1941-1945 1949-1967







Hong Kong 1945-1949


Administration . From liberation in September 1945 until April 1946, Hong Kong was under British Military Administration, headed by Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt. In April 1946, civilian administration was restored and Governor Mark Aitchinson Young resumed the office he had held from September to December 1941. In July 1947, Alexander Grantham assumed governorship, and held on to it until 1957.

Hong Kong and China . During World War II, the United Kingdom and the Republic of China were allies. The isolation from China imposed upon Hong Kong by the Japanese was lifted. During the Chinese Civil War, Hong Kong received a large number of Chinese refugees. With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on October 1st 1949, the Chinese Civil War, in the vicinity of Hong Kong, was over.

The Economy . The Hong Kong Dollar was reintroduced; Japanese military Yen were exchanged for HK $ at the rate of 100:1. Hong Kong quickly resumed her position as a regional trade hub. B.R. Mitchell gives Hong Kong's aggregate imports, in current value of 2000, as 934 million HK $ in 1946, 1.55 billion HK $ in 1947, 2.0 billion HK $ in 1948 and 2.9 billion HK $ in 1949 (IHS p.545).

Social History . Hong Kong's population, following liberation, quickly rose, from 0.6 million at the end of Japanese occupation to 1.8 million in 1947 and 2.2 million by spring 1950, the growth since 1947 to be explained by refugees from mainland China, then suffering from civil war and misery caused by hyperinflation.
The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions was established in 1948.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Article 1950es in Hong Kong, Alexander Grantham, Mark Aitchinson Young, Cecil Harcourt, Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, from Wikipedia
A Case of Self-Delusion. Part 1 : From Colonialism to Confusion, by Henry C.K. Liu
DOCUMENTS Hong Kong Administrators, from World Statesmen (B. Cahoon), scroll down for Hong Kong
Historical Population Statistics : Hong Kong, from Population Statistics (Jan Lahmeyer)
REFERENCE IHS : International Historical Statistics : Africa, Asia & Oceania 1750-2000, edited by B.R. Mitchell, Basingstoke : Palgrave MacMillan 4th ed. 2003 [G]
Frank Welsh, A Borrowed Place, The History of Hong Kong, NY : Kodansha 1993
Article : British Empire, in : Britannica Book of the Year 1946 pp.147-149, 1947 pp.150-151, 1948 pp.140-141, 1949 pp.120-124, 1950 pp.128-129 [G]
Article : Hong Kong, in : Britannica Book of the Year 1949 pp.322-323, 1950 p.341 [G]
Article : Hong Kong, in : Americana Annual 1946 p.352, 1947 p.325 [G]
Article : Hong Kong, in : Funk & Wagnall's New Standard Encyclopedia Year Book 1946 p.211 [G]


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on June 8th 2007

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