, pp. 2756.
Wang, Jingwei (1905) Minzudi guomin (Citizens of a Nation), in Nan Zhang and Renzhi Wang
(eds.) Xin hai ge ming qian shi nian jian shi lun xuan ji (A collection of Discussions of Issues in the
Ten Years before the 1911 Revolution), Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian (1962), pp. 82114.
Wang, Mei Ling T. (1999) The Dust That Never Settles: The Taiwan Independence Campaign and U.S.-
China Relations, Lanham: University Press of America.
Wang, Y. C. (1966) Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 18721949, Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
Ward, Barbara E. (1954) A Hong Kong Fishing Village, Journal of Oriental Studies, 1, 1, pp.
195214.
Wardle, David (1976) English Popular Education, 17801975, Cambridge: University Press.
Warren, Bill (1980) Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism, London: New Left Books.
Watson, Rubie (1985) Inequality Among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Susanne (1996) On Shi and Lun: Toward a Typology of Historiography
in the PRC, 35, 4, pp. 7495.
Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, Susanne (1996) Introduction, History and Theory, 35, 4, pp. 14.
Welsh, Frank (1994) A History of Hong Kong, London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Wesley-Smith, Peter Anti-Chinese Legislation in Hong Kong in Ming K. Chan (ed.) (1994)
Precarious Balance: Hong Kong Between China and Britain, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.
White, Lynn and Cheng Li (1993) China Coast Identities: Regional, National, and Global, in
Lowell Dittmer and Samuel Kim (eds.) Chinas Quest for National Identity, London: Cornell
University Press.
Whitehead, Clive (1988) British Colonial Education Policy: A Synonym for Cultural
Imperialism? in J. A. Mangan (ed.) Benefts Bestowed? Education and British Imperialism,
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Wong, Chia Lok (1996) Xianggang Zhong wen jiao yu fa zhan shi (A History of the Development of
Chinese Education in Hong Kong), Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co.
Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (1996) Xianggang wen xue da shi nian biao (19481969) (Chronology of Hong
Kong Literary Activities), Hong Kong: Humanities Research Institute, CUHK.
Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (eds.) (1998) Zhui ji Xianggang wen xue (Searching Hong Kong Literature),
Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu.
Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (eds.) (1998) Zao qi Xianggang xin wen xue zi liao xuan: 19271941 (Research
Materials of the Early Hong Kong New Literature), Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu., pp.
Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (eds.) (1998) Zao qi Xianggang xin wen xue zuo pin xuan, 19271941 (Collection
of Works of the Early Hong Kong New Literature), Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 256 3/5/09 12:44:08 PM
Bibliography 257

Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (eds.) (1999) Guo gong nei zhan shi qi Xianggang ben di yu nan lai wen ren zuo
pin xuan: 19451949 (Collection of works by Hong Kongs Local and South-settled Writers in the
KMT-CCP Civil War, 19451949), Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu.
Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (eds.) (1999) Guo gong nei zhan shi qi Xianggang wen xue zi liao xuan: 1945
1949 (Research Materials of Hong Kong Literature in the KMT-CCP Civil War), Hong Kong:
Tian di tu shu.
Wong, Kai Chi, et al. (1999) Editors Report, in Guo gong nei zhan shi qi Xianggang wen xue zi liao
xuan: 19451949 (Research Materials of Hong Kong Literature in the KMT-CCP Civil War), Hong
Kong: Tian di tu shu, pp. 322.
Wong, Kan Seng (1995) The Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and China, in Leo Suryadinata
(ed.) Southeast Asian Chinese and China. The Politico-Economic Dimension, Singapore: Times
Academic Press.
Wong, Man Kong (1996) James Legge. A Pioneer at Crossroads, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational
Publishing Co.
Wong, Thomas W. P. (1992) Personal Experience and Social Ideology: Thematization and
Theorization in Social Indicators Studies. in S. K. Lau (ed.) Indicators of Social Development:
Hong Kong 1990, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacifc Studies, Chinese
University of Hong Kong, pp. 205-37.
Wong, Wang Chi (1991) Politics and Literature in Shanghai: The Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers,
19301936, Manchester: Manchester University.
Wong, Wang Chi (1997) Li shi de ou ran: cong Xianggang kan Zhongguo xian dai wen xue shi
(Historical Contingencies: A Study of Modern Chinese Literary Histories in Hong Kong), Hong
Wong, Wang Chi (2000) Li shi de chen zhong: cong Xianggang kan Zhongguo da lu de Xianggang shi
lun shu (The Burden of History. A Hong Kong Perspective of the Mainland Discourse of Hong Kong
History), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Wong, Wang Chi, et al. (ed.) (1997) Fou xiang Xianggang: li shi, wen hua, wei lai (Hong Kong Un-
imagined: History, Culture and the Future), Taipei: Mei tian.
Woronoff, Jon (1980) Hong Kong: Capitalist Paradise, Hong Kong: Heinemann Asia.
Wright, Arnold (ed.) (1908) Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong. Shanghai and other Treaty
Ports of China, London: Lloyds Greater Britain publishing company.
Wright, Mary (1966) The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The Tung-chih Restoration, 1862
1874, New York: Atheneum.
Wright, Stanley F. (1950) Hart and the Chinese Customs, Belfast: Wm. Mullan.
Wu, Chang Chuan (1975) Cheng Kuan-ying, a Case Study of Merchant Participation in the Chinese
Self-Strengthening Movement (18781884), Ann Arbor: University Microflm.
Wu, Xuanren (ed.) (1998) Xianggang qi shi nian dai qing nian kan wu hui gu zhuan ji (Youth
Publications in the Seventies Hong Kong: Review Essays), Hong Kong: Ce hua zu he.
Wu, Xuanren (1999) Xianggang liu qi shi nian dai wen she yun dong zheng li ji yan jiu (Researches
on the Literary Society Movement in the 1960s and 1970s Hong Kong), Hong Kong: Lin shi shi
zheng ju gong gong tu shu guan.
Xiao, Gongquan (1954) Zhongguo zheng zhi si xiang shi (History of Chinese Political Thoughts),
Taipei: Zhong hua wen hua chu ban shi ye wei yuan hui.
Xiaosi (1997) Jiu lu xing ren: Zhongguo xue sheng zhou bao wen ji (Passengers of an Old Alley:
Collected Essays of the Chinese Students Weekly), Hong Kong: Ci wen hua.
Xiong, Yuezhi (1986) Zhongguo jin dai min zhu si xiang shii (History of Democracy in Modern China),
Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she.
Xiong, Yuezhi (1994) Xi xue dong jian yu wan Qing she hui (The dissemination of Western learning
and the late Qing society), Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she.
fBiblio.(p.225-257).indd 257 3/5/09 12:44:08 PM
258 Bibliography
Errata
Continuation of the Bibliography from p. 257
Xu, Dishan (1939) 'Yi nian lai de xiang gang jiao yu ji qi zhang wang (Hong Kong education in this
year and its prospect)', in Wai Luen Lo (ed.) Xiangang de Youyu (Hong Kong's Melancholy),
Hong Kong: Huafeng Bookstore
Xu, Fei (1937) 'Yin tan za cao (Weeds in Cinema)', in Kai Chi et al. (eds.) Zao qi Xianggang
xin wen xue zuo pin xuan (Collection of Works of the Early Hong Kong New Literature), Hong
Kong: Tian di tu shu, 1, pp. 322-24.
Xu, Naixiang (ed.) (1986) Wen xue de min zu xing shi tao lun zi liao the Discussion
on National Forms in Literature., Guangxi: Guangxi People's Press.
Xu, Zhengxiong (1992) Qing mo min quan si xiang de fa zhan yu qi yi (The Development and
of the thoughts of in Late Qing), Taipei: Wen shi zhe.
Yan, Suzhi (1999)' Qu xiao fang yan wen yi de cheng wei (Abolishing the name of "Dialect Li terature
and Arts")', in Kai Chi Wong, et al. (eds.) Guo gong nei zhan shi qi xue zi 1 iao
xuan: 1945-1949 (Research Materials ofHong in the KMT-CCP Civil War), Hong
Kong: Tian di tu shu, pp. 131-3.
Yang, 'Fan xin shi feng yue (Against New in Kai Chi
et al. (eds.) Zao qi Xianggang xin wen xue zi xuan: 1927-1941 (Research Materials of
the Early Hong Kong New Li leralure), Hong Kong: Tian di tu shu, pp. 169-73
Yang, Jin Fa (1980) Zhan qian de Chen Jiageng yan lun shi liao yu fen xi (Tan Kah Kee in Pre-War
Singapore: Xinjiapo Nanyang xue hui.
Yang, Shouren (1981) 'Xin Hunan (New Hunan)', in Yufa Zhang (ed.) Wan Qing ge ming wen xue
(Revolutionary Literature in Late Qing), Taipei: Jing shi shu ju, pp. 64-105.
Yang, Yanqi (1983) 'Xiang gang ban nian (Half-a-year in Hong Kong)' , in Wai Luen Lo (ed.)
Xiangang de Youyu (Hong Kong's Melancholy), Hong Kong: Huafeng Bookstore, pp. 207-11.
Yau, Esther (1994) 'Border Crossing: Mainland China's Presence in Hong Kong cinema', in Nick
Browne, et al. (eds.) New Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, New York: Cambridge
Universitv Press
Yen, Ching Huang (1970) 'Ch'ing Sale of Honours and the Chinese Leadership in Singapore
and Malaya, 1877-1912', Journal of Southeast Asian pp.
Yen, Ching Huang (1976) The Overseas Chinese and the 1911 Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Yen, Ching Huang (1985) Coolies and Mandarins: China's Protection of the Chinese During
the Late Ch'ing Period (1851-1911), Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Yesi (1 996) Xianggang wen hua kong jian yu wen xue (Cultural Space and Literature of Hon
Bibliography 258a
Young, John D. (1996) Identity in Flux: Nationalism and Chinese Culture in British Hong Kong,
Paper presented to the American Historical Association Annual Atlanta,
Georgia. January 4-7
Young, Robert (1995) Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Cu/t ure and Race, London: Routledge.
Yu, Shengwu and Cunkuan Liu (eds.) (1994) Shijiu shiji de (Nineteenth-century Hong
Kong), shuju.
Yu, Shengwu and Shuyong Liu (1995) 20 shi ji de Xianggang (Twentieth-century Hong Kong),
Hong Kong: Qi lin shu ye.
(ed.) (1982) Xue yun chun qiu: Xianggang xue sheng yun dong
(Student Movement of Hong Kong), Hong Kong: Yuan dong shi wu ping lun she.
Zhan, Buji (1968) 'Jian li zhong hua zou yi (Suggestion for an Overseas China)', Jianghuang,
157, pp. 20.
Zhang, Yufa (1981) Wan Qing ge ming wen xue (Revolutionary Li terature in Late Qing), Taipei: Jing
shi shu ju
Zhao, Ming (1972) 'Mei You de di san giao lu (There Is No Such Thing As The Third Way)' , Panku,
pp. 77-8
Zheng, Zhengfan (1969) Jin liu shi lai Nanyang Hua qiao jiao yu shi (Educational History of
Overseas Chinese in Nanyang in the Last Sixty Years), Taipei: Zhong yang wen wu gong ying
she
Zhou, Yang (1940) 'Dui jiu xing shi li yong zai wen xue shang deyi ge kanfa (An Opinion on the Use
of Old Forms in Li terature)' , Zhong Guo Wen Hua (Chinese Culture), 1, 1.
Zizek, Slavoj (1993) With The and the Critique ofldeology, Durham:
Duke University Press
Slavoj (1993) 'Enjoy the Nation as Yourself', in Slavoj Zizek (ed.) Tarrying With The
Negative. Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology, Durham: Duke University Press
Index
Abbas, Ackbar 10, 109, 191
Alitto, Guy 139
Agency 33, 46, 101, 133, 175, 186, 208
Anarchism 104, 154, 217n1
Anderson, Benedict 128
Ang, Ien 4
Anglicism 3840
Anglicist 3840, 44, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 59
Appadurai, Arjun 152
Appiah, Kwame Anthony 204, 206
Arnold, Matthew 221
Banfeld, Edward C. 165
Bao, Cuoshi 156, 157, 158, 159, 160
Barlow, Tani 72, 170, 174
Beresford 94, 95, 96, 97
Bhabha, Homi 100, 101, 200, 219
Bourgeoisie 2, 11, 22, 2729, 54, 55, 81, 87,
121, 123
Carroll, John 10, 11, 22, 27, 28, 54
Cecil, William 65, 217n1
Chatterjee, Partha 109
Chen, Ci 156, 157, 158, 159, 160
Chen, Duxiu 90
Chen, Jiongming 220n4, 221n15,
Chen, Yingzhen 136, 222n4
Cheung, Tak-shing 161, 162
Chinese Students Weekly (CSW) 143147,
162
Chinese University of Hong Kong 139, 152,
222n9
Chineseness 36, 54, 55, 107, 109, 110, 119,
128, 141, 142, 144, 147, 189, 203, 210
Hong Kong Chinese 4, 5, 10, 20, 21,
22, 2429, 31, 5356, 58, 72, 9496, 106,
107, 111, 112, 118, 119, 134, 137, 151, 152,
164166, 169, 172, 175, 210, 220n10,
Chirol, Valentine 57
Chiu, Fred Y.L. 165, 166, 167, 173, 175
Chiu, Ling-yeong 218n4
Choa, G.H. 88, 218n4
Chow, Rey 180, 181, 191, 204, 209
Christianity 12, 33, 36, 64, 66, 67, 98, 216n6,
217n11
Christian morality 64, 66
Christian mission 64, 216n5, 217n14
Christian missionaries 32, 216n4
Christianize 36, 64
Christianization 65
Chung, Stephanie Po-Yin 10, 13
Church 33, 34, 36, 47, 56, 59, 64, 142, 186,
216n3, 218n3,
Clementi, Cecil 41, 70, 106
Cohen, Paul 80
Cold War 6, 132147, 151, 154, 159161, 163,
164, 166, 168, 170, 202
Cultural Cold War 133, 137, 146, 161,
202
Colonial power 3, 5, 6, 12, 29, 32, 42, 55, 70,
75, 101, 109, 119, 132, 141, 151, 152, 163,
168, 170, 176178, 200, 201, 203, 205209
Colonial Psychology 100, 203
colonialism 16, 10, 11, 13, 19, 31, 32, 40,
67, 70, 71, 75, 79, 84, 92, 96, 97, 100, 102,
116, 128, 140, 145, 163166, 168, 170172,
174176, 177, 178, 182, 183, 184, 186,
188, 189, 193, 195197, 201209, 217n2,
219n13, 222n4, 224n2
fIndex(p.259-262).indd 259 5/21/09 11:09:24 AM
Index 260
colonizer 3, 10, 28, 29, 70, 80, 100, 101, 116,
145, 166, 171, 175, 189, 200, 201, 203, 206,
207, 208
colonized 3, 10, 13, 28, 29, 31, 32, 39, 51, 57,
59, 67, 68, 70, 71, 79, 80, 100, 101, 114,
115, 116, 145, 169, 173, 181, 189, 200203,
206208, 218n2
anti-colonialism 154
internal colonialism 201, 208
British colonialism 24, 92
Collaborative colonialism 6, 9. 11, 13, 15,
17, 19, 2123, 25, 27, 29, 46, 49, 56, 59,
75, 100102, 145, 176, 186, 201203, 205,
209, 218
Northbound colonialism 183, 184, 186,
188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 202, 208
Coloniality 1, 3, 5, 6, 31, 32, 40, 41, 56, 89, 90,
101, 116, 118, 140, 174, 177, 178, 182, 196,
201, 205, 206, 207, 209
Colonization 13, 101, 114, 175, 185, 203, 205,
206
Colony 1, 10, 1317, 1921, 36, 43, 44, 51, 53,
60, 61, 6567, 73, 74, 82, 84, 107, 116, 117,
168, 173, 180
Semi-colony 67, 116
Collaborator 12, 14, 21, 49, 56, 59, 70, 89, 95,
97, 100, 101, 175, 176, 201, 202, 205, 209
Collaborative institution 22, 209
Collaborative mechanism 200202, 205,
207, 224
Communism 107, 111, 132, 133, 138, 129, 140,
145, 161, 185
anti-communism 140, 154, 162
anti-communist 133135, 137, 139, 143,
146, 147, 154, 155, 160162, 176
procommunist 132
Compatriot 101, 117, 119, 135, 173, 183, 192,
195
Comprodor 80, 83, 85, 9294, 105, 115, 123,
159, 159, 162, 204
Comprodorism 92, 93, 158
Confucianism 25, 85, 107, 108
Neo-Confucianism 132, 137140, 147,
158
Neo-Confucianist 158, 222n6
Coolie 13, 128
Coolie trade 17, 22, 26, 86
Cosmopolitan 123, 124, 128, 174
Cultural Revolution 160, 162, 193
Culturalism 204, 206
Bi-culturalism 27
Decolonization 31, 131, 152, 163, 173, 174,
Deleuze, Gilles 208
Derrida, Jacques 122
Diaoyu 140, 153, 175, 223n3
Defend-Diaoyus Campaign 153, 154,
161,
Diasporic 3, 4, 132, 134137, 141, 142, 147,
148, 151, 152, 154156, 158, 160, 161, 191,
192, 202, 204, 209, 222n7
Diaspora 161
Dirlik, Arif 79, 80, 204, 205, 206, 219n8
Duara, Prasenjit 89, 90, 117, 118, 130, 218n6
Eitel, Ernest John 21, 36, 37, 44, 45, 59, 79,
Eliot, Charles 60, 221n15
English language 3133, 36, 38, 43, 46, 4850,
5257, 59, 64, 71, 88, 110, 112, 152
English-educated 45, 79, 218n3
Esherick, Joseph 80
Ethnic 4, 5, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 60, 86,
105, 114, 115, 119, 166, 169, 188
Ethnicity 4, 43, 166, 195, 196, 224n2,
Fairbank, John K. 170
Fanon, Frantz 79, 80, 145, 205
Faure, David 28
Fei qing 133, 158, 159
Fitzgerald, John 90, 117
Foucault, Michel 94, 206, 207
Gallagher, John 199, 224n2
Girardot, Norman 40, 217n12
Global 12, 13, 90, 125, 131, 132, 137, 146, 178,
185, 189, 190, 191, 194, 195, 197, 197, 203,
209, 210
Globalization 190, 195, 208
Grossberg, Lawrence 208
Guo qing 158, 159
Gutzlaff, Karl F.A. 215n1
Hall, Stuart 203, 209
Hennessy, John Pope 27, 44, 45, 48, 49, 52,
59, 79
Historicism 124, 205, 206, 208, 209
fIndex(p.259-262).indd 260 5/21/09 11:09:25 AM
Index 261
Ho Kai 50, 63, 73, 80, 81, 85, 8789, 91, 92,
94102, 164, 175, 187, 201, 209, 218n4,
219n10,
Identity 4, 5, 27, 5456, 66, 70, 71, 79,
80, 94, 101, 112, 130, 138141, 143,
145147, 151, 153, 154, 157, 159, 169,
177, 178, 180, 183, 184, 187, 188, 189,
191, 202, 204, 208, 209,
Chinese identity 5, 25, 54, 65, 94,
109111, 130, 153, 156, 201
double identity 95, 100
Hong Kong identity 32, 54, 55, 130, 132, 143,
145148, 151, 181, 185, 202
identity crisis 141, 143, 146, 151, 154,
156, 191
identity politics 4, 130, 151, 191, 203,
204, 208
post-identity 4
In-between 6, 79, 179, 181, 201, 204, 208, 209
In-betweenness 79, 180, 182, 188, 192, 201,
204
Japanese 2, 47, 58, 62, 86, 88, 111, 118, 120,
124, 115
Hu, Feng 123
Hu, Liyuan 88, 89, 91, 92
Hui, Po-keung 10, 12, 194,
Hung Ho-fung 182
Hunter, Ian 67
Imperialism
anti-imperialism 118, 131
anti-imperialist 5, 91, 105, 119, 177
British Imperialism 3, 12, 13, 46, 52, 70,
74, 75, 91, 92, 100, 118, 164, 173, 176,
188, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 207
sub-imperial 173175
sub-imperialism 176, 208
imperialist 1, 5, 6, 31, 32, 41, 45, 57, 66,
70, 82, 83, 88, 92, 100, 117, 155, 175,
177, 188, 192, 203, 204, 223n5
Ip, Iam-chong 144, 145, 179,
Kang, Youwei 57, 58, 61, 85, 108
Kaifong 23
Kennedy, Edward 25, 27, 47
King, Ambrose 169, 170
Lau, Siu-kai 161164, 175, 188
Legge, James 17, 33, 3438, 4043, 46, 75, 79,
87, 107, 216n5n9, 217n11n12
Leung, Fung-yee 182184, 186, 187
Liang, Chichao 57, 58, 61, 85, 138, 218n7
Lugard, Frederick 49, 60, 6375, 100, 110,
217n2, 223n2,
Macaulay, Thomas Barbington 38, 44, 53,
57, 70
Mainland 1, 2, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 44, 51,
109111, 113, 116, 117, 125, 135, 137, 143,
144, 152, 154, 159, 179, 181, 187, 192, 193,
195, 196, 202, 215n1, 222n5
Mainland Chinese 28, 51, 88, 135, 166,
180, 181, 196, 215
Mainlander 5254, 114, 115, 119, 179
Man Mo Temple 21, 25, 27
Mannoni, Octave 203
Margin 13, 116
Marginal 12, 88, 116, 176, 178, 179
Marginality 116, 179, 188, 192,
Marxist 1, 88, 91, 92, 121, 123, 157, 188, 190,
199, 200
Chinese Marxist 84, 88, 157
Marxism 141
Non-Marxist 91, 92
Metropolitan 121, 124, 205
Memmi, Albert 95
Middleman 35, 95
Modernization 112, 122, 158, 160162, 164,
165, 168, 169, 173, 177, 179, 180, 181, 185,
189, 190
Morality 51, 52, 64, 65, 66, 68, 70, 107, 110,
125, 140
Moral Crisis 6466, 75
Mui tsai 26, 27
Multicultural 46, 47, 52, 68, 190, 195
Multiculturalist 52, 68, 189, 190
Munn, Christopher 3, 10, 11, 15, 18, 19 ,
Nandy, Ashis 99, 193, 203
Nationalism 5, 58, 70, 75, 86, 87, 92, 94, 102,
105, 107, 119, 121, 123, 128130, 135, 137,
142, 144, 145, 157, 158, 163, 173, 175, 180,
193, 195, 196, 204, 221n12
cultural nationalism 85, 129, 145, 160,
161, 191
fIndex(p.259-262).indd 261 5/21/09 11:09:25 AM
Index 262
Republican Revolution 6, 86, 87, 102,
103, 105, 108, 145, 201
Republican Revolutionary 73, 104, 220
Republican China 59, 80, 105, 108, 119,
152
Republican government 87, 103, 111,
112, 125
Robinson, Ronald 12, 199, 200
Said, Edward 203, 224n1
Self-government 18, 21, 52, 66, 104, 166, 172,
174
Shenzhen 195, 196, 224n2
Space 4, 56, 71, 84, 101, 141143, 145, 155,
175, 177, 181, 184, 185, 188, 190, 191,
195197, 205, 206, 208, 209
Discursive space 155, 192
Non-space 191
Third Space 180, 181, 191
Spatiality 180, 206209
Subjectivity 5, 80, 100, 101, 112, 139, 152, 201,
207209, 221
Sun, Yat-sen 73, 86, 88, 97, 103105, 108, 113,
187, 209, 217n10, 218n4
Tang Chun-I 138
Thomas, Nicolas 182, 204
Translator 35, 80, 83, 89
Transnational 195, 196, 209, 210
Trotskyism 141, 154
Tsai, Jungfang 9294
Tung Wah Hospital 22, 2527
University of Hong Kong 59, 68, 73, 74,
108110, 152, 200, 220n8
Vernacular 34, 37, 49, 72, 106, 112, 120122,
126, 128, 129
Vernacular education 37, 44, 49, 72, 106,
107, 108
Viswanathan, Gauri 39
Wang Hui 120, 122124, 128, 129
Western Affairs Movement 43, 45, 49, 58, 81,
84, 85, 90, 91
Chinese nationalism 4, 6, 10, 28, 55, 72,
75, 84, 105, 107111, 117, 119, 120,
124, 128, 130, 132, 140, 143, 144, 147,
151, 173, 177, 180, 202
diasporic Chinese nationalism 136, 137,
141, 147, 151, 152, 202, 222n7
sub-national 5, 201, 208
nation-state 6, 75, 85, 89, 110, 122, 124,
127129, 189, 195, 203, 222n18
Native 6, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 23, 34, 35, 38, 39,
62, 64, 66, 6771, 75, 138, 145, 173, 175,
180, 181, 188, 223n2
Native gentleman 73, 100
New Asia 139141
Cry New Asia 140, 154
New Asia College 137140
New Asia Spirit 139141
Oriental 3840, 66, 107, 111
Orientalism 3840, 206, 217n12, 219n8
Orientalist 3840, 49, 60, 98, 111, 117,
159, 167, 168, 171, 196,
Overseas China 132, 135, 154, 156, 158
Patriotism 74, 92, 100, 113, 154, 160, 163, 164,
183, 185, 186, 192, 195, 196, 219n9
Panku 142, 146, 147, 155, 162
Pennycook, Alastair 32, 40
Po Leung Kuk 2527
Post-colonial 4, 5, 100, 101, 163, 172, 178,
180182, 185, 189, 191193, 196, 200, 201,
203206, 209
Postcolonialism 177, 182, 190, 192, 204
Postcoloniality 180, 181, 196, 204, 205, 206
Postcolonial Studies 200, 201, 203205,
Postmodern 180
Qing 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 26, 33, 35,
42, 43, 45, 53, 5761, 64, 72, 8188, 91, 96,
103, 106, 107, 133, 215n4, 216n4, 218n2,
221n17, 223n3,
late-Qing 12, 72, 88, 103, 106, 108
Republican 6, 56, 68, 69, 86, 103, 104,
111, 119, 120, 201, 219n8
fIndex(p.259-262).indd 262 5/21/09 11:09:25 AM

Making of Hong Kong Chinese

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Making of Hong Kong Chinese

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Making of Hong Kong Chinese

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Collaborative Colonial Power

0aPrelim(p.i-v).indd 1 6/11/09 10:47:29 AM

dCharact.(p.211-213).indd 211 3/5/09 12:43:13 PM

dCharact.(p.211-213).indd 212 3/5/09 12:43:13 PM

dCharact.(p.211-213).indd 213 3/5/09 12:43:14 PM

You might also like