1st Edition
Resistance in Colonial and Communist China, 1950-1963 Anatomy of a Riot
The history of colonial East Asia is a human anatomy describing beneficial organs of foreign rule. Proclaiming itself a schematic diagram open to inspection, the anatomy of the late British Empire nevertheless obscured much more than it revealed. This analogy in Price’s provocative Cold War history is not presented only as an insight on imperialism but deciphers competing nationalist ideologies, too. The Kuomintang contended vigorously against communist rule in southern China for a decade after the end of the civil war in 1949 and Chinese communists disparaged British colonialism in Hong Kong in a war of words peaking in 1956–1957. These clashes of will did not produce new rulers in either place. They informed a period of Sino-British strategic partnership based on recognition that a capitalist enclave in southern China had its uses.
By focusing on the Hong Kong region, Resistance in Colonial and Communist China compares anatomies of the British colonial government, the Chinese communists and stateless members of the remnant Kuomintang (1950–1963). Price asserts that after 1949, the colonial government of Hong Kong politically favoured the Kuomintang organised crime societies over their communist nationalist adversaries despite historiographical explanation that it favoured neither.
This book challenges traditional concepts of the British colonial government and its attitude towards communist China. It engages in current debates surrounding Britain’s past by presenting a particularly devious episode of late colonial history.
Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Communist Anatomy (1950 to 1955)
Introduction
- Colonial Recognitions
- The Anti-Rightist Purge in Mainland China
Chapter 2 The Colonial Anatomy: The 1956 Riot
Introduction
- Who Started the Riot of 1956?
- A Hapless Civilian and his Widow
- Anatomical questions
Chapter 3 1963
Introduction
- The Crackdown Begins
- British Admissions
- The Hyatt Americans
- History of KMT Enemy Status
Chapter 4 Anatomies Examined
Introduction
- The Colonial Anatomy
- The Communist Anatomy
- The KMT Anatomy
Chapter 5 Orthodoxy
Introduction
- Orthodoxy and Technical Knowledge
- Human Rights and the New Imperialism
Index
Biography
R.B.E. Price is a Lecturer-at-Law at Southern Cross University, Australia and has held visiting professorships across China. His other publications include Reading Colonies: Property and Control of the British Far East (2016, City University Press of Hong Kong), the biography of a Hong Kong land officer, Going Native: The Passions of Philip Jacks (2016, Australian Scholarly Publishing) and Violence and Emancipation in Colonial Ideology (forthcoming). His current project is a theoretical work, ‘On Occupation’.
"There is still a fair bit of nostalgia in Hong Kong for British colonialism that ended in 1997. This book provides an essential reminder of the coloniser’s purpose and shifting interests. The 1956 riot, now a distant event, is brought back to life by Rohan Price. He has dissected it by focussing on British duplicity – it was always about what was best for the colonial master". - Christine Loh Kung-wai, former Hong Kong Undersecretary for the Environment and author of Underground Front (Hong Kong University Press)
