‘Hong Kong is my Home’: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons

Who were the Hong Kong British, and where did they live? This question sat at the heart of anguished and angry debates prompted by the colonial government’s edict in June 1940 ordering the evacuation to Australia of all women and children of ‘pure European descent’. In this article, I focus on thematic strands in the debate on Hong Kong British identity, such as race, class, legal domicile, reputation and migration, to explore the complex character of such British communities outside the Dominions. This article aims to characterise what it meant to be British in the wider empire, and deepen our understanding about the place of such communities in the picture of colonial migration.     

Australia: a continuing genocide?

Debates about genocide in Australia have for the most part focussed on past frontier killings and child removal practices. This article, however, focuses on contemporary culturally destructive policies, and the colonial structures that produce them, through the analytical lens of the concept of genocide. The article begins with a discussion of the meaning of cultural genocide, locating the idea firmly in Lemkin's work before moving on to engage with the debates around Lemkin's distinction between genocide and cultural 'diffusion.' In contrast to those scholars who prefer the word 'ethnocide,' the underlying conceptual contention is that the term 'cultural genocide' simply describes a key method of genocide and should be viewed, without the need for qualification, as genocide. While direct physical killing and genocidal child removal practices may have ceased in Australia, some indigenous activists persuasively contend that genocide is a continuing process in an Australia that has failed to decolonise. Concurring with these views the article argues that the contemporary expression of continuing genocidal relations in Australia can be seen principally, and perversely, in the colonial state's official reconciliation process, native title land rights regime and the recent interventionist 'solutions' to indigenous 'problems' in the Northern Territory.     

Has the Hong Kong Model Worked? Industrial Policy in Retrospect and Prospect

This article attempts to blend the insights of development economics and political economy in order to analyse industrial policy in Hong Kong. It describes the lack of industrial upgrading, the process of de-industrialization, and the over-reliance on the service sector, and examines the political economy of the functional industrial policy practised in Hong Kong, as well as its limitation. The author suggests that the political change from a colony to a special administrative region of China provides a context for Hong Kong State to undertake a more interventionist, industry-specific policy, the success of which will depend on a combination of two factors: state autonomy against the excessive influence of Beijing, and state capacity to guard against corruption and to enhance a mutually-beneficial regional co-operation in the South China region.     

The new resource politics: can Australia and South Africa accommodate China?

The material transformation of the Chinese economy is forcing a concomitant process of political adjustment—and not just in China. Other states are being forced to accommodate the ‘rise of China’. In this context, this article first presents a comparative analysis of China's impact on two countries, Australia and South Africa, which have little in common other than a wealth of natural resources and a possible status as middle powers; this is a particularly useful exercise because these states are geographically distant and have very different political structures and general developmental histories. Second, the authors consider how China's bilateral ties look from a Chinese perspective in these two very different relationships. Such an analysis serves as a reminder that resource dependency is a two‐way street. The article argues that underlying material realities are constraining and to some extent determining the domestic and foreign policies of three very different states that otherwise have little in common.     

Consumption,Environmental Sustainability and Human Geography in Australia: a Missing Research Agenda?

‘Consumption’ is a central concept in the global environmental sustainability agenda. However, one important argument from Agenda 21 — that all social actors must now practise ‘sustainable consumption’— has been publicly and politically marginalised in high‐income countries such as Australia. Geographers potentially have a role in bringing consumption back onto the agenda by constructing a critical geography of consumption. Such research can help understand how the contextual use of natural resources is perceived and practised, and how consumption helps to shape contemporary social relations. This body of knowledge is vital for building sustainable development into everyday lives. Yet a focus on urban consumption perceptions and practices appears somewhat lacking in Australian geography. Ways forward can be drawn from international geography, such as in the United Kingdom where a substantial body of work has drawn a complex picture of contemporary consumption and environmental understanding. It has also challenged prevailing ‘ecological modernisation’ policy approaches, which ignore consumption's cultural facets. In sum, considering consumption in Australia can offer insights into cultural practices expressed through consumption; can challenge and add to European geographical literatures, and can also contribute to sustainability debates by offering alternatives to currently ineffective policy discourses.     

Empowerment,transformation and the construction of ‘urban heritage’ in post-colonial Hong Kong

In recent years, there have been many political and economic debates in Hong Kong, and heritage conservation has been used as a political and economic weapon by some members of the community. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this paper analyses how buildings of a small street built in the 1950s were constructed as ‘heritage’, and how a community heritage discourse was used by a group of local residents (Kiefang), university students and professionals to object to the urban renewal project led by the Hong Kong government. In this context, heritage was used to obtain political rights and to express anger against the increasing gap between the rich and poor of Hong Kong. Though the immediate objectives of this group were not achieved, the protest process empowered a group of local residents, and has marked the commencement of a politicalized heritage conservation movement in post-colonial Hong Kong.     

China and the United States: a succession of hegemonies?

This article critically reviews the suggestion that we are experiencing a ‘succession of hegemonies’ from the United States to China. It develops Martin Wight's writings on hegemony, and introduces a fundamental distinction (not made by Wight) between a power transition and a hegemonic succession. Wight held complex views about the nature of power and at times seemed to subscribe to a purely materialist account. Elsewhere he was more nuanced and appealed to the purpose of dominant states as part of his argument that influence does not correlate exactly with mass and weight. This suggestion is developed in the author's view of hegemony—as distinct from primacy—as denoting a legitimate practice within international society. These ideas are then superimposed upon current debates about a power transition, or a succession of hegemonies, as between the United States and China. The existing debate conflates those two issues. Accordingly, while it can readily be acknowledged that there are important indicators of a shift in the material distribution of power, this in no way amounts, as yet, to any kind of hegemonic succession. For the latter to occur, there would need to be clear evidence of an effective socialization of the aspirant hegemon's purpose and support for its preferred order. On the contrary, to date China has been largely content to operate within existing frameworks, rather than instigate a revision of them, and does not yet present a model for emulation elsewhere. It is possible that a power transition, without any hegemonic succession, could be corrosive of global governance.     

Britain,European Economic Community Enlargement,and ‘Decolonisation’ in Hong Kong, 1967–1973

Politicians and businesspeople in Hong Kong paid close attention to British efforts to join the European Economic Community (EEC). The British colony was exempted from most tariffs in Britain, an arrangement that could not survive EEC enlargement. EEC members were unwilling to extend to Hong Kong, a significant exporter of manufactured goods, the same trade preferences offered to other dependent territories. Instead, the unique provision the EEC made for the colony was limited inclusion into their Generalised System of Preferences scheme, which granted tariff concessions to developing countries. Historians of Hong Kong have shown how the colony experienced British imperial withdrawal in a number of ways, despite remaining under British rule until 1997. This article demonstrates that an important element is missing from this account: how global economic shifts led to an erosion of imperial ties. EEC enlargement from 1973 entailed the end of Hong Kong's privileged access to the British market, but for the colony, the importance of imperial economic links had already faded. At the same time, an assessment of Hong Kong's capacity to pursue favourable terms of trade in global markets independently from Britain offers a more tentative conclusion of the extent of the colony's autonomy.     

Controversy,uncertainty and the diverse public in cultural diplomacy: Australia–China relations

In the past few years, foreign policy tensions between China and Australia have become especially fraught. In some cases, this political situation manifests in the very diplomatic initiatives that were funded to help ease relations. This article considers a case study of a theatrical collaboration in the context of contemporary Australia–China relations to interrogate the value of our understandings of and evaluation frameworks for public diplomacy. This article argues that theories of cultural diplomacy and assessments of initiatives need to consider the multiple and competing objectives, diverse publics and controversial receptions that may be the outcomes of cultural diplomatic initiatives. It demonstrates this complexity in relation to Australia–China relations. Taking a cultural diplomatic initiative that sought to increase positive association for Chinese culture in the Australian public as a case study, it illustrates the range of differences that can be found amongst stakeholders, and the different roles that may be ascribed to cultural diplomacy. These interests, including those of different artistic and political stakeholders, as well as differences in the publics involved, are best segmented not only according to nation but also to subculture.     

Diversity and change in Australia's rangelands: a post–productivist transition with a difference?

Australia's rangelands are experiencing a post–productivist transition at a tempo comparable to Western Europe's, but in contexts that ensure marked divergence in impulses, actors, processes and outcomes. In Australia's most marginal lands, a flimsy mode of pastoral occupance is being displaced by renewed indigenous occupance, conservation and tourism, with significant changes in land ownership, property rights, investment sources and power relations, but also with structural problems arising from fugitive income streams. The sharp delineation between structurally coherent commodity–oriented regions and emerging amenity–oriented regions can provisionally be mapped at a national scale. A comparison of Australia with Western Europe indicates that three distinct but interconnected driving forces are propelling the rural transition, namely: agricultural overcapacity; the emergence of amenity–oriented uses; and changing societal values.     

‘Life in Happy Land’: using virtual space and doing motherhood in Hong Kong

This paper examines how a group of Hong Kong working mothers use the internet in performing and realizing their paid work and domestic role identities. The internet is a technology-enabled space and also what Michel de Certeau calls a ‘practiced place’, where its nature and functions are necessarily determined by the actions and practices of agents. Through participant observation and the analysis of a sample of chatroom and forum messages from a user-driven Hong Kong-based parenting website called Happy Land, I examine the relationship between this virtual space and its users. I find that the website has developed beyond its technology-mediated nature into a community of face-to-face friendships and social and emotional support. In effect, this virtual space plays a role in the social reproduction of the contemporary dual-earner family by enabling working mothers who use the website to perform roles in production and reproduction respectively.     

Judd's China: a missionary congressman and US–China policy

Congressman Walter Henry Judd was an active player in Sino–US relations in the twentieth century. Unique for an American Congressman, he served for 10 years as a medical missionary in China. This article examines his motivation for going to China, his perceptions of Chinese culture, society, and politics, and the impact of Chinese culture on him. It demonstrates that cultural influence is not a one‐way process, but reciprocal. Judd's views of China and his ardent Christian beliefs made him in turn a liberal missionary and a conservative anti‐Communist congressman with a significant role in Sino–US relations. His political behavior was profoundly influenced by both ideology and the attitudes and judgments shaped by his 10 years in China.     

Imperial Outposts and the War Beyond: Singapore,Hong Kong and the British Empire’s Land Force Contribution to the Korean War

Histories of the British Empire’s strategic outposts in the Far East have traditionally focused on their traumatic loss to the Japanese adversary during the Second World War. Only in the past decade-and-a-half have historians begun to examine the post-Second World War importance of these outposts to the continued defence and security of Britain’s empire in the Far East. In taking this line of historical enquiry still further, the article examines how Singapore and Hong Kong were used to project British military power, specifically army deployments, across the Far East, and far beyond the imperial frontier, in support of Britain’s involvement in the 1950–53 Korean War and therefore in pursuit of the empire’s foreign and defence policy objectives. It adopts an essentially operational analysis to this end, relying on operational and army ‘ground-level’ sources from the records of the Colonial, Foreign, and War Offices at the British National Archives. It uncovers the hidden workings of the mechanisms of imperial military power projection through strategic outposts, which ranged from training to logistical support to the exercise of command and control, and how these mechanisms and outposts were utilised by the British Far Eastern land forces involved in the Korean War. In so doing, the article sheds much valuable and original light on the historical importance of these strategic outposts to imperial defence.     

To Be or Not to Be a Refugee: The International Politics of the Hong Kong Refugee Crisis, 1949–55

While a great deal is known about the international politics of refugee policy in Europe since the appointment of the first international commissioner for refugees by the League of Nations in 1921, relatively little attention has so far been paid to similar questions involving the plight of refugees in Asia. This article examines one of the first attempts by the newly established UNHCR to extend its mandate beyond the European context for which it was originally conceived. During the early 1950s the British colony of Hong Kong briefly became the focus of intense UN and international attention over the issue of how to treat the hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees who fled China's communist revolution for the colony. The influx of refugees, many of whom were destitute, threatened to overwhelm Hong Kong's infrastructure and prompted urgent calls for their resettlement abroad. The ensuing UNHCR investigation into the legal status of the Hong Kong ‘refugees’ offers an instructive example of the politicisation of the UNHCR in the context of the unfolding Cold War in Asia and reveals the deep divisions that emerged within the Anglo-American alliance over how to deal with Hong Kong's refugee population. The paper argues that the UNHCR Survey Mission in Hong Kong was doomed to fail given the mutual suspicions and incompatible agendas of the various players involved.     

Cultural attraction, ‘soft power’ and proximity: the popularity of Japanese language in Hong Kong since the 1980s

This paper discusses the cultural attraction, ‘soft power’, and importance of cultural proximity to the popularity of the Japanese language in Hong Kong over the last three decades. Exploration of both primary and secondary sources constitutes the main research methodology employed. Email surveys and face-to-face interviews were undertaken to ascertain the nature and degree of the cultural attraction that stimulates local people's interest in learning Japanese language and culture. The paper concludes that Japan's ‘soft power’, i.e., popular culture and cultural products, are the most influential driving forces behind the popularity of Japanese language in Hong Kong. Also, the Japanese cultural proximity to the Chinese is another factor that excites local people's interest in learning Japanese as a foreign language. In the Hong Kong context, geopolitical and national identity factors do not seem to detract from the popularity of the Japanese language.     

In the Wake of Political Intervention： British Hong Kong and the Lingnan Macroregion

This article attempts a preliminary exploration of the intraregional cohesion and division between British Hong Kong and the Lingnan macroregion. A deliberately overlooked locale in Skinner＇s macroregional model, Hong Kong developed from a periphery zone on the far eastern outskirt of Lingnan in its precolonial days to a thriving metropolis at the end of British rule. The transformation of British Hong Kong attests to the economic fundamentals of intraregional cohesion. More significantly it highlights the decisive power of political intervention, underestimated in Skinner＇s approach, which brought enduring changes to the shape as well as the internal and external relations of the macroregion.