Hong Kong , a coastal city in southern China , has evolved from a fishing village, salt production site, trading and military port into an international financial centre that enjoys the world's ninth highest GNP per capita, [1] and supports a third of foreign capital flows into China.
Prehistory
Rock carving on Cheung Chau . This 3000-year-old rock carving, discovered by geologists in 1970, is located on the east of the island, immediately below the Warwick Hotel. It consists of two groups of similar carved lines surrounding small depressions.
Main article: Pre-history of Hong Kong
Archaeological findings suggest human activity in Hong Kong dates back over 5000 years. Bronze fishing and combat tools of Yuet people during bronze age have been excavated on Lantau Island and Lamma Island . Stone religious carvings on outlying islands and coastal areas have also been found, possibly related Che people in Neolithic . The latest findings dating from the Paleolithic suggest that Wong Tei Tung ( S ) is one of the most ancient settlements in Hong Kong.
Imperial China
Main article: Hong Kong during Imperial China
The territory was incorporated into China during the Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC), and the area was firmly consolidated under Nam Yuet (203 BC - 111 BC.) Archaelogical evidence indicates that the population has increased since the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220). In the 1950s, the tomb at Lei Cheng Uk from the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 C 220) was excavated and archaelogists began to investigate the possibility that salt production flourished in Hong Kong around 2000 years ago, although conclusive evidence has not been found.
Tai Po Hoi , the sea of Tai Po , was a major pearl hunting harbour in China since Han Dynasty. The activities peaked during the Southern Han (917 to 971) and continued till Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644)
During the Tang Dynasty , the Guangdong region flourished as an international trading center. The Tuen Mun region in what is now Hong Kong's New Territories served as a port, naval base, salt production centre and later, base for the exploitation of pearls. Lantau Island was also the salt production centre where the salt smugglers riots broke out against the government.
The facade of the Tsing Shan Monastery
In 1276, during the Mongol invasion, the Southern Song Dynasty court moved to Fujian , then to Lantau Island and later to today's Kowloon City ), but the child emperor, Zhao Bing , after being defeated in the Battle of Yamen , committed suicide by drowning with his officials. Tung Chung valley, named after a hero who gave up his life for the emperor, is believed to have been a base for the court. Hau Wong, an official of the emperor is still worshipped in Hong Kong today.
However, during the Mongol period, Hong Kong saw its first population boom as Chinese refugees entered the area. Five families of Hau (Hou, ), Tang (Deng, ), Pang (Peng, ) and Liu (Liao, ) and Man (Wen, ) were claimed to be among the earliest recorded familial settlers of Hong Kong. Despite the immigration and light development of agriculture, the area was still relatively barren and had to rely on salt, pearl and the fishery trades to produce income.
Early contacts with the West
The waterfall where foreign ships got fresh water . Near the waterfall was a village called Hong Kong Village ( ۴ ), which prompted foreigners to incorrectly name the island Hong Kong.
In the early sixteenth century during the Ming Dynasty , Portuguese merchants began trading in Southern China . At the same time, they invaded and built up military fortifications in Tuen Mun . Military clashes between China and Portugal ensued and the Portuguese were expelled.
In the mid-sixteenth century, the Maritime Prohibition (Haijin) came into effect. Designed to prevent contact with foreigners, it also restricted local sea activity, and villagers in Hong Kong coastal areas were ordered to move to the mainland. The British East India Company made the first sea venture to China in 1699, and Hong Kong 's trade with British merchants grew rapidly thereafter. In 1711, the Company established a trading post in Canton ( Guangzhou ).
During the Qing Dynasty , Hong Kong was governed under Xin'an County ( °h ) and became one of the foremost military outposts for Imperial China.
After a series of Chinese defeats during the First Opium War (1839-1842) at the hands of Capt. Charles Elliot of the Royal Navy and Capt. Anthony Blaxland Stransham of the Royal Marines, Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British on January 20 , 1841 . At the time Hong Kong island had a population of about 6,000 people, mostly Tanka fishermen and Hakka charcoal burners living in a number of coastal villages[1]. The ostensible authority for the occupation was negotiated between Captain Eliot and the Governor of Kwangtung Province. The Convention of Chuenpeh was concluded but had not been recognized by the court of Qing Dynasty at Beijing .
Subsequently, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking , at which point in time the territory became a Crown Colony .
The Opium War was ostensibly fought to liberalize trade to China . With a base in Hong Kong , British traders, opium dealers, and merchants launched the city which would become the 'free trade' nexus of the East. American opium traders and merchant bankers soon joined in the trade (See Russell family; Perkins family; Forbes family ).
Britain was granted a perpetual lease on the Kowloon Peninsula under the 1860 Convention of Beijing , which formally ended hostilities in the Second Opium War (1856-1858). In 1862, Hong Kong had an estimated population of 120,000.
During the 1890s, an epidemic of bubonic plague broke out in southern China . In the spring of 1894 , about 100,000 dead were reported from Guangzhou . In May 1894, the disease erupted in Hong Kong 's overcrowded Chinese quarter of Tai Ping Shan . At its height, the epidemic was killing 100 people per day in Hong Kong , and it killed a total of 2,552 people that year. The disease was greatly detrimental to trade and produced a temporary exodus of 100,000 Chinese from the colony. Plague continued to be a problem in the territory for the next 30 years. 1,290 people died of the disease between 1898 and 1900.
In 1898 , the United Kingdom , concerned that Hong Kong could not be defended unless surrounding areas were also under British control, executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories , significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony. The lease would expire at midnight, on June 30 , 1997 .
In 1914 , despite an exodus of 60,000 Chinese fearing an attack on the colony after the World War I, Hong Kong 's population begins its evermore claustrophobic climb - to 530,000 in 1916, 725,000 in 1925 and 1.6 million by 1941.
World War 2 and the Japanese Occupation
Japanese soldiers marching along Queen's Road on Hong Kong Island in December 1941.
Main articles: Battle of Hong Kong and Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong
The development of Hong Kong was disturbed by the Japanese rule during World War II .
The British, Canadians, Indians and the Hong Kong Volunteer Defense Forces resisted the Japanese invasion commanded by Sakai Takashi which started on December 8 , 1941 , a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor (which had started earlier the same morning at 03:23 Japan Standard Time ). The defensive positions were doomed from the start; the Japanese achieved air superiority on the first day of battle and the defensive forces were outnumbered. The British and the Indians retreated from the Gin Drinker's Line and consequently from Kowloon under heavy aerial bombardment and artillery barrage. Fierce fighting continued on Hong Kong Island ; the only reservoir was lost. Canadian Winnipeg Grenadiers fought at the crucial Wong Nai Chong Gap that secured the passage between downtown and the secluded southern parts of the island.
On December 25 , 1941 - which has gone down in history as Black Christmas to local people - British colonial officials headed by the Governor of Hong Kong Mark Aitchison Young surrendered in person at the Japanese headquarters on the third floor of (the hotel) The Peninsula Hong Kong . Isogai Rensuke became the first Japanese governor of Hong Kong . This ushered in the three years and eight months of Imperial Japanese administration. The Chinese population who lived through the Japanese occupation simply refer to this period as "Three Years and Eight Months" ( san nian ling ba ge yue , ˂ ).
During the Japanese occupation, runaway inflation and food rationing became the norm of daily lives. The Hong Kong Dollar was replaced by the Japanese Military Yen , a new currency issued by the Japanese Imperial Army administration. Historians estimate that as many as 10,000 women were raped in the first few days after Hong Kong 's capture. The Japanese administration turned the city into a military base, summarily executing many residents suspected of opposing them. According to Philip Snow, a prominent historian of the period, the Japanese cut rations for civilians to conserve food for soldiers, usually to starvation levels and deported many to famine- and disease-ridden areas of the mainland , and even dumped some on barren islands. Most of the repatriated actually had come to Hong Kong just a few years earlier to flee the terror of the Second Sino-Japanese War in mainland China .
By the end of the war in 1945, the population of Hong Kong shrunk to 600,000, less than half of the pre-war population of 1.6 million.
Post-war colonial Hong Kong
Hong Kong Coat of Arms (1959-1997)
After the end of World War II and the communist takeover of mainland China in 1949 , hundreds of thousands of people emigrated from mainland China to Hong Kong . However its position as an entrepot to mainland China was hurt significantly by the United Nations trade embargo against the People's Republic of China as a result of the Korean War . The new immigrants brought with them skills and capital, and others contributed to a vast, cheap labour pool. At the same time, many foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong to flee the communists. Hong Kong become a much more significant manufacturing centre as a result.
The ideals of communism impressed many young Hong Kongers in the 1960s. In May, 1967 , a labour movement under the influence of the Cultural Revolution in the PRC became violent. Riots followed in the next six months. A famous radio host, Lam Bun ( ֱ ), who openly criticised the movement, was murdered. Leftist agitators in Hong Kong resorted to terrorist attacks by planting real and fake bombs around the city. After the Hong Kong government brought down the labour movement, the communists' web in Hong Kong was broken and the Hongkongers' view of the communists became negative. ( Refer to Hong Kong 1967 riots )
In the 1960s, radical free market economic policies were introduced in Hong Kong under Financial Secretary Sir John Cowperthwaite who served from 1961 until 1971. These policies have been widely credited with allowing an economic boom which would transform Hong Kong into a global manufacturing and financial centre.
In 1974 , Murray McLehose founded the ICAC , the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The situation was so bad that there was a mass petition by policemen against prosecutions. Despite early police opposition to the ICAC, Hong Kong was quite successful in its anti- corruption efforts, eventually becoming ranked one of the least corrupt societies in the world .
While the opening of the mainland Chinese market and rising salaries drove many manufacturers north, Hong Kong today remains a major commercial and tourism centre. High life expectancy, literacy, per capita income and other socioeconomic measures attest to Hong Kong 's achievements over the last four decades of the 20th Century.
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