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In the 1950s, when swathes of refugees were starting to give HK its transition from dusty backwater with a successful duty free transhipment port to the financi

In the 1950s, when swathes of refugees were starting to give HK its transition from dusty backwater with a successful duty free transhipment port to the financial powerhouse we know in modernity, the UK tried. Prior to revolution there were few in HK, and nearly all were there for the port or base. China threatened to invade in 1960 if the moves to democratise didn't stop. We'd just had the Korean War, Britain alone wouldn't have won a rerun, the West might. Support for doing it again, without hostility from the other side first is just about unthinkable. Britain might have been able to achieve better terms on Kowloon and New Territories a hundred years previously during Pax Britannica, but those territories were only there as uninhabited military buffer zone for the transhipment port, naval base and coaling station. So when Britain could, no one thought it important, there was no one there. Development and them mattering came much, much later. Only really after the Chinese revolution started to provide an endless stream of well educated workers and families with a dislike of Communism. Now the UK started moves to democratise - there was getting to be a population that cared, and which fit with the policy of majority rule before independence, in the post war decolonisation era.

skissane 7y ago
> China threatened to invade in 1960 if the moves to democratise didn't stop. And the UK gave in to PRC's threats. Was PRC really willing to start a war with the UK? Or were they bluffing, and the UK fell for PRC's bluff? Or maybe, the UK was never really that keen on HK democracy, and PRC's threats were just a convenient excuse to avoid doing something they weren't very keen on doing anyway? > We'd just had the Korean War, Britain alone wouldn't have won a rerun, the West might The Korean War is not exactly comparable. Neither North Korea nor South Korea were nuclear armed states (during the 1950s), although they both had nuclear powers as allies. A war between UK and PRC in the 1960s would have been a shooting war between two nuclear powers. Would the PRC really had been willing to risk such a thing? Especially given the state that PRC itself was in (millions of deaths in the Great Leap Forward, followed by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, its isolation the Sino-Soviet split, an economy vastly weaker than it has today, etc.)
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Not convenient excuse if you read the history of the region over the period. The timeline is pretty clear, especially now the relevant diplomatic papers of the period are open. Err, there were 5x more Chinese troops in the Korean War than North Korean, and Soviets flying air cover. It would be directly comparable, if there were a Communist invasion, except I really doubt there'd have been support from the Western Allies without that invasion first. Even then I'm not sure - there were repeated concerns Korea could have escalated into WW3.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Is the Korean War really the comparable event, or is the Berlin Airlift more apt?
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Depends how your alternative timeline plays out. ;p A HK airlift would be logistically challenging to say the least, and I don't believe it would have had similar chance of being successful. Look at Kai Tak, and its famously awkward mountain avoiding approach back in the 1950s. Berlin was universally acknowledged as strategically important in the newly hatched Cold War. The East and West had been nose to nose militarily in Germany since 45. Berlin was served by multiple source airfields, several air corridors and flying boats onto the lakes. HK would probably have had to be entirely sourced from Taiwan. Yet Berlin succeeded as much from the counter blockade, that actually turned out to be surprisingly damaging to the East, as the huge scale of the sustained air lift. I can't picture a HK airlift around the same era as being nearly as successful.
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        That's not what I meant, I meant the UK "democratizing" HK, an ostensibly humanitarian effort, which China gets mad at, is akin to the Berlin airlift more than what caused the Korean War.

skissane 7y ago

> China threatened to invade in 1960 if the moves to democratise didn't stop. And the UK gave in to PRC's threats. Was PRC really willing to start a war with the UK? Or were they bluffing, and the UK fell for PRC's bluff? Or maybe, the UK was never really that keen on HK democracy, and PRC's threats were just a convenient excuse to avoid doing something they weren't very keen on doing anyway? > We'd just had the Korean War, Britain alone wouldn't have won a rerun, the West might The Korean War is not exactly comparable. Neither North Korea nor South Korea were nuclear armed states (during the 1950s), although they both had nuclear powers as allies. A war between UK and PRC in the 1960s would have been a shooting war between two nuclear powers. Would the PRC really had been willing to risk such a thing? Especially given the state that PRC itself was in (millions of deaths in the Great Leap Forward, followed by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, its isolation the Sino-Soviet split, an economy vastly weaker than it has today, etc.)

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Not convenient excuse if you read the history of the region over the period. The timeline is pretty clear, especially now the relevant diplomatic papers of the period are open. Err, there were 5x more Chinese troops in the Korean War than North Korean, and Soviets flying air cover. It would be directly comparable, if there were a Communist invasion, except I really doubt there'd have been support from the Western Allies without that invasion first. Even then I'm not sure - there were repeated concerns Korea could have escalated into WW3.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Is the Korean War really the comparable event, or is the Berlin Airlift more apt?
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Depends how your alternative timeline plays out. ;p A HK airlift would be logistically challenging to say the least, and I don't believe it would have had similar chance of being successful. Look at Kai Tak, and its famously awkward mountain avoiding approach back in the 1950s. Berlin was universally acknowledged as strategically important in the newly hatched Cold War. The East and West had been nose to nose militarily in Germany since 45. Berlin was served by multiple source airfields, several air corridors and flying boats onto the lakes. HK would probably have had to be entirely sourced from Taiwan. Yet Berlin succeeded as much from the counter blockade, that actually turned out to be surprisingly damaging to the East, as the huge scale of the sustained air lift. I can't picture a HK airlift around the same era as being nearly as successful.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      That's not what I meant, I meant the UK "democratizing" HK, an ostensibly humanitarian effort, which China gets mad at, is akin to the Berlin airlift more than what caused the Korean War.