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superiority, and partly because of a concern that to do so would lead to an insidious transfer of control back to China. At first the colonial authorities mostly left the Chinese community to its own devices, so long as it did not pose a threat to internal order or external trade. They endorsed the formation of elite Chinese organizations that would serve the interests of the entire Chinese community in Hong Kong and would represent it in any dealings with the British. Thus their control over the Chinese residents of Hong Kong remained, for the time being, largely indirect. As we will see, however, toward the latter part of the nineteenth century British authorities began to integrate members of the Chinese elite into the colonial government, thereby facilitating closer control over the entire Chinese community. Issues concerning jurisdiction over Hong Kong residents were a constant source of tension between Britain and China. In the decades following the Treaty of Nanking, Qing officials based in nearby Canton were reluctant to recognize British jurisdiction in Hong Kong, and Britain became increasingly impatient with infringements on its authority in the colony. Eventually it was agreed that a Qing official who would have jurisdiction in cases solely involving Chinese offenders would be stationed on Kowloon Peninsula (which remained in Qing hands until 1860). Yet for some time Chinese constables continued to carry out investigations and even arrests on Hong Kong itself, in contravention of the agreement and to the great annoyance of the colonial authorities. These tensions did not subside for some time, not least because of a postwar resurgence of piracy that very often affected both Qing and British jurisdictions. At first such matters were dealt with case by case through diplomatic exchange. The record shows that efforts to cooperate in such cases were not always successful. In 1844, for instance, the pirate Zhen A'tai was captured by the British and then "lent" to the Qing government to help capture his confederates, apparently on the understanding he would be returned to Hong Kong for trial. But he remained on the mainland, where eventually he was executed. After a few years, mutual extradition arrangements were made; in 1849, for example, the Qing agreed in principle to a British request that if they captured the pirate Xu A'bao, wanted on murder charges in Hong Kong, they would return him for trial to Hong Kong. But if they did catch him, they do not appear to have let the British know. 3 Early Anglo-Chinese treaties repeatedly sought to deal with such jurisdictional conflicts, but intermittent disputes continued. British resistance to the establishment of any kind of formal Chinese presence in Hong Kong remained strong throughout the first half-century or so of the colony's existence. China's desire to establish a consulate in Hong Kong to represent its substantial Chinese population was a leading aspect of the vigorous diplomatic activism of the late Qing. But the British, assuming that the main function of such an office would be espionage of one kind or another, dragged their feet for two decades on this question. They feared that the presence of a Chinese official in Hong Kong, the vast majority of whose population was Chinese, would undermine their own authority. Chinese negotiators were at pains to point out that it was untenable to deny the Chinese a consulate, given the presence of Japanese and other diplomats in the colony. A Chinese consulate eventually opened in Hong Kong in 1891. A BRIEF HISTORY OF HONG KONG TO 3. See J.Y.Wong, Anglo-Chinese Relations 1839-1860:A Calendar of Chinese Documents in the British Foreign Office Records (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1983), entries for 1844 and 1849, passim.
4. Under-Secretary for the Colonies James Stephen, quoted in Gerald Graham, The China Station: War and Diplomacy 1830-1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978)4-). 234. Hong Kong as a Center oj International Commerce and Emigration The British established their colony in Hong Kong for "Diplomatic, Commercial, and Military purposes" 4 and they ran it according to the principles of "free" trade that they wished all Asia to embrace. Hong Kong's early growth was driven primarily by the expansion of international commerce between the Western nations and East Asia. As a British colony, Hong Kong's commercial development benefited distinctly from Britain's rise to predominance as- an- industrial an-d mercantile power. And the maritime trading route between Europe and East Asia was greatly shortened in 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal. At first Hong Kong served primarily as a waystation for the triangular opium trade between Britain, India and China. But other trading areas—notably Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the United States—and other commodities—textiles, sugar, rice, weapons, and munitions—came to be just as important. By 1880, approximately one-third of China's growing foreign trade passed through Hong Kong. The dual expansion of trading partners and trading commodities in the second half of the nineteenth century was in part the result of an even more important aspect of Hong Kong's commercial expansion: its role as one of the leading ports of embarkation for Chinese emigrating overseas. Hong Kong served as a major conduit for outbound Chinese. Under Qing law emigration was still technically illegal, but it was not difficult for Chinese to reach the nearby foreign enclaves of British Hong Kong or Portuguese Macao. Once would-be emigrants arrived in either place, there was little that Qing authorities could do to prevent their leaving for points overseas. A BRIEF HISTORY OF HONG KONG TO I 9 I 0 The reality was that they made little effort to do so. Many Qing officials valued emigration as a safety valve in their heavily populated provinces. From their point of view, it was clearly preferable for impoverished people to leave altogether than to become vagabonds, bandits, or state dependents. Furthermore, emigrants often sent home infusions of money that helped the overburdened local and national economies. So the emigration prohibitions went largely ignored. 5 Some Chinese emigrants went voluntarily, while others were press-ganged or otherwise persuaded to leave under false pretenses, as the following quite typical account shows: We were induced to proceed [to Macao] by offers of employment abroad at high wages, and through being told that the eight foreign years specified in the contracts were equivalent to only four Chinese, and that at the termination of the latter period we would be free. We observed also on the signboards of the foreign buildings the words "agencies for the engagement of labourers" and believed that they truthfully described the nature of the establishments, little expecting that having once entered the latter, exit would be denied us; and when on arrival at Havana, we were exposed for sale and subjected to appraisement in a most ruthless manner, it became evident that we were not to be engaged as labourers but to be sold as slaves. 6 By the 18505, Hong Kong had become a major center for the coolie traffic; during that decade over eighty thousand Chinese embarked from Hong Kong for destinations around the wo rid. The numbers of 6. Chinese Emigration: Report of the Commission Sent by China to Ascertain the Condition of Chinese Coolies in Cuba (Shanghai: Imperial Maritime Customs Press, 1876; repr.Taipei: Chengwen Publishing, 1970), p. 7, quoted in Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor:Tlie Story of the Overseas Chinese (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1990), p. 48.
Page 3: PICTURING HONG KONG Photography 185
Page 9 and 10: Foreword Words to address the pheno
Page 11 and 12: Preface and Acknowledgments My inte
Page 13: Lenders to the Exhibition at the As
Page 17 and 18: Joanna Waley-Cohen A BRIEF HISTORY
Page 19: Revolution led to anti- Portuguese
Page 23 and 24: subdivided by dialect differences b
Page 25 and 26: dominated by criminals who came to
Page 27 and 28: often in solidarity with compatriot
Page 29: Roberta Wue PICTURING HONG KONG Pho
Page 43: 48. John Thomson, "Introduction," I
Page 51 and 52: Edwin K. Lai THE BEGINNINGS OF HONG
Page 57 and 58: 31. Deng Zhaochu,"Guangzhou sheying
Page 59: 42. Advertisement by Kay Hing (Qixi
Page 103:
Portraits and People Daguerreotype
Page 131:
Appendixes Selected Bibliography Ch
Page 135:
Review: Photographs of Hongkong by
Page 140 and 141:
Tsai Jung-fang. Hong Kong in Chines
Page 142 and 143:
Photographer unknown Amah Rock, c.
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