Chapter 1 Introduction - 早稲田大学リポジトリ（DSpace@Waseda

Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background
The collaboration that occurred between the Japanese military administration and local
communities during World War II (WWII) was arguably a hallmark in the history of the
Empire of Japan. As an Asian colonial power amid powerful European empires, the Japanese
Empire was an anomaly in modern history.1 Although it expanded during the height of the
imperialism and was largely patterned after the tropical empires of modern European powers,
the Japanese Empire stood apart from its European counterparts, 2 as its historical and
geographical circumstances gave it a character and purpose almost impossible to duplicate
elsewhere.
One primary distinction between the European colonial empires and the Japanese
Empire is that none of the former ever earned as strong a reputation for repression as did the
latter. After the outbreak of WWII, the Japanese Empire assumed the image of a colonial
aggressor that had built an empire as a stepping-stone to the reckless conquest of Asia,3 an
1
Mark R. Peattie, “Introduction,” in The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, ed. Ramon H. Myers and Mark
R. Peattie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 6. Wade has argued that not only Japan but also China
stands as a colonial power in modern history. See Geoff Wade, Ming China and Southeast Asia in the 15th
Century: A Reappraisal, Asia Research Institute Working Paper no. 28 (July 2004),
http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/docs/wps/wps04_028.pdf (accessed July 1, 2006). Although historians have generally
been reluctant to acknowledge China as a colonial power, several recent studies have exposed the remarkable
parallels between China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and early modern European empires. Hostetler
has shown that as did those of imperial France and Russia, early Qing settlers colonized parts of the Empire by
displacing indigenous peoples. See Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in
Early Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), xiv. Hevia, who has revealed several
similarities between the imperial discourses of the Qing Empire and the British Empire, argues that their
differences lay not in the “methods of organizing and ruling empires” but in “military and commercial
technologies”. See James L. Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy
of 1793 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 26 and English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in
Nineteenth-Century China (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 166.
2
Mark R. Peattie, “The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945,” In The Cambridge History of Japan Vol. 6: The
Twentieth Century, ed. Peter Duus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 217.
3
Mark R. Peattie, “Japanese Colonialism: Discarding the Stereotypes,” in Japan Examined: Perspectives on
Modern Japanese History, ed. Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983),
209-213.
1
image solidified by the notorious wartime conduct of the Japanese. The Japanese Empire
intersected with the most powerful European colonial empire—the British Empire—on 8 am
on 8 December 1941, when Japan invaded Hong Kong without warning while simultaneously
attacking Pearl Harbour, the Philippines, and Malaya. With these attacks, the Japanese aimed
at realizing their ambition to control East and Southeast Asia, imposing a military
administration in each conquered territory that endured until 30 August 1945, when British
naval units under Rear-Admiral C. H. J. Harcourt entered Victoria Harbour and re-established
British authority fifteen days after the Japanese finally surrendered.
The people of Hong Kong now largely base their knowledge of the war and
occupation on versions of events presented in school textbooks, supplemented by occasional
television programs and other mass media productions. Although a more in-depth
understanding of the period can be acquired by reviewing the wartime accounts and memoirs
that exist within various document archives and oral history programs, few access these
materials. Moreover, the textbooks used in Hong Kong schools generally only offer a brief
overview of Japan’s rapid economic expansion from the Meiji period before discussing how
the rise of militarism and an aggressive nationalism ultimately led to the invasion and
conquest of Asia. Most texts neglect discussing the significance or legacy of Japanese
occupation in Hong Kong in full or part, particularly the manner in which it shaped the
postwar colonial history of Hong Kong. In particular, most texts fail to describe how the
Japanese military administration placed local Chinese civil servants in senior positions as part
of a policy to “use the Chinese to rule the Chinese” and forced local Chinese to complete
various training programs designed to develop skills and build character, both of which had
lasting consequences in shaping the patterns of local organizations in Hong Kong.
This dissertation aims to address the gap in knowledge that has resulted from a lack of
research into the effects of the Japanese colonial administration on Hong Kong in a manner
2
that neither praises nor blames any nation, institution, or individual. Although it criticizes the
actions of the Japanese, it aims to provide understanding of the thinking that lay behind their
actions, the ideas that motivated them, the goals that they hoped to achieve, and the successes
and failures that attended their efforts. Specifically, it strives to provide the greatest
understanding possible by identifying and examining the dynamics and interactions between
the Japanese military administration and the local Chinese community at various levels from
different perspectives throughout the occupation.
1.2 Review of the Literature on Japanese-Chinese Collaboration
Collaboration is an ever-present theme in world history whose examples are legion.
Between 1272 and 1368, Han Chinese elites collaborated with their conquerors after the
Mongols invaded China. In the Balkans of the fifteenth century, a number of Bosnian rulers
and noblemen gained infamy by collaborating with their Turkish governors while their
compatriots were rebelling against them.4 In the seventeenth century, Serb forces collaborated
with representatives of the so-called “hated” Habsburgs against the forces of the Ottoman
Empire.5
1.21 Definition of Collaboration
What is the fundamental meaning of collaboration? What types of collaboration have
existed throughout history? How have historians viewed these types of collaboration? These
important questions must be addressed before exploring specific examples of collaboration in
greater depth. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to collaborate is to “work
jointly . . . cooperate traitorously with the enemy”.6 This definition leaves many questions
unanswered. First, how does one judge to what extent and the manner in which politicians and
4
N. Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1996), 21.
M. Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (London: Penguin, 1992), 4.
6
“Collaborate,” in Oxford English Dictionary Online,
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0162340#m_en_gb0162340 (assessed August 9, 2010)
5
3
other figures cooperated “traitorously with the enemy” during certain periods in history?
Clearly, these considerations are a matter of interpretation. Only a minority who have ever
collaborated can be considered, or confess themselves to be, “traitors”. Many of the
intellectuals and informers who have collaborated have done so on account of misguided
ideas and ideology. Most have not “cooperated traitorously”, but rather worked with their
occupiers because they had no alternative but to do so, being not inherent collaborators but
rather ordinary people who had to compromise their safety and ethics to survive. In Hong
Kong, only a minority engaged in full collaboration with Japanese, and an even smaller
minority could claim to have avoided any contact with the Japanese administration. It is this
ambiguous nature of collaboration that makes it such a fascinating theme.
Although engaging in collaboration is a necessary part of an occupying power’s
political repertoire, opponents have applied such terms as puppets to occupied states and its
collaborators, thus banishing them into the netherworld of traitors. But this is not how
collaborators would describe themselves or their decision to cooperate with the powers that
be.7 From another perspective, occupation is the imposition of control by the military force of
a state over a territory originally subject to sovereignty, with an occupation state defined as
the political regime installed to administer that territory. Whereas occupation may lead to
collaboration, the reverse is not true. Collaboration is a parasitic political engagement
produced by a cancellation of sovereignty; the state emerges principally because the occupier
wants it to emerge and takes steps to make that emergence happen, not because the
collaborator takes steps to make it happen.8
7
Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2005), 13.
8
Brook, Collaboration, 222.
4
1.22 Collaboration from the Chinese Perspective
Chinese historians have largely viewed collaboration from the perspective of
nationalism: most Chinese did not collaborate with the Japanese for patriotic reasons, and the
few who did were craven, criminal, or corrupt. It is not difficult to understand this judgment.
From the late Qing period, resistance to Japan marks the rise of China as something other than
a defeated power. Given the weight of national pride that resistance is made to carry, most
Chinese naturally find it difficult to accept evidence of collaboration. However, the historian’s
task is not to assign blame to or make judgments against political actors in the past; instead, it
is to investigate the norms and conditions that produced moral subjects in the place and time
under study. Therefore, when examining why some local Chinese in Hong Kong chose to
cooperate with the Japanese, it is important to explain why cooperation made sense to them at
that time.
Historians have drawn a distinction between collaboration (working with the enemy
on a purely practical and logistical level) and collaborationism (providing unconditional
ideological support), the latter term being reserved for committed, ideological identification
with an occupier, such as French fascists’ collaboration with the Nazis in wartime France.
This distinction serves as a useful starting point for consideration of the phenomenon of
collaboration in China and Hong Kong. If collaborationism is to be understood as ideological
identification with Japan, then the term has little applicability to wartime China and Hong
Kong. However, the term collaboration—working with the enemy for a variety of reasons,
whether out of self-interest or for sheer survival, but never out of ideological commitment to
the enemy—is clearly relevant to the wartime situation.
The most important consideration is whether an instance of collaboration, in the sense
of working in some way with the enemy, is voluntarily or involuntarily. After the Japanese
invasion of mainland China, only political elites and the wealthy were able to flee to the
5
interior. Therefore, all civilians forced to remain under Japanese occupation could be labelled
collaborators, as no alternative term exists that could be applied to ordinary people who had
no choice in the matter. As such, the use of the term collaboration has contributed to the
labelling of people using black-and-white terms—the collaborators were “bad” and the
resisters were “good”—particularly as the postwar situation is evaluated with knowledge of
the outcome of the war. While we may speak with certainty today, the situation was very
ambiguous at the time of Japanese occupation. Neither the masses nor the elites had a clear
conception of how the war would develop or how their decisions and choices would be
viewed and judged after the war had ended. Everything was uncertain and unknown during
the war, a fact acknowledged throughout this dissertation.
Overall, the reality of the wartime situation forced individuals, groups, and institutions,
including political leaders and governments, to wrestle with an ethical dilemma that can be
summarized in the following consideration: To collaborate or not or, alternatively, take up a
position somewhere in between. This dissertation focuses on the nature of collaboration
among both the elites and the masses in Hong Kong, and briefly examines the nature of
collaboration in Singapore during the same period.
1.23 Types of Collaboration
As a broad concept, collaboration embraces many forms, which in itself may be
problematical, as it is almost impossible to delineate all the types of collaboration possible.
However, it is possible to identify several types of collaboration from the global literature, all
of which were the result of many different factors, leading their nature to vary widely. The
following sections describe the major types of collaboration identified in the literature.
1. Unconditional Collaboration
Unconditional collaborators, alternatively referred to as “die-hard” or “true”
collaborators, are those who served directly in Japanese military organs and supported the
6
occupying power in every way. They later felt no need to apologize for or justify their actions,
as they believed in the idea of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a concept developed
and promulgated during the Japanese Shōwa era that advocated creation of a self-sufficient
“bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers”, 9 and were
passionately committed to “long-term and unlimited cooperation”.
10
In short, these
individuals wished to glorify their actions rather than excuse them.
Collaboration in Europe during WWII generally referred to acceptance of Nazi
ideology and of Hitler as an ideal future leader, an acceptance that accords with Werner
Warmbrunn’s concept of voluntary collaboration and Werner Rings’ notion of unconditional
collaboration.11 In essence, this type of collaboration concerned conviction and belief, and
was perhaps genuine. The acceptance of Nazism among intellectuals and idealists was
manifested in such institutions as fan clubs, groups of unfulfilled political activists who saw
in the cataclysm of 1939 and the emergence of Hitler a once-in-a lifetime opportunity for both
a national and a continent-wide renaissance. These collaborators genuinely believed in the
national-socialist vision and, in more practical terms, in the “new Europe” that was taking
shape under Hitler’s tutelage. As such, the “crime” that they committed took place in the
realm of ideas rather than action. They had fallen in love with the Reich, but sadly and
unfortunately, it was passion of an unrequited kind. Ideological collaborators were open in
their disavowal of their own country, and proud to be associated with Nazi Germany or the
Empire of Japan, however tenuous this attachment was in reality.
9
Bill Gordon, Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, March 2000.
http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/coprospr.htm (assessed August 7, 2010)
10
Peter Davies, Dangerous Liaisons: Collaboration and World War Two, (Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2004), 21.
11
W. Rings, Life with the Enemy: Collaboration and Resistance in Hitler’s Europe, 1939-1945 (London:
Doubleday, 1982), 104-105.
7
2. Tactical Collaboration
Tactical collaborators, who could be defined as those who wanted to protect their
country and “avoid the worst”, 12 primarily desired to assist in the control of the local
administration for the what they perceived as the greater good. As such, they performed acts
of public service that facilitated the workings of society or the economy under the regime, the
clearest example being the elites who engaged in relief work assisting refugee children.
Tactical collaboration mainly concerned mundane problems such as supplying food,
organizing transportation, and arranging security, the types of matters that local elites and
officials had to resolve under any political dispensation to ensure social control and maintain
power.
Viewing collaboration from the perspective of the collaborators assists in viewing
collaboration as a concept to be investigated rather than a moral failure to be labelled and
condemned. This is not to say that moral considerations have no place in the study of
collaboration, but that the conditions within which individuals made choices must not be
overlooked. It helps in examining the tactical collaboration of Wang Jingwei, who supplied
food to the refugees as well as prostitutes to the Japanese. Is feeding refugees an act of
resistance or a way collaborating with the occupier? Is supplying prostitutes a way of
protecting the majority of women by providing soldiers with nonviolent opportunities for
sexual activity? Would the outcome of examination of Wang Jingwei’s collaboration be
altered if his personal motivation was not to help or hinder the Japanese but to profit from
unlooked-for opportunities?
In practice, collaboration meant working faithfully with the occupiers and putting into
effect all routine edicts that emanated from them. The Jews who served on Jewish Councils,
administrative bodies established by the Nazis, believed in protecting their own kith and kin.
12
R. Bennett, Under the Shadow of the Swastika: The Moral Dilemmas of Resistance and Collaboration in
Hitler’s Europe (New York: New York University Press, 1999), introduction.
8
The governments of Holland, Norway, and Belgium all made a point of conducting
administrative duties but not legislating. 13 It could be argued that Hans Max Hirschfeld,
Secretary-General for Economic Affairs of the Netherlands, personified this type of
collaboration. Despite criticism, he always maintained that it was important for his country to
continue functioning properly during the occupation, and that his responsibility was to assume
a role in its doing so.
3. Conditional Collaboration
Existing between resistors and complete collaborators, conditional collaborators were
those who made efforts to strengthen their negotiating position during WWII to gain more
power and maintain control while anticipating the return of the Allied forces after Japan’s
defeat. The Indian National Army (INA) may be regarded as having engaged in conditional
collaboration with the Japanese by maintaining its own separate institutions, choosing its own
bureaucrats, and occasionally standing against the Japanese in support of a particular Indian
interest. The conditional collaborator states, “I cooperate with the occupying power although I
endorse only some, not all, of the ‘national interest doctrines’. Subject to the proviso, I am
ready and eager to collaborate faithfully because I wish to change the circumstances that
dictate my attitude.”14 According to Rings, there were many excellent examples of conditional
collaboration: in Norway, where ordinary folk followed a “third way” between resistance and
collaboration; in Holland, where the Netherlands Union blended pro-German and antiGerman sentiments; and in Denmark and France, where the governments made it official
policy. He also highlights the case of “Red Army officials and Communist Party officials”
who engaged in this specific type of collaboration after they had been taken prisoner.15
13
Peter Davies, Dangerous Liaisons, 24.
Rings, Life with the Enemy, 106.
15
Rings, Life with the Enemy, 106-7.
14
9
Senior-level civil servants and newspaper editors were particularly susceptible to this
kind of collaboration. When attempting to justify what to most was unreasonable behaviour of
the highest order, these collaborators provided the default excuse of having acted in the
national interest. However, their argument was both nebulous and vague, leading others to ask,
how could compromise and accommodation have served the nation? What example were you
setting? To such questions these collaborators could not reply.
4. Passive Collaboration
For those who engaged in collaboration, to whatever degree, the key consideration
was how they could rationalize and justify their behaviour to themselves and the outside
world. Their instincts told them to obey the new authorities but their consciences told them
that the new rulers were illegitimate, a dilemma underlined by a constant refrain: the
circumstances of war and occupation had brought with them new and unpleasant dilemmas.
The largest number of citizens were passive collaborators, those had who decided that life
must continue and were determined to survive the war, and would conform in whatever way
was necessary to do so without taking any specific action, whether consciously or not.
Assuming an attitude known as passive acquiescence, they hoped for Japan’s defeat in their
hearts only, hoping that when liberation came, it would vindicate their pragmatic positioning
vis-a-vis the occupying power.
Passive collaboration concerned coming to terms with reality by recognizing outright
political and military superiority. As such, it was equivalent to accommodation—acceptance
of the status quo—which Gerhard Hirschfeld described as a type of staging post on the road to
collaboration proper.16 Hirschfeld described Dr Hendrik Colijn, a noted Dutch politician, as
one of the most accomplished exponents of accommodation. After his country had been
invaded by the Germans, Colijn set up the Netherlands Union, a body that envisaged working
16
G. Hirschfeld and P. Marsh, ed., Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation
1940-1944 (Oxford: Berg, 1989), 8.
10
with the occupiers rather than opposing them based on realism and practicalities. When it
appeared that Hitler might win the war, the Union’s recruitment figures started to increase.
In summary, regardless of the current dictionary definition of the word, collaboration has
been interpreted in widely differing ways and has taken many forms throughout history.
While history has witnessed genuine forms of collaboration, it has also witnessed actions
termed collaboration that could be argued were not truly such.
1.24 Literature on Collaboration in WWII Europe
Defining collaboration as working traitorously with the enemy tends to underestimate
the complexity of the phenomenon and its nuanced nature. As a historical topic, collaboration
in Hong Kong is rich, exciting, and dramatic. Wherever the Japanese administration
established a colonial outpost, there was the possibility of compromise and agreement
between the Japanese and the local elites and masses. Despite its significance, collaboration in
Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation has been an understudied and neglected area of
inquiry. As such, it is rare to see it discussed among the resources covering WWII and the
colonial history of Hong Kong. To fill this research gap, this dissertation examines
collaboration in Hong Kong and Singapore during Japanese occupation from the perspectives
of both the occupied and the occupiers.
Before presenting the analytical framework upon which this study is based, it is
necessary to discuss global perspectives on collaboration in wartime Europe, China, and
Southeast Asia. Revaluations of wartime occupation in Western Europe, which began in the
1970s with a focus on Vichy, have tended to conclude that many occupying powers had
enjoyed support from broad segments of the community, either because they had pushed out
dominant political and social classes or because they had facilitated the overthrow of
previously dominant political ideologies. German anti-Semitism drew much popular support
in occupied Europe because of the prominence, real or imagined, of the Jewish community in
11
economic and political life. Vichy France initially enjoyed strong popular support because it
drew on widespread rejection of the liberal, secular, and supposedly Jewish-influenced Third
Republic. In central and eastern Europe, a number of conservative regimes, often with a
pronounced clerical admixture, adopted a public fascist style, and willingly linked themselves
to Nazi Germany’s anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic ideology.17
Recent scholarship has begun to demonstrate that the truth is more complex, lying
somewhere between extreme collaboration and resistance. One overlooked example of such
complexity is that of the Loire Valley of France, where the German occupiers initially
behaved fairly well, with the first year of occupation characterized by a process of negotiation
with local prefects and mayors. German savagery came later, when the war had begun to turn
against Germany and control had shifted from the harsh but correct German military
government to the Gestapo, whose sole object was repression. Although local notables
cooperated with the Germans, they did not do so out of any appetite for treason; rather, the
pressures of conquest had narrowed their loyalties such that the desire to care for their
families, towns, and regions had come to eclipse any broader sense of national duty. Social
life went on vigorously in forms ranging from charitable endeavours to sports, theatre-going,
and religious processions, with resistance only occurring on the fringes. Therefore, liberation
was marked by a high degree of administrative continuity. Concerned above all to avert social
turmoil, the incoming Free French authorities preferred to leave established local leaders in
their place. Dignitaries who had worked with the Germans were generally punished lightly,
with major punishment reserved for lower-level administrators. By doing so, the locals could
weave a comforting legend that everyone, with a few very minor exceptions, had been
17
Davies, Dangerous Liaisons, 12.
12
resisters at heart. Much of the picture, in other words, was not so much black and white as
shades of grey.18
A number of monographs on specific European collaborationist movements or
regimes have been published, but comparative study of such phenomena has only recently
begun. In the case of China, research has been conducted into the early years of the
Provisional Government in Beiping (now Beijing) and the negotiations that led to the
establishment of the Wang Jingwei government in Nanjing. 19 Apart from a few articles
written by scholars in English and Chinese (mostly in the latter) on specific aspects of
collaboration, the study of collaborationist governments, both in terms of their intrinsic nature
and the overall record of their collaboration, as well as comparison of the Chinese experience
of collaboration with that of the European nations, remains an overlooked endeavour.20
1.25 Literature on Collaboration in WWII China
Every culture considers collaboration a form of moral failure. For those dedicated to
the pursuit of a national identity, especially when they are able to argue that they tread the
path of justice, it is impossible to conceive of collaboration as a legitimate alterative to
patriotism. During WWII, China was divided into three zones—the Nationalist free zone in
the South-west, with its base in Chongqing; the Communist zone in the North, with its base in
Yanan; and Japanese-occupied China in the remainder of the country, centred around the
coast and the big cities—and governed by two collaborating regimes—the Reformed
Government (1938-40) and the Reorganized National Government (1940-45) led by Wang
Jingwei. Traditionally, historians and politicians have taken extreme perspectives in their
18
See Robert Gildea, Marianne in Chains (London: Macmillan, 2002), 75.
For the Beiping regime, see George E. Taylor, The Struggle for North China (New York: Institute of Pacific
Relations, 1940). For the 1938-40 negotiations between Wang Jingwei and the Japanese, see John H. Boyle,
China and Japan at War, 1937-1945: The Politics of Collaboration (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972)
and Gerald E. Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy: Wang Ching-wei and the China War, 1937-1941 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University press, 1972).
20
A number of documentary collections on the Wang regime have been published in China. For an introductory
survey, see Cai Dejin, Lishi Guaitai: Wang Jingwei Guomin Zhengfu (A Historical Malformation: The Wang
Jangwei National Government; Guilin: Guangxi Shifan Davue Chubanshe, 1993).
19
13
analysis of the Chinese during WWII: collaboration was “wrong and bad” and resistance to
the Japanese was “correct and good”. However, after gaining understanding of the thinking
underlying the decisions and actions of the collaborators in recent years, scholars have begun
to take a more nuanced perspective.21
The most distinctive feature of the Wang regime, and one that clearly sets it apart from
its European counterparts, was that it neither advanced a distinctive ideological agenda nor
sought the allegiance of hitherto ignored social classes. Wang constantly claimed he
represented orthodoxy (zheng-tong), both as the rightful head of the Chinese government and
as the guardian of correct Kuomintang (KMT) ideology.22 Thus, he sought no break with the
ideological directions and practical policies of the pre-1937 Nationalist Government of
Chiang Kai-shek. Rather, his government sought to carry out these policies more effectively,
realizing as it did the need to restructure Sino-Japanese relations under the rubric of a new
order in East Asia. This restructuring would not constitute a redirection of party doctrine,
Wang argued, as Sun Yat-sen had championed Sino-Japanese collaboration in the cause of
Pan-Asianism.23
21
David P. Barrett and Larry N. Shyu, ed., Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: The Limits of
Accommodation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).
22
See the documents issued by Wang’s rival Sixth Congress of the Guomindang (September 1939) in Huang
Meizhen and Zhang Yun, ed., Wang Jingwei Guomin Zhengfu Chengli (The Establishment of the Wang Jingwei
National Government; Shanghai: Renmin Chubanshe, 1984), 324-57.
23
The theme is forcefully expressed following the Wang regimes’s declaration of war on Great Britain and the
United States in January 1943. See Wang’s address to the nation, “Tashang Baowei Dongya Di Zhanxian”
(“Stepping into the Battleline to Defend East Asia”) in Zhengzhi Yuekan 5, no. 2 (February 1943), 5-6.
Sun Yat-sen (12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader. As the
foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the Father of the Nation of Republic of
China. Sun played an instrumental role in inspiring the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty
of China, which began in October 1911. He was the first provisional president when the Republic of China (ROC)
was founded in 1912 and later co-founded the Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its first leader. Sun was a
uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being
widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.Although Sun is considered one of the
greatest leaders of modern China, his political life was one of constant struggle and frequent exile. After the
success of the revolution, he quickly fell out of power in the newly founded Republic of China, and led
successive revolutionary governments as a challenge to the warlords who controlled much of the nation. Sun did
not live to see his party consolidate its power over the country. His party, which formed a fragile alliance with
the Communists, split into two factions after his death. Sun’s chief legacy resides in his developing a political
philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood.
14
John H. Boyle noted that unlike the Europeans, the Chinese have felt the need to
examine life under Japanese occupation, especially the collaboration that occurred during that
period.24 However, Poshek Fu notes that research into collaboration in the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) and Taiwan remains “parochially political”.25 In addition, the comparatively
small body of work that has moved beyond examination of archival collections has been
based on baldly moralistic frameworks, with scholars invariably attaching to individuals and
groups epithets such as hanjian (traitor to the Chinese), kuilei (puppet), and wei (bogus).26
Given the fact that many peoples and cultures have many times shown themselves capable of
prospering under the control of outsiders throughout the course of Chinese history, such
derogation may initially be somewhat surprising. Explaining this apparent attitudinal change,
Boyle asserts that the stigma attached to collaboration after WWII was rooted in Chinese
nationalism, a twentieth-century phenomenon and a powerful force, the final expression of
which is still in the process of being realized.
Given the wide experience of enemy occupation during WWII, it may initially seem
surprising that the study of collaboration in wartime China only began in the 1970s. Although
the American scholars John H. Boyle and Gerald E. Bunker published two path-breaking
studies detailing Wang Jingwei’s covert negotiations with the Japanese from 1937 to 193927
in 1972, it was not until the mid-1980s that Chinese scholars began to publish on the general
theme of wartime collaboration. The documentary collections that first appeared were
invaluable research materials, but could not be presented without interpretation by scholars.
Although the steadily increasing number of articles and monographs that followed widened
24
Boyle, China and Japan at War, vii.
Poshek Fu, Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937-1945
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), xi.
26
Huang Meizhen, ed., Wang Wei Shi Hanjian (The Ten Traitors Of The Wang Regime; Shanghai, 1986) and
Huang Meizhen and Zhang Yun, ed., Wang Jingwei Jituan Panguo Toudi Ji (The Traitorous Collaboration of the
Wang Clique; Henan, 1987).
27
Boyle, China and Japan at War; Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy.
25
15
the range of knowledge regarding wartime collaboration, their authors never countered the
official judgment that all who worked with the enemy were traitors (hanjian).
It was the end of Cultural Revolution in China in 1978 that set in motion the historicgraphical changes that would make the study of occupied China at last possible. However, the
first step taken in this direction was tentative. Throughout the early and mid-1980s, several
collections of key documents on the peace movement and the various collaborationist regimes,
along with the first chronology of the Wang Jingwei regime, were published. 28 All these
publications unreservedly condemned all collaborationists as traitors (hanjian), and made
generous use of terms such as bogus (wei) and fascist to describe anything or anyone even
tangentially concerned with collaboration. Nevertheless, once the topic of wartime
collaboration had been broached, the range of literature expanded, with groundbreaking
academic and anecdotal works appearing in the late 1980s and early 1990s that offered great
amounts of new information and innumerable references to hitherto unknown sources.
Still, the topic of Chinese collaboration during WWII remains understudied, primarily
due to a lack of access to sources. The Chinese public has been unable to access information
on many topics of political sensitivity, while the Taiwanese public was unable to do so until
1996. During the war, Western-language sources were few in number and sketchy in character,
especially in the years following Pearl Harbor, when Western access to occupied China was
blocked. However, several Japanese sources, particularly memoirs, are available, and have
been effectively used by Boyle and Bunker to reconstruct the origins of Wang Jingwei’s
peace movement and government. At the same time, many Japanese documentary sources
were lost during or immediately after the war, either destroyed in wartime air raids, as in the
28
The major documentary collections, as well as the first volume of topical essays, were produced by a group of
scholars at Fudan University in Shanghai, foremost of whom was Professor Huang Meizhen. In Beijing, the lead
was taken by the late Professor Cai Dejin, who compiled the first chronology of the Wang regime, and then went
on to write many articles and monographs on its history.
16
case of the Greater East Asia Ministry records, or by systematic culling in the days
immediately following the surrender, as in the case of many Army records.29
Another major challenge to the study of local collaboration between the Chinese and
Japanese is that such collaboration is an aspect of their history that most Chinese would like
to forget, or even deny. Collective Chinese memory recalls this time as only a period of
Japanese atrocities and Chinese suffering and resistance, And the traditional rationalization
behind collaboration has been that collaboration was due to purely personal connections to the
occupiers. Such connections are easy to identify. For example, the first person to run
Zhenjiang under the Japanese, Liu Zhaoqing, graduated from a Japanese police academy. The
head of the Nanjing Self-Government Committee, Tao Xisan, had earned a degree in law
from Housei University in Tokyo, and most of his associates on the committee had also
received Japanese educations. The head of the first collaborationist regime in Shanghai, Su
Xiwen, studied political economy at Waseda University. Study in Japan meant that they, at
the very least, shared a common language with the occupier, which made them likely to be the
first whom Japanese agents approached in their search for local contacts. However, many
Chinese who had personal ties with Japan chose to resist. Ma Chaojun, Mayor of Nanjing in
1937, had studied aviation in Japan, yet chose to flee West with the retreating Nationalist
government rather than collaborate.30
Similar patterns have begun to emerge from the study of memoirs of the Japanese
occupation of other parts of East Asia. Regarding newly conquered Shanghai, many have
argued that the primary concern of the leading Chinese industrialists was to keep their
29
Sadao Asada, ed., Japan and the World, 1853-1952: A Bibliographic Guide to Japanese Scholarship in
Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 26-27.
30
Brook, Collaboration, 4. In this groundbreaking work, Brook breaks the silence surrounding the sensitive
topic of wartime collaboration between the Chinese and their Japanese occupiers and, by showing how it
parallels with the more familiar stories of European collaboration with the Nazis, demonstrates how the Chinese
were deeply troubled by their unavoidable cooperation with the occupiers. The comparison provides a point of
entry into the difficult but necessary discussion about this long-ignored aspect of the war in the Pacific.
17
businesses operating. They did not wish to have any more contact with the invaders than was
strictly essential, but were prepared to cooperate so that their factories would continue to run
under Japanese auspices. Several attempted to balance their decision to cooperate by sending
family members to invest in Chinese Nationalist enterprises in the unoccupied western half of
China.31
In general, most Chinese remain reluctant and unprepared to look behind their
collective memory of suffering and resistance to examine the actions of those in occupied
China during the war. The myth of resistance has been a powerful moral weapon that political
elites on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have used to sustain postwar dictatorships, each party
claiming that because it alone defeated the Japanese, it alone has the moral legitimacy to rule.
1.26 Literature on wartime collaboration in Southeast Asia: A different perspective
Japan’s simultaneous attack on Singapore, invasion of Hong Kong, and raid on Pearl
Harbor marked the inception of open hostilities between Japan, Allied Europe, and the United
States. As such, the resulting Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia during WWII has
become one of the most closely studied periods of the region’s history. Since the late 1940s, a
considerable number of doctoral dissertations, journal articles, and monographs have
analyzed the events of the war years from local, national, and regional perspectives. The
complexity of Southeast Asia’s modern history has generally precluded the development of
the neatly defined historical “problems” characteristic of undergraduate readings on Europe
or America, with the war’s lasting political impact on Southeast Asian politics being one of
the few considerations that has attracted sufficient academic research to achieve the status of
such a “problem”. The literature on the wartime period has expanded to encompass the
region’s major states, although differing schools of interpretation have been applied to several
regions.
31
Parks M. Coble, “Chinese Capitialists and the Japanese: Collaboration and resistance in the Shanghai Area,
1937-45,” in Wartime Shanghai, ed. Wen-hsin Yeh (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 62-85.
18
While the Japanese appeared to have been masters of force and counter-manipulation,
they appeared to lack the diplomatic skills necessary to assume leadership in the region, and
thus rarely achieved their ends. Even in Malaya, where war-time occupation unleashed
communal antagonisms that have yet to be restrained, it is clear from the accounts of both
Akashi Yoji and Cheah Boon Kheng that neither the Malay nor Chinese leadership were
victims of Japanese manipulation but instead actively sought the opportunity for communal
confrontation. By doing so, they led the Japanese to become either unwitting accomplices or
ineffective arbiters.
While the war was an experience of questionable significance for the region, it was
also undoubtedly of major importance in the history of modern Japan. Unlike the large
number of “impact” and “response” studies conducted to date, parallel examination of most
aspects of Japanese policy, such as economic management, social policy, and civil and
military relations, has yet to be conducted, leaving us uninformed regarding key aspects of the
Japanese war effort and the society behind that effort. Once completed, such work will give
us a far clearer perspective of Japanese operations, and will allow the study of the war's
impact on Southeast Asia to proceed at a much higher level of analysis.32
In East and Southeast Asia, the day-to-day expedients required for living under
occupation were overlaid by a further complexity: Many of the territories that the Japanese
conquered were already under alien rule. As such, the Japanese could claim that they were
“liberating” these territories from European tyranny. It appears that their claim initially met
with fairly widespread acceptance; indeed, in several parts of the region, Indian traders and
auxiliary troops in the British service were inspired by the Japanese gospel,33 whereas other
32
Alfred W. McCoy, Southeast Asia under Japanese occupation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast
Asia Studies, 1980), 9.
33
See Fujiwara Iwaichi, F Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operations in South-East Asia during World War
II (Heinemann Asia: Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, 1983) and Peter Elphick, Singapore, The
19
ethnic groups, including the Malays and Burmese, appeared to have been prepared to accept
the replacement of British with Japanese patronage. In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, an
eighteen-year-old during the war who enrolled in a Japanese language course before
becoming a broker on the black market, recalled thinking that as the Japanese were likely to
remain in power for some years, armed resistance was out of the question, and the overriding
priority was to survive.34
Singapore had considerable geo-strategic importance because Britain’s Singapore
Naval Base served as a centre of operations against Japan. Before the Japanese attack,
manoeuvres had been conducted to demonstrate British readiness to withstand the impending
Japanese aggression. However, the overall defence plan was executed half heartedly, as
Britain was more concerned with her engagement in the European theatre than channelling
essential military resources, especially aviation resources, to the Far East. The Japanese, on
the other hand, had carefully planned their military strategy using intelligence collected
directly or indirectly from the Japanese community in Malaya and Singapore, and thus
required only fifty-five days to occupy Malaya. Owing to losses suffered from enemy action
and lack of water, petrol, food, and ammunition, the British found themselves unable to
continue the fight any longer, and, after seven days of defensive action, capitulated to the
Japanese on 15 February 1942.
The fall of Singapore, the impregnable fortress of the British Empire in the East,
marked the beginning of a brief but tumultuous chapter in Singaporean history, as well as that
of the entire region. The academic literature regarding this chapter in history mostly concerns
military activities and the ordeals of Europeans held as prisoners of war or as civilian
Pregnable Fortress: A Study in Deception, Discord and Desertion (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995), 71-2,
95-106, 113.
34
Kee Kuan-yew, The Singapore Story (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 1998), 61-77.
20
internees. 35 Still, compared with that concerning Hong Kong, the literature concerning
different aspects of Japanese governance in Malaya, particularly the seminal works of
Japanese historian Professor Akashi Yoji and Paul H. Kratoska, is much more
comprehensive.36
Popular understanding regarding Japanese occupation of Singapore remains riddled
with misconceptions, such as that the war caused Britain to abandon its colonial empire; that
all Japanese ruled autocratically and used terror to control the population; that all Chinese
were hostile to the Japanese; that all Malays collaborated; and that all Indians were won over
by the promise of support for Indian independence.37 Such common interpretations reflect
only partial truths and include much that is inaccurate. WWII certainly contributed to Great
Britain’s decision to give up its empire, but events in Malaya had little to do with that
decision, and colonial rule ended in Malaya twelve years after the Japanese surrender. After
an initial period of savage repression, Japanese governance in Singapore was conducted
through communal organizations and prewar administrative structures. Most Chinese
cooperated with the Japanese, even if reluctantly; most Malays were neutral and disliked
Japanese rule; and many Indians ultimately viewed Japanese backing for the independence
movement as detrimental to their cause.38
Although cooperation with the invader is almost always regarded as collaboration or
treason when one country occupies another, the complex situation in the Southeast Asian
35
See Gerard H. Corr, The War of the Springing Tigers (London: Osprey, 1975); Ian Ward, The Killer They
Called a God (Singapore: Media Masters, 1992); Joseph Kennedy Basingstoke, British Civilians and the
Japanese War in Malaya and Singapore, 1941-1945 (Basingstoke: Macmillan,1987); Keith Wilson, You’ll Never
Get Off the Island: Prisoner of War, Changi, Singapore, February 1942-August 1945 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin,
1989); T.P.M. Lewis Kuala, Changi: The Lost Years: A Malayan Diary, 1941-1945 (Lumpur: Malayan Historical
Society, 1984).
36
Yoji Akashi, “Japanese Military Administration in Malaya: Its Formation and Evolution in Reference to
Sultans, the Muslim Malays 1941-1945,” Asian Studies 7, no. 1 (1969): 81-110; Yoji Akashi, “Japanese Policy
towards the Malayan Chinese, 1941-1945” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 1, no. 2 (1970): 61-89; Yoji
Akashi,“Education and Indoctrination Policy in Malaya and Singapore under the Japanese Rule, 1942-1945, ”
Malayan Journal of Education 13, no. 1/2 (1976): 1-46; Paul H. Kratoska, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya:
A Social and Economic History (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1998).
37
Kratoska, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1.
38
Ibid., 2.
21
territories that had been under British domination before falling under Japanese occupation
demands a more nuanced examination. From a nationalist perspective, cooperation with Japan
may have been seen as an act of patriotism, for it meant liberation from the West. Indeed,
Southeast Asian political leaders who cooperated with Japan did not consider themselves
traitors to the national cause; on the contrary, they tended to boast of their “strategic”
collaboration with Japan, which they regarded as a useful means of preparing for national
independence. Thus, wartime cooperation between Japan and the Southeast Asian states can
be viewed as resulting from a complex relationship in which both parties were in the same
vehicle but had different destinations.39
1.27 Literature on Collaboration in WWII Hong Kong
Over the course of the sixty-five years that have elapsed since the end of the WWII,
most accounts of life in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong have been painted in simple colours:
brutality and terror; collaboration and resistance; joyous liberation followed by the welldeserved punishment of the wicked and the rewarding of the brave. Recent literature has
begun to demonstrate that the truth is more complex, as this dissertation attempts to support.
The perspectives on wartime Hong Kong can generally be classified into three groups. The
first of these perspectives is that of the British. While G.B. Endacott’s Hong Kong Eclipse
explored Hong Kong’s general situation and analyzed its societal transformation,40 little else
has been written on the situation of local residents, especially the Chinese community, who
comprised ninety-eight percent of the entire population. The second perspective is that of the
wealthy Anglicized elite who dominated local Asian society before, during, and after the war.
Their contribution has been a lack thereof: a profound silence that they have sustained for
almost six decades, one that has obscured not only those aspects of their wartime record that
39
Goto Kenichi, Tension of Empire:Japan and Southeast Asia in the colonial and postcolonial world,
(Singapore: Singapore University Press, National University of Singapore, 2003), 79.
40
G. B. Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978).
22
might be thought worthy of criticism but also the genuinely public-spirited side of their role.
Of the two memoirs that can be traced to elite families, only one describes life in the occupied
urban areas with any detail. The second, written by a woman who spent the war alongside the
British in a civilian internment camp, broadly accords with the British perspective.41 The third
perspective is that of the Chinese as reflected in their literature, which includes the memoirs
of mainland Chinese journalists and celebrities who left the colony in the early months of the
Japanese takeover. These Chinese sources offer an illuminating corrective to the Englishlanguage works, disclosing the unspeakable cruelties inflicted on the Chinese populace by the
Japanese forces—cruelties far worse in both scale and severity than those endured by most of
the British in Hong Kong, grim though the ordeal of the latter undoubtedly was.
However, the Chinese accounts also have their limitations. They tend to overlook the
real dilemmas and pressure faced by the local Asian leaders, and by emphasizing the vile
misdemeanours committed by many Japanese officers and troops, are apt to portray the
Japanese as uniformly fiendish, ignoring the humanity that was shown by some individuals
and the occasional efforts made by the occupation regime to pursue a relatively moderate or
constructive line of policy. The Hong Kong-published Chinese materials on the occupation
period can generally be classified into the three categories of (1) accounts of the battle of
Hong Kong, (2) accounts of the difficulties of life during the occupation, and (3) accounts of
guerrilla activities in Hong Kong.42
The majority of the existing literature on the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong has
focused on how the Japanese exploited the occupied territories’ wealth, and have either
underemphasized or neglected examination of the manner in which Japanese military rule
41
The two memoirs are Li Shu-fan, Hong Kong Surgeon (London: V. Gollancz, 1964) and Jean Gittins, Stanley:
Behind Barbed Wire (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1982).
42
See Xu Yue Qing, Huo Yue Zai Xiang Jiang: Gang Jiu Da Dui Xi Gong Di Qu Kang Ri Shi Lu (Hong Kong:
Joint Publishing, 1993); Guan Lixiong, Ri Zhan Shi Qi De Xianggang (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1993); Xie
Yong Guang, San Nian Ling Ba Ge Yue De Ku Nan (Hong Kong: Ming Pao Publishing, 1994).
23
varied according to the historical, cultural, and political development of each area and the
manner in which local Chinese communities interacted with their occupiers. This dissertation
aims to fill this research gap by exploring these topics comprehensively.
1.3 Analytical Framework
1.31 Research Gap Identification
The majority of the literature regarding the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and
Singapore focuses on political and economic factors and tends to praise resistance forces,
whether overtly or by implication. Due to this overwhelming focus, it has failed to thoroughly
identify and examine the factors that shaped and can explain the dynamics and interactions
between the Japanese military administration and the local Chinese communities in Hong
Kong and Singapore during the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia. The literature has not
fully addressed these aspects on account of three factors. The first factor is that due to their
difficulties in utilizing Chinese- or Japanese-language sources, Western scholars have relied
heavily on Western historical archives and military intelligence reports, which are biased in
favour of the Allies and cannot provide a detailed explanation of the economic and social
activities of local residents. Second, scholars have tended to neglect examination of the
historical development of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, leaving them unable to
explain the interactions and dynamics between the ruling class and the ruled class (the
Japanese and the Chinese community) at different stages of the occupation. Third, the existing
literature on Japanese occupation in Hong Kong and Singapore describes little regarding the
role of the different political actors,43 including the Japanese military government, the elites
43
For the concept of actor, see Barry Hindess, Choice, Rationality, and Social Theory (London: Unwin Hyman,
1988), chapter 4; Susan Herbst, Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chapter 1; Fritz W. Scharpf, Games Real Actors Play: ActorCentered Institutionalism in Policy Research (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), chapter 3; and Marshall
Wolfe, Social Integration: Institutions and Actors, Occasional Paper No. 4 (Geneva: World Summit For Social
Development, September 1994).
An actor is a locus of decisions and actions. The decisions themselves may be formulated by the actor in
advance of the action itself or at the moment of action, but may not be consciously made, or may be made on the
24
and prominent Chinese, and the masses whose support of the government was necessary for
the Japanese administration to function. Recognizing the necessity of examining how
different political actors performed and responded to each other from different perspectives
during the occupation, this dissertation examines the nature of these dynamics and
interactions in occupied Hong Kong and Singapore.
1.32 Importance of Examining Collaboration in WWII Hong Kong
The existing literature does not provide a vivid and accurate picture of the Japanese
occupation of Southeast Asia during WWII, especially regarding the dynamics and
interactions between the Japanese military administration and the local Chinese communities.
Above all, the literature fails to conduct comparative analyses of the dynamics and
interactions of the Japanese military administration and the local Chinese communities in the
British colonies, particularly those in Hong Kong and Singapore, despite the fact that the
Japanese would have experienced great difficulty implementing and maintaining their
administration without local collaboration. The lack of attention given to the topic of WWII in
general and collaboration specifically by Hong Kong historians may be traced to the
particular circumstances in which the war in Hong Kong ended. In contrast to Europe, where
Allied armies took control of the remaining German-held areas immediately upon German
surrender, the sudden surrender of the Japanese left Hong Kong in a state of uncertainty; with
Japanese forces still controlling the city, the British military government demanded that local
Chinese elites return immediately to promote stability.
basis of practical knowledge that is difficult to formulate at the moment of action. In all these cases, actors’
decisions and the reasons for them have an important part to play in the explanation of what they do. Actors may
also do things that could not be described as resulting from their decisions, and those things must be explained in
some other way. Human individuals are certainly actors, but there are many others, such as social or political
actors in the form of capitalist enterprises, churches, criminal organizations, state agencies, political parties,
community organizations, and althetic clubs, that are all actors in the minimal sense that they have a means of
reaching decisions and of acting on some on them. This dissertation refers to such actors as political actors for
two rather different reasons. One is simply to have a more convenient designation than the cumbersome phrase
“actors other than human individuals”. The other is to avoid the temptation of identifying these actors with any
one kind of organizational structure. Other entities, such as the moon and other natural bodies, perform what
would be described as actions, but would not normally be described as making decisions and acting on them.
25
This dissertation argues that the decision to collaborate was not simply a moral choice
between patriotism and betrayal, and varied greatly in accordance with location and local
context. Moreover, it varied according to the collaborators’ particular circumstances,
particularly the roles that they played in social, political, and economic networks. 44
Individuals assumed the identity of “collaborator” for a host of reasons shaped by personal
aims and existential needs and pressures, all of which are explored in this dissertation.
During the three years and eight months in which one million local Chinese lived in
Japanese-occupied Hong Kong, there was collaboration as well as resistance, the former of
which was much more than simply the latter’s opposite. This dissertation examines the nature
of this collaboration not to exonerate or condemn those who chose to collaborate but rather
discover how the local Chinese community, including the elites and the masses, interacted
with the Japanese occupiers. Through such examination, it will demonstrate the manner in
which the experience of occupation is as much a part of the colonial history in Hong Kong as
is the more familiar story of resistance.
In December 1941, Hong Kong was wrenched from British control by the Imperial
Japanese Army, which proceeded to assume its administration for their own purposes for
almost four years. Conventional wisdom insists that this episode, while dramatic, had little
lasting effect. When the British returned in August 1945 to resume where they had left off
four years earlier, life proceeded in relatively the same manner as it had before Japanese
occupation. Major developments, conventional wisdom asserts, occurred only between the
late 1940s and the early 1950s, when the colony witnessed an influx of refugees from the war
and revolution on the Chinese mainland. It is due to such conventional wisdom that study of
wartime occupation in Hong Kong has been neglected.45
45
See Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese occupation (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2003), introduction.
26
This dissertation argues that examination of Japanese military administration in the
occupied territories will provide a deeper understanding of the uniqueness of Japanese
colonialism. Although it may appear so from a comparative study of Japanese colonialism
and Western colonialism, Japanese colonialism was far from homogeneous, taking different
forms in different occupied territories. Therefore, a comparative study of Japanese military
administration in two of the occupied territories can provide a more comprehensive picture of
how Japan ruled its wartime occupied territories and how its rule differed among the
territories. Specifically, this dissertation will investigate the nature of collaboration in
Singapore and Hong Kong, as well the logic behind it, to compare whether the nature of and
logic behind collaboration differed between these two territories and, if so, why.
Most understand that Chinese co-operation was instrumental, both in the founding and
the building of the “new Hong Kong”, but fail to grasp why men such as Shoushan Chou,
Robert Kotewall, and Lo Man-Kam were willing to help the Japanese. The rhetoric among
Chinese historians that the Chinese in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Southeast Asia were
helpless victims of the Japanese has prevented them from examining what Japanese-occupied
Hong Kong offered to the local Chinese who chose to live under Japanese rule. This
dissertation takes a comparative approach to gain deeper understanding of the dynamics
between the Japanese military government and the local Chinese elites in Hong Kong and
Singapore during different phases of the occupation, based on the belief that the political
actors and the historical development of the occupation were shaped by the changing of roles
between the local Chinese community and the Japanese administration.
Hong Kong and Singapore are the focus of this study for two primary reasons. First,
because they served as important bases for Great Britain’s “free-trade policy” in Southeast
and East Asia from the early nineteenth century until their independence, Hong Kong and
Singapore were two of the most important colonies in the British Empire. As such, they share
27
certain characteristics in the context of British colonial history, and their prosperity was
essential to the success of the British free-trade policy. Second, Hong Kong was important in
the plan for the Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. The primary reason for the Japanese
occupation of Hong Kong was to prevent strategic goods from being transported to the
Nationalist government of China, with the secondary reason being the establishment of Hong
Kong, together with the other territories, as a strategic military base to be incorporated into
the Japanese Empire. It has been argued that if Hong Kong had been under the rule of the
Japanese Navy rather than the Japanese Army, the value of Hong Kong to Japan would have
been greater,46 as the Army failed to develop Hong Kong as a prosperous entrepot and an
important economic link in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
The period of Japanese rule in Singapore was relatively brief in duration but
significant in impact. The swift Japanese occupation of British Malaya and Singapore dealt a
mortal blow to white superiority and Western supremacy in Asia. The subsequent Japanese
occupation of these territories had a profound influence on the emergence and development of
nationalism among their peoples, inspired by both Japanese encouragement of indigenous
civic, paramilitary, and even political groups as well as the hardship of occupation, both of
which provoked a new determination to break free of all foreign rulers.
Warwick and Osherson, who describe the use of the comparative method as “social
scientific analyses involving observation in more than one social system, or in the same social
system at more than one point in time”, 47 explain that this method views society as the
primary unit of analysis. As British colonial outposts, Hong Kong and Singapore shared
similar backgrounds yet experienced Japanese occupation uniquely due to differences in the
military administration, the degree of urbanization, and the size of the total and Chinese
46
William H. Newell, Japan in Asia, 1942-1945 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981).
Donald P. Warwick and Samuel Osherson, Comparative Research Methods (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1973).
47
28
population in each colony. 48 As such, they provide excellent case studies for an in-depth
comparative study of collaboration during WWII.
1.33 Dissertation Organization
The tentative organization of this dissertation is as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Prewar Singapore and Hong Kong
Chapter 3: Singapore and Hong Kong in the Aftermath of Japanese Invasion
Chapter 4: Dynamics between the Japanese and the Elites in Singapore and Hong Kong
Chapter 5: Dynamics between the Japanese and the Masses in Singapore and Hong Kong
Chapter 6: Collaboration at the Economic and Social Levels
Chapter 7: Postwar Politics and Arrangements
Chapter 8: Conclusion
It is important to note that the scope of this dissertation extends beyond the period of
the occupation to encompass the “pre-Japanese” period, which requires examination of longestablished relations between the British colonial government in Hong Kong and the local
Chinese elites before 1941, and the “post-Japanese” period, which requires examination of
the implications and legacy of collaboration. The rationale for doing so is recognition that
even though the collaborationist government was a new regime established by a conquering
power, it grew out of and was marked by the social, political, and economic developments
and dynamics of the prewar years. Due to these dynamics, collaboration did not necessarily
equate to betrayal, nor did resistance automatically connote nationalism. Gaining
understanding of the context assists in evaluation of the nature and meaning of collaboration
and resistance wherever it occurred.
48
The Chinese population represented about 75% and 98% of the total population of Singapore and Hong Kong,
respectively, before WWII.
29
As part of fulfilling its goal to go beyond a simple moral interpretation of resistance
and collaboration, this dissertation recognizes that if most key Hong Kong elites were not
sufficiently motivated by national commitment and patriotism, explanation of their choices
must be sought elsewhere. In particular, their life experiences, particularly those relating to
their family, social, and professional networks and interests, can provide important insights
into the dynamics of their decision to collaborate or resist. Their decisions also had a
significant impact on the period of “postwar politics and arrangements” that began in August
1945 and ultimately resulted in the decolonization of Hong Kong, a period that must also be
examined to gain greater understanding of the lasting impacts of Japanese occupation.
1.34 Research questions and objectives
This dissertation aims to address one primary research question:
Which factors shaped and can explain the dynamics and interactions between the
Japanese military administration and the local Chinese elites and masses in WWII Hong
Kong and Singapore?
To address this question thoroughly, this dissertation also addresses the following subquestions throughout its examination of wartime collaboration in Hong Kong and Singapore:
a. What was the meaning of the term collaboration for the local Chinese community in
Hong Kong? (will be discussed in chapter 1 and 8).
b. What was the nature of the interaction between the local Chinese communities and the
Japanese military administrations in Hong Kong and Singapore? (will be discussed in
chapter 2 and 3).
c. To what purposes and how effectively did each side press its advantages? (will be
discussed in chapter 4, 5 and 6).
d. Did the Japanese military administrations in Hong Kong and Singapore receive the
support from the local elites and masses necessary for the implementation of their
30
political, economic, and social policies? If not, why? (will be discussed in chapter 4, 5
and 6).
e. What have been the legacies or lasting impacts of Japanese policies towards Chinese
elites and management at the district level? (will be discussed in chapter 7).
f. Was the Japanese military administration in Hong Kong less harsh and more willing to
satisfy the requests of the local Chinese community than was the administration in
Singapore? If so, did this increase the impetus for collaboration in Hong Kong? If so,
for what type of collaboration? (will be discussed in chapter 8).
A central concern of this dissertation is how the Chinese of Hong Kong adapted to
living under a foreign, usually repressive regime. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this
dissertation argues that when compared to Singapore under Japanese occupation, Hong Kong
under Japanese occupation was not such a harsh or poor place. To support this argument, it
traces the historical roots of the relationship between the Hong Kong Chinese elites and the
Japanese military government to demonstrate that the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong was
not simply a function of Japanese imperialism. Rather, it was as much a function of the
collaboration of local people, who cooperated with the Japanese to build the new economic,
social, and political infrastructure.
This dissertation aims to probe the processes by which such collaboration arose, how
the Japanese elicited collaboration, and why and how the local Chinese community responded
to Japanese overtures. This examination is based on the assumptions that all parties had
limited or no knowledge regarding the extent of the Japanese invasion and subsequent
occupation or of the complex nature of the intersection between Chinese and Japanese
interests in Hong Kong. In accordance with this perspective, this dissertation examines case
studies at both the national and local district level in Hong Kong and compares them with
similar cases in Singapore.
31
By examining representative cases in both territories from the end of 1941 to midAugust 1945, this dissertation provides a detailed comparative analysis of the specific
contexts, patterns, and dynamics of collaboration that existed in Hong Kong and Singapore
during Japanese occupation. As it does so, it explores the connections between the local
Chinese community and pre-occupation political, economic, and social trends and situations;
the backgrounds and roles of the collaborating elites, as well as the interplay between them;
the fate of collaborators in the postwar British colonies; and the politics and meaning of
collaboration.
1.35 Research Methodology
As a historical and political phenomenon, collaboration is best understood when it is
assessed from a local as well as a global perspective and when its expression in two different
territories is compared, in this case its expression in Hong Kong and Singapore during the
Japanese occupation. To perform such a thorough assessment and comparison, this
dissertation conducted extensive review of primary sources, including newspapers, articles,
books, and official documents published and/or produced in the United Kingdom, Japan,
Hong Kong, and Singapore, and, when available, of various archival sources, memoires, and
transcripts of personal interviews.49
Two indispensable archives of primary sources served as the foundation of this
dissertation. The Public Record Offices in London50 and the Archival Offices in Hong Kong,
Singapore, and Japan are sources of excellent documentation produced during the wartime
49
See Bibliography.
Most of the correspondence between the Hong Kong Government and the Colonial Office between 1842 and
1951 can be found in the series CO 129, which all appear on microfilm and are available at the Hong Kong
Public Records Office and the library of the University of Hong Kong. Although they are also archived in
London, researchers are not allowed to inspect the original documents. An index has been prepared by the staff
of the Public Record Office listing the title and subject of each file. A more complete and better index has been
compiled by the Hong Kong Public Records Office. A copy of this index is available in the library of the
University of Hong Kong.
50
32
period. The application of the thirty-year or the fifty-year-rule51 in different archives meant
that in the normal course of events, confidential documents pertaining to the Japanese
occupation were used, such as papers and correspondence from the Cabinet Office, Colonial
Office, the War Office, with several documents from the Hong Kong and Japanese archives
being used to construct the research plan.52 Of prime importance in this research were the
records of the Cabinet Office, the organization that coordinates policy at the highest level in
Britain, and is likely the most valuable official contemporary source of material regarding
British political history during the two world wars. However, as not all decisions are not made
in the Cabinet, and many records may be incomplete and missing, records from the Foreign
Office and Colonial Office were also reviewed.
With the sixty years that have passed since the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia,
the final opportunity to examine governance from a broader perspective through conducting
personal interviews may have arrived.53 In Singapore, a number of people who could reflect
and recollect upon the war years were interviewed by the Oral History Department between
1981 and 1985.54 In Hong Kong, the Museum of History launched the Oral History Research
51
The “thirty year” rule is the popular name given to a law in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and
Australia that provides that the yearly cabinet papers of a government will be released publicly thirty years after
they were created. On the other hand, the “fifty-year rule” is one of the most commonly accepted principles
within American historic preservation: properties that have achieved significance within the past fifty years are
generally not considered eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic places. An often misunderstood
chronological threshold, the fifty-year standard was established by National Park Service historians in 1948.
52
See “Archive Record” in Bibliography.
53
Professor Goto Kenichi, interview by Lawrence Wong, December 5, 2002, Waseda University, Japan.
54
The Japanese military administration in Singapore left almost no written records behind regarding its work.
The newspapers and magazines that the Japanese authorities published present only one perspective on the
occupation. A small number of personal memoirs written by Singaporeans and others after the war present a
partial picture of life during that period of social, economic, and political turmoil. The Oral History Project on
the Japanese Occupation in Singapore 1942-1945, which was completed between June 1981 and December
1985, contains 655 recorded hours of interviews with 175 people that reconstruct life under the Japanese. The
interviews focus on the prewar anti-Japanese movement, the various Japanese policies that were implemented,
social reorganization, the Japanese defence of Singapore and the resistance forces, and the Japanese surrender
and its aftermath. Interviewees were selected on the basis of their first-hand familiarity with the topics. Most of
the interviews were highly structured to ensure consistency and uniformity in interviewing. The project
progressed in two phases. During the first stage, recordings of interviews tended to be in detail and wide in scope.
During the second stage, topics that had not been thoroughly explored were identified and areas that had been
well covered were either not broached again or briefly touched upon. Thus, recordings conducted in the latter
stage of the project tended to be briefer and the topics fewer but more specific. The project focused on recording
33
Project in 1995 to collect wartime experiences. The transcripts and recordings of their
interviews, integrated with historical photographs, documents, and other materials, were
examined and extensively utilized in this dissertation. This examination included review of
sixteen tapes of the radio programme Time to Remember, which had been produced on behalf
of Radio Hong Kong by Wendy Barnes. Moreover, in an attempt to relive the period of
history under study, locations of particular significance to this dissertation, including the
Shing Mun Redoubt, Pinewood Battery, the Lamma Islands, Wong Nai Chung Gap, and Luk
Keng, were visited between April and May 2004.
Personal remembrances of war are valuable in historical research, and not only as
correctives to “officially sanctioned” remembrances. However, although some aspects of the
Japanese occupation remain very vivid to those who lived through it, other aspects are less
clearly remembered. Despite this limitation, this dissertation hopes to present a picture of the
war and illustrate what WWII in Hong Kong and Singapore meant for those who lived
through it. Achieving this aim is particularly important. Although many have learned much
from listening to older people’s remembrances of the war, they were often left with gaps in
knowledge that needed to be filled, leading them to read memoirs and essays of the hardships
experienced under Japanese occupation. They soon found that exposure to a range of other
people’s memories allowed them to learn a great deal about topics of which their circle of
family and friends had no direct experience. In accordance with this finding, this dissertation
proposes that one’s memories are primarily collections of one’s own memories as well as
the experiences of the local, mainly Chinese, population. Generally speaking, interviewees above the age of 50
had clear memories of the period. Therefore, gaining knowledge of life in general during that time was not
problematical; the real challenge lay with identifying interviewees who could describe specific experiences.
Many of those who had been involved in running Japanese-controlled organizations and businesses or
implementing Japanese policies were found to have passed away or be reluctant to discuss such sensitive topics,
and very few survivors of the sook ching were still living. The secret nature of the anti-Japanese activities during
that period presented difficulties in identifying the persons involved and, due to language and funding problems,
the project was unable to include interviews with Japanese war-time administrators. However, Professor Akashi
Yoji’s publications on Singapore likely fill many gaps.
34
those of others willing to share their reminiscences. Such varieties of memories are not, of
course, brought together all at once; they can be formed at any stage of one’s life.
The study of collaboration in Hong Kong during Japanese occupation can be likened to
detective work, as it requires following promising leads in the archives in order to establish
the relevant facts. Collections of private and official primary sources obtained from Wani
Yukio, a journalist who has conducted research on Hong Kong during Japanese rule with
Professor Kobayashi Hideo since the 1980s, proved particularly invaluable to this
comprehensive, comparative, critical analysis of occupied Hong Kong and Singapore.
1.36 Research Limitations
This research effort faced several limitations. Foremost and most unfortunately, it was
not possible to visit archives in the United States due to lack of funding. Second, the Japanese
occupation led to the destruction of many records that would have provided great insight into
historical Hong Kong, a problem compounded by the fact that unlike in Singapore, there are
no long-established archives in Hong Kong. Specifically, each Japanese administration
destroyed its records before a new administration assumed power, and those documents that
remained were often burnt for fuel during wartime shortages of other fuel sources.
Third, some source materials in Hong Kong and Singapore posed difficulties for the
serious researcher. For example, G. B. Endacott, the author of Hong Kong eclipse, has been
accused of using official and government records without attempting to reflect the Chinese
view, a view that is very difficult to reflect because the Chinese are generally reticent about
discussing their families. At the same time, many firms are reluctant to provide access to their
records in a very competitive business environment. Newspaper records were thus of great
value in providing different points of view and criticism of the government.
Fourth, it is difficult to obtain clear and reasonably unbiased accounts of the war years.
Both the Japanese and the Allies made extensive use of false propaganda before and during
35
the war, and newspapers were little more than propaganda organs for the Japanese during the
occupation. K. R. Menon, a journalist with Indo Shimbunsha in Singapore, decribed wartime
journalism as “praising the Japanese . . . and praising their war efforts and running down the
British and Americans.” 55 The editor of Hong Kong News, the only English-language
newspaper published during the occupation of Hong Kong, was Japanese, and the staff
members were mainly Chinese and Portuguese who had worked for the South China Morning
Post since the war. Not surprisingly, this paper was an organ of Japanese propaganda and, as
such, very inaccurate.
As a result, one challenge in preparing this dissertation was viewing the nature of
collaboration from the perspective of both sides, a difficult task due to the disparity in the
number of sources from each party. Part of the solution was keeping all cases in mind while
researching the present case, hoping that the other cases would provide context and allow for
the maintenance of objectivity regarding the case and all parties involved, while remaining
aware of any gaps and inaccuracies in the relevant sources. The final major challenge was
attempting to reconstruct life during the occupation with limited access to those who had lived
through the occupation, as many have since died or are at an age at which they find it difficult
to express themselves clearly. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no member of a local
elite who could have been considered a collaborator in Hong Kong during the Japanese
occupation has left a memoir, a diary, or even a letter from his time in Japanese service.
Moreover, as most Japanese soldiers who took part in the invasion of Hong Kong battle were
later killed in Guadalcanal, they left no personal recollections.
Regarding interviews with eyewitnesses, there is in most cases little doubt that the
events described actually took place. Allowances must be made for certain errors due to the
passage of time, such as mistakes regarding dates or numbers. Although many interviewees
55
Kratoska, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 9.
36
lack knowledge regarding particular parties or circumstances or are unable to describe them in
great detail, most managed to recall a great deal of information, even though more than sixty
years have elapsed since the events that they described.
1.4 Significance and Expected Contributions of Dissertation
This dissertation aims to contribute to the research and literature regarding the colonial
history of Japan and Hong Kong in several ways. First, by examining comprehensive oral
history projects and personal interview materials in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, as well
as data obtained from interviews with eyewitnesses, it presents the perspectives of those who
lived through the occupation, allowing them to leave a record of their unique experiences.
Second, by analyzing both published and unpublished primary data sources archived
in the Hong Kong Public Records Office, the Singapore National Archives, and the Japanese
National Archives, it presents collaboration from the perspectives of Hong Kong,
Singaporean, and Japanese nationals who lived through the occupation who have presented
their views in their respective languages. As few existing sources remain in English, it is
particularly important to access Chinese and Japanese sources to present a full range of
perspectives on collaboration. Although examining Japanese views is essential to gaining a
full understanding of the context and nature of collaboration during Japanese occupation, it is
a controversial endeavour that brings with it accusations of sympathy for right-wing causes.
Third, this dissertation was the first to conduct a comparative study of politics of
collaboration in Hong Kong and Singapore in order to provide a deeper understanding of the
uniqueness of Japanese colonialism. Such a comparative study of Japanese military
occupation in each of its occupied territories provides a comprehensive perspective regarding
how Japan ruled its wartime occupied territories and how its rule differed from territory to
territory. Although the Japanese military administered both Hong Kong and Singapore during
the occupation, it administered each in a different manner due to differences in the territories’
37
social and political structures. This dissertation identified these differences and analyzed the
manner in which they affected the nature of Japanese administration and its impact on the
territories.
Fourth, this dissertation makes a theoretical contribution to the field of historical
research. Most of the existing literature presents perspectives using a “straight descriptive
mode” that describes little regarding the roles and interactions of the different political actors.
To describe these roles and interactions in detail, this dissertation used a research framework
that allowed for analysis of the dynamics and interactions between the Japanese
administration and the local Chinese elites and masses at different stages of occupation, an
endeavour that the author believes to be highly important in the study of the colonial history
of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan.
Finally, this dissertation contributes to the colonial history of Hong Kong by
presenting information and perspectives untainted by the moralistic frameworks in which
wartime history in Hong Kong has traditionally been viewed. If the conflicting motives,
tactical concessions, sheer helplessness, and other existential uncertainties that characterized
the lives of people living in occupied Hong Kong are to be understood and explained, all
prejudgment must be eliminated despite the difficulty of doing so. The moralistic
interpretation of history, which holds the historian’s task to be that of assigning “praise” and
“blame”, has its roots in 2,500 years of Confucian historiography. Given the rise of Chinese
nationalism in this century and the consistent identification of the Chinese state with
nationalism, it is difficult for Chinese scholars to transcend categories that are not only
officially mandated but fully accepted by many scholars themselves as correct judgements on
wartime collaboration.
38
Chapter 2
Prewar Singapore and Hong Kong
2.1 Prewar Singapore
2.11 A Crown Colony
The Republic of Singapore was founded as a British trading post on the Strait of
Malacca in 1819. Its location on the major sea route between India and China, its excellent
harbour, and the free-trade status conferred on it by its visionary founder, Sir Thomas
Stamford Raffles, inevitably led Singapore to become a major trading port in the British
Empire.56 After years of campaigning by a small minority of British merchants who were
chafing under the rule of the Calcutta government, the Straits Settlements became a crown
colony on 1 April 1867.57 Under the crown colony administration, the governor acted as the
senior military official of the Straits Settlements with the assistance of the Executive Council,
which was composed of six other senior officials, and the Legislative Council, which included
the members of the Executive Council, the chief justice, and four nonofficial members
nominated by the governor. The number of nonofficial members and Asian Council members
gradually increased over the years. Singapore dominated the Legislative Council, to the
annoyance of Malacca and Penang.58
56
Barbara Leitch Lepoer, ed., Singapore: A Country Study (Washington, DC: General Publishing Office, 1989),
introduction. http://countrystudies.us/singapore/2.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
57
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Originally established in
1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under
direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867. The colony was dissolved as part of the British
reorganisation of its South-East Asian dependencies following the end of the Second World War. The Straits
Settlements consisted of the individual settlements of Malacca, Penang (also known as Prince of Wales Island),
and Singapore, as well as (from 1907) Labuan, off the coast of Borneo. With the exception of Singapore, these
territories now form part of Malaysia.
58
Ibid., section—crown colony. http://countrystudies.us/singapore/6.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
The Legislative Council was made of members in the Executive Council, the Chief Justice, and non-official
members nominated by the Governor. These nominated members were intended to better represent the local
people, including in its ranks Asian members. Consisting mostly of wealthy Asian business and professional
leaders, they did not necessarily represent the collective will of the people, however. Beginning with just four
members, it grew over the years, with Singaporean members increasingly dominating the council to the
displeasure of politicians from Malacca and Penang.
39
The largest Chinese dialect group in the late nineteenth century was the Hokkien, who
were traditionally involved in trade, shipping, banking, and industry. The next largest group
was the Teochiu, who engaged in agricultural production and processing, rubber production,
rice and lumber milling, pineapple canning, and fish processing. The Cantonese, the third
largest group, were primarily artisans and labourers although a few made their fortunes in tin,
and the two smallest groups, the Hakka and Hainanese, were mostly servants, sailors, or
unskilled labourers. Because wealth was the key to leadership and social standing within the
Chinese community, the Hokkien dominated organizations such as the Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce, and supplied most of the Chinese members of the Legislative Council
and the Chinese Advisory Board. The latter, established in 1889 to provide a formal link
between the British government of the colony and the Chinese community, served as a forum
to air grievances but had no power.59
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, China's ruling Qing Dynasty began to take
an interest in the Nanyang Chinese. Seeking to attract their loyalty and wealth to the service
of the homeland, the Qing Dynasty established Chinese consulates in Singapore, Malaya, the
Dutch East Indies, and other parts of Nanyang, and appointed Whampoa as Singapore’s first
consul in 1877. He and his successors worked diligently to strengthen the cultural ties of the
Singaporean Chinese to China by establishing a cultural club, a debating society, Singapore’s
first Chinese-language newspaper (Lat Pau), and various Chinese-language schools. One of
the most important functions of the consul was to raise money for flood and famine relief in
Despite obvious control by British subjects of European descent, there was little opposition towards the system
from the local Asian population, mainly attributed to apathy. There were a few exceptions. Tan Cheng Lock, a
member of the Executive Council who had previously opposed several decisions made by the Legislative
Council (such as the Aliens Ordinance of 1933 which restricted immigration) as anti-Chinese, called for popular
representation through direct election, and for the number of non-official members to be increased to a majority
of the Legislative Council. Initiatives like these were unsuccessful, however, as there was little support from a
society widely apathetic to local politics, with the Chinese population paying more attention towards growing
their commercial and professional interests and in events which were occurring in China, fuelled largely by the
rise in Chinese nationalist sentiments.
59
Lepoer, Singapore. http://countrystudies.us/singapore/6.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
40
China and for the general support of the Qing government. After the upheaval of the Hundred
Days’ Reform Movement in China and its subsequent suppression by Qing conservatives in
1898, the Singaporean Chinese and their pocketbooks were wooed by reformists, royalists,
and revolutionaries alike. In 1906, Sun Yat-sen founded a Singapore branch of the Tongmeng
Hui, the forerunner of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party. Not until the
successful Wuchang Uprising of 1911, however, did Sun receive the enthusiastic support of
the Singaporean Chinese.60
The Singapore economy experienced much the same ups and downs as did Western
economies during the interwar period. A postwar boom created by rising tin and rubber prices
gave way to a recession in the late 1920 when prices for both dropped on the world market.
By the mid-1920s, fortunes were made overnight as rubber and tin prices soared once again.
Tan Kah Kee,61 who had migrated from Xiamen (Amoy) at age seventeen, reportedly made
S$8 million in 1925 in rubber, rice milling, and shipping, and Hakka businessman Aw Boon
Haw 62 earned the nickname the “Tiger Balm King” for the multimillion-dollar fortune he
amassed from the production and sale of patent medicines. Although they never amassed the
60
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/6.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
Tan Kah Kee (October 21, 1874 to August 12, 1961) was a prominent businessman, community leader, and
philanthropist in colonial Singapore. Tan was born in Jimei, Tongan county, Fujian Province, China (present-day
Jimei District in Xiamen City) and went to Singapore in 1890 when he was sixteen to work at his father’s rice
store. After his father’s business collapsed in 1903, Tan started his own business, ultimately building an empire
from rubber plantations, manufacturing, sawmills, canneries, real estate, import and export brokerages, ocean
transport, and rice trading. His business was at its prime from 1912 to 1914, when he was known as the “Henry
Ford of the Malaya community”, both in Malaya and his native Fujian Province. Tan was one of the 110
founding members of Tao Nan School, and established the Jimei Schools (now Jimei University) in 1913 and the
Chinese High School (now named Hwa Chong Institution) in Singapore in 1919. In 1921, he set established
Xiamen University and financially supported it until the Government of the Republic of China took it over in
1937. In 1920, his daughter Tan Ai Li married Lee Kong Chian, who worked under him and later became a
famous Singaporean philanthropist and businessman. See A.H.C. Ward, Raymond W. Chu, Janet Salaff. et al.,
The Memoirs of Tan Kah Kee (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1994).
62
Aw Boon Haw (born in1882 in Rangoon, Burma and died in 1954 in Hong Kong) was a Burmese Chinese
entrepreneur and philanthropist best known for introducing Tiger Balm. He was the son of Hakka herbalist Aw
Chu Kin, whose ancestral home was in Yongding County, Fujian Province. Aw migrated to Singapore in 1926,
where he founded Tiger Red Balm with his brother, Aw Boon Par. Aw also founded several newspapers,
including Sin Chew Jit Poh and Guang Ming Daily, which are both based in Malaya today. Sing Tao Daily,
which was founded in 1938, is currently based in Hong Kong. Aw moved to Hong Kong during the Japanese
occupation of Singapore and managed the business from there, while his brother stayed in Singapore until he
closed down the factory and moved to Rangoon. Aw returned to Singapore after the end of WWII and reestablished his business.
61
41
great fortunes of Singapore’s leading Asian businessmen, the prosperous European
community increasingly lived in the style and comfort afforded by modern conveniences and
an abundance of servants.63
Much smaller and less organized than the Chinese community of the late nineteenth
century was the Indian community in Singapore. In 1880, only 12,000 Indians, including
Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians, resided in Singapore. South Indians tended to be
shopkeepers or labourers, particularly dockworkers, riverboatmen, and drivers of the ox carts
that were the major forms of transport for goods to and from the port area, whereas North
Indians tended to be clerks, traders, and merchants. Both groups came to Singapore expecting
to return to their homeland, and were even more transient than the Chinese.64
Malays continued to be drawn to Singapore from all over the archipelago, reaching a
population of 36,000 by 1901. After losing in commercial competition with the Chinese and
Europeans, most Malay traders and merchants, as well as later Malay immigrants, became
small shopkeepers, religious teachers, policemen, servants, or labourers. The leadership
positions in the Malay-Muslim community were assumed by wealthy Arabs and the JawiPeranakan due to their facility with English. In 1876, the first Malay-language newspaper of
the region, Jawi Peranakan, was published in Singapore. After other Malay-language journals
supporting religious reform began to be published in the early twentieth century, Singapore
became a regional focal point for the Islamic revival movement that swept the Muslim world
at that time.65
2.12 The Singaporean Chinese Community before WWII
The Straits-born Chinese increased their share of Singapore’s Chinese population from
twenty-five percent in 1921 to thirty-six percent in 1931. After passage of the Immigration
63
Lepoer, Singapore, http://countrystudies.us/singapore/6.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/6.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
65
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/6.htm (accessed August 11, 2010).
64
42
Restriction Ordinance of 1930, which limited the immigration of unskilled male labourers to
combat the unemployment resulting from the Great Depression, the number of Chinese
immigrants decreased from 242,000 in 1930 to 28,000 in 1933. Immigration was further
restricted by the Aliens Ordinance of 1933, which set quotas and charged landing fees for
immigrants. Executive Council member Tan Cheng Lock and others bitterly opposed the
policy in the Legislative Council, claiming it was an anti-Chinese measure.66
The administration of the colony continued to be carried out by the governor and toplevel officials of the Malayan Civil Service, posts that could be held only by “natural-born
British subjects of pure European descent on both sides”. The governor continued to consult
with the Legislative Council, which included several wealthy Asian business and professional
leaders, who served as nonofficial members of the council. The mid-level and technical civil
service positions were open to British subjects of all ethnicities. Very few Asians opposed the
system, which gave the official members the majority on the Legislative and Executive
Councils. In the 1930s, Tan agitated unsuccessfully for direct popular representation and a
nonofficial majority for the Legislative Council, but most Chinese were satisfied to devote
their attention to commercial and professional affairs and the growing nationalism in China.67
The sympathies of even the Straits-born Chinese lay with their homeland during the
interwar period. A Singaporean branch of the KMT was active for several years beginning in
1912, and China-oriented businessmen led boycotts in 1915 against Japanese goods in
response to Japan's Twenty-One Demands against China, a set of political and economic
ultimatums that, if accepted, would have made China a protectorate of Japan. Mass support
for Chinese nationalism became more evident in 1919 when violent demonstrations were
staged in Singapore. In the early 1920s, Sun Yat-sen was successful in convincing
66
Lepoer, Singapore, section—Between the World Wars, http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed
August 11, 2010).
67
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
43
Singapore’s China-born businessmen to invest heavily in Chinese industry and donate large
sums for education in China. Tan Kah Kee contributed more than S$4 million for the
founding of Amoy (Xiamen) University in 1924, and the KMT sent teachers and textbooks to
Singapore.68
At the same time, the KMT encouraged the use of Mandarin (or Guoyu) in Singapore's
Chinese schools. Although Mandarin was not the language of any of Singapore's major dialect
groups, it was considered a unifying factor by the various Chinese leadership factions in both
Singapore and China. Singapore's first Chinese secondary school, established by Tan in 1919,
taught in Mandarin, as did a growing number of Chinese primary schools. In 1927, the KMT
increased the number of promising students sent to China for university education and began
a concerted effort to extend its control over Chinese schools in Nanyang by supervising their
curriculum and requiring the use of Mandarin. In the late 1920s, the colonial authorities
became increasingly aware of growing left-wing politics in the Chinese schools and sought to
discourage the use of Mandarin. Despite their efforts, Mandarin had become the medium of
instruction in all of Singapore's Chinese schools by 1935.69
Following the breakup of the short-lived alliance between the KMT and the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), the communists established the Nanyang Communist Party in 1928.
Outlawed and harassed by the Singapore police, the party was reorganized in 1930 as the
Malayan Communist Party (MCP), cantered in Singapore. For the remainder of that year, it
experienced some success in infiltrating teacher and student organizations and staging student
strikes. In early 1931, however, police seizure of an address book containing information on
the newly organized party and its connections with the Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist
International (Comintern) in Shanghai led to arrests and the near destruction.
68
69
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
44
The KMT also experienced problems during this period. The party's membership in
Singapore had expanded rapidly until 1929, when the colonial administration banned the
Singapore branch of the KMT and prohibited fund-raising for the party in China. Concerned
about the increase in anticolonial propaganda, the Singaporean government censored the
vernacular press, severely restricted immigration, and cut off aid to Chinese and Tamil
schools. During the 1930s, attempts by the communists and the KMT to organize labour and
lead strikes were also suppressed by the colonial government.70
Chinese nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiment in Singapore increased throughout
the 1930s. The fortunes of both the KMT and the MCP rose with the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria in 1931 and the start of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. The CCP and the KMT
formed a united front in December 1936 to oppose Japanese aggression. The KMT called
upon the Nanyang Chinese for volunteers and financial support for the Republic of China
(ROC), which had promulgated a Nationality Law in 1929 proclaiming that all persons of
Chinese descent on the paternal side were Chinese nationals. Tan Kah Kee headed both the
Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement and the Singapore Chinese General
Association for the Relief of Refugees, as well as the fund-raising efforts for the homeland
among the Malayan Chinese. Chinese government agents used the Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce and other local organizations to organize highly effective boycotts
against Japanese goods. Singaporean Chinese also boycotted Malay or Indian shops selling
Japanese goods, and extremist groups severely punished Chinese merchants who ignored the
boycott.71
The British authorities struggled vainly to control the tide of anti-Japanese feeling by
banning anti-Japanese demonstrations, the importation of anti-Japanese textbooks from China,
and the teaching of anti-Japanese slogans and songs in Chinese schools. They also became
70
71
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
45
increasingly alarmed at the communist infiltration of the Nanyang Chinese National Salvation
Movement and other Chinese patriotic groups, with the banned MCP claiming a membership
of more than 50,000 by early 1940. Although nominally partners in a united front in
opposition to the Japanese, the MCP and the KMT competed for control of organizations,
including the Nanyang Chinese Relief General Association. Nonetheless, Singapore's Chinese
contributed generously to the support of the Chinese government.72
2.2 Singapore’s Role in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
2.21 The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a concept created and promulgated
during the Shōwa era by the government and military of the Empire of Japan to create a selfsufficient “bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western powers”.73 The roots
of Japan’s ideology of Asian co-existence and co-prosperity can be traced back to the reign of
Jinmu-tenno, the first Emperor of Japan, who is said to have given the divine command to
fulfil hakko ichium, the placing of the eight corners of the world under one Japanese roof.74
The Japanese thus believed that they “had divine mission of conquering and ruling other
countries”. 75 During the Meiji period, Japanese philosophers added a new element to this
early form of pan-Asianism when they advocated a common Asian cultural heritage to unite
all of Asia against Western encroachment.76
72
Ibid., http://countrystudies.us/singapore/7.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
Bill Gordon, Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (March, 2000),
http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/coprospr.htm (assessed August 11, 2010).
74
See H. Paul. Varley, Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1980).
75
M. A. Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism and Indonesia (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1955), 3-4.
76
J. C Lebra, Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in World War II: Selected Readings and
Documents (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), xi-xiii.
73
46
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a scheme for the mutual cooperation
of all East Asians for the co-prosperity of all.77 As such, it advocated political, economic,
cultural, social, and spiritual cooperation among the multitude of East Asian peoples for the
advancement of their common welfare and their fair share in the fruits of their common
labour.78 It argued that by doing so, the East Asian races could liberate themselves from the
domination of the European races and fulfil the rights and interests of the various races of
Asia on a fair and absolutely equal basis.79 Realization of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere was initiated by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe in an attempt to create a Greater
East Asia comprising Japan, Manchukuo, China, and parts of Southeast Asia that would,
according to imperial propaganda, establish a new international order in which Asian
countries which would share prosperity and peace free from Western colonialism and
domination.80 The military goals of this expansion included conducting naval operations in
the Indian Ocean and off the coast of Australia.81
2.22 Significance of Singapore in the Co-Prosperity Sphere
Southeast Asia had not always been a focus of Japanese concern. Lebra explains that
although Japan had always considered Far East Asia as pivotal to its national security and
economic viability, it had not thought so of Southeast Asia82 until economic pressure led
77
Shonan Times, February 24, 1942. The Japanese took over several newspapers. These appeared under different
names. The Straits Times was renamed The Shonan Times at February 20, 1942 and later, from December 8,
1942, Syonan Shimbun. The Shonan Times was the official newspaper in Singapore during the Japanese
Occupation. The paper ran on Tokyo times, normally two hours ahead of Singapore. Staff had to come to work in
the dark, working through to sundown. The Shonan Times was run by Japanese officers from the Propaganda
Department, who threatened to behead anyone who spelt the Emperor's name or title incorrectly. See
http://ourstory.asia1.com.sg/war/ref/japocc.html#paper and http://www.malaysiadesignarchive.org/?p=1127
(assessed August 11, 2010).
78
V. Gardiner, “Nippon’s Ideal Of Full Freedom for Asiatics,” Shonan Times, March 17, 1942.
79
Shonan Times, February 21, 1942.
80
Akira Iriye, Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War: A Brief History with Documents and Essays
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999), 6.
81
Matome Ugaki, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945 (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), 10.
82
Lebra, Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in World War II, x-xi.
47
Japan to consider the region a target of projected Japanese development.83 The main factor
behind Japan’s desire to expand its empire or “sphere” into Southeast Asia was its protracted
war with China. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan's relations with
the United States and Great Britain became increasingly strained because of U.S. and British
vested interests in China,84 a dire problem for Japan because it depended on these nations for
the raw materials needed for its industries.85 Its increasingly strained relationship with these
two countries prompted Japan to harbour the idea of establishing a self-sufficient system
through gaining access to the abundant resources of Southeast Asia. As Lebra explains, “To a
country impoverished by a protracted war and hard-pressed for foreign exchange to purchase
the sinews of continued war, the sight of abundant war materials in a geographically
accessible regions must be supremely tempting”.86
Such a plan was given clear definition when Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke
openly expounded the concept of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in a speech given
on 1 August 1940.87 Specifically, he advocated placing the Straits Settlements, comprising
Penang, Malacca, and Singapore, under direct rule and making the rest of Malaya into a
protectorate. 88 Singapore’s significance to the Japanese was twofold: it could serve as a
strategic naval base as well as an economic powerhouse. Strategically, Singapore was the
British defence headquarters in Southeast Asia and the base of the 7th Area Army. In such a
capacity, it was the centre of military operations over a vast area and the largest and bestequipped workshop south of China Singapore’s economic significance lay in its position as a
collection and distribution centre for Malaya and the surrounding regions. As such, the
83
Ibid., x-xi. See the discussion of pragmatic reasons for occupying Southeast Asia.
Harry J. Benda, James K. Irikura and Kaoichi Kishi, Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia: selected
documents (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Studies, 1965 ), 103.
85
Ibid.,104.
86
William Magistretti, “Strategic Imperatives in the Pacific,” in Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
in Lebra, World War II, 44.
87
Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism in Indonesia, 63.
88
Ibid., 68.
84
48
Japanese intended to make Singapore a centre or a base for mobilization of the resources
available in the Malay archipelago. Singapore was so important to Japan that it renamed the
territory Syonan, which meant “the Brilliant South”, soon after its capture.89
After war plans for the expansion into Southeast Asia had been finalized, the
government held the Liaison Conference at Imperial Headquarters on 20 November 1941 to
establish guidelines for the administration of the occupied territories. The conference’s
ultimate output, a document that came to be known as the “Principles Governing the
Administration of the Occupied Southern Areas”, expressed Japan’s policies towards
Singapore simply and clearly.90 According to this document, military administrations were to
be immediately established in occupied territories, with the final status of such areas to be
decided by the central authorities at a later date; existing government structures would be
utilized as much as possible to enforce the military administrations; and native customs and
religions were to be respected.91 The document also stated that the military administrations
would have three main objectives. First, they must restore and maintain peace and order as
soon as possible. Second, they should work towards a rapid acquisition of resources necessary
for Japan's war effort, with the army and the navy providing the required assistance in terms
of transport. Third, they should strive for self-sufficiency of the occupation troops by using
local resources to the greatest extent possible, ignoring the hardship that the natives were
bound to face by the acquisition of their resources.92 The justification for self-sufficiency was
that as Japan was at war, military needs must be satisfied before other needs could be
considered.93
89
Sylvia Foo Mei Lian, The Japanese Occupation of Singapore 1942-45: Socio-Economic Policies and Effects
(Singapore: National University of Singapore, 1986-87), 4-5.
90
Ibid., 5-6.
91
Ibid., 6-7.
92
Lee Ting Hui, “Singapore under the Japanese 1942-1945,” Journal of South Seas Society (Singapore:
Nanyang xue hui), 1961-62, 33.
93
Ibid., 34. It must be remembered that the principles were not always completely and consistently applied due
to changing circumstances.
49
Japanese plans for Singapore’s long-term role in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere can only be hypothesized because the war ended before Japan could fully realize it
intentions. However, Singapore’s projected long-term importance was reflected in Japan’s
plans to incorporate it directly into Japan as a Japanese territory administered by a Japanese
Governor-General. 94 In contrast, other components of the projected Sphere, including the
Philippines, the former Dutch East Indies, and Burma, were to be granted “independence”.95
Singapore’s importance is further reflected in Japan’s reference to the territory as the “capital”
of the Southern region. As the territories of the Sphere were to engage in economic, political,
and cultural cooperation, it can be assumed that Singapore would function as the coordinating
centre for the complete integration of the southern region into the Sphere.
For the duration of the war, Singapore’s immediate roles were more evident: as a base
for military operations and a controlling centre for Japan’s exploitation of the resources of the
Malayan Peninsula. In terms of strategic value, the fall of Singapore placed Japan in “an
impregnable position to conduct the current war”96 by allowing the Japanese to use it as a
base for the conduct of further military operations in the Dutch East Indies. Shortly after
occupying Singapore, advanced troops left to invade the Dutch East Indies while fresh troops
arrived to assume permanent responsibility for logistics.97 Singapore also functioned as the
defence headquarters of the area. Economically, Singapore was to function as the centre for
the collection and shipment of resources from the Malay Peninsula to Japan necessary for the
Japanese war industry. Two conditions which were necessary for the fulfilment of this
94
W.H. Elsbree, Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 1940 to 1945 (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1953), 21-22.
95
International Military Tribunal, Far East (IMTFE), Exhibit.1333A: “Foreign Ministry Draft. Summarized Plan
for Management of the South Seas Area,” December 14, 1941.
96
Shonan Times, February 20, 1942.
97
Syonan Shimbun, February 15, 1943.
50
responsibility were the restoration of public order and the establishment of the self-sufficiency
of the military forces in the field.98
2.3 Japanese Planning And Policy towards the Malayan Chinese Community from
March 1941 to February 1942
Long before the outbreak of the war, the Malayan Chinese posed a special problem to
Japan, being the most politically conscious ethnic group, as well as one largely loyal to China
and the Great Britain. Following the commencement of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the
Malayan Chinese organized a national salvation movement that advocated boycotting
Japanese goods and donating millions of dollars to the Nationalist Government of China, and
later supported the United Kingdom after it declared war against the Axis Powers in 1939.
Hostile as they were, the Chinese were important to Japan for the establishment of the new
order that it envisioned for Asia. It is therefore not surprising that Japanese military planners
deliberated on a policy for winning the hearts of the Malayan Chinese long before the
outbreak of the war.
The Japanese military considered the Chinese significant in its plans for three reasons.
First, the Chinese in the British territories, as they were elsewhere in Southeast Asia,
dominated the economic sphere due to their accumulation of much capital for investment in
industrial and commercial enterprises. Second, for the Japanese military to reconstruct a wartorn Malayan economy and establish an economically self-sufficient Malaya, economic
cooperation with the Chinese and the recruitment of their commercial talents were absolutely
essential. Third, the Chinese held a key to the solution of the “China problem” that had
drained off Japan’s military strength since 1937.
Mindful of the economic strength and political utility of the Malayan Chinese, the
Army General Staff prepared a top secret study on the occupation and administration of
98
Lee Ting Hui, Singapore under the Japanese 1942-1945, 32.
51
Southeast Asia in March 1941. In this document, military planners stressed the importance of
gaining understanding of Chinese economic strength, expediting measures for the return of
dislocated Chinese to their former positions once the war had ended, and helping them resume
their economic activities as expeditiously as possible.99 Expanding on the March study, the
Army General Staff prepared another top secret document in October that reiterated the need
for “inducing and inviting Chinese capital to investment in principal industries, utilizing
Chinese facilities for the collection and distribution of retail goods, and guiding Chinese
banks in such a way as to cooperate with Japanese [monetary and economic] policies”.100
Implicit in these prewar policies was a preferential treatment to be accorded to the Chinese, at
least during the initial stages of the military administration. Review of these two documents
indicates that the Army high command was prepared to be conciliatory towards the Chinese in
order to exploit Chinese talents and resources for the realization of a new politico-economic
order under Japanese domination.101
When the Japanese experienced difficulty in carrying out this relatively moderate
policy due to the pronounced hostility of the Malayan Chinese towards Japan, their focus
shifted towards formulating policy regarding the treatment of anti-Japanese Chinese.
Hardliner military officers had, of course, a ready-made solution: punish them severely.
Specifically, the March document stated that to “destroy and eradicate their political
organizations that were driving wheels of anti-Japanese and pro-Chiang [Kai-shek]
activities . . . an appropriate and resolute action should be taken against Chinese harmful to us
99
Yoji Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies,
(Singapore: Department of History, National University of Singapore, 1970), 61.
100
Ibid., 61.
101
See Principles Governing the Administration of the Occupied Southern Areas, adopted at the governmentmilitary liaison conference of November 20, 1941.
52
in order to demonstrate our might”, and suggested “as a principle to confiscate their property”,
though such recourse should not be taken before allowing them to recant.102
With this position and attitude towards the Chinese, the Japanese military went to war.
Although the Japanese military, foreign office, and private intelligence agents had
accumulated a vast quantity of information about the Malayan Chinese over many years,
Japanese preconceptions and stereotyped prejudices often distorted their analysis. They
regarded the Chinese as being interested only in making money and coerced to support the
Chiang Kai-shek Government. Few Japanese, military or civilian, who could claim to have
knowledge of the Malayan Chinese were assigned to headquarters of the Southern
Expeditionary Army (SEA) or to the Twenty-Fifth Army that was to invade Malaya, and only
one officer, Captain Tarora Sadao, was assigned responsibility for Malayan Chinese affairs
for the SEA command.103
Despite their efforts, no Army or Naval intelligence agents had been able to establish
contact with Chinese leaders to win them over to the Japanese before the outbreak of the war.
For instance, when Captain Tarora had accompanied Teo Eng Hock, a former business leader
in Singapore and an early Sun Yat-sen supporter, to Indochina in August 1941 to win the
hearts of the Chinese and gain the support of leading Chinese in Saigon, Chinese antiJapanese feelings were so strong that they accomplished very little.104 The mission of the F
Kikan, the code name of an agency responsible for espionage under the SEA command, was
to “establish contact with Chinese” in order to organize them in an anti-British movement. A
certain Tashiro, a longtime resident of Singapore, was given the assignment of organizing a
labour strike among Chinese workers in order to paralyze shipping in Singapore Harbour, but
could not put this plot into action due to strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Thereafter, the F
102
Akashi, Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945, 62.
Akashi, Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945, 62.
104
Tarora Sadao, “Nampo-Gun Kimitsu-Shitsu,” Shukan Yomiuri (December 1956), 100.
103
53
Kikan, otherwise a highly successful espionage agency, practically terminated its Chinese
operations.105 Moreover, because none of the Twenty-Fifth Army’s Gunseibu staff officers
could speak Chinese, they employed several Taiwanese to take charge of overseas affairs. In
short, the military at both the central command and in the field had very inadequate
preparation in personnel training and policymaking for Chinese affairs, despite recognition of
this ethnic group as vital for the construction of a new order in Asia.
As the war progressed, staff officers and soldiers of the Twenty-Fifth Army became
increasingly hostile towards the Chinese in general. This fact is not surprising, as most were
veterans of the Sino-Japanese War in China, where they had met increasing Chinese guerrilla
resistance. Frequent Chinese obstructions on the Japanese supply line and military operations
further hardened their feelings towards the Chinese, creating a psychological state of mind
that resulted in the atrocities later committed by Japanese soldiers and climaxing in the
infamous sook ching (“purge through purification”) in which they engaged after the fall of
Singapore.
Preoccupied by immediate military operations, the field army failed to see “the
Chinese question” in perspective. However, not all staff officers were unaware of its
importance. Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, Chief of the F Kikan, was one of a few officers who
could see the issue from a broader point of view, as was reflected in his actions in the town of
Alor Star. When Japanese troops occupied Alor Star, most Chinese residents fled, leading its
economic activities to grind to a halt, while many Malays and Indians ransacked and pillaged
Chinese stores, creating anarchy. Anxious to restore order and economy, Major General
Manaki Keishin, Deputy Chief Of Staff of the Twenty-Fifth Army and concurrently Chief of
its military government department, visited Fujiwara and requested the F Kikan's cooperation.
105
Fujiwara, F Kikan, 44 and 60. Also see “Japanese Intelligence Organizations in Malaya” in Analysis of
Intelligence Organizations in World War II, (Tokyo: Kashwashobo publishing, 2000). Volume 6, the Southern
Regions.
54
After accepting Manaki’s request, Fujiwara then asked him to perform two actions for the
pacification of the Chinese. First, the Twenty-Fifth Army would declare forthwith that it
would “not regard non-hostile Chinese, Indians, and Malays as enemy nationals” and would
“guarantee their lives, property, and freedom”. Second, the Chinese and Indians would be
allowed to hoist their respective national flags, provided that the Chinese attach a streamer to
their flag inscribed with the words “peace and national construction” to indicate their support
for the Wang Ching-wei Government. Manaki granted Fujiwara's request on his own
authority. On entering Taiping on 25 December following the capitulation of the city,
Fujiwara was pleased to find that Manaki had accorded with his wishes, as evidenced by the
national flags flown in front of Chinese homes.106
However, Fujiwara later reported that his requests had stirred up strong opposition
among hardline staff officers under Yamashita’s command. They vehemently argued against
allowing Chinese to display their national flag, insisting that Malaya would become a
Japanese territory. Because the Malayan Chinese had been undisguisedly anti-Japanese, the
officers maintained, they should be “made to display the Japanese flag” as a sign of their
submission to the Japanese; it was outrageous to “permit them to fly the Chinese flag”.107 The
Gunseibu subsequently rescinded the previous authorization and ordered the Chinese to fly
only Japanese flags. Dismayed by this reversal, Fujiwara visited Manaki and lodged a
complaint for breach of agreement, but found him unresponsive to pleas to reverse the new
order and Fujiwara’s argument that the new order would make the F Kikan’s pacification
campaign needlessly difficult. After having failed to change Manaki's view, Fujiwara declared
that his organization would henceforth assume no responsibility for Chinese affairs.108 With
this declaration, the voice of moderation fell by the wayside.
106
Fujiwara, F Kikan, 139.
Ibid., 145.
108
Ibid., 146. According to Fujiwara, Manaki did not permit the Chinese to display the Japanese and Chinese
107
55
After the war, Fujiwara wrote that bad faith and unreasonableness on the part of the
military had been contributory factors in the deepening Chinese distrust and hostility towards
the Japanese that led most Chinese to fail to cooperate with the Japanese. It was this
psychological state of the Chinese mind, Fujiwara believed, on which the British and the
communists later seized, turning the latent hostile feelings of the Chinese against the Japanese.
He attributed the Japanese soldiers’ later atrocities to Japan’s hardline policy and their
encounters with hostile Chinese.109
Although Fujiwara’s contention can never be proved with certainty, it appears that the
decision regarding the flag was a short-sighted one resulting from the shortcomings of
uninformed officers who could not conceive of the consequences of this minor but potentially
important incident. Their inadequate preparation for dealing with the Chinese and their
unfavourable image of the Chinese image, bred by wartime experience, hindered a proper
understanding of the Malayan Chinese psychology. Such lack of preparation is reflected in the
policy of the Twenty-Fifth Army Gunseibu , whose only policy regarding the Chinese was
“Chinese residents shall be induced to defect from the Chiang Kai-shek regime and to
cooperate and align themselves with [Japan's] policies”, 110 with the interpretation and
execution of this policy largely left to the discretion of the Gunseibu of the theatre
command.111
The man responsible for the implementation of this policy was Watanabe, Deputy
Chief of the Gunseibu , assisted by Takase. Watanabe, who was to become the architect of the
Malay military administration, known as the Gunsei, was familiar with the Chinese, having
flags together. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945,” 63.
109
Fujiwara, F Kikan, 146-47.
110
Daihonei Renraku Kaigi, Nampo Senryochi Gyosei Jisshi Yoryo, November 20, 1941 (Principles Governing
the Administration of the Occupied Southern Areas in Sugiyama Memo I), ed. Sambo Hombu (Tokyo: Hara
Shobo, 1967), 527. An English translation of this document appears in Harry J. Benda et al., Japanese Military
Administration in Indonesia: Selected Documents (New Haven: Yale University, 1965), 2.
111
Interview with Takase, August 30, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese
1941-1945,” 64.
56
spent about ten years in Manchuria and North China as a member of the tokumu kikan, an
agency engaged in intelligence and politico-economic affairs, prior to his appointment.
Watanabe quickly realized the potential value of the Malayan Chinese, and, as no one in his
staff spoke Chinese, sent for two Formosans to assist in Gunseibu Chinese affairs. 112
Watanabe was strongly impressed by the diligence, acute business sense, cohesiveness, and
independence of the Chinese. As he revealed in his diary, his first encounter with the Malayan
Chinese had left a strong impression, characterized by both admiration and fear of their
potential strength.113 However, as Chinese espionage and guerrilla activities also strengthened
Watanabe’s conviction that, as were the mainland Chinese, they were untrustworthy, he
became vigilant in combating Chinese treachery.114 His experience in Malaya had taught him
an important lesson about the Chinese: that they should be treated with resolution.115
It was with this frame of mind that Watanabe and Takase flew to Tokyo in early
January 1942 to discuss unforeseen problems with the Chinese with the Army Central
Command. In his report to the General Staff, Watanabe expressed his opposition to inducing
the Chinese to support the Japanese-sponsored Chinese Government at Nanking and his
support for allowing them to maintain their national identity and for the Nanking Government
to establish a consulate in Malaya. 116 It is clear that Watanabe’s desire for the Malayan
Chinese to sever their political ties with China arose from his desire for the Malayan Chinese
112
“Taiwanjin Marei E Shuppatsu Meirei,” January 6, 1942, Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki I, 1942, No. 32, F31102,
Reel 18 in Archives of the Japanese Army, Navy and Other Government Agencies, 1868-1945, microfilmed.
Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945,” 64.
113
Watanabe Wataru, Nichi-Bei-Ei Senso Sanka Nisshi, January 10, 1942 (unpublished). Quoted in Akashi,
“Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945,” 64.
114
Interview with Watanabe, July 9, 1966; Rikugun Daigakko, Senryochi Tochi (Chian Shukusei) Ni Kansuru
Watanabe Taisa koen Sokki Roku, May 7, 1941. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan
Chinese 1941-1945,” 64. In this speech before students at the Army War College, Watanabe described the
character of the Chinese as being “too old a bird to be caught with chaff” and “obedient outwardly but rebellious
inwardly”.
115
Interview with Watanabe, July 16, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese
1941-1945,” 64.
116
Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945,” 65.
57
to assume the position of a conquered. His position was therefore at variance with the spirit of
the 1941 March-November policy, which had manifested some degree of moderation.
In general, Watanabe set himself squarely against any conciliatory policy towards the
Chinese on the grounds of the priority to fulfil military operational needs, a conviction, no
doubt, derived from his encounter with Malayan Chinese obstructions, as well as with the
Chinese in North China and the Chinese regime in eastern Hebei Province. Recalling his
difficulties in procuring goods necessary for military purposes from the Chinese and the
Hebei regime, he advocated adopting a “resolute, coercive measure” against the Malayan
Chinese as long as military needs remained unfulfilled. The position of the Central High
Command, finalized on the day before the fall of Singapore, was that the military would
“separate ties of the overseas Chinese with the Nationalist government of China and suppress
them as deemed necessary”.117 The military hardliners had won the first battle.
The outcome of the “strong wishes of the general staff”118 forcing a moderate position
to retreat in favour of a hardline policy was the adoption of the policies contained in the
“Principles Governing Policy towards the Chinese” on February 14, 1942 at the Imperial
Headquarter-Government Liaison Conference. Under these policies, the Malayan Chinese
were to cut off ties with the Chiang Kai-shek regime and be induced to cooperate with Japan
for the realization of the goals of the Great East Asia War, as well as for the production and
acquisition of the resources necessary for the national defence of Imperial Japan, with the
Japanese given license to “exert political pressures as needed”. While the Chinese were
“allowed under Japan's guidance to maintain economic ties with the part of the Chinese
mainland [under the control of the Nanking Government], their political ties with it were to be
severed”.
117
118
Sambo Hombu Nijuppan, Kimitsu Senso Nisshi, January 17, 1942.
Ibid., February 14, 1942.
58
In the occupied areas, the Army and the Navy would assume responsibility for
executing the policies, while the Foreign Ministry in consultation with the military was
responsible for the implementation of the policies in Thailand and French Indochina. In China,
the Japanese embassy and local agencies of the Asia Development Board (Koain), in
coordination with the China Expeditionary Army (CEA), were to guide the Nanking
Government's relations with the Malayan Chinese. The administration of Malayan Chinese
affairs was ordered divided among several government and military agencies, with the
consequences of not only a lack of coordination among them but the jealous guarding of each
theatre’s command of its own jurisdiction, making cooperation between the CEA and the SEA
impossible on the Malayan Chinese issue119
A concrete outline of occupation policies, which general staff of the Imperial Japanese
Army did not produce until nine months before the actual outbreak of war, later provided the
basis for a definitive policy statement issued on 20 November 1941.120 To fulfil the primary
aims of “restoration of security, urgent acquisition of important resources for self-defence,
and the making of the military forces self-sufficient”, local administrations were given
permission to utilize “the existing structure of government”, based on the belief that the local
inhabitants were “of low cultural standards, without much hostility towards us”.121
The military perspective was reflected in General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s 20 February
1942 proclamation that
the people of Syonan must co-operate to establish the “East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere” and “New Order of Justice”. . . . [The] Nippon Army will drastically expel
and punish those who still pursue bended delusions . . . those who indulge themselves
119
Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese 1941-1945,” 66.
Ibid., 78.
121
Ibid., 79.
120
59
in private interests and wants, those who act against humanity or disturb the military
action of the Nippon Army.122
This proclamation also reflected the character of Japanese ethnic policy; that is, anti-British or,
in a wider context, anti-Western. Although the Singaporean people were urged to establish an
East Asian racial consciousness based on a theory of Asian “equality”, Japanese political,
economic, and social policy certainly contradicted their theory.
2.4 Prewar Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s large population was to become one of the major problems confronting
the British administration in its efforts to defend the colony. In 1931, 852,932 persons,
including 20,000 non-Chinese, resided in the colony; by mid-1936, 988,190 resided in Hong
Kong, of whom 21,832 were non-Chinese. The outbreak of Sino-Japanese hostilities in the
summer of 1937 marked the beginning of an influx of refugees from North and Central China
into Hong Kong so great that on 8 December 8 1941, when the Japanese attack on Hong Kong
began, the population of the city was close to two million, according to an official of the
colonial government.123
In 1940, Hong Kong was a commercial centre, though not yet an important
manufacturing centre, for international trade; an entrepot highly sensitive to political and
economic changes on the Chinese mainland; and an important military and naval base. The
population then numbered approximately 1,846,000, of whom about 750,000 were refugees
from the Sino-Japanese conflict.124 In that year, only about 800 factories, employing about
122
Shonan Times, February 20, 1942.
See 1940 Blue Book (Annual Blue Book of Statistics), (Hong Kong: Government printer). The total
population in the census year 1931 was given as 849,751 and the Chinese population as 821,429, or 96.67
percent of the population.
124
The results of the 1931 census were published in an official report written by W. J. Carrie: See Hong Kong
123
60
30,000 workers,125 were in operation, and only 4,400 private motorcars, 360 motorcycles, 385
public cars and taxis, 1,200 commercial motor lorries, and 109 tram-cars were registered for
use in the city. 126 When compared with present statistics, these figures demonstrate the
provincial nature of prewar Hong Kong.
The 1931 census indicates that few Chinese regarded Hong Kong as their home, with
only thirty-three percent reporting that they had been born in Hong Kong. However, the
Chinese community considered the establishment of a permanent Chinese cemetery at
Aberdeen important, as “it was a significant proof of the existence of what one might call the
Hong Kong Chinese”.127 Although no census was taken in 1941 to confirm this assumption,
the population of Hong Kong Chinese had likely increased substantially by that year, which
would naturally have increased China’s and the greater Chinese community’s stake in Hong
Kong.
In 1941, the Chinese community was represented by three unofficial members of the
Legislative Council, Lo Man-kam, Dr. Li Shu-fan,128 and William Ngartsee Thomas Tam, and
one unofficial member of the Executive Council, Sir Robert Horumus Kotewall. Although
these Chinese non-officials were expected to advise the British Hong Kong government,
especially regarding Chinese affairs, Robert S. Ward claims that “they were in fact little more
than instruments of the British colonial government, and, whether as the result of deliberate
selection, they were rarely highly regarded by be Chinese themselves, and often they were not
Sessional Papers, No. 5, of 1931. Some of the difficulties encountered by census takers in Hong Kong are
discussed in the 1962 Annual Report, (Hong Kong: Government printer). Chapter 1.
E. F. Szczepanik, The Economic Growth of Hong Kong (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 135.
Figures given to Sir Shouson Chow by the Traffic Department of the Hong Kong Government. See Hong
Kong Centenary Commemorative Talks,1841-1941, (Hong Kong: World News Service, 1941), 70. The figures
refer to 1939, but few cars were imported into Hong Kong after that year because of the war.
127
Lennox A. Mills, British Rule in Eastern Asia: a study of contemporary government and economic
development in British Malaya and Hong Kong (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 390.
128
The Hong Kong Government Gazette of June 20, 1941 announced that the Hon. Mr Li Tse-fong had been
appointed “an unofficial member of the Legislative Council in succession to Dr Li Shu-fan”. There was also an
unofficial member representing the Portuguese community, Leo D’Almada e Castro, who had first been
appointed in 1937 as a successor to Jose Pedro Braga.
125
126
61
actually Chinese”.129 It has been argued that Eurasians, including Ho Tung and Kotewall,
were never viewed by other Chinese, either in Hong Kong or on the mainland, as truly
Chinese.130 Nevertheless, they were still chosen only after they had worked their up through a
Chinese system of influence and power understood and accepted by the government itself.
Thus, even before the elites had reached the Legislative or Executive Council, they had been
vetted by the community.
All the prominent Chinese who made public speeches in 1941 in celebration of Hong
Kong’s centenary as a British colony praised the fruits of Sino-British cooperation. In a
wireless broadcast, Sir Shouson Chow proclaimed, “Hong Kong’s development and growth
may be attributed in a large measure to her sound and just administration and to the peace and
security which she offers to trade, investment and industry”.131 Sir Robert Kotewall was even
more explicit regarding the benefits of British rule:
No less productive of good has been the relationship between Government
and people. In this matter, one all important factor has been the principle of
giving the Chinese community a voice in government through
representation on the Executive and Legislative Councils. In 1925 the
Executive Council was enlarged to include a member, representative of the
Chinese community;132 while, on the Legislative Council, there are three
Chinese members. In the urban Council, adequate representation for the
Chinese has been provided. These provisions in the Colony's constitution
are important; but still more important is the practice followed of
consulting responsible Chinese opinion before a decision is made.133
2.5 Hong Kong Elites in the Prewar Era
In this dissertation, the term elites refers to groups of prominent Chinese political and
business leaders who were all members of the new business class emerging from the colony’s
129
Robert S. Ward, Asia for the Asiatics? The techniques of Japanese occupation (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1945), 14.
130
Ibid., 14.
131
“An Octogenarian Remembers Hong Kong’s Progress and Prosperity,” Hong Kong Centenary
Commemorative Talking, 1841-1941, 69.
132
Sir Shouson Chow, who served two terms of office between 1926 and 1936.
133
“Anglo-Chinese Co-operation: Past, Present and Future,” Hong Kong Centenary Commemorative Talking,
1841-1941, 47.
62
commercial growth, which had resulted from the tremendous increase in Chinese and
international trade that begun in the late nineteenth century. They included entrepreneurs,
compradors, bankers, industrialists, and professionals such as lawyers and physicians.
Sociologists and political scientists often use the term elites to describe groups whose
members occupy the top positions of power and wealth in a society and exercise authority,
influence, and control of resources within the society’s important organizations. Because they
own the bulk of a society’s wealth, elites have the power to formulate and guide economic,
political, educational, and other significant policies and activities, and, perhaps most
importantly, impose their explanation and justification for the dominant political and
economic system on their society.
The term “elitist” expounded by such scholars as Vifredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca,
Ralph Miliband, and John Mills is grounded upon an assumption that elites have an inherent
desire to serve the public interest by employing special talents that separate and make them
superior to the masses, who, in contrast, are vast in number but limited in power, wealth, and
prestige. Although there are obviously great differences in power, wealth, and prestige among
the individual members of the masses, when addressing fundamental political and economic
issues—who gets what, when, how—the most important distinction is between the elites and
the masses as two distinct groups.134
In the figure 2.1, the first element (“basic requirements”) identifies members of the
elite based on family and social background and success within a specific sphere of activity.
Education, corporate links, and social connections form the basic qualifications for elite
membership. In Hong Kong, individuals who had such attributes, either singly or collectively,
134
For more on the concepts of elites and masses, see Martin N. Marger, cited in Anthony Giddens, Sociology
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), 333-341 and Ettore A. Albertoni, Mosca and the Theory of Elitism (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1987). For the case of Hong Kong, see Ernest Wing Tak, Chui, Elite-Mass Relationships in Hong
Kong (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 1993) and An Exploration into the Perception of Elite-Mass
Relationships by Local Level Political Representatives in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong,
1993).
63
and had experienced a degree of success within their sphere of activity were qualified to enter
the talent pool of the advisory committees at this stage. The second element (“the talent pool”)
allows selected individuals from the overall élite to participate in the pool of talent, where
personal qualities are displayed, connections made, and reputations amplified. This “talent
pool” carries a measure of stratification. Those components include the Legislative Council,
the Municipal, and the central advisory committees. Elites were given an opportunity to
participate in the administrative processes of Hong Kong while displaying their strengths,
achievements, and abilities. The third element (“the power elite”) are those whose
involvement and position allow for their direct input into and assumption of responsibility for
setting the direction and policy of the government. This ruling group is composed of officials
and unofficials. In Hong Kong, the officials were members of the power elite in positions of
leadership in government branches or secretaries for the colony. The unofficials were noncivil servants who were members of the Executive Council. This power group set the agenda,
policy, and direction for society. As continuity is a paramount goal of elites everywhere, they
spend much attention and time on protecting their position. In this context, a major function
of the advisory committees was to provide training to those who would succeed their
members.135
135
Martin Marger, Elites and Masses: An Introduction to Political Sociology (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold,
1981), 24-26.
64
Figure 2.1 Model of the Elite-Masses Relationship
Governor, ExCo,
Secretariat
Power elites
LegCo/Municipal
Councils/ advisory
committees
Talent Pool
Business and
social connections/
Education
Basic requirement
Masses
Source: Jose O.de Barros, Elites and Democracy: The Role of Advisory Committees in Hong Kong (Hong Kong:
City University of Hong Kong, 1989),10-12.
Until recently, scholars assumed that in traditional Chinese society, local elites or
gentry, referred to as degree-holders, rather than the official administration largely managed
local affairs, acting as the bridge between the magistrate and the local community, settling
disputes, conducting fund-raising campaigns, commanding local defence, providing education
and welfare, and spreading a moralizing influence by upholding Confucian principles.
However, some scholars now argue that in many regions, groups other than degree-holders
performed these functions, and even propose that the term elites could be more broadly
65
defined as groups of local people who controlled wealth, power, and influence but were not
necessarily degree-holders.
The Hong Kong Chinese elite shared a common elite culture and identity. Like the
bourgeoisie of Europe, the bourgeoisie of Hong Kong constituted a social stratum bound by
common values, a shared culture, and a degree of prosperity based on property and earned
income. The leaders of the Hong Kong bourgeoisie, who claimed to represent the interests of
their colony, were conscious, indeed proud, of their contributions to economic development in
Hong Kong and China. They were careful with whom they associated and how they
conducted their professional and social lives and presented themselves to the rest of society.
As elsewhere, the elites were united by a strong sense of themselves in regards to other
classes. In Hong Kong, this bourgeoisie identified itself against a wide array of “others”,
including the Chinese bourgeoisie in China, the local European elites, and the Chinese lower
classes of the colony.136
The dominant elites in the local Chinese community in Hong Kong saw themselves as
different from, even superior to, the mainland Chinese, many of whom in turn viewed the
Hong Kong elite as obsessed with making money and less than fully Chinese because they
resided in a British colony.137 Although the Chinese were generally excluded from the highest
levels of government in Hong Kong, with the first Chinese resident not being appointed to the
Executive Council until 1926, and although the Europeans sometimes identified more closely
with the colony’s Indian traders, colonial officials realized that peace and order in the colony
always depended on the “loyal Chinese”. British officials often insisted that the Chinese of
136
John Carroll, Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong, (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2005), 14.
137
This attitude persisted in both China and Taiwan after 1949. For example, a study of Chinese education in
Hong Kong published in Taiwan in 1958 explained that “Hong Kong’s Chinese society is purely a commercial
one. These permanent residents are almost all merchants or the sons and grandsons of merchants. Their main
goal is accumulating capital, generating commerce, and amassing personal or family fortunes—to the point
where they usually do not have the time for scientific or cultural development.” Ma Hongshu and Chen
Zhemning, Xianggang Iluagiao Fiaoyu (Chinese Education In Hong Kong; Taipei: Haiwai Chubanshe, 1958), 5.
66
Hong Kong were incapable of any meaningful political representation, but generally
considered the Chinese more “civilized” than many of the British Empire’s other nonwhite
subjects. Likewise, these Chinese often saw themselves as members of a worldwide
community of overseas Chinese who were financially and culturally superior to many other
Asians.
In prewar Hong Kong, a Chinese resident who wished to progress politically could
choose one of several paths. One was to become an unofficial justice of the peace, a member
of the District Watch Committee or the Urban Council, or a director of the Tung Wah
Hospital or a similar association. 138 The primary responsibility of the District Watch
Committee, a body of some 120 Chinese constables and detectives maintained by private
subscription and controlled by a committee of fifteen Chinese residents under the
chairmanship of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, was patrolling certain Chinese districts.
Because of its institutionalized linkage to the government, the District Watch Committee
quickly became even more powerful than the Tung Wah Hospital139 Committee. It enjoyed
legal status and, unlike those of the Tung Wah Hospital, its members were appointed rather
than elected, and were later included in the Civil Service List. District Watch members served
138
In 1946, it was decided that the District Watch system was out of date. The force now consists of fifty District
Watchmen who are paid by the government to perform certain duties for the Chinese Secretariat that would
otherwise be performed by the regular police force. In 1941, the members of the District Watch Committee were
the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (Chairman), Sir Shouson Chow, Sir Robert Kotewall, Li Po-kwai, Ts’o Seewan, Chau Tsun-nin, Lo Man-kam, Wong Ping-sun, Tam Woon-tong, Dr Li Shu-fan, William Ngartsee Thomas
Tam, Li Jowson, Li Tse-Fong, Samuel Macomber Churn, Ngau Shing-kwan. In 1941, the members of the Tung
Wah Hospital Advisory Board were the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Sir Robert Kotewall, Lo Man-kam, Dr Li
Shu-fan, Sir Robert Ho Tung, Ts’o Seen-wan, Li Po-kwai, Chau Tsun-nin,Wong Ping-sun, Tang Shiu-kin, Chau
Shiu-ng, Lo Min-nun, and Yeung Wing-hong. The Po Leung Kuk (Society for the Protection of Virtue, i.e., for
the protection of women and girls) was another key Chinese association. In 1941, the directors were the
Secretary for Chinese Affairs (President), Sir Robert Kotewall, Lo Man-kam, Dr Li Shu-fan, William Ngartsee
Thomas Tam, Li Po-kwai, Au Lim-chuen, Tam Woon-tong, Ts’o Seen-wan, Sit Robert Ho Tung, Chau Tsun-nin,
and Tang Shiu-kin. Finally, in 1941 the Chinese members of the Urban Council in 1941 were Dr. Chau Sik-nin,
Tang Shiu-kin, and Li Tse-Fong. Dr Chau was elected and the others were appointed members. See Hong Kong
Civil Service List for 1941,(Hong Kong: The Government printer, 1941).
139
The Tung Wah, a charitable association founded in 1870 with prominent Chinese as its directors, was mainly
engaged in caring for the sick, but later assumed an advisory role and was consulted by the government.
67
for five years and were almost always reappointed, occasionally up to four terms, while Tung
Wah members were appointed for only one year.
By the early twentieth century, the District Watch had grown from an informal police
force to an institutionalized advisory council frequently consulted by the colonial government
to assist in the formulation of labour and trade policies and the resolution of labour and trade
concerns, as it was during the tram boycott of 1912 to 1913 and the strike-boycott of 1925 to
1926. Such development led political scientist Lennox Mills to conclude in 1942 that “in
reality, the Committee is the Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong and is consulted on all
matters affecting them”.140 The Urban Council enjoyed a similar development, evolving from
the Sanitary Board that had been established in 1883. With the introduction of elections in
1887, the Board became a type of municipal council concerned primarily with the maintenance of public health. In 1936, the Board was replaced by the Urban Council, which was
composed of eight unofficial members, three of whom were Chinese, who were nominated by
the Governor. A wealthy Chinese whose income did not derive from the practice of one of the
professions or who lacked inherited or landed wealth would often seek to be admitted to one
or all of these associations in order to, together with a display of public munificence, enhance
his status.
It is important to note that a Chinese had to “buy” into various social positions by
displays of munificence and participation in a wide range of charitable and welfare
organizations known to the Chinese community in Hong Kong. In other words, to achieve
high status, a Chinese had to prove himself by supporting public works. For example, in 1925
Sir Robert Ho Tung (1862-1956), a millionaire before he was thirty, donated HK$50,000 to
the University of Hong Kong and another HK$50,000 to the University Endowment Fund. In
1931, he donated HK$200,000 to the Industrial School for boys at Aberdeen. In 1936, he
140
Carroll Lennox A. Mills, British Rule in Eastern Asia: A Study of Governnnent and Economic Development in
British Malaya and Hong Kong (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 398.
68
donated HK$50,000 to buy an airplane marking the fiftieth birthday of Chiang Kai-shek, and
in 1945 donated HK$1,000,000 to the University of Hong Kong. Despite these and many
other benefactions, Ho Tung was never nominated to either the Legislative or Executive
Councils for reasons that remain unclear.141
In The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong (1939) 142 , an example of the type of
hagiographic writing in which several Chinese scholars indulged, Professor Woo Sing Lim
lists in order the following Chinese: Sir Robert Ho Tung, Sir Shouson Chow, Sir Robert
Kotewall, Dr. Tso Seen-wan, Chau Tsun-nin, Lo Man-kam, Dr Li Shu-fan, Ho Kom-tong and
Li Yau-Tsun. It appears that he gave precedence to Ho Tung because of his position as one of
the wealthiest and most generous men in the colony, and placed Chow second by reason of
his great age (he was born in 1861) and his distinguished official career in Imperial China and
holding of numerous directorships. Chow’s appointment in 1926 as the first Chinese member
of the Executive Council shows just how well he had proved his loyalty to the government.
Woo appeared to place Kotewall third not because of his prominence as a wealthy
businessman and his position as the only Chinese member of the Executive Council but rather
because of his successful career in the Government of Hong Kong. In 1916, he was appointed
Chief Clerk of the Colonial Secretariat, at the time one of the highest positions held by a nonEuropean in the government, at the age of thirty-six. Thus, although Woo used wealth as a
primary determinant of status in Hong Kong, he also considered extra-economic factors, and
Chinese notables in Hong Kong likely did so also in their estimations of their compatriots.
141
See his obituary in the Far Eastern Economic Review, May 3, 1956, and references in B. Harrison, ed.,
University of Hong Kong: The First Fifty Years 1911-1961 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1962).
There is also a sketch of his life in Woo, Sing Lim, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Five
Continents, 1939).
142
Woo wrote his book in Chinese but included summaries in English. He explained that the order in which he
listed the individuals “is merely what I believe to be the most satisfactory manner of arranging them, and was
done with no intention of being partial to anyone”. See Woo, Sing Lim, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong,1.
69
It can be concluded that although aware of the currents of change, prominent Hong
Kong Chinese engaging in trade and commerce clearly realized Hong Kong’s unique position
as a Chinese economic outpost and, having a relatively honest administration compared with
that of their homeland, as a political haven from the ever-present political strife in China.
Despite these advantages, the local Chinese in Hong Kong desired representation of their
interests in political and economic matters. As the leaders of the local Chinese community in
1941 were mostly businessmen whose wealth and status was newly acquired, it is not
surprising that several were prepared to work with the Japanese, at least during the early years
of the occupation—indeed, had they not had been working with the British?—to maintain the
positions that they had just recently won by dint of diligence, strategy, and a measure of luck.
They hoped that their cooperation with the Japanese would provide an umbrella under which
they could continue to operate their business and other interests while assuming leadership
within the Chinese community.
It is extremely difficult to determine to what extent prominent and influential Chinese
were satisfied with the state of prewar affairs in Hong Kong, with their status, and with the
British colonial regime in general. What does seem clear is that when a clash occurred
between their economic and patriotic interests, the former often won. 143 In 1941, Lennox
Nulls, an American political scientist, concluded after a period of research in the British
colonies that “the racial bitterness which has caused so much trouble in India is not found in
143
For example, the 1925 general strike and boycott inspired by the KMT in Canton attracted little support from
prominent Hong Kong Chinese. Speaking in support of an ordinance introduced to make political but not
economic strikes illegal, Sir Shouson Chow stated (apropos KMT agitators), “It is this class of mischief
makers . . . that this Bill is designed to deal with. Hong Kong is no place for them. We do not want Bolshevism
or Communism. We cannot afford to have the economic and financial structure of the Colony periodically
shaken or undermined. What we want are peace and good order, and the right to follow our callings without let
or hindrance.” Sir Robert Kotewall also supported the government on this issue, and was instrumental in
obtaining a special loan from London for assisting foreign merchants of the colony until normal trading had
resumed. See Hong Kong. Legislative Council. Hong Kong Hansard, 1926 (The Government printer), 36-9 and
44-5.
70
Hong Kong. . . . Patriotic loyalty in the sense in which it is found in Britain does not exist
save in a few instances. The vast majority are loyal because their self-interest dictates it”.144
Moreover, there had begun to appear certain pockets of unmistakable sympathy for
Japan within local elites in Hong Kong. The Japanese had combined their call to arms against
the European overlords with a firm stand against revolution in traditional Asian societies, a
strategy that appears to have won a number of adherents among the propertied Asians of
Hong Kong. One such adherent was Lau Tit-shing, a manager of the Bank of Communications. A graduate of the Law School of Tokyo Imperial University, Lau had returned to the
colony convinced of the need to fight the “white peril”. To promote this objective, he
assumed office as president of an association of Hong Kong Chinese who had studied at
universities in Japan.145
Another adherent, Chan Lim-pak, was more interested in the social plank of the
Japanese manifesto. This ultra-conservative member of the elites, who had made a large
fortune as a comprador of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, first gave evidence of his
political outlook in 1924, when he served the British—in exactly the same way that Kotewall
and Chow were to do a year later—by organizing an armed attempt to overthrow the
Nationalist regime in Canton. While working for the bank in Canton in the late 1920s, Chan
developed a friendly relationship with Wang Jingwei, the future puppet leader of mainland
China, and Isogai Rensuke, a military attaché at the Japanese consulate. In the following
years, he seems to have reached the conclusion that a Japanese conquest of China, including
144
Henry J. Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation: Changes in Social Structure,”ed. Ian C. Jarvie,
Hong Kong : a society in transition (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 87.
145
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 65; Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 110-111; Tse Wingkwong, San nian ling ba ge yue de kunnan, (Hong Kong: Ming Pao, 1991), 64. According to Tse, Lau had served
at one point as Vice Minister of Railways in the Chinese Nationalist government. Although one or two of the
wealthier Hong Kong Chinese, such as Sir Shouson Chow and Dr. Li Shu-fan, had a background in mainland
government service, it seems unlikely that the same was true of the relatively obscure banker Lau Tit-shing. I
suspect that Tse may be confusing Lau Tit-shing with an unconnected mainland politician of the same name (Liu
Tiecheng in Mandarin).
71
Hong Kong, offered the best protection for traditional Chinese society against the twin evils
of Nationalism and Communism.146
2.6 Hong Kong Chinese-Japanese Relations in the Prewar Era
In 1921, just over 1,500 Japanese resided in Hong Kong, most petty traders but some
of whom were representatives of such major concerns as Mitsui Bussan, an offshoot of the
great Mitsui trading house, and the Yokohama Specie Bank. They established their own club,
temple, hospital, hotels, primary school, and newspaper, the Honkon Nippo. In September
1931, a clique of three Japanese colonels framed the Chinese for the bombing of a section of
the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway to provide the Japanese Army with an excuse
to occupy the whole of Manchuria.147
In Hong Kong, the British rulers and local Chinese reacted to these developments in
strikingly different ways. The majority of the local Chinese seem to have identified
passionately with the fate of the motherland. In 1915, the Chinese community had added its
voice to the protest that rang around China at the news of the Twenty-one Demands, and
supported the demonstrations that broke out in Peking four years later after Japan’s wartime
gains in southern Manchuria and Shandong had been ratified by the Allies in the peace
settlement at Versailles.148 In 1930, a Japanese writer who had stepped into a public lavatory
was mortified to discover that the walls (as sure a gauge, perhaps, of grassroots opinion as any)
were covered in Chinese graffiti denouncing Japan.149
146
For information on Chan Lim-pak’s background, see Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 64-5; Lethbridge, Hong
Kong under Japanese Occupation,111 ; Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty (London: Sidgwick & Jackson,
1985), 193-4; Kwan Lai-hung, Ri zhan shiqi de Xianggang,(Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1993), 12; and Tse,
San nian, 64-5.
147
Empire building in China was not the sole motive for the Manchurian operation. The Army was also keen to
secure Manchuria as a bulwark against a perceived threat from the Soviet Union. See Hayashi, Saburo and Alvin
D. Coax, Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War (Quantico: U.S. Marine Corps, 1989), 13.
148
Tam Yue-him,“Xianggang Riben Guanxi Da Shi Nianbiao chu gao (1845-1945),”ed. Tam Yue-him, Hong
Kong and Japan: Growing Cultural and Economic Interactions (Hong Kong: Japan Society of Hong Kong,
1988), 166. The celebrated Peking demonstrations of 1919 gave rise to the May the Fourth Movement for a
political and cultural renaissance in China.
149
Nakajima, Mineo, Honkon: utsuriyuku toshi kokka (Tōkyō : Jiji Tsūshinsha, 1985), 125. The writer was
72
In September 1931, the tranquillity of Sir William Peel’s governorship was abruptly
shattered when the populace responded to a call from the Nationalist regime in Nanking for
all Chinese to observe a Day of Humiliation at the loss of Manchuria. For six days, the colony
was convulsed by the worst outbreak of rioting since the Nationalist revolution twenty years
earlier. The windows of Japanese shops were smashed, and the goods inside them looted and
burned; Japanese ships were stoned at the waterfront, and empty boxes of fish alleged to be of
Japanese origin were thrown into the harbour in a sort of latter-day Boston Tea Party; fifty
Japanese homes were destroyed; angry crowds gathered outside the Japanese Club and the
Tokyo Hotel to chase and attack isolated Japanese; and, perhaps most alarmingly, six family
members of a Japanese gardener were murdered at an outlying villa.150
Although Japan’s advance in Manchuria appeared distant from British Hong Kong, the
trouble was edging closer. In July 1937, after years of local clashes between the Japanese and
Nationalist troops in North China, Japan plunged into an all-out invasion of the Chinese
interior. As the China Expeditionary Force advanced down the Yangtze valley, Shanghai fell,
followed by Nanking, the Nationalist capital, a victory celebrated by the Japanese troops with
the massacre of an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians and the rape of perhaps 50,000
Chinese women. Then it was South China’s turn. In October 1938, Major-General Tanaka
Hisakazu landed the Twenty-First Army at Bias Bay on the coast of Guangdong Province, a
short distance northeast of the New Territories. Tanaka’s objective was not Hong Kong but
Canton, which he duly captured after a nine-day campaign, but the war had arrived at Hong
Ishikawa Tatsuzo, who described the incident in his essay, “Honkon Yosei” (“Night Thoughts in Hong Kong”)
published on 12 April 1930. It is possible that the graffiti may have been inspired in part by public outrage over a
local issue—the harassment of Hong Kong Chinese fishing vessels by Japanese vessels, which is said to have
started that year. See Tam, “Xianggang Riben Guanxi Da Shi Nianbiao”, 166; Tse Wing-kwong, Zhanshi Ri Jun
zai Xianggang baoxing (Hong Kong: Ming Pao, 1991), 223.
150
See report by E. O. Wolfe, Inspector-General of Police, dated 15 October 1931 on Anti-Japanese Disturbances,
September 23 to 28, 1931, CO 129 536/6, 26-39.
73
Kong’s gates; had, indeed, swept through them, as the Hong Kong population swelled by the
influx of more than half a million mainland refugees.
The Japanese invasion of China threw the contrast between the perspectives of the
British and Chinese communities into even sharper relief. Hong Kong now became a principal
centre of the Chinese resistance to Japan. As the Japanese captured the mainland ports and
Chiang Kai-shek’s government retreated to Chungking in the southwestern Province of
Sichuan, Hong Kong started to serve as the Nationalist lifeline to the outside world. Until
early 1939, around sixty to seventy percent of the war materials reaching the Nationalists
from overseas came through Hong Kong, at first on the railway that ran from Kowloon to
Canton and then, after the Japanese had cut the railway route after the fall of Canton, on
innumerable junks.
With a view to increasing the speed of the transport of these supplies, the Nationalists
moved back onto the Hong Kong stage, pouring into the colony in large numbers and bringing
with them an entire administrative infrastructure. By 1939, a total of thirty-two Nationalist
government organs were operating in Hong Kong on what the British Foreign Office
described as an “official” or “semi-official” basis, including the Ministries of Finance,
Railways and Communications; the Government Purchasing Commission; the Natural
Resources Commission of the Bureau of Foreign Trade; the National Salvation Bonds and
Flotation Committee; the Central Trust Bureau; and, most importantly an obscure-sounding
body called the South-West Transportation Company, which not only played the leading role
in arms procurement but also served as a cover for an elaborate intelligence network.151
This network was supervised by some of Chiang's toughest henchmen, notably Wu
Tiecheng, a former Nationalist police chief and mayor of Shanghai, and Du Yuesheng (“Big151
Dispatch from Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, British ambassador in Shanghai, to Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary,
March 16, 1939, FO 371 /235/6, 246-9, 257-9. The original list was prepared on 27 February by J. C. Hutchison,
Commercial Secretary to the Hong Kong Government, and a supplement added on 7 March.
74
Eared Du”), kingpin of the Shanghai underworld, who assumed the innocuous position of
Vice-President of the Chinese Red Cross. Officers of the network monitored the activities of
the Japanese forces in occupied regions of South China while simultaneously monitoring
Communists and other potential opponents through an agent whom they had positioned
among the Chinese employees of the British Special Branch. Several chief figures in the
Nationalist regime, including as Mme Chiang Kai-shek; her brother T. V. Soong, then serving
as Chairman of the All-China Economic Commission; and her brother-in-law H. H. Kung,
China’s topmost financier, treated the colony as a kind of offshore shelter where they
retreated for weeks, occasionally months, at a time.
The British authorities had to balance the political risk of enraging the Chinese public,
with whom they shared a good deal of sympathy for Nationalist China’s efforts to stand up to
Japan, by suppressing all manifestations of resistance activity with the risk of enraging the
Japanese. Sir Geoffrey Northcote, who had succeeded Sir Andrew Caldecott as governor
shortly after the outbreak of full-scale war, wrote to the Colonial Office that while he wished
to avoid giving the Japanese any “legitimate ground for complaint” against his administration,
he was, on the other hand, “anxious to do nothing which would hamper the Chinese
authorities in the defence of their own country”. Moreover, the British wanted Hong Kong to
remain a neutral zone in the conflict; neutrality had been formally proclaimed in September
1938, and the overriding priority of the home government in London was preventing the
United Kingdom from getting dragged into a war with Japan at precisely the same time it
found itself confronted in Europe by Hitler and Mussolini. There was still, it appears, a sense
in which a threat to the Japanese was regarded as a threat to the British also.
After the revamping of the censorship regulations in August 1939, all Chinese
publications were required register with the authorities. Mainland journalists began to find
themselves summoned to tense meetings with R. A. C. North, the Secretary for Chinese
75
Affairs, who would issue lists of expressions that their papers were not to use when referring
to the Japanese. Taboo phrases included “enemy”, “dwarf pirates”, “dwarf slaves”, “dwarf
barbarians”, “shrimp barbarians”, “island barbarians”, “Eastern slaves”, “Japanese pirates”,
“savage pirates”, “savage Japanese”, “bestial acts”, “bestial nature”, “bestial troops”,
“bandits”, “shameless burning and looting”, “rape”, “plunder”, and “butchery”.152 While the
British authorities considered their approach to the Chinese to be one of “benevolent
neutrality”,153 mainland activists and their local supporters took the opposite view.
Was the Chinese community in Hong Kong responsive to anti-Japanese movements?
Were most sectors of the Chinese community interested in the fight to save China on a purely
theoretical level, or did they manifest their philosophy in action? The actions of several
segments of the Chinese community appear to indicate that the community as a whole did
indeed turn theory into action. For example, the Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Club,
established on 10 October 1938, claimed to be “entirely devoted to service directly or
indirectly connected with the war”.154 Indeed, from the time it was founded until Hong Kong
was occupied by the Japanese, this organization organized fund-raising and relief campaigns
in support of the resistance, donated medical supplies and ambulances to the Red Cross
Society of China, and distributed food and clothing to civilians and soldiers in the war zones.
Among the other women's organizations established to provide similar relief services was the
Hong Kong Chinese Women Soldiers Relief Association, which mounted several fundraising
campaigns between August 1937 and March 1938 that succeeded in securing HK$62,629 for
the purchase of hospital materials to aid wounded Chinese soldiers.155
152
Sa Kongliao, Xianggang Lunxian Riji (Beijing: Xin hua shu dian,1985),84; Tse Wing-kwong, Xianggang
kang Ri fengyun lu (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1995), 72-5.
153
See South China Morning Post (SCMP), October 10, 1945.
154
Hong Kong Chinese Women’s Club pamphlet for fundraising play Romance of the Western Chambers,1938.1.
155
Hong Kong Commercial News, July 1 and 2, 1938.
76
The concerted efforts of the Chinese merchants and businessmen in Hong Kong, a
powerful constituent of the Chinese community, in support of the resistance should not be
underrated. At a meeting on 7 September 1937, the executive members of the Chinese
Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution to establish a Hong Kong Chinese War Relief
Association for the purpose of soliciting funds to help wounded soldiers and war refugees in
China.156 At an extraordinary meeting on 17 September 1937, the Association decided that the
employees of all the commercial associations and business guilds in Hong Kong should
contribute five percent of their monthly wages to the war relief fund until the hostilities
ceased and all business firms, regardless of size, should contribute HK$5 per month.157 In
addition, the Association decided to organize house-to-house subscription parties for raising
funds, all of which were to be forwarded to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce for
transmission to the Nanking government.158
On a smaller level, in August 1938 some sixty owners of fruit stalls in the Central
District and twelve owners of vegetable stalls in Shumshuipo started a charity sale to support
the resistance.159 Owners of other shops responded enthusiastically. This patriotic movement
soon spread far and wide throughout Hong Kong and Kowloon, and drew supporters from all
trades and all walks of life. Within a month's time, they had raised HK$1 million.160 The Ta
Kung Pao gave great publicity to the whole movement. In one editorial on the subject, the
editor stated that “the success of this movement was a good indication that the attempt to
educate the Hong Kong Chinese with nationalism and patriotism had been enormously
rewarded with most effective results”.161
156
Hong Kong Weekly Press (microfilm), September 17, 1937, 380-2.
Ibid., September 24, 1938, 42.
158
Ibid., September 24, 1938, 42.
159
Ta Kung Pao, March 31, 1939.
160
Ibid., September 2, 1938.
161
Ibid. September 2, 1938.
157
77
Regarding the medical community, the Chinese Medical Society of the University of
Hong Kong was established on 7 September 1937 with the aim of distributing medical
equipment and supplies to the war zones.162 A special committee was accordingly appointed
by the Society to undertake fundraising efforts.163 At the school level, the Chinese Youth
Movement of Hong Kong was established on August 1937 to inspire Chinese youth to take
action to save the nation.164 The Hong Kong Students’ Relief Association was formed by
students from all schools to defend the country from Japanese aggression.165 The extent of the
concern of Chinese students in Hong Kong for the fate of their nation was highlighted by a
public rally on 31 March 1937 jointly organized by Chinese student bodies throughout the
colony to take an oath to resist Japanese aggression and observe the same discipline as the
patriotic youth of China. 166 This patriotic endeavour deeply touched the editors of
newspapers and periodicals. Writing in an emotional tone rarely used, the editor of Ta Kung
Pao hailed this voluntary action as one of “admirable fortitude and determination of Chinese
youths in Hong Kong in a concerted bid to save the nation”.167
In retrospect, it can be seen that during the 1930s, various sectors of the Chinese
community in Hong Kong demonstrated an overwhelming concern for the fate of China.
Winning the war of resistance was no longer the concern of a few dedicated people; it had
become the concern of the entire community. As discussed in this section, the entire
community responded to the call of both schools and the press to commit themselves by
contributing to the cause of saving China. It is thus difficult to deny that the Chinese
162
Hong Kong Weekly Press, September 17, 1937, 391.
Ibid., September 17, 1937, 391.
164
Ibid., August 13, 1937, 216 and September 3, 1937, 328.
165
Ibid., September 24, 1937.
166
Ta Kung Pao, March 31, 1939.
167
Ibid.,March 31, 1939.
163
78
community in Hong Kong experience an upsurge of nationalism, as defined in this
dissertation, during the 1930s.
Local elites undoubtedly also made handsome gestures of support for mainland
resistance. In 1936, even before all-out combat had started, Sir Robert Ho Tung donated a
military aircraft as a fiftieth birthday present for Chiang Kai-shek, and after combat had begun,
his son, Major Robbie Ho Shai-lai, signed up to serve as a staff officer with the Nationalist
command. Sir Shouson Chow sat on a committee that had been established to promote the
sale of Nationalist government bonds, and M. K. Lo chaired another committee tasked with
raising money for mainland relief work.
At the same time, the elites had a good deal to gain from the colony’s continued
neutrality. The conflict on the mainland had given a tremendous fillip to the Hong Kong
economy. With the mainland ports occupied, around half of China’s entire foreign trade had
begun to pass through the colony, and the millions of dollars invested by refugee mainland
tycoons had led to dramatic growth in the colony’s Chinese-owned light industrial sector. By
1940, it is estimated as many as 7,500 factories may have been operating in Hong Kong, still
mostly but by no means entirely on a small scale.168 Neutrality also permitted the gentry, like
the expatriates, to continue enjoying an agreeable lifestyle. In 1938, Dr. Li Shu-fan, for
example, travelled to French Indochina to shoot elephant, and travelled to Canada two years
later to bag moose.
168
Frank Leeming, “The Earlier Industrialization of Hong Kong,”Modern Asian Studies, vol. 9, 3, 1975, 339.
Although the official Blue Book for 1940 reports a total of only 1,142 factories, Leeming reports a greater
number based on figures presented in the Chinese-language source Gang Ao Shangye Fenlei Hangminglu (Hong
Kong and Macao Business Classified Directory) for the same year. See also Wong Siu-lun, Emigrant
Entrepreneurs:Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), 18; Yuan
Bangjian, Xianggang Shilue (Hong Kong: Zhongliu Publishing House,1988), 160-2. Among the larger factories
was the Ngau Tsai Wan Rubber Factory in Kowloon, which employed about 500 Shanghainese and 2,000 Cantonese workers. A number of major factories had sprung up in Tsuen Wan, a town in the New Territories that was
industrializing at a considerable rate. They included the South China Iron Works, a concern owned by the
Chinese Nationalist government, and the Beautiful Asia Silk Weaving Factory, one of the largest plants of its
kind in China.
79
2.7 Japanese Prewar Planning and Policy towards Hong Kong
In 1936, the Japanese Chief of Staff, Prince Kanin, presented Emperor Hirohito with a
defence plan in which Britain was formally listed, for the first time, as a potential enemy
country. The Emperor immediately raised several concerns regarding this plan. His visit to
Britain in the course of his 1921 world tour had left him imbued with a certain amount of
Anglophilia, and there were still some circles in Japan in favour of re-establishing an AngloJapanese Alliance. Kanin explained that the listing of Britain as a possible foe was necessary
“in order to provide for an emergency”, citing, among other reasons, the recent British refortification of Hong Kong and Singapore.169 This shift in strategic thinking was manifested the
following year when Japan embarked on its all-out invasion of China. Despite its claim of
neutrality, Hong Kong was a problem for Japan. Even though some authorities have
suggested that the volume of arms and supplies that reached Chinese Nationalists through the
colony was not very large in absolute terms,170 and even after the railway link from Kowloon
to Canton had been severed; after Japanese aircraft had conducted incessant bombing of
suspect Hong Kong junks; after maximum diplomatic pressure had been exerted on the
British government; and after Hong Kong’s share of China’s military imports had shrunk to
twenty percent, in June 1940 General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo estimated that Hong Kong
was channelling munitions to the interior at the rate of 6,000 tons a month,171 making Hong
Kong a desirable target of invasion to stop the inflow of arms to the mainland. Moreover,
many top Army staff believed that Hong Kong might be the key to a settlement; if the colony
169
Boeicho Boei Kenshusho Senshibu cho, Honkon-Chosha Sakusen (Tokyo: Asagumo shinbunsha, 1971), 1011. Following Japan’s occupation of Manchuria in 1932, a British government defence committee decided to
abandon the policy of non-fortification in the Far East, which it had formulated with the Japanese and U.S.
governments at the Washington conference of 1921 to 1922.
170
See, for example, Chan Lau Kit-ching, China, Britain and Hong Kong 1895-1945 (Hong Kong: Chinese
University Press, 1990), 290-1. In relative terms, Hong Kong was a more important conduit of military supplies
to China than any other site (including Burma) until early 1939.
171
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 4. According to one observer in the colony, the proportion of total imports from
China passing through Hong Kong doubled in 1940. See Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 23-4.
80
could be taken, they reasoned, Chiang might be induced to recognize the futility of relying on
help from the outside and might see the advantages of coming to terms.172
In the meantime, events in Europe were forcing reconsideration of previously adopted
positions. In June 1940, with France and the Netherlands subdued by the Nazi blitzkrieg and
Britain under siege, the European colonies in Southeast Asia had been left headless. Japan’s
opportunity to put an end to European power in the region via a thrust to the South seemed to
have arrived. Such a thrust would also enable Japan to secure access to the wealth of the
former European colonies by merging them into a great, Japanese-managed empire—the
Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Despite lacking the vast natural resources of
territories like Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong was still a valuable target with
its high concentration of Chinese and Western capital.
2.71 Japanese Preparation for the Invasion of Hong Kong
Before 1941, a certain Colonel Suzuki Takuji had arrived in Hong Kong to assume
overall control of the local spy network under the cover of “learning English”, at which he
made no discernible progress.173 At the same time, Japanese “tourists” arrived to photograph
the beautiful dockyards and hunt and fish in the neighbourhoods housing gun emplacements
and military roads.174 Other visitors included trainee diplomats, journalists, medical missions,
teams of “economic investigators”, and even a troop of elderly Boy Scouts.175
To prevent its agents from appearing unduly conspicuous, Japan recruited intelligence
agents from the long-established Japanese colony of Taiwan. Since 1932, approximately 300
172
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 13.
Special Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities Third Quarter of 1940, October 9, 1940, FO 371
27621, 3-4; John Luff, The Hidden Years: Hong Kong 1941-1945 (Hong Kong: SCMP, 1967), 4; Paul
Gillingham, At the Peak: Hong Kong between the wars (Hong Kong: Macmillan, 1983), 169, 171.
174
Special Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities Fourth Quarter of 1938, January 6, 1939 and
Second Quarter of 1939, July 12, 1939, FO 371 23516, 242, 268; Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 94; Tse, Xianggang
Kang Ri, 87.
175
Special Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities Fourth Quarter of 1938, January 6, 1939; First
Quarter of 1939, April 12, 1939, FO 371/23516, 242, 243-4, 253-4; Third Quarter of 1940, October 9, 1940;
Fourth Quarter of 1940, January 7, 1941; First Quarter of 1941, April 15, 1941; Monthly Report on Japanese
Activities, August 1941, September 1941, FO 371/27621, pp. 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12.
173
81
Taiwanese had moved to Hong Kong to find work as shopkeepers, farmers, and fishermen.
Although speaking a form of Chinese different from the Cantonese dialect prevalent in Hong
Kong, this linguistic challenge does not seem to have hindered their ability to blend into the
Chinese community. The British authorities made no distinction between them and the rest of
the Chinese population, and did not require them to declare their status as Japanese nationals
on arrival in the colony. By 1937, a small contingent of Taiwanese had quietly established
small farms at selected points in the New Territories, where the Japanese Army arranged for
them to be provided with radio-transmission sets.176 Within two or three years, they were
transmitting all the data that Japan could desire. In August 1939, General Staff Headquarters
were able to distribute to their troops a map of the Defence Installations in the Vicinity of
Hong Kong that was on a scale of 1:25,000.177 It has been conjectured that no target in the
entire history of warfare was ever spied out with such thoroughness as had been Hong Kong
in the run-up to the Japanese attack.178
At the end of 1939, the intelligence drive began to be supplemented by an equally
massive programme of covert operations. Ultimate control of this programme was exercised
by the Eighth Section of General Staff Headquarters, which was in charge of the Army's
propaganda and subversion work. 179 The officer immediately responsible, however, was
Major Okada Yoshimasa, who had been transferred from the Eighth Section to the
intelligence and subversion staff of the China Expeditionary Force. Okada was the founder of
what came to be known as the Asia Development Organization or Koa Kikan, which was to
176
See F. W. Shaftain, Rough Draft for Proposed Articles, Hong Kong Police Archives, G56 (4), 10; Special
Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities Second Quarter of 1941, July 15, 1941 and Monthly Report
on Japanese Activities July 1941, August 12, 1941 and August 1941, September 1941, FO 371/27621, 19, 22,
30-1. These Taiwanese would mostly have spoken the Minnan dialect.
177
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 2. See also Phyllis Harrop, Hong Kong Incident (London: Eyre &
Spottiswoode,1943), 92 and Luff, Hidden Years, 5. The Japanese are said to have had a British military
communications chart showing telephone junctions; details of the exact number and quality of the British and
other Allied troops; and information relating to the British ammunition, transport, and artillery positions.
178
Tim Carew, The Fall of Hong Kong (London: Anthony Blond, 1960), 28.
179
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 13. The Army Ministry was also involved in the person of Colonel Iwagum Goya,
Head of the Military Affairs Section.
82
play the leading role in Japan's penetration of British Hong Kong by mobilizing the non-European majority population to undermine British rule from within.180
2.72 Japanese Cooperation with Local Triads
After establishing the Koa Kikan, Okada accordingly set about recruiting local
adherents. One method that he used was propaganda. Since November 1938, when the
Japanese Premier Prince Konoye had unveiled his concept of a New Order in East Asia, Japan
had been seeking to position itself as the champion of all the Asian peoples in a grand crusade
against Great Britain and the other European imperial powers. To begin realizing this goal,
Okada's men began to disseminate anti-British publications in Hong Kong under cover of a
body called the Canton Toyo Culture Research Office, with their efforts aided by an
established Japanese community paper, the Honkon Nippo, which now appeared in both a
Chinese and an English edition.181 However, the Koa Kikan were not disposed to rely solely
on their powers of conversion to build up the full-scale “fifth column” that they had in mind.
Their principal target groups were the triad societies, groups of Chinese mafia that operated in
many parts of South China, and were estimated to have not less than 60,000 members in Hong
Kong Island alone.182 Although the triads nursed certain grievances against the British, who
had tried somewhat ineffectually to curb their activities, their greatest asset was that they
180
The Koa Kikan was a branch of the Tokumu Kikan, the Army’s Special Service Organization. Earlier names
for it included the Asia Development Board and the China Affairs Board. See Special Branch Quarterly
Summary of Japanese Activities, Third Quarter of 1940, October 9, 1940; First Quarter of 1941, April 15, 1941;
and Second Quarter of 1941, July 15, 1941, FO 371 27621, 3 (verso)-4, 11 (verso), 20 (verso).
181
The Chinese edition, Heung Gong Yat Po, had first appeared as early as 1932. The English edition, Hong
Kong News, followed in 1939. See Special Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities, Second Quarter of
1939, July 12, 1939 and Third Quarter of 1939, October 5, 1939, FO 371/23516, 268, 296-7 Ibid. Third Quarter
of 1940, October 9, 1940; First Quarter of 1941, April 15, 1941; Monthly Report on Japanese Activities July
1941, August 12, 1941; Monthly Report on Japanese Activities August 1941, September 11, 1941, FO
371/27621, 5, 12, 16-17, 27; Lethbridge, Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation, 98.
182
For the number of triad members in Hong Kong, see Internment diary of Assistant Superintendent Lance
Searle, January 28, 1943; Shaftain, Rough Draft, 10; Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 14; George Wright-Nooth,
Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads: horror, hunger and humour in Hong Kong, 1941-1945 (London: Leo Cooper,
1994), 48. The British police estimated triad membership in Kowloon to be 300,000 and in the colony as a whole
to be 450,000, but these figures seem fantastically high, given that the entire population of Hong Kong at that
time was no more than 1.8 million.
83
could be bought. Indeed, hired triad gangsters had played a useful role in the Japanese capture
of Canton in October 1938.
In January 1940, Okada dispatched a subordinate named Sakata Seisho, who had
studied in Peking in the 1920s and had subsequently worked for the so-called “China
Development Company”. Basing himself at the Hong Kong Hotel under the Chinese alias of
Tian Cheng, Sakata proceeded to make contacts among triad members, who ranged from
seamen to the hotel’s attendant population of cooks, rickshaw pullers, and “boys”. With the
help of triad bosses and the distribution of large sums, Sakata organized two underground
squads known as the Heaven Group and the Help Group, named after the Chinese saying
“success comes with Heaven’s help”, whose assignment was to foment anti-British
disturbances on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, respectively.
However, before Sakata could proceed any further with his plans, his Japaneseaccented Mandarin gave him away, and on 12 May he was arrested and imprisoned by the
Hong Kong police. Despite this small setback, within two weeks Sakata had escaped with the
help of his triad connections, then slipped across the Pearl River delta to Macao.183 Ever since
the 21st Army had arrived in Canton in October 1938, the Japanese viewed the Portuguese
colony as a target due to its low level of vigilance against the Japanese and its high level of
Japanese influence; indeed, the dentist who headed their local community had the run of the
governor’s mansion. 184 In Macao, Sakata enlisted the aid of Fung Yung, a leader of the
powerful Wo Shing Wo Triad, whom the British had deported from Hong Kong with his
followers the previous year. The services of at least 1,000 of Wo Shing Wo’s 5,000 members
were purchased for Japanese service, and Fung was instructed to infiltrate them back to Hong
183
See Special Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities Third Quarter of 1940, October 9, 1940, FO
371/27621, 4-5 (verso); Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 14; Tse, Xianggang Kang Ri, 97-8.
184
Special Branch Quarterly Summary of Japanese Activities First Quarter of 1939, April 12, 1939, FO
371/23516, 254-5.
84
Kong with the task of engaging in arson and other disruptions when the critical moment
arose.185
Sakata believed that these various anti-British disruptions inside the colony would
evoke an immediate response from the outside in the form of a Chinese army of liberation. As
preparation for this event, the Koa Kikan established two divisions of mafiosi comprising
between 10,000 and 20,000 men. Recruited from a different set of secret societies in the
northern Province of Henan and placed under the leadership of Xie Wenda, this irregular
force hovered on the edge of the Pearl River delta between Canton and Macao with a fleet of
200 junks. In April 1940, a portion of the force slipped across the delta to the county of Baoan
on the northwestern border of the New Territories, where they seized the petrol supplies that
continued to be smuggled out of the colony to Chiang Kai-shek. Sakata reckoned that early
October would be the right time for them to cross the border and strike at Kowloon.186
From the very first day of the war, the irregular “troops” were active in the refugee
camps, where tens of thousands of vagrants were waiting for erratic handouts of rice. As a
result of their actions, “hooligans” at a camp in the village of Kam Tin stole all the available
rice and beheaded the European superintendent.187 By 11 December, a full-scale insurrection
was in progress. Shortly before noon that day, the British police came under fire in the
neighbourhood of the Police Training School, located on the inner frontier that ran between
the New Territories and urban Kowloon. The trouble was once again ascribed to “Japanese in
plain clothes”, but a British sub-inspector of police observed that “he did not think the
Japanese were the attackers”. 188 At different points in Kowloon, British police cars and
185
Special Branch Monthly Report on Japanese Activities July 1941, August 12, 1941, FO371/27621, 17 (verso);
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 14; Tse, Xianggang Kang Ri, 97.
186
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 14-15; Tse, Xianggang Kang Ri, 98
187
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 39-40; Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints: the memoirs of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke
(Hong Kong: Sino-American Publ. Co., 1975), 65.
188
War Diary of the Hong Kong Police, Hong Kong Police Archives, December 1941, 16-7, 29.
85
ambulances had to battle their way through crowds of hundreds or even thousands of armed
and hostile Chinese.189
The crowds shot, stabbed, burned, rioted, and, above all, plundered: witnesses spoke
of gangs emptying the contents of shops into lorries as though moving house and described
“the roar of the looting in Nathan Road”.190 No random epidemic of burglary, this was a
carefully organized operation designed to maximize the chaos by employing looters deployed
by the largest triad faction, the Wing On Lok, wearing white identity armbands and issuing
safe conduct, when it pleased them, to favoured Chinese citizens. They proclaimed their
political allegiance by yelling “Victory! Victory!” (a slogan that earned them the nickname of
the Victory Fellows),191 and described themselves as members of the Koa Kikan. Towards
evening, the Rising Sun flag of Japan was suddenly hoisted on the roof of the Peninsula Hotel,
the highest point in Kowloon, after which continuous sniping began from the hotel’s upper
floors. Some Canadian troops who had been stationed at the northeastern approach to the city
were reported to have taken fright and laid down their arms, believing themselves to be
caught in a Japanese pincer movement, but indeed, still no Japanese forces had yet set foot in
Kowloon at that moment.192
189
Ibid., 33; Internment diary of Dr Kenneth Uttley Diary, December 1941. The police report crowds of 200 to
300 Chinese, but Uttley refers to a mob of over 2,000 looters.
190
Tang Hai, “Xianggang Lunxian Ji”, in Yip Duk-wei, Xianggang lunxian shi (Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press,
1984), 197; Diary of Dr. Isaac Newton, December 1941, quoted in Alan Birch and Cole, Captive Christmas: the
battle of Hong Kong, December 1941(Hong Kong : Heinemann Asia, 1979), 9.
191
See Dr Thomas Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire in the Siege of Hong Kong, 1941 (London: Burns Oates &
Washbourne, 1944), 47; interview by Kevin Sinclair with Chan Pak, former waiter at the Peninsula Hotel, South
China Morning Post, December 7 1991. The Chinese term was shengli you (Cantonese shinglei you), literally
“friends of victory”.
192
For this incident, see Tang Hai, “Xianggang Lunxian Ji,”197; Ko Tim-keung and Jason Wordie, Ruins of War:
a guide to Hong Kong’s battlefields and wartime sites (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1996),167. British sources
note that a contingent of the Winnipeg Grenadiers had been assigned to guard the northern approach to Kowloon.
See Oliver Lindsay, The Lasting Honour: the fall of Hong Kong, 1941 (London : Hamish Hamilton, 1978), 50.
86
Chapter 3
Singapore and Hong Kong in the Aftermath of Japanese Invasion
3.1 Post-Surrender Japanese Policy towards the Singaporean Chinese Community
Sook ching, the Chinese translation of shukusei, literally means “purification through
purging” in Japanese.193 As such, it was an ironic description of a massacre. Although Chin
Kee Onn first used the term in 1946, it was not commonly used in the Chinese press
immediately after the war, and was rarely used in other texts until the 1980s.194 Likely as a
result of the Singapore Oral History Department’s massive project on the Japanese occupation,
the Singaporean massacre has been referred to as a sook ching since the 1980s.195 However,
from the 1940s to the 1960s, the terms “Chinese massacre” and “identification parade
massacre” were much more prevalent in the English and Chinese press.
The conventional explanations regarding the decision of Yamashita and his staff to
engage in the sook ching are that (1) they faced the problem of maintaining security with an
weak army; (2) they wanted to establish security as quickly as possible, and (3) they feared
that the Singaporean Chinese would do to them what the guerrillas in China had done to their
compatriots. However, this dissertation argues that the most basic and fundamental reason
193
In the sook ching that began immediately after the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942, thousands of
Chinese men and youths were rounded up and massacred between February 21 and 23 and in early March 1942.
It is estimated that between 40,000 and 100,000 were massacred, but the generally accepted figure is 40,000,
with the British and the Japanese admitting a figure of only 5,000. See V. Purcell, The Chinese in Malay (London:
Oxford University Press, 1948), 250-1; James Leasor, Singapore: The Battle that Changed the World (London:
Hadder and Stoughton, 1968), 225-6; Mamoru Shinozaki, Syonan—My Story: The Japanese Occupation of
Singapore (Singapore: Asia Pacific Press, 1975), 20; R. Holmes and A. Kemp, The Bitter End: The Fall of
Singapore, 1941-42 (Chichester: Bird, 1982), 181; Lord Russell of Liverpool, The Knights of Bushido: A Short
History of Japanese War Crimes (London: Cassell and Co., 1958) 243-54; and Ian Ward, The Killer They Called
A God (Singapore: Media Masters, 1996). Also refer to SOOK CHING 116 File WO 235/1004, Public Records
Office, Kew, London.
194
Chin Kee Onn, Malaya Upside Down (Singapore: Jitts, 1946).
195
Oral History Department, Sook Ching, (Singapore: National Archives of Singapore, 1992); Oral History
Department, Syonan: Singapore under the Japanese: A Catalogue of Oral History Interviews, (Singapore:
National Archives of Singapore), 1986.
87
why the Japanese Army decided to engage in a massacre in Singapore was its desire to inflict
severe punishment (genju shobun) on the Chinese community.
3.11 The Watanabe Gunsei
After Malaya, which at that time included Singapore, had been conquered and
occupied by the Twenty-Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Yamashita Tomoyuki, military
administrative matters were assigned to Major General Manaki Keishin, Deputy Chief of
Staff and Chief of Military Administration. However, real command of the military
administration was in the hands of the Deputy Chief, Colonel Watanabe Wataru, who had
served as a political officer in China during 1930s. As Watanabe had earned his trust, General
Yamashita granted him authority to formulate and set administrative policies.196
Watanabe’s experience in China and belief that it was necessary to “coerce the natives
with resolution” played significant roles in his establishment of harsh rule during the first year
of occupation. 197 To Watanabe, any concession to self-rule, particularly in matters of
materials and supplies, could hamper military operations. In an interview with Professor
Akashi, Watanabe explained,
The fundamental principle of my policy to indigenous people is to make them aware
of their past mistakes; they must atone and cleanse themselves of the past stains. They
must be taught to endure hardship together with the rest of the Asiatic peoples for the
construction of a greater Asia. This nationality policy was the essence that I derived
from ten years of my political experience in China.198
After Watanabe had joined the Twenty-Fifth Army in Saigon in late November 1941,
he had only ten days to develop military administrative policy and select and train personnel
for military government duties before the invasion. As a result, he had neither established
196
Yoji Akashi, “Japanese Military Administration in Malaya—its formation and evolution in reference to
Sultans, the Islamic religion, and the Moslem-Malays, 1941-1945,”Asian Studies,7, April 1969, 83.
197
Ibid., 84.
198
Ibid., 84.
88
policy for nor assigned personnel to the military administration, a situation very different
from that of the later invasion of Java by the Sixteenth Army in March 1942, which included
a religious department staffed with a number of Javanese Moslems.199 By late February 1942,
Watanabe had assumed administrative control of Singapore and had placed his Civilian Chief
of Staff, Takase Totu, as head of the Chinese section. 200 These two hardliners had just
returned from a successful trip to Tokyo to persuade the Army General Staff that their policy
should be to sever the ties between the Singaporean Chinese and the KMT and to suppress
them as necessary201, a policy confirmed by an order issued on the eve of the fall of Singapore.
Takase had made an intelligence study of the Malay and Singaporean Chinese shortly before
the war broke out, and his recommendations were incorporated into the document “Principles
and Policies Governing Towards the Chinese”, which was published in mid-April 1942.
Professor Akashi argued that this document provided the framework for the Watanabe
regime’s governance of Singapore and other parts of Malaya until March 1943.202 Incidentally,
this basic document stated that Malaya, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies were to
remain “permanent possessions of Japan”.
The day after the military-government liaison conference had adopted the polices
contained in the document, the British administration in Singapore surrendered and the
Japanese renamed the city Syonan. Immediately after these events had occurred, the Second
Field Kempeitai (the military police), under the command of Colonel Oishi Masayuki, entered
199
Ibid., 85.
Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese,” 64.
201
Ibid., 65.
202
Ibid., 69-70. The policy measures described in the “Principles” included the following: (1) Firmness should
be maintained at all times, including confiscation of property and deportation for non-cooperating Chinese.
However, wholehearted cooperation should be rewarded appropriately by promising “peaceful and comfortable
existence”. (2) Chinese commercial interests were to be given “initiative” to relieve the Japanese lead in
developing the southern area. However, Malays and Indians were not to be discriminated against in favor of
Chinese business interests. (3) The Malay Chinese were to be given the role of a “driving force” in Asia, which
would emerge after the defeat of the KMT. (4) The Chinese community was to be assessed ¥50 million to
provide funding for the military administration. This proposal was especially prized by Watanabe, who was
obliged to raise local funds to cover operational costs, and who considered the exaction as proper punishment or
atonement for the support given the KMT and the British.
200
89
the city to establish security, which, for the next several days, entailed entering Chinese
enclaves to deal with “hostile Chinese”. 203 However, many such “hostile Chinese”, who
included women and children, were rounded up for no other reason than being Chinese, some
with the help of Taiwanese and Chinese informers, and some later executed. When senior
Gunsei officers at headquarters located outside the city, who at that time were unaware of
what the Kempeitai were doing, were later informed of these indiscriminatory mass arrests,
Major General Manaki, the Gunseibucho, intervened and immediately released innocent
women and children, informing the Kempeitai that he was acting on General Yamashita's
directive. Although men were still detained, Manaki believed that they were to be tried in
military court, having no knowledge of the Kempeitai's plan to execute them, which had been
concealed from him.204
To the Japanese administration, success in Singapore and Malaya required utilization
of Chinese economic power as an integral part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,
which, accordingly, first required placation and reassurance that forming a common bond
would allow for the mutual pursuit of profit.205 However, Japanese field troops on China were
finding that Chinese resistance, not cooperation, was the reality. Estimates for troop strength
in 1940 indicate that about thirty-five divisions with some 1,350,000 men were unable to
defeat the KMT and the communist troops, leading 114,426 to be killed and 229,191
wounded in 1941 with no victory in sight.206 It was later argued that Watanabe’s hardline
position towards the vanquished inhabitants of Malaya and Singapore was a primary cause of
Japanese difficulty in China.207
203
Kawamura, Saburo, Jusan Kaidan Wo Noboru (Tokyo: Ato Shobo, 1952), is a collection of Kawamura’s
letters written as his will to his family during the sook ching.
204
Interview with Manaki Keishin, July 10, 1966. From Akashi,“Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese,”
66.
205
Chin Kee Onn, Malaya Upside Down (Singapore: Jitts and Company, 1946), 89.
206
Layton Horner, Japanese Military Administration in Malaya and the Philippines (Ann Arbor: University
Microfilms International, 1979), 59.
207
Horner, Japanese Military Administration in Malaya and the Philippines, 59.
90
As the Japanese considered the Chinese community to be the most significant
community in Singapore,208 the guidelines prepared for Japanese forces in Southeast Asia
struck a moderate note with regard to the Chinese living in the region: “For the present, the
overseas Chinese shall be utilized for economic purposes but their social power shall be
gradually checked by the application of appropriate political pressure”.209 In fact, the prewar
Chinese were oriented towards the culture and politics of their motherland, largely ignoring
the internal politics of Malaya and becoming involved in nationalistic activities opposing
imperialism in China. For example, by 1930 the Singaporean Chinese had established a
branch of the KMT and the MCP, the latter of which was believed to be an overseas branch of
the CCP. Moreover, prewar anti-Japanese activities by Chinese residents in Malaya and
Singapore, such as strikes and boycotts of Japanese goods in protest of Japan’s invasion of
China in 1937, and their increased financial support of China’s war effort had led the
Japanese to brand them dangerous enemies who needed to be controlled and punished.210
In fact, the Japanese Twenty-Fifth Army already held strong anti-Chinese feelings,
being well aware that the Chinese of Malaya and Singapore had strongly supported China in
the Sino-Japanese War. Professor Akashi argued that the sook ching was conducted because
the Twenty-Fifth Army had come directly from the China campaign, where they had faced
great difficulty fighting Chinese troops and the CCP, especially in rural areas of mainland
China. 211 According to Professor Akashi, “A psychological state of mind for atrocity
208
In Singapore, information was gathered from a total of 19 oral history interviews selected from a collection on
the Japanese occupation conducted by the Oral History Department of the National Archives. Interviewees had
to be at least sixteen years old at the end of the occupation to ensure that the perspectives of older teenagers and
young adults were maintained.
209
Harry J. Benda, Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia: Selected Documents (New Haven: Yale
University, 1965), 169.
210
Cheah Boon Kheng, “Japanese Army Policy towards the Chinese and Malay–Chinese Relations in Wartime
Malaya,” ed. Paul H. Kratoska, Southeast Asian Minorities in the Wartime Japanese Empire, (London:
Routledge Curzon, 2002), chapter 7.
211
Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese, 1941-1945,” 66-68.
91
developed on the battlefield and led to the infamous purge through purification (sook ching)
after the fall of Singapore”.212
Japanese punishment of the Chinese population appeared even more inevitable when
the actions of the Dalforce Volunteers greatly increased.213 During the final battles of the
Malayan Campaign ten days before the fall of Singapore, some 4,000 local Chinese joined
British troops to fight in the defence of Singapore. Named the Dalforce Volunteers after their
commander, Lieutenant Colonel John D. Dalley, Director of Intelligence for the Federated
Malay States Police Force, these volunteers fought savagely against the invading Japanese
troops despite the overwhelming odds against them.214 Before escaping to the Netherlands
Indies on the eve of the fall of Singapore, the Singaporean Chinese leader Tan Kah Kee had
stated to the communist and KMT leaders of the Dalforce Volunteers,
You do not deserve any pity because you are prepared to make a self-sacrifice, but the
whole Chinese population in Singapore will be wiped out when the Japanese come to
the city. The British were malicious in dispatching the untrained Chinese to the front
when the trained British troops were withdrawn behind the lines.215
Tan’s assessment proved tragically correct. Mamoru Shinozaki later recalled that
Colonel Masanobu Tsuji had proposed the idea of the sook ching for the “suppression of
hostile Chinese” in retaliation for the tenacity of the Chinese Volunteers in Dalforce. Before
the Twenty-Fifth Army moved into Sumatra after the capture of Singapore, Colonel Tsuji
suggested that it should carry out a sook ching to eliminate all “Chinese anti-Japanese
element”.216
212
Ibid., 61-89.
The most detailed account of the Dalforce Volunteers is given by Australian journalist Ina Morrison,
Malayan Postscript (London: Faber, 1942), chapter 18.
214
See T. S. Lim, Southward Lies The Fortress: The Siege of Singapore (Singapore: Educational Publications
Bureau, 1971).
215
Xingzhou Ri Bao, October 30, 1945.
216
Shinozaki, Syonan—My Story, 20-21.
213
92
3.12 Severe Punishment (Genju Shobun)
Despite all the potential Japanese reasons engaging in the sook ching that were
described above, the ensuing madness and carnage would not have occurred without the
establishment of genju shobun, the administration of “severe punishment”, 217 a factor that,
according to Professor Akashi, has been understudied, despite its importance in understanding
how orders to capture anti-Japanese elements degenerated into the large-scale liquidation of
innocent people. In agreement, Onishi, who blames the massacre on the monstrous concept of
allowing ordinary soldiers to administer “severe punishment”,218 writes,
According to international law, we were to treat regular enemy soldiers, if captured, as
prisoners of war. Volunteer soldiers and people who belonged to a people's army were
not necessarily considered POWs. Spies and rebellious elements, on the other hand,
were absolutely not to be harmed but dealt with the military law.
Despite the fact that since the Manchurian Incident in 1931,
219
where the
administration of so-called “severe punishment” had taken place, “severe punishment” had
been unacceptable according to international law, it had become acceptable among the
Japanese, mainly because it had become difficult to distinguish “good soldiers” from “bad
elements”, regular enemy soldiers, or, later in the war, guerrilla fighters. With its acceptance,
217
Onishi, Satoru, Hiroku: Shonan Kakyo Shukusei Jiken (Secret Document: The Singapore Overseas Chinese
Purge; Tokyo: Kongo Shuppan, 1977), 86.
218
Ibid., 87.
219
Manchurian Incident or Mukden Incident,1931, confrontation that gave Japan the impetus to set up a puppet
government in Manchuria. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), Japan replaced Russia as the dominant
foreign power in S Manchuria. By the late 1920s the Japanese feared that unification of China under the
Kuomintang party would imperil Japanese interests in Manchuria. This view was confirmed when the
Manchurian general Chang Hsüeh-liang, a recent convert to the Kuomintang, refused to halt construction of
railway and harbor facilities in competition with the South Manchurian Railway, referring Japan to the
Nationalist central government. When a bomb of unknown origin ripped the Japanese railway near Shenyang
(then known as Mukden), the Japanese Kwantung army guarding the railway used the incident as a pretext to
occupy S Manchuria (September, 1931). Despite Japanese cabinet opposition and a pledge before the League of
Nations to withdraw to the railway zone, the army completed the occupation of Manchuria and proclaimed the
puppet state of Manchukuo (February, 1932). See Yoshihashi,Takehiko, Conspiracy at Mukden (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1963); Sadako. N. Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria the making of Japanese foreign policy,
1931-1932 ( Berkeley : University of California Press, 1964).
93
the first executions of “unruly elements” began to take place “on the spot”.220 Onishi points
out,
Even with the excuse of using “severe punishment” as a last resort, it was a serious
mistake to authorize in writing that the local troops carry out “severe punishment”.
Although it was later revised to “with the permission of the head of superior
commanders”, the practice of “severe punishment” by frontline troops in remote areas,
as well as by the Military Police and the Manchukuo police, still existed.
Consequently, the concept of “severe punishment” was considered to lie outside the domain
of international law. This notion, together with Japan’s justification that the China
conflagration was an incident and not a war, led the infliction of “severe punishment” to be
regarded as a normal practice, not only by authorized frontline soldiers but also high-ranking
officers in the immediate aftermath of an occupation, to secure war-time order through mopup operations. The most unfortunate consequence of such acceptance was the purge of Shonan,
where even those who did not resist and were not members of the Volunteer Army or antiJapanese elements faced “severe punishment’”.221
220
Onishi, Hiroku,, 88-9.The Kwantung military called this administering “severe punishment”, which meant
execution on the spot by front troops. An order for “severe punishment” dating to early 1932 issued by MajorGeneral Miyake states, “Unruly elements who have been arrested must be punished severely immediately. You
have the consent to carry out severe punishment with your weapon”. Another factor that led to “severe
punishment” was the ancient practice in Manchuria of parading criminals through the streets, followed by their
open execution before the general public. As the legal system at that time had no conception of the dignity of
human life or of human rights, the practice of “severe punishment” was not overly shocking to the public.
221
Onishi, Hiroku, 92. Hiroku is one of the few documents that presents a Japanese perspective. It offers the
view of one who was in command who may have tried to stop the killings, but was ultimately himself part of the
cruel war machine and could not but go along with the frenzy of atrocities. One often hears how the Japanese
know little about the war, and that they rectify their history to be able to forget shameful days of the past.
However, close examination of various literature reveals passages of guilt, such as in Onishi’s account,
particularly when he writes that the Japanese army as a whole lacked seriousness and fought with haughtiness;
that the purge of the overseas Chinese in Singapore exposed the cruel and inhuman side of the Japanese Army;
and that even if one tries to find excuses for Japanese actions, they were regretful and left a deplorable stain on
Japanese history.
94
3.13 The Sook Ching
In short, the objectives of the sook ching in Singapore were to (1) eliminate elements
in the Chinese population that posed a direct threat to the Japanese and (2) punish the Chinese
for their prewar and war-time anti-Japanese resistance. Three days after the British surrender
on 18 February 1942, the no. 2 field Kempeitai Group, under the command of Colonel Oishi,
launched a mass screening of the Chinese population. To do so, they established five large
“location points” within the urban area222 and ordered males between the ages of eighteen and
fifty to gather at several locations in the city. Some were told to bring food and water, but
others had to spend several days in the open with no food and inadequate sanitation while
being checked and classified. Hooded collaborators, some of them captured criminals, helped
222
The Twenty-Fifth Army under the command of General Yamashita first divided Singapore into four main
areas for the purpose of defence: East, West, and Central Singapore and the city itself. Nine hundred men were
then drawn from the Fifth, Eighteenth, and Imperial Guard Divisions to reinforce the 310-strong Kempeitai as
auxiliary Kempeitai. Once the Japanese Kempeitai was well established in various parts of the island, orders
were issued on 18 (or 19) February 1942 for Chinese males between twenty and sixty years old to concentrate at
certain sites for the purpose of “identification”; that is, identification of communists and anti-Japanese elements.
These areas were as follows:
Officer/division in charge
Capt. Mizuno
Lt. Goshi
Maj. Onishi
Lt. Hisamatsu
Lt. Uezono
Maj. Miyamoto
Maj. Ichikawa
Imperial Guard Division
Fifth Division
Fifth Division
Eighteenth Division
District for “Identification”
South Bridge Road-Dhoby Ghaut
River Valley Road-Tanglin
Jalan Besar-Seangoon Road
Tanjong Pagar-Tiong Bahru
Chinatown-Upper Cross Street
Katong
Geylang
Upper Serangoon
Bukit Timah
Sembawang
Jurong
95
identify men whose names appeared on the blacklists, and those chosen were taken for
execution.223
Five categories of men were defined by General Yamashita as dangerous elements to
be purged: communists, anti-Japanese elements, members of the Dalforce Volunteers and
other military forces, armed personnel or those who continued to resist the Japanese, and
those who posed a threat to public security. Apparently these instructions were too vague, for
the Kempeitai under the Kawamura-Onishi command expanded them into the following nine
categories:
1. Persons who had been active in the China Relief Fund;
2. Wealthy men who had donated generously to the Relief Fund;
3. Adherents of Tan Kah Kee, the leader of the Nanyang National Salvation Movement;
schoolmasters, teachers, and lawyers;
4. Hainanese, who, according to the Japanese, were communists;
5. China-born Chinese who came to Malaya after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War;
6. Men with tattoos, who, according to the Japanese, were all members of secret societies;
7. Persons who fought for the British volunteers against the Japanese;
8. Government servants and men likely to have pro-British sympathies, such as justices of the
peace and members of the Legislative Council; and
9. Persons who possessed arms and tried to disturb the public safety.
When the “identification” actually occurred, however, it degenerated into an
indiscriminate and arbitrary process. 224 Among those arrested were leading bankers;
community and political leaders, such as Dr. Lim Boon Keng, the Singaporean Chinese leader;
Lim Chong Pang, the Singaporean KMT leader; and Wong Lai Tek, the MCP SecretaryGeneral. These detainees were divided into several groups depending on their importance.225
While leadership groups were kept detained for “community reorganization”, the majority of
223
Hui Fat, interview by author at Hui’s house, Singapore, May 2, 2005.
Ward, The Killer, 56. Among the lucky few who cheated death when he was allowed to go back home to
collect his things was a man in his early teens who had been selected for execution. He was Lee Kuan Yew, the
former Prime Minister of Singapore. He told his story to the Japanese newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shinbun, in 1995.
225
Shinozaki, Syonan-My Story, 22-5.
224
96
the detainees were transported by lorries to rural areas for execution.226
On 18 February, three days after the fall of Singapore, the officers of Lieutenant
General Yamashita’s Twenty-Fifth Japanese Army received orders for a general massacre of
the Chinese. At the 1947 War Crimes Trial concerning what the British called the “Chinese
Massacre”, Lieutenant Colonel Hishakari Takafumi, a Japanese war correspondent at
Yamashita’s General Headquarters, testified that orders had come from Yamashita’s
Operations staff; Lieutenant Colonel Tsuji Masanobu, Chief of Planning and Operations; or
Major Hayashi Tadahiko, Chief of Staff, to identify and execute an estimated 50,000 “antiJapanese” Chinese adult males.227 Although Ward concluded that Yamashita should not be
held responsible for the atrocities, he holds him responsible “for failing to guard against
Tsuji’s manipulation of command affairs”.228
Major-General Kawamura Saburo, the Syonan Garrison Commander, later testified
that on 18 February, Yamashita had ordered that his garrison army conduct a military
mopping-up operation without delay to remove “hostile Chinese”, and thus free the army
from concerns regarding internal security. Yamashita had been ordered to deploy his forces
immediately to Sumatra and Burma, but was concerned that many hostile Chinese were
hiding in the city and planning to obstruct future operations. After describing the need to
maintain law and order in general terms to Kawamura, Yamashita told him that Suzuki, his
Chief of Staff, would provide the details regarding the mopping-up operation.
When Suzuki later explained that his concrete plans included an immediate genju
shobun (“severe disposal”) of “hostile Chinese”, Kawamura was taken aback by his use of the
term genju shobun, which in military parlance meant execution without trial. When he sought
226
N. I. Low, When Singapore Was Syonan (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1973), 22-5. Four hundred
Chinese were brought in from “concentration camps” to the beach site; their hands tied behind their backs; and,
at a given signal, mowed down by machine gun fire.
227
Malaya Comprising the Federation of Malaya and the Colony of Singapore: A Report on the 1947 Census of
Population (London: Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1949)
228
Ward, The Killer They Called a God, 237
97
clarification of the term, Suzuki cut him off and only stated, “You may have your own opinion
on this matter, and it has been decided by the commanding general. It is essentially a military
mopping-up operation. See that the work is duly carried out”. 229 Despite this use of
terminology, the three generals never expected that the sook ching would end in a massacre.
Yamashita was aghast at the thought that the “rape of Nanking” of December 1937 would be
repeated in Malaya.
Oishi Masayuki, Commander of the 2nd Field Kempeitai Unit, also questioned the use
of the term genju shobun. Although Kawamura and Oishi agreed to carry out interrogations
with “fairness and prudence” in accordance with the rules of war, the second phase of
interrogations that occurred over the following weeks was conducted in a slovenly fashion,
perhaps because the Kempeitai were relatively few in number. As identifying “hostile
Chinese” from among tens of thousands within a limited time was impossible, it was
inevitable that untold numbers of innocent Chinese would be executed. Yamashita may be
judged guilty of the massacre to the extent that he authorized the genju shobun of “hostile
Chinese”, as mopping-up operations are legitimate actions according to the rules of war.230
Although he issued the order, Yamashita was not aware of the indiscriminate way in which
the interrogations would be conducted. As his witnessing of the looting, rape, and massacre
that had followed Japanese action in China led him to have little trust in the behaviour of
soldiers intoxicated with victory, Yamashita had requested that the War Ministry augment
military police units in order to maintain strict military discipline before the siege of
Singapore began.
While Yamashita Tomoyuki, the commanding General of the Twenty-Fifth Army, was
ultimately responsible, few doubt that Chief of War Operations Colonel Tsuji Masanobu was
229
Kawamura, Jusan Kaidan Wo Noboru, 163-8.
Akashi Yoji, “General Yamashita Tomoyuki: Commander of the Twenty-Fifth Army” in Brian Farrell &
Sandy Hunter (ed.), Sixty Years On: The Fall of Singapore Revisited, (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press,
2002), chapter 9.
230
98
the driving force behind the purge. Due to his familiarity with the decision-making procedure
followed by Headquarters of the Twenty-Fifth Army, Onishi was encouraged by Tsuji to
liquidate as many Chinese males as possible, certainly more than the one hundred Onishi
currently had in custody by the second day of the screening.231 Onishi later claimed, “I think
that Tsuji alone could be the initiator and stubborn director of the execution of this cruel purge
of Overseas Chinese”.232 After detailed research into the origins and channelling of the order,
Professor Akashi argued that the final decision to execute the purge was made before the
Japanese army entered Singapore, probably in late January as the Japanese Army on the
outskirts of Johore Bahru was closing in on the British at the tip of the Malay peninsula, and
rubber stamped by General Yamashita.233 After the fall of Singapore, the order entered the
chain of command via his Chief of Staff Suzuki Tsunenori, to whom was linked Deputy Chief
Of Staff Manaki Keishin. From them the order proceeded to General Kawamura, the newly
appointed first Military Governor of Singapore, by then renamed Syonan. From Kawamura
the order passed on to Colonel Oishi (not to be mistaken with Onishi), the Chief of the Second
Field Unit of the military police.234 Powerless to object and under pressure to participate in
the stupendous victory to which so far the military police had only been insignificant
bystanders, Oishi began direct screening of 700,000 Chinese with only 500 military police at
his disposal.
In its entry for 3 March 1942, the Japanese Imperial Headquarters War Diary states,
“Soon after the occupation, we arrested and executed about 5,000 delinquent persons as the
first clearing”.235 Mamoru Shinozaki, a Japanese official in wartime Singapore, later stated
231
Onishi, Hiroku, 77-9.
His right-hand man Major Asaeda Shigelharu could also have been involved. Onishi writes,“This would
explain their grim attitudes during the purge and forcible instructions at the sites, when during the operations
both of them mostly moved together.” Ibid., 77-8.
233
Akashi, “General Yamashita Tomoyuki,” chapter 9.
234
Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese, 1941-1945,” 66-8.
235
Ibid., 68.
232
99
that the Kempeitai had reported that 6,000 Chinese had been killed in “the operation”.236
Likewise, a Japanese journalist told the War Crimes trial in Singapore that he had been
informed by Twenty-Fifth Army intelligence Chief Colonel Ichiji Sugita that 50,000 Chinese
in Singapore were to be killed.237 A Malayan Chinese source has estimated the number of
deaths at between 50,000 to 60,000.238
3.14 Effects of the Sook Ching on the Singaporean Chinese Community
The sook ching marked an important turning point in ethnic relations in Malaya. After
witnessing Japanese treatment of the Chinese community, many Chinese joined the ranks of
the resistance movement, while the Malays, Indians, and other ethnic groups became
convinced that the Chinese had lost favour with the Japanese. While these groups were not
necessarily anti-Chinese, any cooperation, whether forced or voluntary, that they rendered to
the Japanese could have been easily construed by the Chinese as “collaborationist” and due to
Japanese favouritism. Such an atmosphere fostered antagonism, rivalry, favouritism, and envy
among the ethnic groups to a heightened degree.
The sook ching clearly demonstrated that the Twenty-Fifth Army had targeted the
Chinese for reprisals because of their anti-Japanese activities, which they believed to have
inflicted heavy casualties on invading troops, something which the Japanese would neither
forget nor forgive. This style of rule by terror inevitably alienated the bulk of the Chinese
population from the Japanese administration in Singapore. The sook ching drove hundreds of
Chinese youths and men into the jungles to join the communist-led resistance movement, the
Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). The Army continued to treat the Chinese
population with the greatest severity throughout the war, but did not repeat such large-scale
punitive measures.
236
Shinozaki, Syonan-My Story, 24.
Ward, The Killer They Called a God, 175-6.
238
For the Chinese figures, see Cheah Boon Kheng, “Japanese Army Policy towards the Chinese and Malay—
Chinese Relations in Wartime Malaya,”chapter 7.
237
100
Chin Kee Onn argues that the sook ching demonstrated the Japanese capacity for
savagery as well as the shallowness of Japanese understanding, both of which prevented them
from engaging in compromise and adjustment, indispensable ingredients in proper colonial
administration.239 Indeed, the Japanese had a supreme opportunity to win over a conquered
people by love and fair treatment, but chose to alienate and antagonize, and, by their later
oppressive acts, confirmed the unutterable arrogance that led them to be viewed with veiled
disgust.240 In light of these circumstances, the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) was able to
increase its political influence in Malaya during the war and in the postwar period. As the
only political organization prepared to conduct an active anti-Japanese insurgency, it attracted
widespread support among Chinese who had suffered greatly from the brutality of the
Japanese, allowing it to establish a strong politico-military resistance movement, the MPAJA,
in the midst of the Chinese community. Because of its large guerrilla army, the MCP became
a major political force in postwar Malay, despite lacking support from the Malays and Indians
who had cooperated with the Japanese.
Even from the Japanese perspective, the sook ching was damaging, as its
consequences followed the Japanese for the remainder of the occupation. Referring to the
effect of the sook ching on the Gunsei, Colonel Otani Keijiro, the first police chief of the
Malayan Gunseibu , wrote that “the massacres frightened Chinese away from Japanese and
provided them with a ready-made justification for sympathizing with the Communist Party”,
which posed difficult security problems. Because of the indiscriminate slaughter of the
Chinese populace, he wrote, the Chinese thereafter remained hostile towards the Japanese,
and even opportunists Chinese who could have made large fortunes did not cooperate. Delay
in the recovery of industry and commerce in Malaya could well be attributed to the bloody
incident, which discouraged many Chinese businessmen from cooperating with military
239
240
Chin, Malaya Upside Down, 107.
Ibid., 107.
101
authorities. Arriving at the same conclusions, Ogata Shinichi, Police Chief of the Syonan
Municipal Administration, described the sook ching as one of the most serious “stumbling
blocks for establishing good relations between Japanese and Chinese” during the
occupation.241
The Japanese reign of terror had its desired effect: the Singaporean Chinese had
become fearfully submissive and the Japanese military were vindicated for the resistance that
they had faced in the Chinese homeland. However, it also intensified Chinese hatred and
alarmed the Malays and Indians. In a 1966 interview with Professor Akashi, Major General
Manaki Keishin, former chief of military administration in Malaya, described it as “the
biggest blow in the Malay military administration”.242 In tandem with their pursuit of a policy
of discrimination against the Chinese community, the Japanese pursued a policy of favouring
the Malay and Indian communities. Regarding the Malay community, the Japanese
recognized that the Malay organization Kesatuan Muda Melayu had lent assistance to the
Japanese in their invasion of Malaya and that budding Malay nationalism could be used to
their advantage by directing it against the British and the Chinese. The Japanese even made
some futile attempts to help the Malays realize the economic advantages of cooperation.
Regarding the Indian community, the Japanese attempted to use Indian nationalism against
the British by allowing the Indians to establish the headquarters of the Indian Independence
League, the Indian National Army (INA), and the Provisional Government of Free India in
Singapore until the decisive defeat of the INA at Imphal. Although spared from the massacres
and economic hardship to which the Chinese had been subjected, the Malays and Indians
turned against the Japanese during the latter period of the occupation after being subjected to
milder forms of Japanese violence and economic blackmail.
241
242
Akashi, “Japanese Policy Towards the Malayan Chinese, 1941-1945,” 69.
Ibid., 69.
102
3.2 The Period of Anarchy in Hong Kong243
Unlike that in Singapore, the Chinese community in Hong Kong was spared being
subjected to a sook ching. However, in the immediate aftermath of its surrender, the colony
sank into chaos, and even a period of anarchy. From the Japanese point of view, the outbreak
of rape, looting, and lawlessness had an important effect: it made the local Chinese elites in
Hong Kong become desperately anxious to collaborate with the Japanese to obtain
concessions for the Chinese population and limit Japanese excesses. The price that the local
Chinese ultimately paid for obtaining a measure of stability and law and order was the
accusation of collaboration.
3.21 Collaboration between the Japanese and Local Triads
The British collapse of Hong Kong Island, as had that of Kowloon two weeks earlier,
was followed by a strange interregnum of almost twenty-four hours. Chinese sources believe
this period to have been the Twenty-Third Army’s “payment” to the triads in return for their
contribution to sabotaging the British defence (refer to section 2.7).244 From Christmas night
243
The major authoritative sources for the military history of the Hong Kong campaign are
1. S. W. Kirby, The War against Japan: Official History of the Second World War, Vol. I (London: H.M.S.O.,
1957-61), 107-56. Appendix 6 gives the Japanese order of battle.
2. Major-General C.M. Maltby’s “Despatch,” Supplement to the London Gazette, January 29, 1948.
3. Sir Mark Young, “Despatch: Events in Hong Kong on 25 December 1941,” Special Supplement to the Hong
Kong Government Gazette, July 2, 1948, 1-3.
4. C. P. Stacey, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War: Six Tears of War (Ottawa:
Cloutier, 1955), 437-91, 590-4.
5. K. D. Bhargava and K. N. V. Sastri, Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War
1939-45: Campaigns in S.E. Asia (Delhi: Combined Inter-Services Hist, 1960).
6. Louis Allen, “Notes on Japanese Historiography, World War II,” Military Affairs: Journal of the American
Military Institute, (December 1971) 133-8. In a thorough and extensive note on the Japanese official histories of
the war, Allen mentions as “most useful” Hattori Takushiro, Dai Toa Sensoshi Tenshi (A Complete History of the
War in Great East Asia; Tokyo, Hara Shobo, 1967 reprint). Chapter 11 refers to the war in China, including
Hong Kong.
The appropriate sections of the following regimental histories give detailed accounts of local front actions:
B. Haig, Fourteenth Punjab Regiment: A Short History, 1939-45 (London, 1950); P. K. Kemp, The Middlesex
Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) 1919-52 (Aldershot, 1956); A. Muir, The First of Foot: The History of the
Royal Scots (Edinburgh, 1961); Anonymous, A Record of the Actions of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps
in the Battle for Hong Kong, December 1941 (Hong Kong: Lawspeed, 1953).
244
See H. L. Mars, letter to Churchill, September 28, 1942, CO 129 590/25, 15-16. For the corresponding
episode in Kowloon, see Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 177. Mars claims that the fifth columnists were allowed a
full three days for plunder, but the twenty-four-hour period indicated by Sa seems to accord better with the
accounts given elsewhere of the movements of the Japanese troops.
103
until the afternoon of Boxing Day, the victorious Japanese forces remained at a standstill
while the triads rampaged, picking the European houses clean. Phyllis Harrop, a former
police aide, later described how after returning to her flat, she “had never seen anything like
the completeness of the looting”.245 In the Chinese quarters, bands of gangsters advanced
from house to house demanding protection money.
The so-called “Day of the Triads” culminated in an orgy of pillage punctuated by
episodes of rape, arson, and murder, with fresh fighting breaking out after a Cantonese gang
began battling a rival gang from the adjacent coastal Province of Fujian for the spoils.246 Paul
Tsui, then a student at the University of Hong Kong, remembers,
I was actually lodging in my sister’s place at Mosque Street, near Robinson Road. We
could see looters carrying all sorts of items continuously, like ants, coming down the
Peak. The looting started at that time when all the mansions up at the Peak were
evacuated because the houses were not occupied: everybody just helped
themselves.247
When the first Japanese army lorries rolled down Queen's Road Central and the first Japanese
sentries were deployed at the intersections, the British and Chinese communities may have
245
As Lady May Ride described, “on 8 December 1941, I was on my way to Bowen Road as a volunteer nurse,
when the Japanese planes came over. I was walking along Pok Fu Lam Road to catch the bus, and, luckily for me,
an army truck pulled up and took me to the hospital. I never went home again until 1945, when the war was over.
When I did go home again, I found everything had been looted. I had lost everything I treasured, which was of
no value to anyone else.” Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 118.
246
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 140.
247
Accoridng to Tsui, the dead lying in the streets would receive no respect; a corpse was a corpse and his
clothes could be put to use to keep the cold and hungry warm. An unnamed Chinese spectator recalls, “I looked
out of my veranda this morning and I saw the body of a man slumped in a heap in the middle of the road, right in
front of our house. The street was full of pedestrians, many of whom would come cover and take a look at the
body, to see if it was anyone they knew. One man walked off with the dead man’s woollen hat. Another
absconded with his shoes and yet another stripped the body of its overcoat. Suddenly a man stepped forward
from the crowd. He must have recognized the dead man because he carried the body to the side of the road. Then
he hurriedly scribbled characters on a slip of paper which he placed on the body and then weighed it down with
two stones. The paper read: ‘The body will be privately collected’. This was done because the man realized the
Japanese collection van might come and remove it”. See Birch and Cole, The Captive Years, chapter 2.
104
viewed their conquerors with a degree of relief—one that they found sadly misplaced when
they were subjected to the subsequent actions of the Japanese forces.248
At an Imperial conference in Tokyo on 5 November, one month before the great
southward offensive, instructions had been issued that the forces dispatched to the South
should conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. The campaign was to be an historic one,
for the liberation of the downtrodden peoples of Asia: the eyes of the world would be
watching, and the excesses committed by the Japanese soldiers on the Chinese mainland
should not be repeated. The essence of these instructions appears to have been conveyed to
the chiefs of the Twenty-Third Army, and from them to the regimental officers. MajorGeneral Sano, the commander of the Thirty-Eighth Division, is said to have ordered his
regiments to treat any British and other Allied prisoners whom they might take in Hong Kong
with humanity and justice. A particular effort was to be made to spare the Indian auxiliaries
who had been obliged to fight on the British side249 and, in accordance with the pan-Asiatic
ideals of the expedition, all due concern was to be shown for the lives and possessions of the
mass of Chinese civilians. Indeed, a studied attempt was made to show favour to the Chinese
civilian populace, manifested in a “reassurance proclamation” declaring, ‘We protect Chinese
property. The war in Hong Kong is a war against the Whites”,250 which had been signed by
Lieutenant-General Sakai and posted in the Kowloon streets on the first morning of the
conquest.
248
See Tang Hai, “Xianggaug Lunxianji”, 231; Wong Lin, “Xin Xianggang De Toushi” in Xin Dong Ya, (Hong
Kong: Ta Tung Press, 1942) vol. 1, no. 1, August 1942, 66; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 124. Of these three
sources, Wong must inevitably be treated with wariness as a Japanese-sponsored propagandist, but his account of
the terror in Victoria on the night of December 25-26 carries a certain conviction. For description of a similar
mood in Kowloon, see the diary of Dr. Isaac Newton quoted in Birch and Cole, The Captive Years, 23.
249
Testimony of Captain Ushiyama Yukio, Kempeitai Commander for the Western District, trial of Major Shoji
Toshishige, WO 235/1015, 17-8; report of William Poy, CO 129 590/25, 78. Poy claimed to have been informed
after the surrender by his Japanese captors that the Imperial troops had been ordered to kill all the white soldiers
but spare the Indians. For a similar account of Japanese policy in Malaya, see Fujiwara, F Kikan, 40-1.
250
Quoted in Tang Hai, “Xianggaug Lunxianji”,245; Di Chen, “ Huiyizhong De Yi Nian” in Xin Dong Ya, vol. 1,
no. 5, December 1942, 72.
105
Clearly, these fine, chivalrous precepts were not successfully communicated by the
officers to the rank and file, as following events demonstrated. On 28 December, LieutenantGeneral Sakai and Major-General Sano led a march of two thousand troops through the centre
of Victoria to commemorate the most spectacular Japanese triumph over a European power
since the defeat of Tsarist Russia in 1905. After the conclusion of the march, the conquering
forces were granted a three-day “holiday”, in accordance with Army tradition, during which
the troops, most of whom came from rural areas of a largely undeveloped nation, greedily
helped themselves to all the material comforts that Hong Kong had to offer. As had the triads,
they plundered, but with a narrower focus, being especially keen to lay their hands on upmarket Western consumer goods. Several soldiers were seen sporting Rolex watches that they
wore up to the elbow, while one sentry deployed near the Peak was even observed to be
wearing an elegant lady's mink coat.
When finished with looting, they began they drinking, and, after becoming well
primed with liquor, set off to take whatever liberties that they pleased with the local civilians.
Over ten thousand Chinese women, from those in their early teens to their sixties, are reported
to have been raped or gang-raped.251 While only Chinese women faced the risk of rape, all
Chinese faced the prospect of death. When a band of troops discovered a plump and
prosperous Buddhist sitting unclad in an armchair , whirling a prayer disc in the confidence
that his religion would save him from harm, the sight of his naked paunch aroused a sadistic
instinct that inspired them to slice him open with their bayonets in a kind of enforced harakiri. 252 Despite such sadism, when observed objectively, the sack of Hong Kong was a
relatively minor affair compared with the sook ching in Singapore, with killings in the
251
252
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 11.
Ibid., 133-4.
106
hundreds rather than the tens of thousands. Nonetheless, it was, in the phrase of one British
eyewitness, “a taste of Nanking”.253
Sakai, conqueror of Jinan, had been at the forefront of Nanking, as had his officers. It
appears that their perception of the Chinese masses as less than human had not weakened
over the ensuring years. The Chinese, left in a condition of abject terror, huddled in their
apartments while the Twenty-Third Army made merry during their three-day rampage. Dr Li
Shu-fan graphically described the pillaging of Hong Kong:
Throughout the three-day celebration, Japanese soldiers strolled up and down the
streets of the city, stopping cars and commanding the drivers to take them for joy rides.
They seized whatever they wanted from stores, especially from the wine and clothing
shops, sometimes tossing a few military notes on the counter in any quantity they
liked. If a store was locked they broke in and helped themselves freely. On the night
after Christmas I looked into the Shan Kwang hotel windows across the road from the
hospital and saw Japanese soldiers dining, singing, drinking and dancing with one
another. Parties like this swelled to orgies throughout Hong Kong. It seemed as though
the soldiers had been specifically given licence to commit any act they wished. Their
first thought was to put wine in their bellies, then they set out for excitement and
mischief under the pretext of searching for arms or suspects. They broke into house
after house at the point of a gun. Once in, they slapped, kicked, murdered, stole and
raped. Throughout the night we heard people wailing and crying in the distance, “Save
life, save life”, and the desperate beating of hundreds of gongs, tins and cans. The
whole of Happy Valley rang from end to end with these pleas for help.254
As the “holiday” drew to a close on New Year’s Eve, the Twenty-Third Army Chiefs
finally set about implementing the guidelines that had been issued by General Staff
253
254
Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads, 64.
Birch and Cole, The Captive Years, chapter 2.
107
Headquarters in Tokyo three weeks earlier. The guidelines advised that their first task was
“the restoration of order”, following by the imposition of a “strong military rule” in the
newly occupied colony until the authorities in Tokyo had decided upon a more permanent
form of administration. 255 On 29 December, Lieutenant-General Sakai closed down his
combat headquarters in the Peninsula Hotel and replaced it with a military government
office—the Gunseicho—organized into five departments for general, civil, economic,
judicial, and maritime affairs. These departments were mostly placed under the care of the
appropriate member of the Twenty-Third Army bureaucracy; thus, the Economics
Department was headed by the Army's Chief Accountant and the Judicial Department was
assigned to the officer in charge of the Army's legal section.
By 10 January 1942, Sakai and his staff could contentedly report to their colleagues in
the China Expeditionary Force that they were “in the process of carrying forward all
preparations relating to the introduction of military rule”.256 A notice issued on the day of the
Guseicho’s establishment declared:
The Japanese Army seized Hong Kong with the object of sweeping out British and
American influence from the Far East and establishing a New Order in East Asia,
freeing the races of East Asia. The Japanese Army assumes responsibility for the
protection of the lives and property of the Chinese people and they must resume their
businesses, fearlessly placing their confidence in the Japanese Army.257
255
Boeicho, Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 327.
Ibid., 328.
257
A second notice issued at the same time stated that the Hong Kong Government was now under the protection
of the Japanese Army and that, with the exception of British officials, all those formerly serving in the
government ought to resume their functions as soon as possible. They should not transgress the law nor act in a
disorderly manner and, if caught doing so, would be shown no leniency. All labour and shops were instructed to
resume business as soon as possible and not to “act contrary to law” or “else they will be dealt with”. A third
notice informed the people of Hong Kong that with a view to restoring conditions in the colony, the Japanese
Army was doing its utmost to repair the water, electrical, and gas systems, but warned that “any persons found
wasting water will be dealt with according to Japanese Army law without any leniency”. Hong Kong News,
January 11, 1942.
256
108
Once again, however, a gulf became apparent between the proclaimed Army policy
and the reality on the streets of Hong Kong. On 21 January, Sa Kongliao, a mainland Chinese
journalist who had been stranded in the colony by the invasion, remarked in his diary that in
spite of the imposition of military rule, “the disorder in the society had not only not been
alleviated but was evidently growing still more profound”.258 Chaos would continue to rage
unabated throughout the eight weeks in which the Gunseicho remained in charge.
This dissertation argues that the Twenty-Third Army Chiefs operating the Gunseicho
deliberately abetted this chaos due to their belief that several weeks of turmoil would
persuade the bulk of the colony’s local elites and masses to not only submit to the Japanese
but also collaborate with them. 259 Three events supports this argument. First, significant
collaboration occurred between the triads and the Japanese. Principal violators of order, the
triads were also, paradoxically, the great last-ditch source of order at this time of universal
confusion when all other structures had broken down. In exchange for protection money paid
by local householders, the triads organized a network of vigilante groups that, going by the
name of the Street Guards, were the sole perceptible force that appeared to control petty
crime in urban neighbourhoods. They erected bamboo barricades at the ends of the sidestreets
that could be closed at night to fend off would-be burglars; they captured small-time looters
and pickpockets, hung placards round their necks, and tied them to posts for the edification of
passersby.260 The Gunseicho had little choice, for the moment, but to accept and encourage
these poachers turned gamekeepers.
258
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 190.
See Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 6, 43.
260
Self-defence bodies composed of triad vigilantes were being set up by local householders in many parts of
Kowloon and Victoria while the invasion was still in progress. See Tang Hai, Xianggang Lunxian Ji, 206; Cheng
Jitang, “Xianggang Tuoxian Ji” in Yip Tak-wei, Xianggang lunxian shi , 306; Di Chen, Huiyizhong De Yi Nian,
74. For the prominence of the Street Guards in the early weeks of the Japanese takeover, see Hong Kong News,
January 6, 9, and 15 and February 20, 1942; report by Mavis Ming, an Australian Chinese woman who left Hong
Kong on March 4, 1942 forwarded by Seymour to Eden, May 7, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 222; Wong Lin, Xin
Xianggang De Toushi, 67; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 139-40, 153-4; testimony of Captain Ushiyama Yukio,
Shoji trial, WO 235/1015; Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 71, 74. For specific Street Guard activities, see Hong
259
109
To keep peace in the neighbourhoods, the Japanese sought the help of a number of
triad leaders as well as that of Zhang Zilian, the Shanghai triad boss who had rescued the
British the previous month. 261 They arranged for the Street Guards to be registered;
dispatched a senior officer to inspect one of their headquarters in the Wanchai district; and
established a permanent link with the triads in the form of a lieutenant by the name of
Miyahisa Denichin, who had grown up in Taiwan, spoke two Chinese dialects, and went by
the Chinese alias Li Zhiting.
In return for their services the triads naturally exacted a price. At some point in the
early days of the takeover, Miyahisa was approached by a certain Lam Moon, a Red Pole or
high-ranking officer of the Fook Yee Hing Triad, who was eager to win permission for his
organization to operate a chain of gambling dens. After Miyahisa gave his quiet consent,
about ten establishments were duly set up in Sheung Wan towards the western end of Hong
Kong Island. Similar approaches were then made to Miyahisa by the bosses of a series of
envious rival gangs, and once again consent was forthcoming.262 The result, for a time, was
to turn much of urban Hong Kong into a massive casino. In every convenient spot, from
Queen's Road to the dingiest side-streets, the triad chieftains set up gambling joints. At the
gambling tables that blocked the path of the traffic, the triad bosses displayed the names of
their long-banned outfits and hoisted the Rising Sun flag as proof of the Gunseicho's blessing
for their actions.263
Second, in the countryside, the Gunseicho were also obliged to entrust much of the
policing to the Chinese partisans of the puppet Wang Jingwei regime. Groups of these
Kong News, January 15, 1942; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 153-4.
261
Yun, Zhongyi Cishanhui, 51. Zhang is said to have pleaded illness and delegated the task to a younger brother.
262
Zhang Sheng, Xianggang Hei Shehui huodong zhen xiang, (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1979) 58-9.
263
Accounts of the great epidemic of gambling are given in Tang Hai, Xianggang Lunxian Ji, 249; Sa,
Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 105-6; memoir of Tamai Masao, Honkon Koryaku Ki quoted in Kobayashi,
Hideo,“Taiheiyo Sensoka No Honkon: Honkon gunsei no tenkai”in Keizaigaku Ronshu, vol.26, no.3, December
1994, (Tokyo: Economic Association, Komazawa University), 212; reports of Ms. Thom and of B. G. Milenko
CO 129 590/23, 52, 90; Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 93-4, 96; Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 75-6.
110
partisans had been left behind to take charge when the Twenty-Third Army had moved into
Kowloon one month earlier. Several accounts from the early weeks of 1942 testify to the
presence of Wang Jingwei policemen equipped with white armbands and sticks and to the
clashes that broke out in the Saikung District between the Wang Jingwei units and the rural
brigands.264 One Parsee merchant who left Hong Kong at the end of January stated flatly that
the New Territories were being controlled by “Wang Jingwei henchmen”.265
Third, the Gunseicho supplemented the efforts of these auxiliaries with their own
more drastic crime-busting techniques. One Chinese source remarked how in order to put a
stop to the crime wave, the Twenty-Third Army “chopped off a few hundred heads a day for
some time after their entry”, 266 and a similar picture was given by a number of British
eyewitnesses. On New Year's Day 1942, Phyllis Harrop walked past a former playing field
piled high with the corpses of Chinese who had been bayoneted or shot by “supposed looters,
we were told”.267 Gordon King, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Hong Kong University,
reported seeing six Chinese looters being lined up against the wall on Ice House Street and
“beaten to death one after the other by Japanese soldiers with heavy bamboo poles”. 268
Thanks to such measures, the Gunseicho slowly began to get the upper hand in the battle
against local lawlessness. However, the remedy soon proved worse than the disease.
3.22 Response of the Hong Kong Elites to the Japanese Military Administration
Widespread feelings of betrayal and disgust regarding the looting were very cleverly
exploited by the Japanese in their efforts to enlist Chinese cooperation in the control of Hong
264
See Edwin Ride, British Army Aid Group (BAAG): Hong Kong resistance, 1942-1945, (Hong Kong: Oxford
University Press, 1981), 18-20, 38-41; Huang Hsing Tsung, “Pursuing Science in Hong Kong, China and the
West,” in Clifford Matthews and Oswald Cheung (ed.), Dispersal and Renewal : Hong Kong University during
the war years, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), 133.
265
Letter from K. E. Mogra in Lanzhou, February 12, 1942, HS 1/349, 1. Mogra (also referred to in some
sources as K. S. Nogra) was a British subject who had lived and traded for many years in Guilin and Canton.
One informant describes him as being of “mixed race”. He appears to have operated as an agent of the British
Special Operations Executive (SOE).
266
Report of William Poy, CO 129 590/25, 80.
267
Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 98.
268
Report of Professor Gordon King, March 18, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 135.
111
Kong. Perhaps the best expression of the feelings of the Hong Kong elites appeared in a very
bitter editorial published in the Japanese-controlled Hong Kong News of 14 January 1942:
Today the British and Americans have a much greater respect for the Oriental soldier,
for in Hong Kong, Malaya, and the Philippines the outcome has been the same: the
vaunted supermen of the white race have melted like butter… . In eighteen days of
conflict it was all over—a horrible muddle of inefficiency and helplessness which has
bequeathed a miserable aftermath.269
It now appears obvious that Hong Kong was subjected to this unnecessarily prolonged
period of anarchy as a “technique of control” to force the Chinese population to a realization
of their position and that they would have to accept Japanese domination, as well as that their
leaders would have to cooperate with the Japanese to obtain even the most basic essentials.
The looting and rape had been exacerbated by the flight of many wealthy Chinese , which
had left the community without shops or commercial services, and even those who remained
could do no business because their stores had been sealed and their stocks confiscated.
Professional men and leaders of integrity faded into the masses or slipped away. Food was
very difficult to procure, and the small denominations of Hong Kong notes known to be of
any value had largely vanished as the result of hoarding.
Meanwhile, the special treatment accorded certain Hong Kong citizens and elites had
begun having the intended effects. The first concrete evidence that the Chinese community
had had enough of anarchy was a long petition drawn up by the Executive Committee of the
Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, comprised of nineteen members under the
chairmanship of Tung Chungwei. Under British rule, the Chamber had represented the
wealthiest and most influential of the Chinese traders in the colony, and Tung, a typical
traditional businessman, was its treasurer and a member of its executive committee. Perhaps
269
Hong Kong News, January 14, 1942.
112
because of a latent hostility to foreigners or as a result of some earlier connection with the
Japanese, Tung was one of the first, if not the most important, of the Hong Kong Chinese
who, having grown fat on British favour, turned with unction to the Japanese. However, it
must not be forgotten that the situation deliberately created by the Japanese was so intolerable
and that if Tung had not come forward, someone else would have had to.
The petition, formally presented to the Japanese military on 10 January after fifteen
days of lawlessness, covered nine essential services in which the disruption of supplies
gravely endangered the community: food, fuel, water, electricity, telephones, public safety,
currency, communications, and prostitution. The last of these was regarded by the city fathers
as one of the most important, as they calculated that as long as the brothels remained closed,
the Japanese soldiery would demand the services of family women as their “flower girls”.270
270
On the night of the assault on the Island, when the official assurances of the British Colonial Government had
left the entire residential area in western Wanchai unaware of the looming danger, home after home was
surprised by squads of Japanese soldiers in the first wave of the landing party, who made no ceremony of
shooting the men and raping the women. In one well-authenticated case, a European and his daughters were at
dinner together with no intimation that anything was amiss, when suddenly a squad of Japanese burst into the
room, ordering the father out onto the lawn, where they bound him and left him to listen to his daughters’
screams as each man of the squad raped each of them. In the days and weeks that followed, many other white
women were brutally raped.Officers had evidently cautioned the Japanese soldiery against the bad effects of the
wholesale raping of Chinese women, as they had all learned about the Cantonese fa ku niang (“flower girls”), a
euphemism for prostitutes. Breaking into Chinese homes in the middle of the night and yelling their savage
orders in Japanese, that single expression was usually the only one that was intelligible to the frightened
householders. The soldiers themselves quickly reduced its use to a mere formality, on the assumption that every
woman they saw and wanted was a “flower girl” anyway. Women so used had no agency to report the fact, and
usually did their best to hide it. In one instance that was reported to the writer on good authority and taken as
typical, a Chinese woman of good family was raped three times in one night, her last attacker leaving a ¥10 note
in her hand. In another, a large number of women were herded in a room where squads of Japanese soldiers
“worked over” them. Later, as evidenced by a penalty of three-months imprisonment under military law for
soldiers against whom charges of rape could be proved to the satisfaction of their superiors, there seems to have
been some desire on the part of the authorities to lessen the evil, if not to eliminate it. There are, however, fairly
well-authenticated cases as late as the latter part of August 1942. A Chinese man who left Hong Kong in the fall
of 1942 reports that at that time the once-dreaded appellation “flower girl” had come to be more commonly used
by the Japanese soldiers as a somewhat sheepish form of approach to Chinese girls rather than as a signal that
they were about to rape them. It is believed that by that time some of the more attractive of the younger Chinese
women had “accepted” the “protection” of particular Japanese men, preferring that form of servitude to the
continual risk of rape and consequent disease.The Japanese seemed unable, in the eyes of Chinese, to distinguish
between “good” girls (family girls) and prostitutes. One of the first statements issued by the Executive
Committee of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce on 13 January 1942 demanded “protection for family women
through the re-opening of brothels”. The Japanese complied by establishing special red-light districts, one in
West Point for the Chinese and another in Wanchai for the Japanese. Segregated areas, euphemistically named
“pleasure resorts”, were also established in Kowloon to which the same apartheid principles applied. On 16
November 1942, Chan Lim-pak of the Chinese Representative Council announced that the Japanese were
considering allowing a business syndicate to run such a centre in Shamshuipo (Kowloon). There was of course
113
3.23 Initial Dynamics between the Japanese and Hong Kong Elites
After the Japanese had allowed the chaos to continue for a period sufficient to ensure
at least a minimum of Chinese cooperation, they began the restoration of order by pursuing
the revival of selected aspects of the community while imposing upon each the forms of
control most likely to bind it to their purposes. One of their first steps after their entry into the
colony was to corral all Chinese leaders of the Hong Kong community who could be found,
together with any Chinese of national importance, as quickly as possible. These men were
usually taken to one or another of the large hotels, although some kept incommunicado in
their own homes, and subjected to every sort of pressure and every kind of appeal to enlist
their “voluntary” support for the objectives of Japan in Asia.
The Japanese were more successful with Hong Kong residents of lesser stature. On 10
January 1942, 133 Chinese described in the Japanese-controlled press as “former Chinese
Justices of the Peace and other distinguished leaders representing all sections of Chinese
society”, were brought together at a luncheon in the Peninsula Hotel hosted by Lieutenant
General Takashi Sakai, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese forces in South China and
Commander of the army that had taken Hong Kong. In his speech to the assembled Chinese,
General Sakai stated that the brave troops that he led had driven out “the evil forces of the
British”. They had not been fighting the Chinese of Hong Kong, for whom he had the deepest
sympathy and whom he hoped would understand the object of co-prosperity for all the races
of Great East Asia. He described the British Colonial Administration as concerned with only
its own profit, not caring about the life or death of the Chinese people, using “Chinese
Volunteers, Canadians and Indians in the front line” while English soldiers “were hiding in
the hills”; indeed, investigation of the casualty lists “showed mostly colored troops with very
few Englishmen among them”. Describing the Japanese and the Chinese, including the many
money in vice, and the motives of some members of the two Chinese councils in agitating for the re-opening of
the brothels were not entirely moralistic.
114
Chinese “in all the islands of South East Asia”, as belonging to the same Great East Asian
race, he expressed his hope that all would “‘join in the establishment of a Greater East Asia”.
Finally, he stressed that he would spare no effort to make Hong Kong and Kowloon a place
“where people may reside in peace”, and asked his guests to form a local assistance
committee in which to exert all their strength to help him.
Replying on the behalf of the Chinese community in Hong Kong and as spokesman of
those Chinese present, Sir Robert Kotewall stated that they had all been very pleased to
receive the invitation of the supreme commander of the Imperial Japanese Forces in South
China and strongly agreed with all that he had stated:
The object of Imperial Japan is to release the races of East Asia. We know that the
Japanese Army has avoided harming the people of Hong Kong or destroying the city.
We are very grateful to you for this. . . . Japan and China have the same literature and
are of the same people. As regards the maintenance of order and reconstruction, we
will put out all our strength in Hong Kong to co-operate with the Japanese Army
authorities, and we will ask all the Chinese people to arise and unite that strength, so
that they may achieve your objectives of permitting people to dwell in peace and carry
on their business so that all may recover prosperity. . . . We thank the Emperor of
Japan and may he live forever.271
Speaking after Kotewall, Sir Shouson Chow stated that he agreed “heartily” with all “Mr.
Law Kuk-wo” had said.272
271
Hong Kong News, January 11, 1942.
Ibid. In December 1941, Sir Robert Ho Tung celebrated his sixtieth (“diamond”) wedding anniversary. It was
the largest private function ever held in the celebrated restaurant of the Hong Kong Hotel, which was known to
expatriates by the mysterious sobriquet “The Gripps”. British Governor Young attended, as did General Maltby.
When Ho Tung left for Macao two days later, it was variously explained that he was convalescing after the party;
that he was returning the courtesy of the Portuguese governor, who had also been present; or that he was settling
some philanthropic matters. The truth was that he had received a friendly tip-off from the Japanese consul,
Kimura Shiroshichi.
272
115
Sakai then proceeded to provide a rough outline of his program for the reconstruction
of Hong Kong. His first priority was the restoration of order, which he would provide via
employment of the military authorities as well as reemployment of the Chinese police in order
to “avoid inconvenience”, and suggested that his guests organize their own self-protection
guards under the direction of these officials. His second priority was stabilizing the currency,
describing it as the “blood of business” and stating that he had appointed people to address the
matter. Regarding his third priority, the relief of business, he expressed the hope that his
guests would “get together and help in settling the fuel and rice problems” and “devise
methods for this, and apply to the Administration for permission to carry them out”.
Regarding his fourth priority, a return to employment, he advised, “You should help in
advising all classes of people to return to their employment at an early date”, and regarding
the cleanup of the city, his last priority, he requested that they advise community leaders to
start establishing order in their neighbourhoods to help the authorities restore sanitary
measures.273
273
Hong Kong News, January 11, 1942.
116
Chapter 4
Dynamics between the Japanese and Elites in Singapore and Hong Kong
4.1 The Overseas Chinese Association in Singapore
The local elites of the prewar Chinese communities in Malaya and Singapore
consisted of the main officials of associations representing merchants, petty traders, or
artisans; English-educated professionals who served in the State Legislative Councils; and the
leaders of various voluntary organizations. These individuals could be further divided into
China-born and Chinese-educated leaders and Straits-born and English-educated leaders. The
businessmen or towkay held high social status and influence within the Chinese communities
as men of wealth, while English-educated professionals were politically influential in Chinese
mediations with the British administration.
Both groups of Chinese leaders were involved in the anti-Japanese movement that
developed after the Japanese Army invaded northern China in 1937. When the Japanese
attack on Malaya began, these groups threw their weight behind the British war effort and
mobilized the Chinese community to fight the common enemy of the fatherland. When the
fall of Singapore was imminent, several Chinese leaders sought refuge in India, Thailand, or
Indonesia because their anti-Japanese record made them fear for their lives. While most who
remained behind in Malaya were arrested and tortured, most escaped the massacre of Chinese
after the fall of Singapore, assisted by the fact that the Japanese extended pardon to several
leaders as a carefully considered tactic that became evident when all surviving Chinese
leaders later emerged as heads of Japanese-sponsored organizations in Singapore.
While the Kempeitai was mopping up and ferreting out undesirable Chinese,
Watanabe and his Gunsei staff moved to downtown Syonan and set up Fullerton Building as
Gunseibu headquarters. Until the Gunseibu could assume overall command, the Kempeitai
117
remained in command of the city's security and the restoration of order. The city had not yet
recovered from the shock of the defeat, and remained in a chaotic state that did not permit the
resumption of business operations. Because the city's economic life largely depended upon
the Chinese community, obtaining the cooperation of Chinese was vital to restoring the
economy. However, the Japanese could not initially locate any Chinese leaders who could
help restore the paralyzed economy, as most were in hiding or detained by the Kempeitai, and
no Chinese yet dared to be spokesman for his community. Finally, the Kempeitai identified
Dr. Lim Boon Keng,274 a prominent retired medical doctor and academic whom the Japanese
had rescued from a firing squad,275 as a potential leader of the Chinese community. With
threats and coaxing, the Kempeitai induced Dr. Lim to assume leadership of Chinese
community and to organize a new Chinese association embracing all dialect groups for the
reconstruction of Syonan.276
4.11 Formation of the Overseas Chinese Association
The Chinese community was able to achieve its first priority, the appeasement of its
conquerors, primarily through the establishment of the Overseas Chinese Association
(OCA)277 in early March 1942. According to the account of Mamoru Shinozaki,278 after Dr.
274
Born in 1869, Lim Boon Keng was an extremely influential figure in the Straits Chinese community. After
earning his medical degree at Edinburgh University, he became an active in business and politics, and was a
founding member of the Straits Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1906, a leader of the KMT in Malaya, a key
figure in the Straits Chinese British Association, and a member of the Straits Settlements Legislative Council.
Between 1921 and 1937, he served as Vice-Chancellor, the substantive head, of Amoy University. One account
says that the Japanese spotted him at a concentration centre, and that he only agreed to cooperate after they
threatened to harm his wife. Shinozaki claims to have sought out Dr. Lim and to have secured his cooperation in
creating the OCA as a way of saving Chinese lives. He says nothing about Dr. Lim’s wife, but mentions that his
son was being held in a screening centre, and that Shinozaki promised to send the young man home. According
to Yap Pheng Geck, Lim Boon Keng “was drunk most of the time during the occupation”.
275
Watanabe Nikki, February 19, 1942. From Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 69.
276
N.I. Low and H.M. Cheng, This Singapore: our city of dreadful night, (Singapore: City Book Store, 1947),
33-34; Y. S. Tan, “History of the Formation of the Overseas Chinese Association and the Extortion by J.M.A. of
$50,000,000 Military Contribution from the Chinese in Malaya,” Journal of the South Seas Society 3, no. 1
(September 1946), 1; Osaka Mainichi, February 28, 1942. Shinozaki Mamoru, who was to become Section Chief
of Syonan City’s Welfare Department, persuaded Dr. Lim to accept the post, and then took him under his wings.
With the outbreak of the war, the British police arrested him as a spy but then left him alone in Changi Gaol,
while shipping all other Japanese to Australia.
277
Who are the “overseas Chinese”? Tsuji explained that “six hundred and fifty years ago the Mongol Emperor
Kublai Khan, and his invading army suffered almost complete annihilation when smitten by a divine storm
118
Lim, who was about seventy years old at that time, was brought to Shinozaki after his arrest
by the Kempeitai in late February 1942, he decided to establish an organization that came to
be known as the OCA with Lim as its president. While Lim chose the name of the
organization, the organization itself was the brain-child of Shinozaki and was based on his
goal, so he claimed, of freeing Chinese leaders who had been arrested.
As Shinozaki later recalled, Lim did not accept the proposal readily, only deciding to
do so only after he learned that the Chinese would be in great danger should he refuse:
At first he [Dr. Lim] kept saying he could not do it. But later he asked what the
Japanese would do to these people detained by the Kempeitai. I said Japanese Army
Headquarters were very, very angry that after the Japanese had landed in Singapore, at
the last moment, the Chinese volunteers fought against them. That was why the
Japanese staff officers wanted to kill all Chinese people, especially those who had
donated to Chungking and those who had been members of the Chinese volunteers.
(kamikaze) in Hakata Bay. Soon after this Kublai Khan sent an expeditionary force against what is now known
as Java. Three hundred thousand troops, borne in a fleet of a thousand ships, landed on the north-east coast of
Java with the object of seizing the rare treasures of South Asia, but withdrew again—thanks to the cunning of
their enemies—with little or no booty. From about that time the Chinese began to emigrate in large numbers to
South Asia, and gradually, rising from humble positions as clerks, errand boys or coolies, they became men of
wealth, and by deceiving the naturally lazy natives and colluding with the British, Americans, French and Dutch,
they increased their economic power, and today there are in this whole area some five million Chinese
colonialists. They contribute military funds to Chungking, but most of them are either led astray by Chungking
propaganda or are forced by terrorists, whether they wish it or not, to make those contributions. We must offer to
these people an opportunity for self-examination and guide them over to our own side. Two points, however,
should be noted; first, that these people, by a variety of clever schemes concerted with the European
administrators, are steadily extorting money from the native population, and that the greater part of the natives’
resentment is directed against them rather than against the Europeans; and, secondly, that for the most part they
have no racial or national consciousness, and no enthusiasms outside the making of money. Consequently you
must realize in advance that it will be difficult, by merely urging them to an intellectual awareness of themselves
as members of an Asian brotherhood, to enlist their cooperation in any scheme which does not promise personal
profit. See Tsuji, Masanobu, Singapore 1941-1942: the Japanese version of the Malayan Campaign of World
War II, (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988), 308-309.
278
Shinozaki came to Singapore before the war as the press attaché to Japan’s consul-general. In 1940, he was
imprisoned by the British for spying for Japan. In 1942, when the Japanese Army occupied Singapore, he was
freed and appointed a senior official in the Defence Headquarters. Unfortunately, some anti-Chinese members of
the Japanese military authorities criticised Shinozaki as being pro-Chinese. When Colonel Watanabe took over as
the Chief Military Administrator, Shinozaki was removed from his post as adviser to the OCA. He was replaced
by Takase, who used the OCA to exploit the Chinese community. He was later credited as the “Japanese
Schindler” for saving thousands of Chinese and Eurasians by his liberal issue of personal safety passes and the
creation of safe havens during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. He was also instrumental as the key
prosecution witness during the Singapore War Crimes Trial between 1946 and 1948. A book he wrote after the
war, Syonan—My Story, continues to give invaluable insight into the Japanese occupation of Singapore.
119
They must be severely punished.279 “Aye, that means that all of us will be killed”, he
sighed. It was then that he decided he would organize this organization.
Obviously, Shinozaki’s words had exerted great psychological pressure on Lim, to
whom the threat “to kill all Chinese people here” was only too real in view of the on-going
sook ching. Having obtained Lim’s consent to head the OCA, Shinosaki drew up the rules and
purpose of the association.
When asked why Lim, who had been found to have a photograph of a Chungking
military mission and a certificate of thanks from Chiang Kai-shek at the time of his arrest and
was undoubtedly pro-Chungking, was singled out to lead a Japanese-sponsored association,
Shinozaki replied that the Japanese military administration respected him “not so much as a
political leader with great controlling influence” as for his being “a man of high moral
character and education”. A more important reason was that as a leader of the Straits-born
Chinese and former President of Amoy University, Lim was held in high esteem by both the
Straits-born and the “alien” Chinese. Apparently, the Japanese hoped that Lim’s unique
background would render the OCA more acceptable to both aspects of the Chinese
community.
Initially, the OCA was composed of two hundred to three hundred influential Chinese
leaders, including Lim as President, S.Q. Wong as Vice-President, Dr. Hu Tsai Kuen and
Robert Tan Hoon Shiang as committee members, and Chan Kok Tong and Tan Yeok Seong
(both graduates of Amoy University) as secretaries. Many had joined the OCA when released
from detention, conceivably for reasons of security and through forms of subtle coercion.
Although the Japanese military administration distrusted the China-born or “alien” Chinese
for their prewar anti-Japanese activities, and despised the Straits-born for being “deSinicized”, their distrust and contempt were not expressed in discrimination against either
279
Ibid. chapter 4.
120
group, manifested in its equal treatment of all Chinese and representation of all dialect groups
on the OCA Council, as shown in Table 4.1.
Table 4.1: Members of the OCA Council280
Chinese Group
Councillors
Straits-born
Lim Boon Keng, Robert Tan Hoon Siang, Lim Kian Beng
Hokkien
Lu Tien Poh, Tan Eng Khiam,
Lee Choon Seng, Ng Kian Teck,
Chua Swee Oh, Li Qinglong
Cantonese
S.Q.Wong, Ching Kee Sun, Lo Seng Tuek
Teochew
Lee Wee Nam, Yeo Chan Boon, Tan Seik Kew
Hakka
Lin Xi Ban, Hu Tsai Kuen
Hainanese
Guo Xin, Lim Siow Chong
Contrary to their declared intention to weed out all Chinese who had been active in
prewar anti-Japanese activities, the Japanese military administration tolerated many who were
OCA members, such as Councillors Ching Kee Sun, Lee Choon Seng, and Tan Eng Khiam,
all of whom had held official posts in various China relief organizations. The Japanese
apparently chose to spare their lives for utilitarian reasons, as these Chinese leaders, many
wealthy and influential merchants, could be used to mobilize Chinese resources and keep
Chinese activities under supervision. There is little doubt that the OCA was a carefully
considered tactic of the Japanese military administration.
280
Chan Pek Kwan (Ch’en Pi jun), a younger sister of K.C. Chan (Ch’en Chi-tsu), was married to Wang Ching
wei, President of the pro-Japanese Nanjing Government in China. One of his brothers, Ch’en Yaotsu, was
Governor of Kwangtung Province until his assassination in April 1944, and another brother, Ch’en Ch’ang-tsu,
was Chief Director of the Nanjing Government’s Aviation Department, while a nephew, Chan Kwok Kheong
(Ch’en Kuo-ch’iang), held a senior position in Kwangtung Province. See the Penang Shimbun, December 29,
1942 and April 20, 1944. See Hara, Fujio, “The Japanese Occupation of Malaya and the Chinese Community”,
in Paul H. Kratoska (ed), Malaya and Singapore during the Japanese occupation, (Singapore: Dept. of History,
National University of Singapore, 1995), 68-74.
121
4.12 Characteristics of the Overseas Chinese Association
The OCA had several notable characteristics. First, the size of each dialect group in
the OCA was proportionate to that of its size in the Chinese community. Second, most of the
members were businessmen, which was not only reflective of the domination of merchants in
Chinese society in Singapore but also their motives for joining the association. The fact that
many Chinese businessmen established friendly relations with the Japanese military
administration in order to obtain business permits or “good citizen passes” that would save
them from harassment lends credence to this supposition.
Another feature of the OCA membership was that most members were mostly middleaged or older; indeed, those under thirty and those holding “working-class” positions (e.g.,
clerks or shop-assistants) constituted only 11% and 4% of the membership, respectively. The
low proportion of these two groups could be explained by two factors: the lack of interest on
the part of the Japanese military administration in recruiting people of little influence and the
unpopularity of the OCA among the Chinese community at large, which was inclined to
condemn active leaders of the OCA, rightly or wrongly, as “collaborators”. The unpopularity
of the OCA and its leaders was to have a long-term impact on postwar Chinese political
leadership.
As previously discussed, the most prominent feeling of the Chinese regarding the
Japanese military administration was initially fear. To appease the Japanese as well as their
fear of them, the OCA organized a wide range of activities, including the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Celebrating the birthdays of the Japanese Emperor and Empress, for which even Chinese
women were mobilized;
Entertaining newly arrived employees of the Japanese military administration;
Sending donations collected from the different dialect sections of the Chinese
community to wounded Japanese soldiers;
Holding Japanese language classes;
Declaring support for all Japanese policies;
Making pledges of political loyalty to the Japanese military administration;
122
7.
8.
Organizing processions, mobilizing large numbers of Chinese, and building triumphal
arches in the city to commemorate the fall of Singapore. In 1943, 1,000 Chinese
representing all sections of the community participated in the celebration, while 25,000
people representing all ethnic groups participated in such processions in 1944; and
Entertaining injured Japanese soldiers in military and naval hospitals with songs and
dances by the women’s section of the OCA.
4.13 Perspectives of the Japanese towards the Overseas Chinese Association
Regarding how the Japanese military viewed the activities of the OCA, Shinozaki
commented, “On the surface, the simple soldiers thought the Chinese people were now
cooperating with the Japanese. That was the general feeling”. However, such a comment is
too simplistic to be convincing. The Japanese military administration was certainly not the
naïve and complacent on-lookers of OCA activities that Shinozaki seemed to imply they had
been. It is hardly conceivable that an administration shrewd enough to question the sincerity
of the Chinese in making a $50 million “gift” could have been easily taken in by such
manifestations of loyalty. Even if the “simple soldiers” were indeed generally credulous of
Chinese loyalty, such a feeling did not prevent them from treating the Chinese less harshly.
There was no indication of mitigated Kempeitai terror or other signs of reduced military
administration harshness towards the Chinese after the OCA was formed and became active.
Far from viewing the OCA with complacency, the Japanese military administration
actively utilized it as an instrument for the exploitation of local manpower and material
resources. When the Japanese were in need of local labour, the OCA promptly responded, no
doubt on Japanese instructions, by organizing a Labour Service Corps comprised of Chinese
engaged in “non-essential” commercial services (e.g., waiters, salesmen, telephone and
elevator operators, park and theatre employees, cooks, tailors, and hawkers). By August 1944,
the OCA had mobilized 15,000 Chinese from among 20,000 local recruits for the Corps. In
November, the OCA was ordered to launch an campaign recruit Chinese into the police force.
By the end of the occupation, the Chinese had entered into police service, partly as a result of
123
this OCA effort, although how many were mobilized by the OCA is not known. Apart from
collecting S$1 million for the Japanese military administration in 1942, the OCA was ordered
to make a S$100,000 contribution for the purchase of a fighter plane to “atone” for their past
“sin” of making similar contributions to Chungking. The burden of its cost, like that of all
material and monetary contributions, was borne by the Chinese in the OCA in accordance to
their financial strength, often with the Hokkiens bearing the heaviest load.
So heavily reliant was the Japanese military administration on the knowledge,
expertise, and efficiency of the OCA, as the OCA conducted such activities as researching the
local economic situation and collecting scrap metal for the Japanese war industry, that in 1945
Shinozaki recommended it be made responsible for mobilizing local people for the defence of
Singapore, while the Japanese military administration would provide the financial assistance.
However, this recommendation was ultimately never realized.
Shinozaki ignored this interdependency between the OCA and the Japanese military
administration when he later described the OCA as “a protecting body for the Chinese
population” during the occupation.281 Indeed, the Japanese military administration depended
as much on the OCA as the latter depended on the former. By serving as a form of “proof” of
Chinese loyalty, the very existence of the OCA served the Japanese military administration as
a form of propaganda and second, while utilization of its members’ talents allowed for the
exploitation of local material and manpower resources. Shinozaki reflected the situation more
truthfully when he added, “The military know that if they want anything they could go
straight to certain Chinese leaders”.282
4.14 Perspectives of the Chinese Community towards the Overseas Chinese Association
Although advocating the unity of all Chinese against the Japanese, the Chinese
involved in the resistance movement, the MPAJA, tended to regard the OCA members as
281
282
Shinozaki, Syonan—My Story, 68-80.
Ibid., 83-4.
124
collaborators and, thus, enemies. A large number of young Chinese who refused to cooperate
with the Japanese joined the MPAJA, in which they learned to regard the older leaders in the
OCA as “traitors” and “collaborators”. Although they joined at an average age of nineteen,
these young Chinese rapidly matured politically. As the resistance movement gradually
gained strength within the Chinese community, local leaders who had become identified as
spokesmen and apologists of the Japanese administration lost the prestige that they had
enjoyed before the war. While it was known that many OCA leaders had initially been
coerced into joining the association, their continued cooperation with the Japanese eventually
cost them their credibility, and, as they became more closely identified with Japanese
repressive measures, their lives.283 In only a few exceptional cases was there any cooperation
between the MPAJA and the OCA at the local level. The MPAJA rationale for later killing
OCA officials cannot readily be traced to their prewar political affiliation with the KMT or
their status as “capitalists” but rather their role as “collaborators”.284
However, this dissertation argues that although the aim of the OCA was clearly to
marshal Chinese support for and cooperation with the Japanese regime, the OCA also acted as
a shield for the protection of prewar Chinese leaders and their supporters. The OCA never
became a political organization, as did the India Independence League, nor did the Japanese
military administration make any attempt to link the OCA with the pro-Japanese government
of Wang Ching-wei in Nanking. Therefore, although it is important not to overlook the
collaboration of the OCA with the Japanese military administration, it is equally unfair to
condemn the OCA as nothing more than a collaborationist organization. Indeed, by acting as
283
In Syonan—My Story, Shinozaki cites two instances of the MPAJA assassination of OCA officials at the
Japanese-sponsored settlement at Endau (Johor). In Malaya Upside Down (106-7), Chin reveals how some local
OCA officials were caught in a conflict of loyalties between the MPAJA and the Japanese authorities.
284
With the exception of the KMT guerrillas along the Thai-Malay border, whom they regarded as bandits, the
MCP and MPAJA tended to avoid political rivalry and the pursuit of class struggle among the Chinese,
preferring instead to encourage Chinese of all classes to unify in the face of a common Japanese oppression. See
Cheah Boon Kheng, “The Social Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya (1942-1945)” in Southeast Asia
under Japanese Occupation.
125
the primary intermediary between the Japanese and the Chinese, the OCA benefited the
Chinese community by reducing direct Japanese interference in its daily life. Because the
OCA was responsible for carrying out the orders of the Japanese military administration, it
could somewhat cushion the harshness of the administration, which also benefitted the
Japanese military administration from an administrative point of view. Moreover, the OCA
played a significant role in helping to alleviate the economic hardship of the Chinese and
sometimes that of the other communities, as is discussed in the following chapter. In the final
analysis, while it was undeniably controlled and directed by the Japanese military
administration, the OCA assumed the role of not only meeting the military needs of the
Japanese but also assisting the Chinese community in Singapore.
4.2 The 50 Million Dollar “Gift”
On February 27, Dr. Lim was asked to go to Goh Loo Club, a meeting place for
members of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the China Relief Fund. There he met
several wealthy Chinese who had also been released from detention, including Wee Twee
Kim, a Gunseibu interpreter and liaison between the military authorities and the Chinese
community. After conveying a threatening message from the military authorities to the
assembled Chinese leaders, Wee Twee Kim coaxed his frightened audience into framing
proposals for cooperation to be presented to Colonel Oishi.285
Meanwhile, the Gunseibu had begun to assume administrative control of Syonan and
Malaya. Having prepared a study on the Nanyang Chinese for the Army General Staff before
the war,286 Takase, the official in charge of Chinese affairs, spelled out his plans regarding the
285
Low and Cheng, This Singapore, 35; Tan, “History of the Formation of the Overseas Chinese Association and
the Extortion by J.M.A. of $50,000,000 Military Contribution from the Chinese in Malaya,” 2. Wee Twee Kim
posed as a friend and protector of the China-born Chinese.
286
Interview with Takase, August 30, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”,
69.
126
Malayan Chinese in the “Principles and Policies Governing Towards the Chinese”, 287 the
document detailing the treatment of the Chinese from March 1942 to March 1943, a period
referred to as “theWatanabe Gunsei”. Several of these principles and polices are notable. First,
the Gunseibu was to adopt no measure that would ingratiate them with the Chinese simply for
the sake of winning their support, as the Chinese would take advantage of any generous
measure.288 Watanabe was opposed to so-called “positive inducement measures” for winning
the hearts of the Chinese, in contrast to the Japanese pacification policy adopted in mainland
China. Therefore, Watanabe had agreed with the Kempeitai’s initial mopping-up of hostile
Chinese , as evidenced by the document’s statement that the hostile Chinese would “not be
recognized” and its order to rely on “extremely severe measures”, such as property
confiscation and deportation, to deal with recalcitrant Chinese. On the other hand, the
Gunseibu promised “peaceful and comfortable existence” for those who would “pledge
whole-hearted cooperation with Japan”.
Second, recognizing the military’s “dependence upon their [Chinese] ability and
experience for the delivery of war material and the flow of ordinary necessities”, the
Gunseibu was prepared to refrain from interfering in details of Chinese business operations
and allowing them to pursue these operations on their own “initiative”. The document
explained, “The profits accruing from these activities will ensure a great source of future
revenue . . . thus lightening Japan’s burden in the construction of the Southern area”. To
achieve its goal of full utilization of Chinese commercial talents, the Gunseibu set itself
against “the expediency of oppressing and rejecting the Chinese from participation in capital
investment, industrial development, and acquisition of resources in anticipation of favouring
287
Dai Nijugo-Gun Gunseibu, Kakyo Kosaku Jisshi Yoryo, April 19, 1942. Marked “Secret”. Quoted in Akashi,
“Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 69-70. An English translation of the document appears in
Benda, Japanese Military Administration, 178-81.
288
The same idea was recorded in Watanabe Memoirs, 27-9, 36. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 70.
127
inroads by Japanese”. At the same time, the Chinese were not to be treated differently but
“simply as Chinese in the same manner as other ethnic groups”, despite their superiority to the
Malays and Indians in the financial and commercial spheres.
Third, the Gunseibu hoped to utilize the “formidable” Chinese influence and position
in Asia in the destruction of the Chiang Kai-shek regime and the settlement of the SinoJapanese War by making the five million Nanyang Chinese “a basic driving force in Japan's
major policy”. Fourth, the Gunseibu demanded that the Chinese raise a minimum of $50
million for its administrative funds. This idea had originated with His Holiness Otani Kozui,
the spiritual head of the Higashi Buddhist Sect, with whom Watanabe had conferred in
November 1941.289 The idea became attractive to Watanabe when the SEA command ordered
him to “raise the money locally for paying military administrative expenses. 290 Another
justification for the $50 million “gift” was that as the most anti-Japanese group, having
staunchly supported Chiang Kai-shek and Britain, the Chinese deserved to be punished,291 as
well as be provided with an opportunity to “atone” for their past sins against Imperial Japan.
According to Takase, Premier Tojo Hideki was pleased with the idea when he informed him
of it.292 This “gift” from Chinese community served as one of the principal sources of revenue
for the military government during the first three months after the fall of Singapore.293
289
Interview with Watanabe, July 9, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”,
70. Otani drafted postwar plans for the administration of Malaya for Watanabe in “Draft Plans for the
Disposition of the Malay Peninsula”. In this draft, however, he makes no mention of extorting money from
Chinese communities. See Otani Kozui, Marei Hanto Zengo Shori Hoan, n.d. Marked “Secret”.
290
Ishii Akiho, Nampo Gunsei Nikki (unpublished), p. 146. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 70. Hereafter Ishii Nikki.
291
Watanabe Memoirs, 29, 54; “Kakyo Kenkin,” Tomi Shudan Sambocho Yori [Rikugun] Jikan, [Rikugun]
Sambo Jicho, March 17, Showa 17-nen Riku A Mitsu Dal Nikki XI, 4-1. Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 70.
292
Ishii Nikki, 147.
293
Nijugo-Gun Gunseibu, Marei Zaisei No Shori Yoko, n.d. Marked “Top Secret”. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese
policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 71.
128
During the first week of March, the Gunseibu summoned the OCA to Watanabe's
office, where they met Watanabe and Takase.294 After Takase condemned past Chinese antiJapanese and subversive activities, he asked “What have you got to say?” When Lu Tien Poh,
the spokesman of the Chinese delegation, replied that they had come to pledge their support to
the Gunseibu, Takase demanded to know what they meant by “pledge support”. Lu replied,
“We mean that those of us who have money, give money. Those who have strength, give
strength”. Scarcely had Lu finished when Takase angrily retorted, “All your money and even
your lives are at our disposal. . . . Go home and think over how you are going to redeem the
crimes of the Chinese community”. The Chinese visitors meekly left the office.
When the Chinese representatives paid another respectful call upon Takase the
following day, they told him that would place all their wealth and lives at the Gunseibu 's
disposal. Pleased with the offer, Takase promised them that he would inform his superiors of
the offer, and demanded to know how they would make good on their offer. On the following
day, the Chinese leaders returned to the Gunseibu to inform Takase that they would present
one half of the wealth of Chinese community to the Gunseibu and keep the other half in trust
for the Gunseibu, a plan that greatly pleased Takase.
After several days passed without word from Takase, tension mounted in the Chinese
community, heightened by ominous reports of the sook ching in Johore and by arrests of
wealthy Chinese merchants at the Gob Loo Club. Finally, much to their relief, word came
from Takase that Watanabe would receive Chinese delegates at his residence in Nassim Road.
At the meeting, Takase once again roundly denounced the past crimes of the Chinese against
294
For the reconstruction of the $50 million story, the author has relied on the following sources: Low and Cheng,
This Singapore, 33-45; Chin, Malaya Upside Down, 72-83; Tan, “History of the Formation of the Overseas
Chinese Association and the Extortion by J.M.A. of $50,000,000 Military Contribution from the Chinese in
Malaya,”1-12; Nanyang Siang Poh, Nanyang Nien-Chien 1951, chapter 6; Nan ch’iao Tsung-hui, Ta-Char: Yu
Nan Ch’iao, 32, 73, 115; Uchida Naosaku, “Shusen Zengo No Tonan Ajia Kakyo No Doko,” in Taiheiyo Senso
Shuketsuron, ed. Nippon Gaiko Gakkai (Tokyo: Nippon Gaiko Gakkai), 843; “Kakyo Kenkin,” Showa 17-nen
Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki XI, 4-1. Also see Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 69-78.
129
Japan, but then described himself as a Confucian who had highest regard for benevolence,
justice, and moral virtues, and even lied that he had “rushed to Malaya to save the Chinese”.
Now presenting himself as the benevolent saviour of the Chinese, Takase “suggested” that the
Chinese community offer $50 to $60 million in cash, and he would prevail upon a higher
official to accept the gift in exchange for the release of expropriated Chinese property and the
protection of Chinese lives. 295 The hapless Chinese leaders accepted his suggestion with
gratitude.
Despite a report in the Shonan Times that the Chinese in Syonan-Malaya were
“enthusiastically contributing donations to the Nipponese administration as a gesture of their
loyalty and sincerity in co-operating with [the] Nipponese government”, 296 progress in
collecting the money was so slow that by April 20, the deadline set by the Gunseibu , far less
than the required amount had been collected. 297 An angry Takase summoned the Chinese
community leaders to berate them before ordering them to redouble their efforts to meet the
next deadline of May 20. The Chinese, however, were once again hardly able to raise onethird of the required amount when the extended deadline arrived. Takase again summoned the
Chinese leaders and accused them of lying about their promise to raise the money, pointing
out that they made the “voluntary” offer of $50 million, but nevertheless agreed to extend the
final deadline to June 25. The OCA then established sub-committees according to dialect
(Straits born, Hokkien, Teochieu, Cantonese, Hakka, Hailam, and North China) and, to ensure
fairness, assigned the examination of properties belonging to one group to another (e.g.,
Teochieu properties were examined by the Hailam sub-committee, Hailam properties by the
295
Takase originally intended to demand $100 million. Interview with Takase, August 30, 1966. $50 million
represents about one fourth of the currency circulating at that time. The Japanese yen was on par with the Straits
dollar. Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 71.
296
Shonan Times, April 16, 1942; Osaka Mainichi, March 30, 1942.
297
According to Colonel Otani, one of the reasons why Chinese communities had difficulty collecting money
was that Dr. Lim Boon Keng did not have the level of political skill and command over them that Tan Kah Kee
had enjoyed. Otani, Dai Nijugo-Gun Marei Sumatora Gunsei, 72. Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 72.
130
Hokkien, and so on). Any Chinese with property worth more than S$3,000 was expected to
donate eight percent of the value of that property.
In Kelantan, the OCA imposed a levy on businessmen and went from door to door
demanding donations from individual households. It required each leading Chinese
businessman to contribute an amount equal to five to twelve percent of his total property and
shopkeepers to contribute an amount equal to five to twelve percent of their inventory. At the
family level, each family was required to contribute a “head-tax” of about S$3 per member.
This levy was also extended to employees and servants employed by firms, guilds and
companies. Although there was much duplication in payment, there was no means of
redressing this problem.298
Growing desperate with the last deadline fast approaching, the OCA sent out an appeal
to those who had not yet contributed in the Shonan Times:
Notice is hereby given that those who have not paid up their contributions MUST DO
SO IMMEDIATELY and those who have omitted to send in their “RETURNS” must
do so before the end of this month. Failure to comply with either of these two requests
will incur a penalty at double the rate fixed by the Association. Any information
leading to the detection of evasion will be treated as strictly confidential and will be
suitably rewarded. 299
Despite this appeal, the OCA had only been able to raise $28 million by late June, part
of which was in gold articles and rubber. OCA leaders trembled at the thought of facing
Takase’s wrath. However, having realized that further harassment would not produce the
298
The collection of the $50 million was distributed as follows:-Syonan - $10 million; Selangor - $10 million;
Perak - $8.5 million; Penang - $7.5 million; Malacca - $5.5 million; Johore - $5.0 million; Negeri Sembilan $2.0 million; Kedah and Perlis - $1.0 million; Pahang - $0.5 million; Kelantan - $0.3 million; and Trengganu
$0.2 million.The amount each Chinese Association borrowed from the Yokohama Specie Bank is as follows:
Syonan - $1,350,000; Penang - $4,650,000; Perak - $4,250,000; Malacca - $3,350,000; Johore - $1,000,000;
Selangor - $6,000,000; and Negeri Sembilan - $700,000. Akashi, “ Japanese Policies Towards the Malayan
Chinese 1941-1945”, 72-3; Uchida, Taiheiyo Senso Shuketsu Ron, 844.
299
Shonan Times, June 20, 21, 1942.
131
desired effect and needing to save face for himself and the Gunseibu , Takase agreed with
Wee Twee Kim’s suggestion that the Yokohama Specie Bank make a loan to the Chinese to
make up the balance of the $50 million. On 25 June 1942, the OCA presented $50 million to
General Yamashita in a solemn ceremony.300
4.21 Japanese Responses to the $50 Million “Gift”
How did the Japanese respond to the life-redeeming “gift” presented by the Chinese?
They were clearly sufficiently shrewd to realize that it was presented to placate them, as
reflected in an editorial in the Shonan Times:
The Malayan Chinese have presented $50,000,000 to our government. . . . They have
called it a gift—a voluntary gift. . . . If the payment of this $50,000,000 is merely
“syrup” to placate our government . . . then the gift takes the form of a bribe. But, if it
is a sign of the sincere regret felt by the local people for anti-Nippon activity, that is, a
gesture of real repentance, then it is a gift. . . . But the giving of money is not enough
as proof of atonement. True atonement cannot be expressed in terms of money, it must
be expressed in terms of service, of complete cooperation. What is required now is a
reorganization of the different committees into a strong body of people able to exert
full control over the people and to bring pressure to bear upon to bring about a full
measure of cooperation.301
By such language, the Japanese military administration made clear that monetary contribution
alone was insufficient to win Japanese hearts.
Some officers in the Army Ministry did not like the way that Watanabe and Takase
had collected the money and questioned the merit of such a discriminatory measure against
the Chinese, fearing their alienation. They argued that $50 million was somewhat out of
proportion and would upset their own plans for making the indigenous people share the cost
300
301
Shonan Times, June 26, 1942; Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, June 28, 1942.
Shonan Times, June 26, 1942
132
of defence within the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.302 In reply, Watanabe insisted
that $50 million was not an exorbitant demand because the Chinese had offered “voluntarily
to donate a half of their wealth”. This contribution, Watanabe assured them, would not derail
the Army Ministry's plan for making all native peoples share the burden of national defence
expenditures.303
However, disagreement then arose between Tokyo and Syonan regarding the specific
use of the $50 million. While both agreed in late March on its general use as the Gunseibu’s
reserve fund,304 the Army Ministry demanded to know exactly how the $50 million was to be
dispensed. The Gunseibu subsequently produced an itemized list of allocations, which the
Army Vice Minister approved on 22 May. 305 According to the Gunseibu’s plan, the $50
million was to be spent for the following purposes: (1) $15 million as a deposit in the national
treasury; (2) $5 million as Gunsei supplementary funding for providing refugee relief and
fulfilling other civil administrative matters during the first three-month period; (3) $3 million
for conducting research into nationalities, culture, industry, economy, and other basic areas;
(4) $10 million for the reconstruction of roads, harbour facilities, and bridges; (5) $3 million
for the establishment and maintenance of a special school for training youths to participate in
the construction of the southern area; (6) $10 million for funding floating “reconstruction
bonds”; and (7) $4 million for the reopening of banks.
302
“Kakyo Kenkin Shori,” [Rikugun] Jikan Yori Nampo Haken-Gun Sosambocho, Dai Nijugo-Gun Sambocho,
March 21, 1942, Showa 17-nen Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki XI, 4-1; Interview with Tarora, November 26, 1968.
Tarora said that some of the central Army authorities in Tokyo voiced their objection by saying that they would
not accept the contributed money. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 74.
303
“Kakyo Nokin,” Tomi Butai Sambocho Yori [Rikugun] Sambo Jicho, Heitan Sokambu Sambocho, March 27,
1942, Showa 17-Nen Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki XI, 4-1. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 74.
304
“Kakyo Kenkin Shori,” March 21, 1942, Showa 17-Nen Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki, XI, 4-1. See Akashi,
“Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 74.
305
"Kakyonokin Oyobi Kokubohi Futan," [Rikugun] Jikan Yori, Oka, Tomi Butai Sambocho, March 28, 1942,
Showa 17-Nen Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki, XI, 4-1; "Marei Kakyo Nokin Shito," [Rikugun] Jikan Yori Oka Butai
Sambocho, May 22, 1942, Ibid., IXX, 3-1. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 74.
133
The $50 million “gift” was a logical outcome of the Watanabe Gunsei. Watanabe
strongly maintained, as previously discussed, that the Chinese should be treated with
resolution until they showed signs of repentance for their past crimes against Japan and of
their willingness to engage in wholehearted cooperation. Years after the war, Watanabe still
maintained, “I induced the Chinese to lay down their lives and offer their wealth to Japan.
Only after they had demonstrated a genuine penitence was I prepared to save their lives and
return their property”.306 Takase likewise insisted that what he did was right, describing the
$50 million contribution as neither a form of extortion nor “an outright confiscation of
Chinese wealth” but rather a sort of taxation in return for Chinese lives and the release of
seized Chinese property. He concluded that the Chinese also received benefits from the $50
million because the Gunseibu dedicated a large portion to increasing the well-being of all
people, including the Chinese.307
Watanabe’s claim that the $50 million gift was a short-term means of slowing
inflation and preventing a financial crisis in the first few months of the Gunsei may be correct.
As part of a long-term policy, however, the incident, together with the sook ching, was a
blunder; indeed, appearing to the Chinese as extortion and a ransom, it came to be known as
the most ignominious affair in the history of the Japanese Malayan Gunsei. The most severe
criticism came from Colonel Otani, the Gunseibu Police Chief, who argued, “All antiJapanese feelings of the Chinese found their source in the sook ching and the $50 million gift.
It gave the Communist guerrillas a propaganda windfall, contributing to their anti-Japanese
solidarity and legitimatized for the Chinese their resistance”. Singling out the Chinese for
suppression served, Otani averred, no purpose for the Gunsei, but planted the seeds of
revenge in the Chinese; not only did it turn the Chinese away from the Gunsei authorities but
306
Watanabe Memoirs, 28-29, 36. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 74.
Interview with Takase, August 30, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”,
75.
307
134
also stirred up a deep uncertainty in the Indian and Eurasian minority communities, who
wondered if they would be the next targets of reprisal and wrath.
Ultimately, the $50 million gift did not enable the Chinese to purchase freedom from
future suppression. As General Yamashita warned at the acceptance ceremony, the donation
“in no way redeemed the previous act of the Malayan Chinese in having supported Britain
and Chungking”.308 Notwithstanding their repeated declarations of loyalty and cooperation
with the Gunsei authorities, the Japanese continued to believe the Chinese to be anti-Japanese
at heart, and their cooperation a passive one at best. Reflecting the mood of the Gunseibu, The
Shonan Times upbraided local Chinese community leaders for having failed to carry out their
duties:
Law and order amongst the Chinese is far from satisfactory and . . . trade business and
industry are nowhere near normalcy. . . . The law courts, which are now functioning,
seem to deal with cases of food-profiteering and crimes committed, in a very large
majority of cases, by Chinese. . . [who must] to put an end to the present
unsatisfactory state of affairs . . . [and suppress] Communist slum rats.309
By the application of ceaseless pressure interspersed with occasional magnanimity, the
Gunseibuto induced the Chinese into active cooperation, without which the recovery of the
Malayan economy would have been impossible.
4.3 The Fujimura Gunsei
While the General Staff and the Twenty-Fifth Army Gunseibu maintained their
hardline policy, a voice of moderation for the Chinese slowly began to be heard at SEA
Headquarters and in Tokyo. Captain Tarora and Lieutenant Colonel Otsuki of the SEA
command advocated a lenient policy for the Nanyang Chinese, as did Lieutenant Colonel
Takase of the General Staff, who recommended in his report to the First Bureau that the
308
309
Chin, Singapore Upside Down, 83.
Shonan Times, June 20, 27, 1942 and August 30, 1942.
135
present repressive policy towards the Chinese be gradually modified. 310 Finally, pressure
came from the CEA. Lieutenant Colonel Okada Yoshimasa's Koa Kikan urged Central
Command in Tokyo to use the leading Chinese whom they had captured to induce the
Nanyang Chinese to cooperate with Japan, and possibly even bring Chiang Kai-shek and
Wang Ching-wei to the negotiation table.311
It was under such circumstances, accompanied by the pressure of the deteriorating war
situation, that the Army Ministry and the General Staff collided over the question of
jurisdictional authority in the occupied southern region, more specifically on the question of
modifying the current hardline policy. Concerned that the hardline policy would be
detrimental to the implementation of the Co-Prosperity policy, the Army Ministry, headed by
Premier General Tojo, tried to voice to the Gunsei administration their opinion that the
Gunsei grip be relaxed for political effect, which was largely within the sphere of the General
Staff. The General Staff, however, refused to relinquish its jurisdictional authority, and
countered with the argument that the present hardline policy should be maintained to fulfil
military operations.
As a result of this wrangling, an Army Ministry-General Staff conference held in
October failed to adopt the “Guiding Principle of Nationalities”, on which the General Staff
had been working for the past several months.312 However, by the time a Gunsei conference
met on 12 October, the Army Ministry and the General Staff appeared to have reached a
310
Sambo Hombu Nijuppan, Kimitsu Senso Nisshi, June 18, 1942: Interview with Tarora, November 26, 1968.
Tarora enlisted Teo Eng Hock, a former Chairman of the KMT Nanyang Office at Singapore, to persuade the
Gunseikambu to relax its hardline policy. The Gunseikambu did not listen to him. See Akashi, “Japanese policy
towards the Malayan Chinese”, 76.
311
Interview with Okada Yoshimasa, October 19, 21, 1968. The Koa Kikan, through the CEA headquarters, tried
to utilize Aw Boon Haw’s influence for overseas Chinese operations, but Colonel Ishii Akiho turned down the
Koa Kikan’s request. Ishii Nikki, 93. In May 1942, the CEA headquarters again requested that permission be
granted to dispatch fifty trained Chinese to be used for the pacification of the Nanyang Chinese, but the SEA
command turned down the request. “Kyomu Koshuhan Nampo Haken No Ken,” Shina Haken-Gun Sosambocho
Yori [Rikugun] Jikan, May 2, 1942; Nampo Haken-Gun Sosambocho Yori [Rikugun] Jikan, May 3, 1942, Showa
17-Nen Riku A Mitsu Dai Nikki, XVI, 2-2. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 76.
312
Kushida Nikki, October, 1942; Sambo Hombu Nijuppan, Kimitsu Senso Nisshi, October 3, 1942; Interview
with Kushida, August 6, 1966. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 76-77.
136
compromise. The General Staff prepared a new document, “Principles for the Administration
of the Occupied Southern Region According to Local Area”, 313 that established that each
theatre command would formulate its own administrative policy according to specific local
needs.314
As policy implementation was left to the judgement of local chief executive
administrators, the situation in Malaya remained unchanged. Watanabe continued pursuing
his hardline policy. At a military administrators' conference in November, General Saito
Yaheita, who succeeded Yamashita, and Watanabe reaffirmed their policy of applying
ceaseless political pressure on the Chinese and of curbing Chinese social participation while
utilizing their economic capabilities.315 However, the case for moderation, which had been
prevailing in Tokyo and Syonan for some time, left Watanabe isolated. He had already been
forced to send home his supporters partly as a result of the pressure exerted by opponents
advocating moderation, and his Gunsei policy had come under increasing attack from civilian
quarters espousing a moderate policy. Watanabe’s wish to be relieved of his post was soon
granted. When reassigned to a new post in Tokyo in mid-March, he left Syonan to Major
General Fujimura Masuzo with a mixture of relief and disgust.316
The changing Japanese attitude towards the Chinese was also reflected in the role of
the OCA during the latter part of the war. Notwithstanding the “considerate attitude of the
Nippon Military Administration towards the overseas Chinese” in permitting remittances,317
the Chinese showed no overt enthusiasm for cooperating with the Gunseikambu, remaining
passive and, in many cases, rendering assistance to the Chinese-dominated communist
313
Kushida Nikki, October 8, 1942; Ota Tsunezo, Biruma ni Okeru Nippon Gunseishi No Kenkyu (Tokyo:
Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1967), 58.
314
Ota, Biruma Ni Okeru Nippon Gunseishi, 57; Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism and Indonesia, 213.
315
Tomi Shudan Shirei, No. 28, November 9, 1942. Marked “Top Secret”. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards
the Malayan Chinese”, 77.
316
Watanabe was said to have been transferred because his Gunsei philosophy was incompatible with the
changing condition created by the war situation. Interview with Tarora, November 26, 1968. See Akashi,
“Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 78.
317
Syonan Shimbun, March 31, 1943.
137
guerrillas who had been operating after the fall of Singapore. Despite the successful
extermination of Chinese communist leaders at Batu Caves in Selangor on 1 September 1942,
communist harassment continued, creating security problems in the countryside. The Gunsei
authorities held the Chinese as a whole responsible for the situation, as demonstrated in a
November 1942 Gunsei police report:
It is unlikely that the Chinese will renounce over-night their anti-Japanese sentiments
that had been inculcated into their minds for such a long time. They do not like the
Japanese occupation of Malaya. . . . Some are known to be sympathetic towards the
outrageous Communists and are ready to cooperate with them, while a great many
Chinese possess an ideology that is contrary to Gunsei objectives.318
However, a moderate voice prevailed in “Principles for the Implementation of
Security Measures”, 319 in which the Gunseikambu advocated a constructive and positive
approach to dealing with the Chinese. Specifically, the document advocated improving the
well-being of the Chinese by (1) assuring them a minimum standard of living, (2) eliminating
discriminatory fees, and (3) maintaining respect for their religion and customs. To achieve the
objectives, the document proposed the following:
1. Holding the OCA and the Chinese themselves responsible for maintaining security,
especially for initiating a programme for pacifying crime-infested areas and
conducting a submission campaign and welfare programme;
2. Providing assistance to the OCA for the care of refugees and the unemployed;
3. Stopping coercive attempts to rid the Chinese of their anti-Japanese sentiment;
318
[Marei] Gunseikambu, Keimubu, Marei In Okeru Chianjo No Ichi Kosatsu, November 27, 1942, n.p. Marked
“Top Secret”.To cope with the security problem created by the Chinese, the Gunseikambu promulgated the Law
and Order Preservation Act on February 1, 1943,which provided for capital punishment. For the existing security,
see Shonan Gunseikambu, Shihobu, Shiho Yoin Kaido Gijiroku I, February, 1943; Colin Silleman and S. C.
Silkin, ed., Trial of Sumida Haruzo and Twenty Others (The Double Tenth Trial; London: William Hodge, 1951),
xviii, 106. Also see Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 78.
319
Marei Gunseikambu, Keimubu Kaigi Kankei Shorui Toji, May 1, 1943, n.p. Marked “Top Secret”. See Akashi,
“Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 79.
138
4. Encouraging the Chinese to participate in food production and in the operations of
medium and small enterprises; and
5. Guiding the OCA in transforming from an organization serving individual interests
to one dedicated to cooperation for the prosecution of the war, and providing it with
autonomy to carry out its programme.
As these proposals demonstrate, the repressive policies of the Watanabe Gunsei had fallen out
of favour and been replaced by a positive programme for soliciting Chinese cooperation.
A week after the conference of police chiefs, Fujimura convened a meeting of
governors320 at which, due to his unfamiliarity with his new post, he repeated general Gunsei
principles that had been laid down by the Army. In reference to the Chinese question, he told
the governors that he wanted to “implement for the time being a magnanimous policy in order
to promote their activities”. Later in the same conference, Kawamura Naooka, the governor of
Perak since March 1943, which had experienced the most severe difficulty with communist
guerrillas of perhaps all states in Malaya, presented his opinion with respect to the
administration of the Chinese:
The Chinese are a cancer to the maintenance of security. Therefore, the military must
spare no mercy in extirpating the hostile Chinese. Nevertheless, there has never been a
successful case of thorough suppression, and it is impossible to repress the Chinese
completely. The only alternative is to win their hearts, enabling them to work with us
for increasing production and for obtaining goods necessary for national defence.321
For the maintenance of security, Kawamura suggested that influential Chinese be
asked to assist in law enforcement as part of his double-edged policy for the Chinese: offering
economic opportunities to accommodating Chinese and suppressing hostile Chinese.
320
Marei Gunseikambu, Marei Kaku Shu (Shi) Chokan Kaigi Kankei Shorui Toji, May 8-12, 1943, n.p. Marked
“Secret”. See Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 79.
321
Kawamura Naooka, Marei Ni Okeru Gunsei Shikko Ni Kansuru Iken, May 8, 1943, n.p. See Akashi,
“Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 79.
139
Kawamura’s ideas were not novel, for the Gunsei authorities under Watanabe had pursued a
similar policy. What was new was that he was the first high official to criticize Gunsei policy
in the presence of a somubucho by admitting the futility of a policy based solely on repression.
It is also remarkable that in discussing the Chinese question, neither Fujimura nor any
governor mentioned the assassination of Governor Kikuchi Shinzo of Selangor, 322 whom
Chinese guerrillas had killed in an ambush while on his way to Syonan to attend the
governors’ conference, yet another sign in a shift towards accommodation.
4.4 Dynamics between the Japanese and Hong Kong Elites during the Early Period of
Occupation
4.41 Representatives of Hong Kong Elites
In the years after 1911, the British in Hong Kong devoted some effort to fostering the
emergence of a trustworthy local elite. The Anglicized Chinese, many of whom were wealthy
businessmen, were the natural allies of the British for obvious reasons: like their British
counterparts, they were extremely conservative, and thus easily alarmed by the social
radicalism that the Nationalist revolution had brought in its wake. One such Anglicized
Chinese businessman was Sir Shouson Chow. Born in Hong Kong in 1862, he spent his early
career on the mainland, where he held a number of posts in the Foreign Ministry of the
declining Manchu regime. After 1911, he withdrew to the colony and devoted himself to
business, becoming Chairman of the Board of (among other concerns) the Bank of East Asia.
In the early 1920s, he spoke out against the attempts to rid Hong Kong of such traditional
Chinese customs as the use of child labour in factories and the system by which young girls
were sold by poor families to work as unpaid servants in wealthy homes. During the crisis of
322
Hai Shang-ou, Ma-Lai-A Jin-Min Han Jih Chun (Singapore: Hua ch’iao ch’u-pan she, 1945), 54.
140
1925 he declared, “We do not want Bolshevism or Communism. What we want are peace and
good order, and the right to follow our callings without let or hindrance”.323
The talented few who were able to win positions as compradors, agents employed by
British firms to conduct dealings with Chinese businesses for which the British lacked the
requisite cultural and linguistic skills, were often able to amass, quite legitimately, prodigious
fortunes. The most celebrated of these compradors was Sir Robert Ho Tung. Son of a Dutch
(or possibly Belgian) merchant and a Chinese mother, he attended the Central School, where,
after performing spectacularly, he became the chief comprador to Jardine Matheson at the age
of twenty. By the time he turned thirty, he had become Hong Kong's first millionaire on the
strength of his lucrative interventions in the sugar trade in the Philippines and the Dutch East
Indies, and he remained the wealthiest man in the colony for decades, a plutocrat whose
wealth was suspected to place him in the Carnegie or Rockefeller bracket.
In the earliest years of the colony, most Eurasians had been inclined to assimilate with
the Chinese majority. Ho Tung at first conformed to this traditional pattern, wearing Chinese
dress, 324 but when his first daughter was born in 1897, he named her Victoria Jubilee in
honour of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. By around that date, the most successful
Eurasians had begun to diverge from their fellows at the clerks' desks, forming themselves
into a tightly knit, intermarrying clique and, turning away from the rise of Chinese
nationalism, identifying with the British to whose social status they aspired. In 1915, Ho Tung
was awarded a knighthood. Three years later, Governor May honoured Ho Tung with his
presence at the grand Eurasian society wedding of Victoria Jubilee Ho Tung to the brilliant
lawyer M. K. Lo (1893-1959).325 After receiving his education in England, Lo had taken First
323
Quoted in Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 86-7.
Gillingham, At the Peak, 2. However, one contemporary observer recorded that he “looked and seemed to be
less” than half Chinese. See Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 15.
325
In the mid-1930s, M. K. Lo, the Eurasian lawyer who had married Victoria, the eldest Ho Tung daughter,
abruptly emerged as a vociferous champion of non-European rights. Succeeding to Kotewall’s seat on the
324
141
Class Honours in the Solicitors’ Final Examination for practicing law in the colony. He went
on to serve on many commissions and public committees, most notably the Salaries Commission of 1947, and was the unofficial member of both the Legislative Council from 1935 to
1949 and the Executive Council from 1946 until his death in 1959. As a keen amateur
sportsman, Lo did much to encourage Chinese to engage in Western sport.326 During the same
period, Eurasians began to occupy one of the two seats reserved for Chinese on the
Legislative Council on a near-permanent basis, thus allowing them to become de facto leaders
of the Chinese community.
In 1923, the occupant of this Eurasian seat was Sir Robert Kotewall. While his mother
was Chinese, he was not, in the strictest sense, Eurasian, as his father was not European but
Parsee. His career, however, fitted admirably into the classic Eurasian mould. Born in 1880,
educated at Queen’s College, he advanced straight from school to a post in the government
service, where he rose from one clerical job to another until 1916, when the British awarded
him the post of Chief Clerk in the Colonial Secretariat, an office that had never previously
been filled by a non-European. Resigning soon afterwards to embark on a business venture,
he was formally thanked by the government for his “efficient and trustworthy services”.327
Like other leading Eurasians, he became quite wealthy, although his main business activity
seems to have been a curiously humble one: he occupied himself with the import and export
of gramophones. Unlike other leading Eurasians, he had a marked intellectual bent, having
been described as a “fine Chinese scholar” who had published bad translations of Chinese
Legislative Council, he complained about any sign of discrimination, bombarding the government with more
questions than the rest of the Council put together. He successfully argued for the employment of Chinese nurses
in hospitals, but in August 1936 pressed unsuccessfully for the abolition of the one-sided censorship that had
been imposed on the Chinese press ten years earlier. It is difficult to determine to what extent Lo was acting as
the spokesman for a unanimous gentry opinion.
326
For further details see Who Was Who, 1951-60. Also see Lo’ radio talk, “Progress in Sport among Chinese in
Hong Kong”, printed in Hong Kong Centenary Commemorative Talks.
327
Professor Woo Sing-lim, Xianggang Hua ren ming ren shi lue,(The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong, Hong
Kong: Wu Chou Press, 1937), 7.
142
poetry.328 In 1921, he composed the play The Maid of the Hills, his adaptation of an old
Chinese drama, and produced it in honour of the visiting Prince of Wales the following year.
He was made a justice of the peace in 1916, an unofficial member of the Legislative Council
in 1923, and an unofficial member of the Executive Council in 1936. Membership of the last
meant that Kotewall had finally arrived at the top. In between these important assignments, he
became a member of other important organizations, including the Court and Council of Hong
Kong University and the Executive Committee of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.329
Known in Chinese as gentry-merchants, 330 the members of this local elite of local
Chinese and Eurasians came to play a key intermediary role, serving as interlocutors of the
British Secretary for Chinese Affairs and assuming positions on the District Watch
Committee and its ten sister bodies. Appropriately, they tended to live in the Mid-Levels, the
area halfway between the Peak, where the majority of the British resided, and the city below,
where the masses resided. Also like the British, the local elites in Hong Kong were divided
among themselves, with full-blooded Chinese disdainful of Eurasian “half-castes”. For
example, Sir Shouson Chow is said to have enjoyed mocking Sir Robert Ho Tung by
328
Governor Caldecott to J. H. Thomas, Secretary of State for the Colonies, February 19, 1936, CO 129 556/117,
71; Emily Hahn, China to Me,(London: Virago, 1987), 328.
329
Sir Robert Hormus Kotewall (1880-1949) was a son of Hormusjee Rustomjee Kotewall, yarn merchant.
Educated at Queen’s College and Diocesan Boys’ School, he entered the Hong Kong Civil Service in 1896 as a
Fourth Clerk in the Police Headquarters after the results of a competitive examination identified him as the first
among the candidates. After being promoted to be First Clerk in the Magistrate’s Court, Victoria, in 1913, he was
appointed Chief Clerk in the Colonial Secretariat in 1916 and a justice of the peace in 1916. When he resigned
from the Civil Service the same year, he was invited by Lau Chu-pak and Ho Fook (both former unofficial
members of the Legislative Council) to become a business associate. In 1923, he was invited by Governor Sir
Edward Stubbs to act as an unofficial member of the Legislative Council during the absence of Ng Hon-sze.
Upon Ng’s death some months later, Kotewall was nominated by the Governor to fill the substantive post,
serving in all over three terms of four years each, which was then an unprecedented occurrence requiring “the
special assent of the Imperial Government”. In 1936, he was nominated to succeed Sir Shouson Chow in the
Executive Council, from which he resigned upon the liberation of the Colony in 1945. It is claimed by Robert S.
Ward, Asia for Asiatics?, 7, that Chow’s financial difficulties “are supposed to have had a part in his
displacement by Sir Robert Kotewall, to whom he never willingly yielded primacy”. Kotewall was the principal
of R. H. Kotewall and Co., Director of Chinese Estates, Ltd, and prominent on the committees of many Hong
Kong associations. Details about Kotewall are given in Professor Woo’s book. See also “Appreciation by K. K.
Li”, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, May 25, 1949 and Who Is Who, 1941-50.
330
For the term “gentry-merchants” , see Elizabeth Sinn, Power and Charity: the early history of the Tung Wah
Hospital, (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989), 87.
143
describing himself as the only living knight of pure Chinese descent.331 Some Chinese also
viewed the Eurasians as suspect, maintaining that they frequently spied on others for their
British bosses.332
4.42 Winning the Cooperation of the Hong Kong Elites
In contrast with that in Singapore, the Japanese military administration in Hong Kong
seemed in no hurry to re-establish the law and order that had broken down after the British
defeat. This was primarily due to their focus on the security and welfare of their own troops,
and may have been part of a tactic to encourage the Chinese to become cooperative, as the
disorder harmed the Chinese civilians more than the Japanese military. On 1 January 1942,
the Japanese established the Civil Department of the Japanese Army, generally referred to as
the Civil Administration Department, under Major-General Yazaki, which assumed
responsibility for protecting the lives and property of the Chinese and non-enemy aliens.
The Japanese believed it beneficial to support local leaders, as, accustomed as they
were to foreign domination, they might adapt to the Japanese conquest with a somewhat
better grace than their counterparts in China proper. “Seeing that the local people have
hitherto been under British rule”, Yazaki remarked confidently in a memorandum, “they are
not going to put up direct resistance to Japan”; 333 indeed, they may even harbour antiEuropean feelings that can be translated into feelings of active goodwill for the Japanese.
Isogai aimed to turn Hong Kong into a “model district” of China, one exhibiting the
harmonious partnership that would come about in the future when all Chinese were prepared
to accept Japan's hegemony. Because of its ideal geographical position, he observed some
331
Governor Stubbs reported in 1920 that the pure-bred Hong Kong Chinese habitually referred to the Eurasians
as “the bastards”. See Norman Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule: 1912-1941, (Hong Kong: Oxford
University Press, 1987), 128. For Chinese disdain for Eurasians see also Stephen Frederick Fisher, Eurasians in
Hong Kong: a sociological study of a marginal group, (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 1975), 81; “The
Ho Tung Saga (Part 1) ”, Hong Kong Inc., (Hong Kong : Capital Communications Corporation, 1990-), March
1990, 99.
332
Philip Snow’s interview with Charles Sin, June 29, 1995.
333
Major-General Yazaki Kanju, “Honkon Tochi Hosaku Shiken”, February 1942, in Kobayashi, “Taiheiyo
Sensoka No Honkon”, 240.
144
months into his governorship, the colony was “the most suitable place for a movement to
work for better understanding between China and Japan”.334 The aim in Hong Kong, Isogai
suggested, should be to avoid relying on repression and instead to secure the “cheerful
cooperation” of the native inhabitants. To create this model colony, the conquerors should do
their best to preserve, where appropriate, the more positive features of the British legacy.
Care should be taken to maintain the liberal economic policies that had enabled the old
colonial government to attract influential Chinese to invest in Hong Kong, in particular the
prewar British tolerance of free movement and trade. By following the established forms of
local administration, investors would be reassured that the new administration would “avoid
causing any precipitate change in their lives”.335
At the same time, the new regime should take care not to give local residents the
impression that they had merely exchanged the domination of the British for that of the
Japanese. Measures should be introduced to restrict the arrival of immigrants from the
Japanese homeland who might establish businesses that compete with those of local citizens.
The Hong Kong Chinese should not be forced to immediately acquire, as had the Chinese in
Taiwan and Korea, the language and customs of their new Japanese rulers, but should be left
to become “imbued gradually with the culture of the Empire”.336 In his first policy statement,
Isogai even gave the saccharine pledge that in the absence of his two lost daughters, he would
“regard the Hong Kong Chinese as my most beloved children”, accompanied by the
334
Hong Kong News, December 26, 1942. For similar pronouncements from Isogai and his entourage, see
message issued by the Governor’s Office on New Year’s Day 1943, quoted in Frank Ching, The Li Dynasty:
Hong Kong aristocrats,(Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1999),115; statement by Lieutenant-Colonel
Yoshida, Acting Chief of the Information Bureau, quoted in Hong Kong News, January 29, 1943; Hong Kong
News, February 20, 1943.
335
Much the same thinking may be detected in the Twenty-Third Army Guidelines of December 9, 1941. The
Guidelines declared that a principle had been “decided upon of making an effort to prevent any unnecessary
social change”. See Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 327.
336
Yazaki, “Honkan Tochi Hosaku Shiken”, 238.
145
somewhat hardline rider to his subordinates that “unless we give them more than the British
did it will be difficult to expect ideal governing”.337
As to emphasize the opaqueness of the prewar British administration, the conquerors
made a point of explaining each policy that they adopted in painstaking detail through a
system of regular press conferences. Isogai spoke to the local media at the start of each month,
and heads of the various government departments—even Colonel Noma of the Kempeitai—
granted interviews between press meetings.338 Their most important step in obtaining public
support was to detain prominent members of the Chinese community in their homes or in
hotels and subject them to great pressure to engage in “voluntarily” cooperation with the new
administration. In a document appended to their list of mainland leaders and important figures,
the Koa Kikan had recorded the names of a number of “well-known Hong Kong Chinese
managerial personnel of British nationality”, who were sought within days of the takeover to
extract from them a commitment “to cooperate in the future partnership between China and
Japan”.339 Sir Robert Kotewall and M. K. Lo were detained on 27 December and handed over
to Okada, and a series of other leading gentry figures were delivered to the Hong Kong Hotel
throughout the course of the following week.340 Sir Robert Ho Tung was known to have fled
to Macao, but the Koa Kikan had hopes of retrieving him with the help of several agents
whom they were maintaining in the Portuguese enclave.341
337
Hong Kong News, January 21, 1942
Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 137.
339
Koa Kikan Gyomu Hodo,(Koa Kikan Work Report) no. 2, February 1942, in Kobayashi,“Taiheiyo Sensoka
No Honkon”, 254.
340
Dates given by Kobayashi in “Taiheiyo Sensoka No Honkon”, 226. See also Kotewall testimony at Noma
trial, WO 235/999, 273; Jean Gittins, Eastern Windows-Western skies,(Hong Kong: South China Morning Post,
1969), 133, and Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 122, “The Lo Dynasty”, Hong Kong Inc., February 1990, 79.
Gentry leaders detained in addition to Kotewall and Lo included Tung Chung-wei, Chairman of the Hong Kong
Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, on December 29, and Li Tse-fong, Manager of the Bank of East Asia,
on New Year’s Day 1942.
341
In a postwar submission at the trial of Colonel Noma of the Kempeitai, Kotewall recalled that he and his
colleagues had “resisted the pressure for six days and six nights”. M. K. Lo similarly reported having been
“taken by the Japanese after the surrender and cross examined for three days.” See Kotewall testimony at Noma
trial, WO 235/999, 273; report of conversation of Dr J. R Fehily with Lieutenant-Colonel L. Ride, Guilin,
December 18, 1942, CO 129 590/22, 162; economic information on the Far East from repatriated Americans
338
146
It appears that the local elites were handled with even more forbearance than the
mainland politicians. A work report compiled by the Koa Kikan in mid-February noted that
the organization had “imprisoned several of their representatives for a day before allowing
them to retire to their homes”. Other sources suggest that the period of detention may have
been longer, but it seems in no instance to have lasted for more than three days to a week.
Once again, the preferred technique was to convince them to “have a change of heart” and to
agree to apply their “managerial” talents to the day-to-day business of running Hong Kong.342
By 5 January 1942, the Koa Kikan had asked seventy to eighty of the most prominent figures
in Hong Kong society to “step forward and help in the restoration of orders”.343
Three days later, the entire body of gentry, which included 137 former justices of the
peace and other civic notables, were informed that they were to be treated to lunch at the
Peninsula Hotel by the Chief of the victorious Imperial Forces, Lieutenant-General Sakai, on
10 January. At the lunch, Sakai inveighed against the rule of the British, and, after gently
observing that “you gentlemen happened to form a part of it”, expressed his hope that they
would “recognize the change that had come” and would, as the “influential and wealthy
element of the population”, do all in their power to restore order to the colony. In particular,
he asked them to form a “local assistance committee” to address the food shortage and to
who arrived on the Gripsholm, August 25, 1942, p. 4 para. 8, HS 1/171. It appears that many gentry were
questioned during the day over a period of several days but allowed to spend nights in their homes. This would
explain the apparent discrepancy between the gentry’s recollections and the Koa Kikan’s own account. See
Ching, The Li Dynasty, 107. For an account of an interrogation see Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 153. Dr. Li was in
fact questioned by the Kempeitai rather than the Koa Kikan, but the approach adopted towards him seems to
have been much the same. The offer of rewards is mentioned in Tang Hai, “Xianggang lunxian ji”, 248.
342
Yu’s account receives some support from the cables sent by the Chief of the East Asia Section of the Foreign
Ministry from Tokyo to Canton and from Hirata in Shanghai to the Vice-Consul of the Investigation Section on
31 December 1941. MAGIC Documents Reel I; also Sam King, Tiger Balm King: The Life and Times of Aw
Boon-haw (Singapore: Times Books International, 1992), 328. The account may indicate that Aw Boon-haw was
being fingered as a possible member of the new City Government. The episode seems to illustrate both the
confusion of the first days of Japanese rule and the emphasis placed on promoting figures who might play a part
in Japan’s broader political schemes without regard for the practical needs of the colony.
343
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 121.
147
encourage the public to maintain order, clean up their neighbourhoods, and return to their
jobs.344
These appeals were backed up by a general Gunseicho attempt to redress the elites’
grievances, particularly regarding the molestation of “family women”. Many meetings were
subsequently held at the Twenty-Third Army's headquarters to discuss the epidemic of rape,
and a number of countermeasures began to unfold over the following weeks.345 LieutenantGeneral Sakai lent his support to local efforts at joint self-defence, issuing an order that as
soon as they heard the sound of a gong, the Kempeitai should send out a squad to arrest any
soldiers who had broken into a private home.346 From as early as the first day of the sack,
Colonel Eguchi, the Twenty-Third Army's chief medical officer, began making plans to avert
any further violations of “family women” through the establishment of military brothels, for
which the Gunseicho sought appropriate, “non-family” women as staff over the following
month. Posters appeared on the streets advertising for “comfort women”, hundreds of whom
were recruited locally and in the countryside of Guangdong Province, supplemented by the
import of 1,700 Japanese prostitutes from Canton.
Action was also taken to shield the local elites from the waves of organized raiding
and expropriation that followed the sack. Official notices were posted on the doors of
prominent citizens forbidding soldiers to enter their houses, reinforced by the on-the-spot
interventions of Japanese officers when necessary. Colonel Eguchi, for instance, was asked by
the Gunseicho to watch over his fellow medic, Dr. Li Shu-fan, who had been identified as a
prominent member of the Chinese community. Most of the gentry appear to have escaped the
344
Hong Kong News, January 12, 1942; Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 126-7.
Petitions were submitted to the Gunseicho by the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce on 31
December 1941 and again on 1 January 1942. See Hong Kong News, January 13, 1942; report of Professor
Gordon King, March 18, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 139; Tang Hai, “Xianggang lunxian ji”, 254. For a report of the
Gunseicho meetings see Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 114.
346
See intercepted letter from Fok Shu Hong to Fok Yee Kworn in Johannesburg on February 27, 1942 and
report taken from diary of Sub-Lieutenant D. F. Davies, HKRNVR, forwarded from Chungking, to June 1942,
CO 129 590/23, 111,155; Tao Xisheng, “Chong Di Gun Men” in Xianggang Lunxian Shi, ed. Yip Tak-wei, 332;
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 112.
345
148
indignity of being turned out of their homes. One squad of troops was successfully dissuaded
from taking over a house in Caine Road occupied by a younger brother of Sir Robert Ho Tung,
whose immediate family was allowed to retain possession of their mansion.347
Much the same policy was applied to Aw Boon-haw, an overseas Chinese magnate
based in Singapore who had made his fortune marketing the hugely popular ointment Tiger
Balm. So prodigiously rich that he claimed not to know his exact worth, the “Tiger Balm
King” controlled an immense pharmaceutical and newspaper empire that stretched across the
length of Southeast Asia, and for this reason had been identified as a key potential ally in the
southern offensive. After being detained by the Koa Kikan with the rest of the gentry, Aw too
was treated with a high degree of courtesy, “not subjected to any personal harshness, or
deprived of the luxuries he had come to regard as his due”. He was released after a few weeks
of hotel confinement in his Hong Kong mansion, where a chauffeur had driven him to and
from his office every day.348 After Singapore fell to the Japanese forces in mid-February,
Isogai started developing a plan to establish a puppet regime consisting of Aw and a number
of his associates who had been captured in Hong Kong that, he hoped, could be used as yet
another channel to Chiang Kai-shek.349
On 1 January 1942, Yazaki's Civil Affairs Department decreed that all government
officials, apart from British officials, were to return to their posts. On 7 January, a summons
was issued to all Hong Kong Chinese who had studied at universities in Japan, and thus likely
to be in a position to help the conquerors overcome the daunting language barrier, to report to
347
Tse, Zhanshi Ri Jun zai xianggang baoxing, 71; “The Ho Tung Saga (Part 2)”, Hong Kong Inc., March 1990,
105.
348
King, Tiger Balm King, 328, 330. King states that Aw was detained in the Peninsula Hotel, but this may
simply reflect a tendency among outsiders to think of the Peninsula as the only hotel in Hong Kong. It seems
more likely that Aw was housed in the Hong Kong Hotel along with the rest of the Koa Kikan’s involuntary
guests.
349
MAGIC Documents Reel II, April 1942 report of Colonel Okada in Shanghai quoted SRS 732, O841-O858, 1
October 1942. On top of his huge economic clout, Aw had the added attraction of being a member of the
Nationalist Party’s Consultative Yuan. On January 3 1942, the Hong Kong newspapers declared that preferential
treatment was to be accorded to overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia. See Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 116.
149
the Hong Kong Hotel to register with the Koa Kikan. On the following day, they were ferried
across the harbour for a welcoming banquet at the Peninsula Hotel, 350 where they were
obliged to present themselves to the Koa Kikan to be earmarked for employment before
enjoying the feast. In their Work Report, the Koa Kikan mentioned that they had “caused” the
gentry to assemble together and “made them swear” to contribute to the future Sino-Japanese
partnership before sending them home under “joint and several guarantees of
responsibility’.351 The fact that no invitations were issued for a subsequent banquet for the
gentry at the Peninsula Hotel during the second week of January—the guest list had been
published in advance in the newly revived local press—appeared to imply that acceptance
was taken for granted.
Such actions point to the conclusion that the Japanese were pursuing a generally
moderate policy in Hong Kong during the very early period of occupation, making a true
attempt to promote the goodwill of the people, including the Chinese.352 Mainland Chinese in
particular were struck by the contrast with their own past experience of Japanese conduct.
One Nationalist assistant of Admiral Chan Chak who had escaped from the colony shortly
after the takeover declared to a British newspaper in early February 1942 that the Chinese
civilians in Hong Kong had been “unusually well treated by the Japanese”.353
4.43 Responses of the Hong Kong Elites
The lunch held by Lieutenant-General Sakai for the gentry in the Peninsula Hotel on
10 January 1942 was attended by 133 of the 137 original invitees. At the top of the guest list
350
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 122-3,127. See also postwar testimony of Major Hirao Yoshio of the Kempeitai,
trial of George Wong, HK RS 2-1-1513.
351
“ Koa Kikan Gyomu Hodo”, no. 2, 251.
352
Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 124; report of William Poy, CO129 590/25, 80. For a similar
impression, see statement of Gustavo Velasco forwarded by George Ogilvie Forbes of the British Legation in
Havana to Foreign Secretary Eden, March 21, 1944, CO 129 591/4, 37.
353
Comment of Mme Liang Hanzao quoted in Daily Express, London, February 4, 1942, cutting filed in CO 129
590/23, 266. See also letter of Yu Yuen Kee of Oriental Academy, Chungking, cited in Special Report on Notes
on Conditions in Hong Kong after the surrender taken from material gathered by Postal Censorship, Calcutta,
CO 129 590/24, 187; Tang Hai, “Xianggang Lunxian Ji”, 233-4; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 9.
150
were Robert Kotewall and Shouson Chow, now relieved of their British titles in the interests
of Asianization, and referred to in the official media as Mr. Lo Kuk-wo and Mr. Chow Shouson. Each in turn got up to respond to Sakai’s address. Kotewall began his remarks by
expressing his appreciation “that the Japanese Army had avoided harming the people of Hong
Kong or destroying the city” and noting that the object of Imperial Japan was “to release the
races of East Asia”. With regard to Sakai’s appeal for help in reviving the colony, he stated
that he and his colleagues would “put out all our strength in Hong Kong to cooperate with the
Japanese Army authorities”, and that they were indeed “very fortunate” to have been “placed
under the instruction” of Sakai and his senior officers. He concluded by proclaiming, “We
thank the Emperor of Japan, and banzai [may he live forever]!” After expressing that he
“agreed heartily” with everything that Kotewall had said, Chow stated that his long residence
in the colony had shown him that the Hong Kong Chinese fully understood the need for
cooperation between Japan and China that General Sakai had “so kindly” offered, and also
concluded by proclaiming, “Banzai!”354
Three days later Kotewall and Chow were appointed Chairman and Vice-Chairman,
respectively, of the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee, whose other seven members were all
conspicuous figures in the local elites and business world. Several had occupied the seats set
aside for Chinese in the prewar Legislative Council, and most had served on the District
Watch Committee and the other associated bodies that managed the Chinese community's
internal affairs. They included M. K. Lo (now Asianized as Lo Man-kam); Li Koon-chun, the
rice merchant, and his younger brother Li Tse-fong, the Managing Director of the Bank of
East Asia 355 ; Tung Chung-wei, the proprietor of the Dao Heng Bank, who was currently
354
Hong Kong News, January 12, 1942.
The banker Li Tse-fong (later to play an important role in the Chinese representative Council established by
the Japanese) became an unofficial justice in 1931, a member of the District Watch in 1940, and an unofficial
member of the Legislative Council in 1941. He was also a member of the Board of Review, the Board of
Education, the Auditors Advisory Committee (for accounts in Chinese), and a member of the Court of the
355
151
serving as Chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; and Li
Chung-po, the Chairman-Elect of the Tung Wah Hospital Group.356
On 25 February, Kotewall and Chow presided again at a ceremony held at the King’s
Theatre to celebrate the arrival of Governor Isogai357 that was attended by most of the local
leaders who had attended the same stately venue five months earlier to welcome British
Governor Young. Kotewall declared on behalf of the Chinese community that the one and a
half million people of Hong Kong “shared in the reflection of the glory of the Imperial
Army” and thus “enjoyed the benefits” of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. He
then likened Isogai’s donation of rice to the public to “the gesture of a father towards his
children” before concluding, “We all know that Your Excellency has been long in China.
You fully understand our customs and have always entertained the utmost affection for the
Chinese people. . . . We are thankful that you have come to govern this place, and we are
extremely glad to await your instructions”.358
On 30 March, the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee was replaced on Isogai's orders
by two more permanent bodies, the four-member Chinese Representative Council and the
twenty-two-member Chinese Cooperative Council, of which Kotewall was appointed
Chairman of the former and Chow of the latter.359 The two Chinese Councils, as they became
known, were joined by all the remaining members of former Rehabilitation Advisory
Committee, while the Chinese Cooperative Council was also buttressed by the addition of
several leading businessmen, including Tang Shiu-kin, Manager of the Tang Tin Fuk Bank
and Vice-Chairman of the China Bus Company; Kwok Chan, Vice-Chairman of the Hong
University of Hong Kong. He was appointed to the Urban Council by the Governor in 1940.
356
Hong Kong News, January 13, 1942.
357
The King’s Theatre had not at this stage been renamed the Yu Lok.
358
Hong Kong News, February 26, 1942.
359
Hong Kong News, March 31, 1942. According to one contemporary source, the Japanese were aware of
prewar rivalry between Kotewall and Chow, and wished to avoid any possible friction that might arise from
having them on the same body. See Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 64.
152
Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; and Ip Lan-chuen, Chairman of the United
Chinese Industrialists Association. 360 Notably absent from the elite line-up were two
prominent members of the prewar Legislative Council, Tso Seen-wan and T. N. Chan.
Pleading illness or some other excuse, they had slipped away to the mainland and the shelter
of neutral Macao, respectively.361
With these two exceptions, every local Chinese and Eurasian notable who had loomed
large in public life during British rule came forward in response to the Japanese call. No
single motive is adequate to account for the near-unanimity of the elite's behaviour. One
explanation that later emerged was that the local leaders had been granted permission for
their behaviour by their old British chiefs. Kotewall and Chow later recalled that on 1 January
1942, they had been approached in the China Building by R. A. C. North, the prewar
Secretary for Chinese Affairs; J. D. Fraser, the prewar Secretary for Defence; and Sir Greville
Alabaster, the prewar Attorney General, and asked to work with the new Japanese rulers to
help safeguard the interests of the Chinese community. Although there are no grounds for
questioning the granting of such permission, as the meeting in the China Building was later
confirmed by surviving officials on the British side,362 the degree of cooperation it authorized
remains unclear. Indeed, it seems doubtful that North and his colleagues had envisaged
Kotewall’s and Chow’s warm expressions of gratitude to the Imperial Army or triumphant
calls of “banzai!”
360
Hong Kong News, March 31, 1942.
Translation of captured Japanese indictment of 1943, CO 129 592/6, 134, 137; Tse, San Nian, 62.
362
Kotewall circular letter, May 1946, in private papers of Helen Zimmern; Kotewall testimony, Noma trial WO
235/999, 273. See also Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 242-3; Ching, The Li Dynasty, 107. For a
similar claim in the case of M. K. Lo, see Gittins, Eastern Windows, 133; Stanley, Behind Barbed Wire, 122.
Peter H. Sin is also said to have been authorized by the British to work with the conquerors. Snow’s interview
with Charles Sin, June 29, 1995. For confirmation from the British side, see North’s remarks to Gimson quoted
in Gimson’s internment diary, April 14, 1944; North’s public statement of October 1, 1945 quoted in the South
China Morning Post, October 2, 1945. North informed Gimson that he had advised Kotewall to sign a document
formalizing the imprimatur. According to Kotewall’s son, such a document was indeed drawn up and signed, a
fact verified after the war. Snow’s interview with Mr Cyril Kotewall, June 26, 1995. However, no trace of it
appears in either the London or Hong Kong archives.
361
153
What is clear is that the takeover was received with true enthusiasm by one or two of
the local business leaders. After being released from internment, the merchant Chan Lim-pak
lost no time in offering his services to the invaders and in renewing his prewar connection
with Governor Isogai. He is believed to have suggested establishing the two Chinese
Councils, and even to have provided the Governor with a list of possible members.363 The
banker Lau Tit-shing, who, like Chan, had exhibited open support for Japan in the prewar
years, now surpassed himself with his aggressive endorsements of the Japanese war effort.
Both hard-core partisans were chosen by Isogai to join Kotewall on the Chinese
Representative Council, the more senior and prestigious of the new consultative bodies. If
Kotewall and Chow had been cast as the colony's Petains, these two were the Hong Kong
Lavals.
Further evidence of such enthusiasm may be found in those operating the local
Chinese press. The Wah Kiu Yat Po (Overseas Chinese Daily), one of the principal Chineselanguage newspapers, had resumed operations the day after the British surrender, joined by
two of the four leading Chinese papers by 3 January. One mainland Chinese reader observed
that the editors of these papers were “doing their merciless utmost to find fault with all kinds
of shortcomings in the former British administration”. Interpreting this behaviour as a
reaction to the censorship of the Hong Kong Chinese media that the British had imposed for
the past sixteen years, he deduced that local editors were seizing the opportunity to vent
“their accumulated rage”.364
One partial and, at first glance, rather startling exception to the general acquiescence
was the case of M. K. Lo. Many observers had taken it for granted that Lo, the scourge of
363
Tse, San Nian, 61-2, 65.
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 89, 116. The other two papers were the Xunhuan Ribao (Cyclical Daily) and the
Huayu Ribao (China World Daily). For mainland readers’ comments, see autobiography of W. W Yen, quoted in
Tse, Xianggang Kang Ri, 77.
364
154
British injustice, would be more zealous than anyone in his embrace of the new regime,365
failing to recognize that Lo had always been something of an independent spirit. He took his
seat successively on the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee and the Chinese Cooperative
Council, but by all accounts made little effort to disguise his reluctance to hold any public
office and his aversion to everything Japanese. 366 He was reported to have registered his
displeasure at sitting on the Cooperative Council by making no contribution to the Council's
proceedings, confirmed by surviving records of Council sessions.367 Asked on one occasion
by the Japanese military chiefs what the Army could do to improve its relations with the
Chinese community, he broke his silence long enough to comment that it would help if the
troops would desist from urinating in public places.368
4.5 Factors in the Collaboration between the Japanese and Hong Kong Elites
Several factors led the local elites in Hong Kong to collaborate with the Japanese. At
the very beginning, fear was, of course, a significant factor; leading figures were haunted by
the thought of what might happen to them and their families if they failed to cooperate. Even
M. K. Lo was described by one British onlooker as having been “weak and frightened”.369
Although the gentry might have been expected to follow the example of Tso Seen-wan and T.
N. Chan and flee to Macao or the mainland, doing so would have been very difficult, as most
were watched very closely and their movements severely restricted; indeed, several were not
allowed to sleep anywhere other than their mansions without the knowledge of the Kempeitai.
365
Fehily conversation with Ride, December 18, 1942, CO 129 590/22, 162.
Fehily conversation with Ride, December 18, 1942, CO 129 590/22, 162. See also reports of Professor
Gordon King, March 18, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 139 and of Dr Wen Yuanning quoted in N. L. Smith minute to
Monson January 7, 1944, CO 129 591/4, 70. One Japanese resident appears to have argued on these grounds for
Lo’s exclusion from the Chinese Cooperative Council: he was, however, overruled by Isogai, who professed
himself anxious to secure the support of the Chinese community by “introducing fair politics”. See Hong Kong
News, December 24, 1944.
367
Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 122; “The Lo Dynasty” Hong Kong Inc., February 1990, 79; minutes of
the Chinese Cooperative Council sessions of May 3 and 15, June 17, August 16 and 19, October 25, and
November 15, 1943. Lo is listed as having been present at each of these meetings but, unlike his colleagues, is
not recorded as having made a single utterance at any of them.
368
Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 122-3; “The Lo Dynasty”, Hong Kong Inc., February 1990, 79.
369
Report by M. Heyworth of Unilever, quoted in Gent Minute, October 23, 1942, CO 129 590/124, 4.
366
155
Second, mixed with the elites’ fear was a fairly large dose of pragmatism. As most of
the gentry and business chiefs had little opportunity to form a clear picture of the events
taking place in the wider world,370 no one could be sure how the war would end. It was
possible that the British would one day recover the colony, and some leaders may have
thought it wise to insure themselves against such a scenario. Certainly Kotewall and Chow
(unlike Lau Tit-shing) appear to have been rather careful to avoid denouncing the British
explicitly in their public statements, confining themselves instead to vague references to
“century-old aggression” and “the returning dawn”.371 Nevertheless, as the fall of Hong Kong
was followed by the still more spectacular fall of Singapore and the newspapers celebrated
Japan's triumphant assault upon one European possession after another, it seemed much more
likely that British rule had been extinguished forever, and that Japan would remain in control
of the colony for much time to come. 372 Under such circumstances, the elites viewed it
pragmatic to cooperate with the Japanese.
Third, local leaders and elites wanted to hold on to the status that they had won, in
some cases quite recently, as the chief figures of local Chinese society. As this status had
accrued to them in large measure from their appointments to the councils and committees of
the British colonial government, it appeared that one obvious way to preserve it was to accept
similar appointments from the successor regime. One Japanese official who assumed his post
in Hong Kong in the early months recalled leading citizens being drawn to “whoever was in
authority”. 373 Moreover, wanting to restore order in the face violent activity by local
370
In the aftermath of the British surrender, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were completely cut off from each
other, and throughout the occupation they were run as separate administrative areas. See report of conversation
of Comte R. de Sercey, formerly of the Chinese Postal Service, with Ronald Hall, acting British Consul-General,
Chungking, June 27, 1944, CO 129 591/4, 15; Fan Jiping, “Xianggang Zhi Zhan Huiyilu”, in Da Ren, No.8,
December 1970, (Hong Kong: Da Ren Publishing, 1970-1973), 6.
371
Hong Kong News January 28, 1942 and February 26, 1942.
372
After the end of the war, the colony’s English-language press commented on the attitude of those Hong Kong
Chinese who had “thought the British had gone for good”. See South China Morning Post, September 10, 1945.
373
Snow’s interview with Mr Oda Takeo, former Head of the Foreign Affairs Department, September l, 1995.
156
criminals who had gripped the colony in the aftermath of the takeover, they were naturally
inclined to look to the Japanese troops as restorers of calm.374
Fourth, they wanted, perhaps most of all, to resume their business operations. Within
days of the conquest, the leading merchants voluntarily began to turn to the new regime for
help in restoring a normal business environment. On 31 December 1941 , one week before
Sakai had issued his lunch invitation, Chung-wei Tun and the Hong Kong Chinese General
Chamber of Commerce submitted a petition to the Gunseicho seeking a repeal of a ban on the
acceptance of any banknotes above the value of HK$10, which had ostensibly been imposed
to control inflation, arguing that this currency measure had thrown the markets into confusion
and crippled any prospects for the resumption of large-scale trade.375 Two weeks later, the
Chamber went on to draw the Gunseicho's attention to another pressing financial need: If
businesses were to recover, the authorities must arrange for an adequate money supply by
allowing customers to draw on their deposits in the various British and Allied banks, which
had been sealed off by the Imperial forces.
In the meantime, leading firms were also attempting to ascertain if the Gunseicho
would allow them to resume operations. By 20 January 1942, the four major Hong Kong
Chinese department stores, Wing On, Sincere, Sun, and the China Merchandise Emporium,
were “making preparations to resume business” by notifying the authorities of the quantity
and value of their inventory and seeking to open their doors.376 On 27 January, the Hong
Kong Chinese Chamber presented a range of proposals to Yazaki's Civil Affairs Department,
one of which was reopening local banks. On the following day, one of the main Hong Kong
374
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 131-2.
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 114. Sa observed that the local merchants were keen to do business. See also
Hong Kong News, January 13, 1942; report of Professor Gordon King, March 18, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 139;
Elizabeth Sinn, Growing with Hong Kong: Bank of East Asia, (Hong Kong: The Bank of East Asia Limited,
1994), 67.
376
Hong Kong News, January 20, 1942.
375
157
Chinese industrial enterprises, the Nanyang Tobacco Company, asked the authorities for
permission to reopen.377
Lastly, they wanted to do what they could for the public, as their pursuit of wealth had
not precluded their attention to the tradition of assisting the less fortunate,which they aimed
to continue practicing. The gentry felt that they were duty bound to engage the new regime in
a dialogue with a view to relieving the general hardship, and felt no need to await the
prompting of North and other British officials to do so.378 Their efforts included an appeal for
the restoration of public utilities and the improvement of public safety through such measures
as providing assistance to the locally assembled Street Guards. Three days after the newly
constituted Rehabilitation Advisory Committee submitted proposals to the Gunseicho for the
restoration of “peace and security” on 13 January 1942, Kotewall and his colleagues called on
Sakai to discuss ways in which the general anarchy might be brought to an end.379 In several
areas, notably the restoration of order, the interests of the public coincided rather obviously
with those of the gentry themselves, but there were also occasions on which the displayed a
clear-cut concern for the less privileged.380
Several scholars have ascribed the propensity for collaboration among the Anglicized
Chinese and Eurasian gentry of Hong Kong to their colonial education, which had prevented
them from developing an appropriate sense of national pride. Others have blamed the poor
377
Hong Kong News, January 19, 1942.
Dr. Bobbie Kotewall confirmed firsthand that the rumoured meeting between the Secretary for Chinese
Affairs (R. A. C North), Grenville Alabster (Attorney Council), and J. A. Fraser (Defence Secretary) did indeed
occur. This secret meeting took place after the British defeat but before the officials were transferred to Stanley,
so it must have been after Christmas Day. The venue was the Chinese Building, where Kotewall was meeting
with Chinese friends to try to formulate coherent policy. The British knew at this stage that Kotewall would
probably be asked to emerge as a leader of the Chinese community, and he was told “not to refuse the Japanese”.
He was also asked to pass the message to Sir Shouson Chow. Dr. B. Kotewall, Kotewall’s daughter, as
interviewed by Dr. A. Birch. See Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 124.
379
Hong Kong News, January 14, 1942; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 157.
380
In late January, 1942, for example, when most of the public utilities had been brought back into service, both
the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee and the Hong Kong Chinese Chamber were peppering the Gunseicho
with appeals to reverse the sharp increases in the water and electricity rates. On 18 March, when public transport
was once again functioning, Kotewall and his colleagues petitioned Governor Isogai’s new Communications
Department to stop a hike in tram fares that had just been announced. Hong Kong News, January 28, 1942 and
March 19, 1942; Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 113, 153.
378
158
treatment of the local elites by the British administration, which had left them feeling that
they had little or nothing to lose from a change in regime. While each theory contains an
element of truth, none can completely explain their actions. In spite of building sizeable
business empires on the mainland and in Southeast Asia, the Hong Kong gentry were
generally a parochial people. In accord with one autumn 1942 report that noted that they “did
not take any interest in the general war or even in the war in China”,381 their concerns were
focused on the small coastal enclave where they had been raised and lived and had founded
their fortunes. As such, their loyalty was to Hong Kong, the colony that had allowed them to
prosper, and Hong Kong alone.
4.6 Using the Chinese to Govern the Chinese: The Role of the Chinese Councils
The arrival of the new governor was the signal for important administrative changes,
one of which was the formulation of the doctrine of “using Chinese to govern Chinese”.382 At
the centre, the Civil Administration Department was replaced by the Governor's Office or
Secretariat responsible to the Governor and headed by a high-ranking Japanese military
officer, Major-General Ichiki, assisted by a Japanese civilian. It was organized into several
bureaus and departments, including a Civil Affairs Bureau, which seems to have been a
policy-framing body; the Bureaus of Communications, Information, and Repatriation, which
were placed directly under the Chief of the Governor’s Office because they addressed the
important matters of Japanese security, propaganda, and relations with the Chinese; and
several functional departments addressing public works, water, medical and health services,
and electricity (see Figure 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3).383
381
Notes of Gent and other Colonial Office staff on conversation with escaped British bankers T J. J. Fenwick
and J. A. D. Morrison, April 7, 1943, CO 129 590/122, 168.
382
Tse, Zhanshi Ri Jun, 115; Tse, San Nian, 59; Kobayashi, “Taiheiyo Sensoka No Honkon”, 215.
383
Japanese experts and administrators were employed in the various bureaus. They numbered at least eight
hundred. They were brought in as experts in administration, banking, education, law, land and housing, medical
and dental services, and economics to occupy key positions, carrying out a policy to accord with Japanese war
needs. The number of Chinese associated with the administration was also large, comprising the middle and
lower ranks of the Government service and the officials in the eighteen district bureaus and wards.
159
160
161
162
As the Japanese consolidated their rule, they recruited many of the same local leaders
who had worked with the British to serve as members of the Chinese Representative Council
and the Chinese Cooperative Council, both of which, as previously discussed, consisted of
leading Chinese businessmen. 384 Impressed by Japan's rhetoric of “Asia for Asians”, several
Chinese appeared enthusiastic to work with the Japanese. Although accusations of
collaboration were generally unjustified for the majority of the Hong Kong Chinese, they
were certainly more than justified for Chan Lim-pak, arrested by British authorities in the
midst of the siege of Hong Kong on suspicion of leadership in fifth-columnist activities and
later killed by an American bomber in 1944 while en route to Japan. Born in 1884 in Namhoi,
Kwangtung Province, he became very wealthy as a Cantonese merchant and a comprador for
various foreign firms. By 1920, he had become the Chairman of the General Chamber of
Commerce of Canton; President of the Canton Chinese Silk Merchants Association, the
Canton Mining Association, and the Guangdong Export Association; the Cantonese
comprador of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation; the manager of numerous
Chinese firms; and a director of the Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company. As a dangerous
and altogether unscrupulous reactionary in his youth, he had organized the notorious
Merchant's Volunteers of Kwangtung, which seized the city of Canton in 1924 in an effort to
crush the adherents of the revolutionary party of Dr. Sun Yat-sin. After a brief period of riot
and disorder, he was driven from Canton. Taking refuge in Hong Kong, he ended his
384
There were naturally some developments in the machinery regarding cooperation with the Chinese
community as set up by General Isogai in February 1942. The two Chinese Councils were increased in
membership, but otherwise continued with little change. The strongly pro-Japanese Chan Lim Pak, former
Chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, joined the Representative Council on 17 April 1942,
increasing its number to four, and remained a member until he was killed in an air raid in December 1944. In
February 1945, General Tanaka increased the membership to five, and after the death of Lau Tit-shing in April
1945, increased it to six. Sir Robert Kotewall remained its Chairman, and while in that position was forced to
support the Japanese line, though his public utterances became increasingly devoted to purely Chinese
community interests, and in 1945 he absented himself for some time on grounds of ill health. The Chinese Cooperative Council continued to work under the direction of the Representative Council. In February 1945, its
number was increased to twenty-four and, although changes in membership inevitably occurred, Chow Shou-son
remained as Chairman. See Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 124-138.
163
notorious career by leaving the colony to skip bail rather than answer charges before the court
for embezzling the funds of the Nanyang Brothers' Tobacco Company.
According to Henry Lethbridge, Lau Tit-shing was also “very pro-Japanese”, having
been “thoroughly brainwashed by his early education in Japan”.385 Indeed, when Lau died in
April 1945, he was honoured by the Japanese governor. Lau Tit-shing was a successful but
relatively obscure Chinese merchant who had operated according to the traditional manner
under British rule in Hong Kong. Educated in Japan, he maintained his connections with
Japanese friends and served as president of the Chinese-Japanese Returned Students'
Association. Little was heard of him until after the fall of Hong Kong, when he began writing
to the Hong Kong News. In one of these communications prior to the fall of Singapore, he
had written,
The fall of Singapore will be of great benefit to overseas Chinese. . . . Britain has
encouraged Japan and China to slaughter each other, hoping that she could profit by
their wounds to swallow them both up at once. . . . We must fight there [in Burma]
with the ferocity of animals. . . . Our method must be to add the totality of our
Chinese forces to the Japanese Army and fight together.
Holding beliefs so completely in accord with those of the Japanese made him a natural target
for collaboration.
Except for Chan Lim-pak and Lau Tit-shing, no Chinese leaders collaborated as
actively with the Japanese as they had with the British. By mid-1943, many had realized that
the war was no longer in Japan's favour, as well as “that in many ways Japanese colonialism
was far more despotic, bureaucratic and corrupt, and less rational and efficient than the British
variety”. On a 25 December 1943 radio broadcast in honor of the second anniversary of the
Japanese occupation, Kotewall praised the progress made under the governorship of General
385
Lethbridge, “Japanese Occupation,” 110-1.
164
Isogai Rensuke, but demonstrated little of the enthusiasm that he had for the 1941 centenary
of British occupation, comparing 1942 to the first weeks of chaos after the invasion rather
than to the years of British rule.386 By 1944, local leaders had begun to avoid their duties on
the two Chinese Councils, while Kotewall and Li-Tse-fong withdrew from public life for
health reasons.
From a broader perspective, most Chinese leaders in Hong Kong likely collaborated
with the Japanese in the same manner as did the majority of Hong Kong's population: “with
reluctance and misgiving, and as a matter of physical survival”. As no one knew how the war
would end, especially with Japanese successes in China and Southeast Asia, fear and
pragmatism, as well as preservation of one’s interests, were no doubt strong motivations for
collaboration.
4.61 Effectiveness of the Chinese Councils
The main duties of the Chinese Representative Council and the Chinese Cooperative
Council were to convey to the Governor, to whom they were directly responsible, complaints
from the population as well as the decisions and policies of the government, and to advise the
government on matters concerning the population. As previously described, the Governor
appointed two men who had been members of the British Executive Council as Chairmen and
men who had been prominent during British Rule within various fields and who maintained
links with the general population through leadership or membership in various associations as
members. Although meeting very frequently to discuss issues, the Chinese Councils had little
power, being able only to make suggestions and to try to persuade the government to accept
them. Representatives of the Councils, including the Chairmen, held regular meetings with
the Governor, the Head of the military police department, and other heads of departments.
Requests by these members were very often turned down. Whereas some civilian department
386
Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 171.
165
heads were quite sympathetic to their plea for better treatment of the Chinese, they were often
deterred from supporting them by the presence of the Head of the military police department,
Noma Kennosuke. In fact, Noma was mostly responsible for obstructing requests, and the
Governor could never overrule him. Thus, from the beginning of their existence, the function
of the Councils was limited to conveying and explaining governmental decisions and policies
to the population while receiving little feedback from above.387
From their position at the top of the social tree, the two Chinese Councils were given
the task of serving as intermediaries between the conquerors and the public. The Cooperative
Council compiled the complaints of the different sections of the citizenry and passed them up
to the Representative Council, which conferred with Governor Isogai and his department
chiefs on a regular basis. Isogai and his colleagues in turn briefed the Representative Council
on their latest decrees, and the leading members of both Councils attempted to explain these
decrees to the public through a system of press conferences that they held, as did the Japanese
department chiefs, two or three times a month.
Retrospective accounts tend to portray the two Chinese Councils as bodies that merely
rubber-stamped Japanese policies. While they certainly had no part in major decision-making,
their advisory functions, in the earlier stages at least, may not have been negligible. A survey
of the colony conducted by the new regime’s Information Department observed that because
the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Hong Kong were of Chinese origin, it was
“certainly not the case that their opinion is ignored”.388 Several leaders who sat on the two
Chinese Councils were also assigned a specialist advisory role. In February 1942, for instance,
Lau Tit-shing was appointed Head of the newly organized Chinese Bankers’ Association,
387
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, chapter 6.
Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha hen; Honkon Senryōchi Sōtokubu Hōdōbu kanshū, Gunseika No Honkon:shinseisita
Dai Tōa no chūkaku,(Hong Kong: Honkon Tōyō Keizaisha, 1944), chapter 3.
388
166
being one of the Hong Kong Chinese bankers whom the Japanese believed would “give them
valuable help in the execution of various economic policies”.389
Within the Councils, which the Japanese administration regarded as little more than
listening posts in the population, institutes of public opinion, and gatherers of rumour, were
corralled many prominent and influential Chinese to serve as administrative captives of the
“New Order”. The Councils thus provided a façade of respectability, maintaining the illusion
that the Chinese were now governing themselves under the eyes of a benevolent Japanese
administration. Whenever they experienced difficulty in securing Chinese cooperation, the
administration sent the relevant matter to the Councils for deliberation, which, after approving
all measures “unanimously”, urged the Chinese to support the matter in a decree issued in the
name of the Chinese leaders. On important holidays, such as the Mikado's birthday, the
Council members were obliged to make public obeisance to Japan by marching en bloc from
the Council Chambers to the Murray Parade Grounds, where they stood at attention facing
north-northeast, the direction of the palace in Tokyo, then bowing continuously at the order of
the announcer.
Ostensibly for administrative purposes but in truth to gain control over them, the
Japanese organized the various professions and secondary industries into associations and
guilds, such as the Sino-Japanese Medical Association, the Bankers’ Association, the
Lawyers’ Association, the Firewood Syndicate, and the Druggists’ Syndicate. If, for example,
the Japanese wanted a thousand gallons of alcohol or a thousand ounces of quinine, they
would simply order the Druggists' Syndicate to provide it. As the Chairman and his officers
389
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 125. Help from Hong Kong Chinese business leaders was already being sought in
late January and early February, when Colonel Ikemoto, Head of the Economic Affairs Department of the
Gunseicho, convened meetings of bankers and merchants to discuss how local business might be revived. In
February, Tung Chung-wei of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce was appointed Chairman
of the new Gold and Silver Exchange. In early May, Lau Tit-shing, Tung Chung-wei, and Li Tse-fong were said
to have held a meeting in the boardroom of the Bank of East Asia for the purpose of forming the Chinese Bank
and theMoney-Changers’ Cooperative Association. See Hong Kong News, January 23, 1942; February 5 and 20,
1942; May 4, 1942; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 191, 194.
167
knew who had it in stock and in what quantity, they would in turn order local suppliers to
produce it.390
Despite being granted no direct power by the Japanese military administration, the
elites’ influence and that of their representative bodies was deeply felt throughout the Chinese
community. Later commenting on her father’s participation on the Representative Council, Dr.
Bobbie Kotewall stated that having no contingency plans of its own, the Chinese business
community had been completely dependent on the leadership of her father. When helping him
prepare many of the speeches that he delivered, she described how she and her father would
search for the right words until satisfied that the community would understand what they were
attempting to convey. Due to his influence, Kotewall appears to have assumed central
leadership of the Chinese community, with which he was able to shield the community from
the Japanese to a limited extent.391
4.7 Dynamics between the Japanese and Hong Kong Elites during the Middle Period of
the Occupation
As the months passed, the gentry’s tentative acceptance of the New Order began to
give way to a creeping disenchantment.392 The social status that they had enjoyed at the start
of the takeover was undermined by the onset of Nipponization and the imposition of a
Japanese ruling caste. Kotewall and Chow are reported to have been treated by the authorities
in an increasingly “cavalier manner”, and some of their colleagues encountered behaviour that
was much more demeaning. For example, at one banquet the government staged for the local
community leaders, a Japanese officer, irked by a minor solecism, walked across the room to
give one of the most conspicuous guests a resounding slap. Dr. Li Shu-fan, who was present,
390
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 150.
Dr. B. Kotewall, Kotewall’s daughter, as interviewed by Dr. A. Birch. See Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong
Eclipse, 128.
392
Some kind of chronology for this is provided by a daughter of Sir Robert Ho Tung, who records that “many
residents, including some of my family, had decided in less than a year after the occupation that Co-Prosperity
was not for them”. Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 127.
391
168
described how “every Chinese there” felt that blow as though it had been dealt to him
personally.393
At a December 1942 colloquium of leading citizens that the Japanese media had
organized to discuss Hong Kong's future role in East Asia, Li Chung-po, a member of the
Chinese Cooperative Council, took the opportunity to slip in a discreet but unmistakable
protest. “What we should like to ask the Japanese”, he declared, “is that they be kind enough
to offer us considerable shares of business without monopolising the larger businesses”.394
However, any opening the regime allowed to develop was liable to prove a mirage. In April
1943, for example, the Governor’s Office the Association of Chinese Lawyers of Hong Kong
were finally given permission to stage an inaugural ceremony one year after delivering their
first petition requesting permission to do so. Prominent among the members was Peter H. Sin,
the so-called ”Mayor of Hong Kong”, who hoped to return to his prewar legal practice after
his year-long service as Chairman of the Central District Bureau. His hope was subsequently
disabused when the Chief of the General Affairs Department in the Governor's Office
reminded Sin and his fellow solicitors that their function could only be to “assist in the proper
administration of martial law” insofar as it impinged on civil matters.395
Surviving records of a number of the routine weekly meetings held by the Chinese
Cooperative Council during the summer of 1943 disclose that the members had been
formulating a series of appeals. Via these appeals, they pressed for the release of goods from
the godowns (warehouses), and called on the government to allow time for inquiries that
might prevent the deportation of persons of substance as the result of “mistaken arrests” and
to take steps to decrease the suffering of the population by such means as increasing the rice
ration while decreasing its soaring price and improving the distribution of such staple
393
Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 243; Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 160.
Hong Kong News, December 12, 1942.
395
Hong Kong News, April 16 and 17, 1943.
394
169
commodities as firewood, cooking oil, and salt.396 All of these entreaties were submitted to
Kotewall and his three colleagues on the Representative Council, who then pursued them at
their regular audiences with Governor Isogai.
Their subsequent failure revealed that Kotewall and the others no longer retained
their early ability to wrangle concessions out of the Japanese. Isogai's responses amounted to
little more than a peevish reiteration of the celebrated British refrain of the period: “Don't
you know there's a war on?” He explained that he could not permit the release of large stocks
from the godowns because they would quickly be used up by businessmen intent on
pursuing their own selfish aims; that deportations were being conducted most stringently,
and while abuses had been committed, the victims were necessary sacrifices in the interests
of the majority; that the current price of rice, whose ration he could not increase, was already
excessively low, and that the government had incurred a huge loss by maintaining it; and
distribution depended on increasing the import of petrol, which the Governor's Office was
actively seeking to do.397
At the end of July 1943, local society was shaken by the disappearance of Dr. Li Shufan. For some months, Li had been hosting lavish parties, frequenting racecourses and dance
halls, and in general doing his best to convey that he enthusiastically supported the New
Order—while quietly planning his escape. Early one morning, he crept out of his house
dressed as a fisherman and slipped off on a pre-arranged sampan around the headlands of the
New Territories to the Chinese-held zone of Mirs Bay, abetted by several Japanese soldiers
whom he had bribed. A more ambiguous note was struck by Aw Boon-haw, the Tiger Balm
magnate from Singapore. At a rally commemorating the overthrow of the British, he
396
Minutes of the 117th, 134th, 135th and 146th meetings of the Chinese Cooperative Council, June 17, 1943;
August 16, 19, and 25, 1943; and October 1943. WO 235/999.
397
Isogai’s comments quoted in minutes of the Chinese Cooperative Council, June 17, 1943; August 19, 1943;
and October 25, 1943. For equally negative responses from other Japanese officials to similar appeals, see
remarks of Colonel Noma and Captain Ishikawa of the Kempeitai quoted in minutes of the Chinese Cooperative
Council, May 13, 1943 and June 17, 1943. WO 235/999.
170
“expressed deep sympathy” with the reconstruction of Hong Kong and said he knew how
terrible it was to be under the rule of the invaders. 398 On 20 February 1944, the second
anniversary of the founding of the Governor’s Office was celebrated as the first function held
in the newly completed Government House. Although the festivities had to be toned down in
keeping with the colony’s reduced circumstances, Governor Isogai had told Kotewall and his
colleagues to ensure that the public did not get the misleading impression that the war was not
progressing well for the Japanese. Over the course of the next year, the U.S. advance across
the Pacific would be portrayed as draining the life-blood from the American forces, and the
fire-bombing of Tokyo was announced in a statement of incoherent mendacity worthy of
Bunter: “Tokyo had not been bombed, the damage was very slight and only a few fires had
been started. Three American planes brought down over Tokyo were on exhibition. No raid
had taken place”.399
The regime took several initiatives in response to the groundswell of discontent to
recoup the support of the gentry and middle classes. In October 1943, Isogai announced the
establishment of a new civilian law court divided into a civil and a criminal branch. The
previous exclusive reliance on martial law, he observed to Kotewall and the other Chinese
representatives, had been ineffective in reassuring people and “enabling them to live in peace
and work contentedly”.400 In December, he proclaimed a general drive to cut down on red
tape and announced that all the decrees issued since the takeover would be re-examined, in
particular those regarding the close supervision of residents and every change of residence
inside its limits.
398
Speech of Aw Boon-haw, December 1943, quoted in Fortnightly Intelligence Reports no. 6 and 7, period
ended December 13, 1943, Far Eastern Bureau of the Ministry of Information, New Delhi, CO 129 591/4, 61.
399
Lindsay, Lasting Honour, 169. It is of course possible that this ridiculous statement was a piece of deliberate
sabotage on the part of the editors of the Hong Kong News.
400
Minutes of the 146th meeting of the Chinese Cooperative Council, October 25, 1943.WO 235/999. See also
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 60-1; Heasman, Kathleen J., “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures in Hong
Kong (25 December 1941-June 1945),” in Journal of the Hong Kong University Students’ Union Economics
Society, (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 1957), 66-7.
171
4.8 Dynamics between the Japanese and Hong Kong Elites during the Final Period of
the Occupation
4.81 A New Governor Arrives
On 24 December 1944, it was suddenly announced that Governor Isogai was being
transferred to a post in Japan to be replaced by Lieutenant-General Tanaka Hisakazu, who
had directed the Japanese landing in Guangdong Province in October 1938. In the subsequent
years, Tanaka had continued to head campaigns in the Province, and he now occupied Sakai's
former post as commander of the Twenty-Third Army in Canton. In February, Colonel Noma
was recalled to be succeeded as Chief of the Kempeitai by Lieutenant Colonel Kanazawa
Asao, a Kempeitai officer who had served for the previous six months in the Governor's
Office as assistant to the Chief of Staff.
Up to a point, this change over was a matter of straightforward court politics. In July
1944, Premier Tojo, upon whose patronage Isogai and Noma were entirely dependent, had
fallen from power in Tokyo as a result of the loss of Saipan.401 However, there were also
signs that the change was inspired by the Army’s wish to check the power and abuses of the
Kempeitai in Hong Kong, whose performance had been described as “deteriorating” by both
the Army Ministry in Tokyo and the Army garrison in the colony. Indeed, Colonel Noma was
reported to have been recalled to Japan “partly for this reason”,
402
and the new
administration’s systematic drive to decrease the power of the Kempeitai appears to support
this reason. Over the course of February 1945, Governor Tanaka replaced about 150
members of the Kempeitai in the colony with new personnel from Canton. At the end of that
month, he stripped the Kempeitai of the additional power that they had assumed in directing
routine police affairs and confined them to their proper functions of military policing and
401
Tse, San Nian, 51.
Statement of Major-General Tomita Naosuke, former Chief of Staff, March 23, 1946, Noma trial, WO
235/999 exhibit N and Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093 exhibit W.
402
172
countersubversion. Kanazawa, who was now assuming the dual role of Kempeitai Chief and
Police Commissioner, seems to have made some attempts to correct the abuses of Noma's
reign. Corruption and torture, he later claimed, were curtailed, and the gendarmes were
instructed to be “kind and bright” in performing their duties.403 Local testimony that random
killings had decreased and that a number of citizens who had been imprisoned for years were
released support Kanazawa’s assertions.404
As the arrival of Governor Tanaka brought no substantial improvement, simply
placing Hong Kong once again under the firm control of the Twenty-Third Army in Canton,
it marked a belated victory for the China faction in the Army. However, this no longer
implied, as it had three years earlier, that the colony would be coddled in the hope of creating
a political opening to the Nationalist regime. Hong Kong was no longer packed with
Nationalist politicians who might be persuaded to make overtures to Chungking on Japan's
behalf. Even if it had been, there was no longer any prospect that Chungking would have the
remotest interest in peace talks with Tokyo.405 The resumption of control by the TwentyThird Army was instead prompted by strictly operational thinking. With U.S. forces now
entrenched in the Philippines, Hong Kong was becoming vulnerable to a seaborne offensive.
Allied forces were also gathering strength in the Chinese interior, and it was conceivable that
Tanaka's troops might soon be obliged to abandon Canton and fall back on the colony in a
last-ditch stand. By absorbing Hong Kong, the Twenty-Third Army would be able to organize
a unified defence of the entire Guangdong region.406 It was recognized that the time had come
403
Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa at Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093, 324, 330, 359-60. See also
Kanazawa guidelines for police reported in Hong Kong News, March 15, 1945.
404
Tse, Zhanshi Rijun, 114.
405
Tse, Xianggang Kang Ri, 168.
406
In late 1944, the proposals for the administration of Hong Kong originally drawn up by the Twenty-Third
Army in January 1942 were revised to take account of these new strategic factors. See revised document quoted
in Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 328.
173
to deprive Hong Kong of its anomalous special status, a status that had become all the more
meaningless now that the colony was dependent on Guangdong for such little food as it had.
Terminating Hong Kong’s special status indeed made an impact, but the most obvious
consequence was not, as would be expected, reform, but rather neglect. Governor Tanaka
spent the bulk of his time in Canton, coming down to the colony for a maximum of one week
per month, thus allowing the occupation regime to grow increasingly feeble. After his return
to Japan the previous July, Chief of Staff Suganami had been replaced by a string of
successors whose tenures became ever shorter as more and more officers were recalled to
take part in the defence of the Japanese homeland. 407 Many of the key civilian heads of
departments were transferred in the same way, and by early 1945, as one Japanese witness
commented, the Governor’s Office was “unable even to look after itself”. 408 Tanaka
complained on one of his rare visits that the number of civilian officials was now too small to
keep the government going. The creation of the No. 1 and No. 2 Departments was not in
reality so much a mark of efficiency as an effort by Tanaka and his team to maintain control
within a sharply reduced sphere of operations.
The regime now had neither the means nor the inclination to attend to the finer details
of administering Hong Kong, which had become nothing more than an appendage of Canton.
By the summer of 1945, grass was growing on the streets. The old focus on public health was
visibly wavering, as the Governor's Office failed to maintain the cleaning of filters and the
chlorination of drinking water. Even some of the most cherished Japanese prestige projects
407
Samejima, Moritaka, Xianggang Huixiang Ji: Ri jun zhan ling xia de Xianggang jiao hui, (translated by Gong
Shusen; Hong Kong: Jidu jiao wen yi chu ban she, 1971), 90. The successors were Major-Generals Uzawa,
Tomita, and Fukuchi. Perhaps to disguise the rapidity of the turnover, no name is given by the Hong Kong News
to the Chief of Staff from spring 1945 onwards. Press conferences are usually said to have been given by an
anonymous Vice Chief of Staff.
408
Hong Kong News, June 30, 1944; September 21, 1944; December 1, 4, and 15, 1944; February 18 and 22,
1945; Samejima, Xianggang Huixiang Ji, 119. Officials transferred included Nakanishi, Chief of the Finance
Department, and his successor K. Ishii; Ichiki Yoshiyuki, Chief of the Civil Affairs Department; Sato, Head of
the Hong Kong Island Repatriation Office; Y. Uchima, Head of the Kowloon Repatriation Office; and Yamashita,
Head of the Area Bureau for Hong Kong Island.
174
were being discontinued. Progress on the grand war memorial in the Wanchai Gap slackened
under the impact of failing government finances, a shortage of local construction materials,
and American bombing. Ultimately, orders came from Tokyo that all work on the scheme
was to stop.409
In February 1945, shortly after the new governor assumed office, small increases were
announced in the membership of the two Chinese Councils: the Chinese Representative
Council was increased from four to five members and Chinese Cooperative Council from
twenty-two to twenty-four. The rationale for the increases, according to the official media,
was “to strengthen the civil administration of Hong Kong”.410 The gentry were now expected
to help in not only importing and distributing food but also preserving the crumbling
infrastructure and, more importantly, preserving order. In April, a Police Affairs Committee
composed of sixty “prominent citizens” was established under the chairmanship of Sir
Shouson Chow, one of whose functions was to advise Kanazawa, who “felt the necessity of
getting in touch with the real voices of the general populace”.411 Its main function, however,
was to maintain the services of the local police by raising funds for their upkeep and that of
their families.
4.82 Responses of the Elites
Many local Chinese leaders reacted physically to the reversals of the Japanese military
administration. Sir Robert Kotewall became subject to repeated bouts of angina pectoris,412
while Li Tse-fong developed hypertension. Li Koon-chun, Li Tse-tong’s elder brother and
Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Cooperative Council, came down with an unspecified illness
409
South China Morning Post, February 12, 1989; Tse, San Nian, 427; Birch and Cole, Captive Years, 112. As
the memorial was intended to emboy the spiritual force of Japan’s samurai warriors, the failure to complete it
carried a powerful symbolic message. Work on the planned Shinto Shrine and the Pagoda for the Buddha’s ashes
trailed off in a similar fashion.
410
Hong Kong News, February 24, 1945.
411
Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa, Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093, 325; 326. See also Hong Kong
News, March 15 and 17, 1945 and April 2 and 3, 1945; Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 136.
412
Snow’s Interviews with Cyril Kotewall and Helen Zimmern, June 26 and 29, 1995.
175
that was aggravated by a direct encounter with the colony's crime wave in the form of a
break-in at his office.413 In some cases, their physical symptoms were accompanied by clear
signs of mental anguish. Over the course of 1944 to 1945, several members of the Li family
took advantage of the regime’s lifting of controls on religion to seek consolation and guidance
from the Christian faith, including Li Tse-fong, who was baptized in March 1945 under the
name of Peter.414
While there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of these afflictions, whether physical
or mental, it is evident that many of the top leaders used them as a pretext for maintaining the
maximum distance possible from the Japanese. From 1944 onwards, members of both
Chinese Councils increasingly tended to “slacken off” and excuse themselves from meetings
with the Governor’s Office on grounds of ill health. 415 Kotewall seems to have been
especially prone to absenteeism. In the spring of 1944, he was “indisposed” for the best part
of three months. When the new Governor Tanaka invited him and his fellow Council
members to a special interview in February 1945, he was “unable to be present owing to
illness”. At the beginning of August, he was once again “convalescing”. In a statement put
out by the two Chinese Councils, he explained that he had been attending to Council business
by telephone or through “personal contact at his residence”, but had now been advised by his
doctor to have “a complete rest”. He was, therefore, “reluctantly compelled to give up all
public duties for one month”.416
Li Koon-chun also exploited his own ailment for maximum gain. By the beginning of
1944, he had stepped down from his post on the Chinese Cooperative Council and taken to
his bed.417 Most of the leaders were still too prominent and too closely watched to have any
413
Ching, Li Dynasty, 116-7.
Ibid., 120-1.
415
Tse, San Nian, 75.
416
Hong Kong News, April 14, 1944; June 25, 1944; February 25, 1945; August 3, 1945.
417
Li Koon-chum testified after the war that he had resigned from the Chinese Cooperative Council in 1943.
414
176
realistic chance of fleeing the colony, but after several months of bed-ridden seclusion, Li
Koon-chun believed himself sufficiently unobtrusive to attempt an escape. In September
1944, he fled with his family on a rickety boat to Macao, and was soon followed by Tung
Chung-wei, Chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, who
made a similar exit.418
Under these circumstances, the bulk of the broadcasts and public appearances were
increasingly made by the leaders who had inextricably committed themselves to the Japanese
cause. Their presence, however, was also beginning to fade. After issuing an appeal to the
public to remain calm and place their full confidence in the occupation authorities in midDecember 1944, Chan Lim-pak, the far-right businessman, applied for and was granted a
month’s sick leave, which he used to prepare for flight to Macao. He never made it; on 24
December, he fell in a hail of machine-gun bullets from U.S.. fighters attacking his steamer
as it was crossing the Pearl River Estuary. Chinese legend has it that he drowned trying to
rescue his concubine, who was sinking on account of a bag of gold she had tied to her
waist.419 After Lau Tit-shing, the pan-Asiatic enthusiast, dropped dead of a heart attack the
following April, the Japanese lost their last fervent supporter from the elites. That the
Japanese realized such a loss is reflected in the special letter of condolence brought to the
dead man’s family by a staff officer representing Governor Tanaka, a unique honour
conferred in token of “the meritorious services given by the late Mr Lau”.420
Contemporary sources, however, reported that he was still playing an active part on the Council in November of
that year. It would seem, therefore, that his resignation did not take place until the end of 1943 at the earliest. See
minutes of the 149th meeting of the Chinese Cooperative Council, November 15, 1943; Hong Kong News,
November 14, 1943; Ching, The Li Dynasty, 116.
418
Ching, The Li Dynasty, 11-2; Wah Kiu Yat Po (evening edition), August 26, 1945. The precise date of Tung’s
departure is unclear.
419
Hong Kong News, December 12, 13, 26, and 27, 1944; Tse, San Nian, 76. Tse dates this episode incorrectly to
August 1945.
420
Hong Kong News, April 11 and 12, 1945. It was intimated that the government would take care of Lau’s
family.
177
Although the Chinese Councils continued to function on into 1945, their members
had begun to feel less completely certain of Japanese victory in early 1944, as is suggested in
the slightly tremulous ending of a declaration issued on the second anniversary of Isogai’s
appointment to the governorship:
In the past two years, the living conditions of Hong Kong inhabitants have been
rather strained, but compared to other places, Hong Kong stands out as faring very
well. On entering the third year of the war, the hardships will perhaps be even greater
than in the past two years, but we hope that our brothers and fellow-countrymen will
respect this period of trials, withstanding tribulations and hardships; to surge forward
in the spirit of ever greater effort, in order to harvest the greater benefit, not only for
the inhabitants of Hong Kong, but for China and Japan.
In light of Japanese losses, the local elites had begun to prepare for the return of the British.
4.9 Comparison between the most prominent local Chinese leaders in Hong Kong and
Singapore during the Japanese occupation
An examination of the most prominent local Chinese leaders in Hong Kong and
Singapore during the Japanese occupation reveals that the Japanese sought to use Chinese to
govern other Chinese in the territories they captured. These leaders shared similar Western
academic backgrounds and had enjoyed good reputations since the pre-war era of the British
colonial government. However, the nature of the administration in each colony affected their
treatment by the Japanese.
4.91 Background of the two leaders—The Loyal British Subject
Sir Shouson Chow (周壽臣 爵士, 1861–1959) was a Hong Kong-born businessman
who was a Qing Dynasty official and a notable figure in the Government of Hong Kong. His
father was comprador of the Hong Kong Steamship Company. Among the third group of
Chinese overseas students in the United States in the 1870s, Chow studied at Phillips
178
Academy, Andover (class of 1880) and Columbia University. After graduation, he worked in
the Qing government. In 1881, he joined the Korean Customs Service under Yuan Shi-kai.
Later, he was the president of Tientsin China Merchant Steam Navigation Company from
1897 to 1903 and was the managing director of Peking-Mukden Railway in the Imperial
Chinese Railways of North China between 1903 and 1907.421 He was the Customs and Trade
Superintendent and Counsellor for Foreign Affairs in Newchwang (牛庄) between 1907 and
1910. During this period, he was promoted to Mandarin of the Second Rank. He left the Qing
government after the 1911 Revolution and became the director of various companies in Hong
Kong.422
Chow was appointed Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong in 1907. In 1918, he founded
the Bank of East Asia with three Chinese partners. He was the Chairman of the bank’s board
of directors from 1925 to 1929. In 1922, he was appointed a member of the Sanitary Board,
the precursor of the Urban Council and Legislative Council, where he served until 1931. In
1926, he became the first Chinese member of the Executive Council in Hong Kong and was
knighted. In 1933, he earned an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Hong
Kong.423
In circumscribing the role that Hong Kong played in the Chinese resistance, the
government mirrored the attitudes of the bulk of the British trading community. However,
Chow, as one of the prominent members of the gentry in Hong Kong, undoubtedly made
handsome gestures of support to the Mainland resistance. In 1936, even before all-out fighting
had started, Chow sat on the committee that had been set up to promote the sale of nationalist
government bonds.424 At the same time, in January 1941, Chow appeared at the broadcasting
station to deliver addresses marking the centenary of British rule in Hong Kong. He praised
421
Charles W. Chow, Grand Old Man of Hong Kong: Sir Shouson Chow (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2006), 65.
Ibid., 84.
423
Ibid.,133.
424
Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 33.
422
179
the ‘sound and just administration’ of the British and the security that British rule offered to
trade, investment, and industry.425
Similarly, Lim Boon Keng (林文慶, 1869-1957) was a second-generation Straits-born
Chinese. Born on 18 October 1869, Lim attended Raffles Institution, where he proved a
precocious student with an insatiable appetite for learning. His headmaster, RW Hullett, was
so impressed by him that he personally tutored him with a view to his winning one of the two
Queen’s Scholarships in 1887. His receipt of this scholarship enabled him to study medicine
at Edinburgh University, where he graduated in August 1892 with a Bachelor of Medicine
and Surgery, gaining first class honours.426
Both Chow and Lim worked for the Qing government after graduation. While Chow
was a diplomat in Korea, Lim was appointed Medical Adviser to the Ministry of the Interior
under Prince Su in 1911. Additionally, Lim represented the Chinese government as a delegate
to international medical conferences in Paris and Rome. When Dr. Sun Yat-sen became
provisional President of the Chinese Republic in 1912, Lim was appointed Sun’s confidential
secretary and personal physician. However, when Sun gave in to internal bickering and
allowed Yuan Shi-kai to become President, Lim resigned from Chinese government
service.427
Beyond establishing himself as a reputable medical doctor, Lim became very active in
public affairs, serving five terms on the Legislative Council from 1895-1921. In 1897, he was
made Justice of the Peace (attaining the same status as Chow in Hong Kong) at the
unprecedented young age of 28. 428 As the Chinese community’s representative on the
425
Lethbridge, ‘Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation’, 87-8.
http://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/limboonkeng/EN/SE02-EarlyLife.html (accessed December 24, 2010). (Ang, Seow Leng and
Bonny Tan, ‘Early Life’, Lim Bonn Keng: A Life to Remember, National Library Board, Singapore), (accessed December 24,
2010).
427
http://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/limboonkeng/EN/SE03-Education.html (accessed December 24, 2010). (Ang, Seow Leng
and Bonny Tan, ‘Education’, Lim Bonn Keng: A Life to Remember, National Library Board, Singapore), (accessed December
24, 2010).
428
In addition to his responsibilities on the Legislative Council, Lim was appointed to the Municipal Commission (1905426
180
Legislative Council in Singapore, Lim was ever mindful of his loyalty to the British Crown.
His family had been in the Straits for three generations, and he benefited from the British
scholarship and education system. Lim never lost an opportunity to demonstrate this loyalty.
In 1900, he founded the Straits Chinese British Association (SCBA) to promote interest in the
British Empire and loyalty to the Queen. The SCBA was also charged with advancing the
welfare of Chinese British subjects in the Colony and encouraging higher education. Lim was
the president of the SCBA in 1904 and 1906.429
4.92 Role in the Chinese Cooperative Council of Hong Kong and the Overseas Chinese
Association of Singapore during the Japanese Occupation
Sir Shouson Chow in Hong Kong
It seems likely that the Japanese wished to show favour to Chow, with whom they had
conducted business in the pre-war years. The families controlling the Bank of East Asia had a
history of contact with Japan going back many decades.430 Sir Shouson Chow, for example,
was chairman of the board of directors of the Bank of East Asia during the Japanese
occupation. Chow was also one of the directors of the China Merchandise Emporium. By the
summer of 1942, Chow appeared to have been benefiting commercially from Japanese favour.
Specifically, Chow was obliged to lend himself to the efforts of the Japanese Army
chiefs to wear down the will to resist on the Chinese Mainland. Time and again, he was
mobilized to appeal to the Nationalist Chinese leadership to come to terms. At a welcoming
lunch in the Peninsula Hotel, Chow declared that ‘from now on Japan and China would join
hands more and more.’431 As the top local leader in Hong Kong, he was visibly distressed by
1906) as well as the Chinese Advisory Board (1897-1898 and 1913-1922). Service in these capacities afforded him many
opportunities to petition the British colonial government for various improvements to the lives of the Chinese.
429
http://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/limboonkeng/EN/SE05-Public.html (accessed December 24, 2010). (Ang, Seow Leng and
Bonny Tan, ‘Public Service’, Lim Bonn Keng: A Life to Remember, National Library Board, Singapore), (accessed December
24, 2010).
430
A historian of the Bank records that in consequence of the ‘vital’ pre-war connection, the Japanese authorities in general
‘did not treat the Bank of East Asia severely’. Sinn, Bank of East Asia, 72.
431
Hong Kong News, January 12, 1942.
181
the need to take a public stand incompatible with the nationalist war effort. Chow, the onetime Mainland diplomat, is said to have cut ‘a pathetic figure, attempting repeatedly to
communicate to the Chungking government his entreaty that they withhold judgement on
him’.432
In April 1943, on the Emperor’s birthday, Chow and his colleagues on the two
Chinese Councils were required to bow reverently to the north-north-east in the approximate
direction of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. At the time of the Yasukuni Shrine Festival, which
was held to commemorate the Japanese war dead, all Hong Kong residents, wherever they
happened to be, were obliged to stand and observe a minute’s silence to express respect.
In February 1945, shortly after the new Governor assumed office, Chow was expected
to help not only in importing and distributing food, but also in shoring up the crumbling
infrastructure of Hong Kong, particularly in terms of the preservation of order. In April, a
Police Affairs Committee composed of sixty ‘prominent citizens’ was set up under the
chairmanship of the aged Sir Shouson Chow. Its main function was to keep the local police on
the beat by raising funds for their upkeep and that of their families.433
In May 1945, in his capacity as head of the Police Affairs Committee, Sir Shouson
Chow announced the establishment of a Cooperative Society to raise money from each social
group so that rice and other essentials could be purchased at low prices and distributed to all
members of the police.434 In July 1945, the Cooperative Council held a meeting to discuss
ways of working with the police in Tanaka’s new drive for the deportation of ‘undesirable
characters’.435
432
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 15; Hahn, China to Me, 328.
Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa, Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093, 325; 326. See also Hong Kong News, March
15 and 17 and April 2 and 3, 1945; Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 136.
434
Hong Kong News, May 6 and 14, 1945.
435
Hong Kong News, July 25, 1945.
433
182
Even with such actions on Chow’s part, in the post-war era, the British government
insisted that Chow had been ‘a loyal servant of the British’ and was ‘violently anti-Japanese’.
In any event, he was ‘too old to matter much now.’436 Chow was received with ‘high favour’
at Government House and ‘formed the backbone of the group of VIPs at all functions’.437 By
choosing, when the British surrendered, to work with the Japanese rather than rallying to
Chungking like model Chinese citizens, they proved that their loyalty was to Hong Kong
exclusively. They were thus, paradoxically, the segment of society on whom the returning
British could now best rely in the face of the intensified threat from the Mainland.438
Lim Boon Keng in Singapore
In Singapore in 1937, Lim founded and chaired the Straits Chinese China Relief Fund
Committee of Singapore to support China in her war efforts against the Japanese. He made
scathing attacks against Japanese imperialism on a number of occasions, incurring the wrath
of the Japanese authorities.439
In late February 1942, shortly after the invasion of Singapore, Lim’s family was
interned at a Japanese concentration camp on Arab Street. According to Shinozaki Mamoru,
Lim was so shocked that his voice was inaudible. However, he was able to get home with
Shinozaki’s protection cards. Lim was asked by the Japanese to become the leader of the
OCA (Overseas Chinese Association), an association created to serve the needs of the local
Chinese community with the approval of the Japanese. Lim refused, claiming that he was too
436
Monson minute, June 4, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 9.
T. M. Hazlerigg memorandum to Gent, December 31,1945, CO 129 594/9,151. See also WIS no. 7, November 6, 1945,
CO 129 592/6, 51; Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads, 254.
438
A British need for Chinese ‘loyal to the concept of a separate status for Hong Kong’ is referred to in Lethbridge, ‘Hong
Kong under Japanese Occupation’, 117.
439
In 1921, Tan Kah Kee founded Amoy (Xiamen) University to educate the Chinese in the Straits Settlements and China
and invited Lim Boon Keng to be the University’s foundation president. Lim accepted this honour without hesitation, leaving
his business interests in the hands of trusted friends and colleagues and taking no salary. However, Amoy University was
funded solely by Tan Kah Kee, and when his businesses were hit by the rubber slump of the 1920s, Lim was forced to raise
funds for the university personally. From 1926 to 1935, he made three trips to Singapore, Malaya, and Indonesia for
fundraising purposes. Lim resigned from Amoy University in 1937 after Tan Kah Kee handed the institution over to the
Chinese Government. By then, Tan Kah Kee’s businesses had failed, and he could no longer finance the university. Lim’s
long absence from Singapore meant the inevitable neglect of his many business interests. When he finally returned to
Singapore in 1937, he was nearly penniless. See http://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/limboonkeng/EN/SE07-Amoy.html (accessed
December 24, 2010).
437
183
old to take up the role of a president. Lim’s wife was then made to kneel down in the
scorching sun for 4 hours at a stretch, in addition to bearing other insults. Under the
persuasion of Shinozaki, who assured him that his role as president was merely to be a
figurehead who performed little work, Lim finally relented. The Japanese also appointed Lim
the Chinese consul-general in Singapore and Chairman of the Chinese Chamber of
Commerce.440
In March 1942, Lim was ordered by the Japanese to raise a ‘donation’ of fifty million
dollars for Japan. However, he was only able to raise twenty-eight million dollars with much
difficulty. In response to the anger of the Japanese, Lim made an emotional speech: ‘We
never told a lie. When we promised to give the military contribution, we mean to do it.
Financial conditions are now such as to be beyond our control. If we are unable to pay, then
die we will. I wish to point out, however, that the manner in which the Government raised this
military contribution is without any parallel in any country.’441 In the end, the Japanese agreed
to a loan for the remaining sum through the Yokohama Specie Bank. Until the end of the
occupation in 1945, the association acted as a go-between for the Chinese community and the
Japanese authorities.
Known as the grand old man of Singapore’s Chinese Society, Lim Boon Keng
appeared to support the Japanese Military Administration. In actuality, he practised passive
resistance. Lim knew that he was powerless to fight the Japanese, but he stood his ground by
taking little part in any of the OCA’s activities. Often, he would pretend to be drunk so that he
would not have to deal with the Japanese. After the War, he was exonerated from all blame by
the British authorities.442
440
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_855_2004-12-27.html (accessed December 24, 2010).
Oon, Clarissa, ‘Nanyang gentleman caught between two different worlds’. Straits Times (Singapore, April 7, 2008).
442
http://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/limboonkeng/EN/SE08-Last.html (accessed December 24, 2010). (Ang, Seow Leng and
Bonny Tan, Lim Bonn Keng: A Life to Remember, National Library Board, Singapore), (accessed December 24, 2010).
441
184
Chapter 5
Dynamics between the Japanese and the Masses in Hong Kong and Singapore
5.1 Winning the hearts and minds of the Chinese in Singapore: The Role of the Advisory
Council and the Epposho
Until the end of 1942, the only local people who played a role in the Japanese
government of Singapore were the few who held subordinate positions in government offices.
Political considerations were subordinate to military and economic needs and contingent upon
the restoration of “peace and order”. Thus, not surprisingly, the military’s monopolization of
the government left little room for anyone other than officers. However, as the Allies began to
fight back, more and more attention had to be paid to political considerations as part of an
overall defence strategy. By the spring of 1943, when Japanese expansion had reached its
outer limits, Japan had depleted a substantial proportion of its naval and air power and
resources in the operations in Guadalcanal and New Guinea, although it had not yet suffered
any decisive defeat. In the shift from an offensive to a defensive strategy, the new acquisitions
were no longer served as stepping stones to further expansion but simply the outer perimeter
of a defensive shield. The Japanese military administration’s overriding concern became
identifying a strategy to consolidate and “protect gains already made” and avoiding a
complete defeat.443
It was with this concern in mind that in a June 1943 speech to the Diet, Tojo promised
“participation in politics within this year to Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Celebes,
according to their cultural conditions”, 444 proposing that local inhabitants be appointed as
443
F. C. Jones, Borton, H., and Pearn, B.R., “The Far East 1942-1946,” in Survey of International Affairs 19391946, ed. A. Toynbee (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955), 111.
444
W. H. Elsbree, Japan’s role in Southeast Asian nationalist movements, 1940 to 1945, (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1953), 48 and 84.
185
government officials as much as possible, with those of superior ability being promoted as
often as possible. Realization of this proposal began on 3 October 1943, when the Malayan
Gunsei announced the formation of Consultative Councils in the provinces and the cities and
the participation of local people in the administration to secure greater cooperation from the
people in the war effort. Only one Japanese, either the Governor or the Mayor, would serve as
on the Councils as the Chairman to select the number of honorary Councillors that he deemed
appropriate from among the local inhabitants to serve an unspecified term, submitting their
names for approval to the Gunseikan. The Councillors should be men of wide knowledge and
influence; prepared to cooperate with the Gunsei; and numerically representative of their
ethnic groups in a manner roughly proportionate to their population in respective areas, with
weight being given to the Malays. There were no fixed days for meetings; the Chairman could
call a meeting whenever he deemed necessary, and could invite his staff to participate in the
proceedings.
The Syonan Consultative Council established on 7 December, 1943 consisted of six
Chinese, four Malay, three Indian, one Eurasian, and one Arab Councillor. 445 The Mayor
asserted that the Council was established to advise the Tokubetsu-si in the execution of its
general policies and to enable the people to participate in the administration of their own
affairs. The Council was therefore to discuss (and only discuss) matters of public interest,
with the agenda of each meeting being decided by the Government and then circulated to the
Councillors, who were to submit written opinions upon them before coming to the Council for
discussion. The final decision on issues rested with the Government. Reports of the first and
second meetings of the Council on 21 January 1944 and 7 August 1944, respectively, and the
address of the Mayor to the first meeting indicate that the matters discussed were primarily
445
Syonan Shimbun , December 7, 1943. They were Ching Kee Sun, Lee Choon Seng, Lim Chong Pang, Lim
Kian Beng, Lam joo Chong, Lim Siow Chong, Tuan Onan bin Haji Siraj, Galls bin Mayuhiddin, Tuan Raja Haji
Yunus, Tuan Daud bin Mohamed Shah, A.Yellappa, M. V. Pillai, Balbir Singh, C. J. Paglar, and Tuan Syed
Mohamed bin Alkaff.
186
identifying ways and means of strengthening the war effort, and concerned the welfare of the
people only insofar as it was incidental to strengthening the war effort.446
The establishment of the Syonan Consultative Council was followed by that an
Information and Publicity Committee had been formed 447 whose members had been chosen
from among the “leading” citizens of Syonan, with the Mayor acting as Chairman. The
Committee primarily engaged in two actions—providing information to the Chairman on
public matters at its monthly meetings after studying and investigating public tendency and
thought and, in turn, explaining the policies and actions of the Government to the public by
various means, such as lectures, round-table conferences, pamphlets, and public broadcasts—
both of which, the Mayor hoped, would encourage the people to “co-operate with the
government voluntarily”.
War setbacks compelled the military to re-evaluate its policy towards the Chinese,
which, as previously discussed, was particularly important as changes in the attitude among
high Gunsei officials in Tokyo and Syonan continued to emerge. It was under such
circumstances that the Imperial Headquarters-Government Liaison Conference of 31 May
1943 adopted the policies contained within the document “General Principles Governing the
Political Guidance of Great East Asia”. As part of the programme for solidifying the unity of
Asian countries, the Japanese government decided to allow indigenous peoples of the
446
Syonan Shimbun. January 17, 20, 21, 24 and 25, 1944 and August 2, 1944. Matters discussed at the first
meeting were “measures to be adopted to guide the public to render their co-operation in prosecuting the war
with all available manpower under the high spirit of labour. . . . Ways and means to improve economically, under
guidance, the present day livelihood of the general public to cope with prevailing condition and particularly in
reference to wearing apparel. . . . The question of how to increase the production of food-stuffs, the
encouragement of the production and the use of substitute foodstuffs, standardisation of the quantity of
foodstuffs for distribution, and measures to encourage the economizing in the use of wearing
apparel. . . .Measures to induce the public to exert themselves in a positive manner in defence in order to further
consolidate the defence of Malai”.
447
Syonan Shimbun. March 30-31, 1943. The members were Ching Kee Sun, Lu Tan Poh, Lim Chong Pang, Lim
Kiang Beng, G. H Kiat, Pan Ching Yen, Lim Cher Ming, Hu Mai, Onan bin Haji Siraj, Daud bin Mohamed Shah,
Tungku Hussain, Dr.Caus bin Mayuhiddin, M. V, Pillai, Balbir Singh, M. Sivaram, Dr: P. T. Nathan, Dr. C. J.
Paglar, A. J. Braga, Thomas Hope, and A. M. Alsagoff.
187
southern region to participate in local political affairs according to their ability.448 On the
question of Chinese political participation, however, there soon emerged an intra-factional
conflict between the hardline and moderate factions within the Army, with the hardliners
continuing to oppose the moderates’ calls for appointing Chinese to higher posts.449
In the end, compromise was reached when the document “Political Participation of
Indigenous Peoples” of 26 June was approved by the Liaison Conference, which contained
the clause, “The decision for the [timing] of their [Chinese] political participation should be
determined in accordance with the progress of the political participation of indigenous
peoples [Malays, Indians, and Eurasians]”. 450 However, the hardliners were by no means
happy with this compromise, as indicated by the remarks of Fujimura and Major General
Isoya Goro, a new Gunseikan. Fujimura, who had returned from Tokyo after attending a
meeting of military administrators, conveyed the hardline faction’s view by stating, “[The
hardliners] in the Army are not desirous of stimulating the political consciousness of the
Chinese. Therefore, they must not be appointed to higher administration posts in central and
provincial governments. Malays are preferred to fill these posts”. 451 Addressing the
Somubucho of Malayan state governments, Isoya stated that the hardliners wished to limit the
number of Chinese in the political council to “a minimum level”, but only so far as their lack
of representation would not “constitute an obstacle in getting their cooperation”.452
Within the Army in general, a strong antipathy towards the Chinese remained apparent.
Commenting on the lack of an understanding within the Army of the Nanyang Chinese,
General Inada Masazumi, Deputy Chief of Staff of the SEA, wrote that the Army had not yet
448
Hattori, Daitoa Senso Zenshi, 448-9; Sugiyanm Memo II, 410-1. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards
the Malayan Chinese”, 80.
449
Nampo Senryochi Jumin No Seiji Sanyo Ni Kansuru Ken, Rikugun Soan, June 18, 1943, Reel S584, in
Archives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo, Japan, 1868-1945, microfilmed.
450
Sugiyama Memo II, 436-7. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 80.
451
Japan, Dai-Ichi Fukuinsh, Shijitsu Chosabu, Marei Gunsei Gaiyo, 1946, n.p. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese
policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 80.
452
Marei Gunseikambu, Marei Kaku Shu (Shi) Somubucho Kaido Kankei Shorui Toji, July 20, 1943, n.p. Marked
“Top Secret.” Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 80.
188
“seriously grappled with the problem”.453 However, the opposition appeared to subside over
the following months. When advisory councils were organized in Syonan and in each Malay
state in December, not only were Chinese representatives included in the councils, but the
representation of the Chinese community was higher in proportion to other ethnic groups,
including the Malays, as shown in table 5.1 . Professor Itagaki Yoichi, former member of the
Gunseikambu research section in charge of political affairs, noted that the larger Chinese
representation reflected the growing Gunsei realization of the importance and strength of the
Chinese. 454 The general integration of the Chinese might, as Professor Willard Elsbree
observed, “serve to blunt Chinese opposition and prevent it from being the core of an antiJapanese movement. [However] the fact that other racial groups, such as Eurasians, Arabs,
and Indians, were included in the new effort would indicate that it was not just another tactic
to deal recalcitrant Chinese”.455
453
Inada Masazumi, Inada Nikki, July 26, 1943 (unpublished). Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 81.
454
Itagaki Yoichi, “Maraya Fukugo Shakai Ni Okeru Nashonarizumu No Hatten," Keizaigaku Kenkyu, no. 6
(November 25, 1961), 17, Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 81; Syonan
Shimbun, October 3, 1943.
455
Elsbree, Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 142.
189
Table 5.1
Proportionate Representation according to Ethnic Groups in Singapore (Syonan) and State
Advisory Councils, 1943456
Malays
Chinese
Indians
Eurasians
Arabs
Total
Syonan
4
6
3
1
1
15
Malacca
7
5
2
1
0
15
Penang
5
7
3
0
0
15
Johore
7
3
2
0
0
12
Negri
Sembilan
Selangor
7
3
2
0
0
12
4
6
4
0
0
14
Pahang
5
3
1
0
0
9
Perak
14
4
2
0
0
20
TOTAL
53
37
19
2
1
112
5.11 The Epposho
While Hamada was forced to follow the established Japanization programme in
education, he accomplished, in large measure, his objective of establishing communications
with the Chinese and improving relations with Chinese communities. It seems that Hamada
expended a large part of his energy in achieving this goal during his brief tenure as the
Somubucho. Prior to the delivery of his 31 May address to company representatives and
rikenyas, Hamada had held meetings with a number of influential Chinese about how to
improve Japanese-Chinese relations. Their suggestions provided him with useful ideas for
organizing an Epposho, an information office modelled after Sun Yat-sen’s Yueh pao she, an
innovative institution that provided a completely new direction to Chinese policy in Penang.
456
Itagaki, Keizaigaku Kenkyu, no. 6, 18. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 81.
190
Many civilian Gunsei officers involved in the project hailed it as the most constructive
programme, giving the credit without hesitation to Hamada for its initial success. 457 The
Epposho was designed for “establishing a self-sufficient Malaya, restraining and controlling
monopolistic Japanese firms and kumiais, relaxing suppressive measures toward the Chinese,
utilizing, under the slogan of a unified community spirit, Chinese labour and capital resources,
winning Chinese public sentiments, and promoting a Chinese cooperating spirit”.458 The idea
grew out of Hamada's conviction that the Nanyang Chinese “could not be ignored for the
solution of the China problem”, 459 which had been sapping Japan’s national and military
strength for the past seven years.
Hamada organized the Epposho as an agency charged with gathering and
disseminating information to “enlighten” the Chinese, studying their conditions to identify the
means of winning their hearts and cooperation, and providing a channel through which the
Chinese could cooperate voluntarily with the Japanese. Theoretically, the Somubucho of the
Penang State Government was the Head of the Epposho. However, personnel from the
Gunseikambu Research Department, a group of scholars recruited from the Tokyo College of
Commerce, actually ran the organization under the general supervision of Professor Akamatsu
Kaname, Chief of the Research Department, to whom Hamada and Captain Hidaka Shinsaku,
Commander of the Penang Naval Base, had entrusted the entire programme. Based on a
preliminary study of recruiting Chinese for the Epposho prepared by Mukai Umeji, one of the
Department's researchers, a number of candidates were interviewed, and thirteen intellectual
young Chinese were selected on the criteria that they were of good family and trustworthy. In
457
Uchida, Taiheiyo Senso Shuketsuron, 846-7; Itagaki, Yoichi, “Outline of Japanese Policy in Indonesia and
Malaya during the War with Special Reference to Nationalism of Respective Countries,” Annals of the
Hitotsubashi Academy II, no. 2 (April, 1952), 188. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 86.
458
Uchida, Taiheiyo Senso Shuketsuron, 846-7. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 86.
459
Correspondence with Hamada, July 23, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 86.
191
addition, the Gunsei authorities appointed twelve Chinese, prominent in business and
community circles, as advisers to the Epposho,460 all of whom, at Hamada's suggestion, were
guaranteed a means of livelihood and immunity from arrest.461
The Epposho initially served as a venue for receiving and addressing complaints from
Chinese residents. According to Kirita Naosaku and Hotta Takeo, coordinators between the
military authorities and the Chinese, most Chinese complaints dealt with the expropriation of
businesses and factories by Japanese firms, the high-handed actions of provincial government
bureaucrats, and Kempeitai arrests. 462 The Gunseikambu acted immediately upon these
grievances, sometimes over the objections and demurs of state officials and the Kempei.
Epposho workers at times appealed directly to the naval base command to prevail upon
obstinate bureaucrats, thus cutting through the otherwise unavoidable red tape. Although the
Epposho displeased provincial bureaucrats, Hamada and Hidaka approved its work, thus
insulating it from bureaucratic interference.463
As part of its programme to win the hearts and minds of the Chinese, the
Gunseikambu authorized the Epposho to provide recreational facilities for Chinese mariners,
transport rice by junks from Thailand, and distribute rice and other daily necessities to the
destitute at a reduced price in the Epposho’s name. As Kirita observed, the programme
prioritized establishing economic self-sufficiency over realizing high-minded theories or
460
“Penan Epposho Setsuritsu,” Chosabuho, no. 4 (June 20, 1944), n.p. Some of the selected Chinese were Lin
T'ing-shin, son of Teochiu financial tycoon Lin Lienteng; Lin Chien-hsiu, son of the Penang Chief Justice; Wang
Tsung-ching, a medical doctor; Chou Kuo-chun; Lien Fu-k'un, Chairman of the Chinese Association; Ch'iu Chifu; Lo Weng-yang; Chuang Jung-fu; and Ch'en Li-ch'an. Liu Ching-ts'ai and Sung Chen, both of whom were
captured KMT intelligence agents, worked for the Epposho. Interviews with Kirita, Naosaku and Hotta, Takeo,
(members of Epposho), November 19 and December 13, 1968. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 86.
461
Interview with Kirita, November 19, 1968. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 86.
462
Interview with Hotta, December 13, 1968. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”,
86.
463
Interview with Hotta, December 13, 1968; Itagaki, Keizaigaku Kenkyu, no. 6, 18. Cooperation between the
traditionally rival Army and Navy and good personal relations between Hamada and Hidaka appeared to have
contributed to the Epposho’s success in Penang. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 87.
192
engaging in propaganda for constructing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. 464
Having a special permit to possess their own vehicles, Epposho workers travelled extensively
throughout the state to listen to complaints, returning with valuable information that assisted
the Gunseikambu in administrative matters and in maintaining security. Because they were
immune from arrest, Chinese workers were able to discuss and criticize the Gunsei free from
fear of reprisal by the Kempei. The Gunseikambu respected their candid opinions, many of
which were translated into actual policy to the greatest extent possible.465
As the Epposho became a centre of political action, offering opinions and proposals
for reform in the Gunsei, it proved problematical for Fujimura, Hamada’s immediate superior
as Gunseikan and concurrently Chief of Staff of the Twenty-Ninth Army at Taiping. Fujimura
appeared not to be a whole-hearted enthusiast for the rapid expansion of Epposho activities, if
not for the institution itself. After the Epposho movement had spread from Penang to Syonan
and Kuala Lumpur by August, Hamada tried to introduce the programme on a much larger
scale to Taiping, an urban centre with a large Chinese population and the seat of the Malay
Gunseikambu. Being the Gunsei Executive Officer, Hamada was much concerned with
winning popular support for the military, which was vital in the event of an enemy invasion.
Conflict between the two officers was perhaps inevitable. While Fujimura viewed the
Epposho strictly as part of short-term military strategy and operations, Hamada viewed it
broadly from a long-term Gunsei objective. “Military necessity” had once again reared its
head. The disagreement ended in Hamada's reassignment in October 1944.466 With Hamada's
departure from the pivotal position, this worthy programme came to a standstill, and, not
464
Interview with Kirita, November 19, 1968. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 87.
465
Itagaki, Keizaigaku Kenkyu, no. 6, 18. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 87.
466
Correspondence with Hamada, August 4, 1966. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 87.
193
surprisingly, Epposhos founded in Syonan and Kuala Lumpur “did not produce the desired
result”.467
Despite its relatively brief period of influence, the institution of the Epposho was
responsible for several beneficial outcomes. First, it created a better understanding between
the Japanese and the Chinese, removing considerably, although not entirely, the barrier of
distrust the Chinese in Penang had been harbouring. An extraordinary episode of Chinese
defence for Japanese defendants during postwar trials in Penang illustrated the extent of
understanding and friendship that had been created by the Epposho venture.468 Second, the
Epposho was largely instrumental in maintaining the rice transport from Thailand and in
collecting and distributing other foods and necessities for Malaya. Under the Epposho’s
guidance, a group of Chinese rice merchants operated a junk traffic in rice from the North that
imported more than three thousand tons of rice per month at a time when Japanese overland
and seaborne traffic was largely paralyzed. The Chinese were now indispensable in supplying
rice, vegetables, and other goods for the military. In this manner, the Japanese-controlled
economy became largely dependent upon the Chinese, allowing them to play an increasingly
important role in the Malayan economy.469
Third, the successful Penang Epposho venture inspired Malays to petition the
authorities to organize their own Epposho. The first Malay Hodosho (Office of Help and
Guidance) was established in Penang in May 1945 as “the most suitable measure for the
understanding of the people in Malaya”.470 Most important in the creation of the Hodosho is
467
Itagaki, The Annals of Hitotsubashi Academy II, 189. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 87.
468
Interviews with Kirita and Hotta, November 19, December 13, 1968. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy
towards the Malayan Chinese”, 88.
469
Uchida, Taiheiyo Senso Shuketsuron, 847-8. Because the Teochius in Penang and Syonan were prominent in
the rice trade with Teochiu rice dealers in Thailand, this Japanese experiment helped the Teochiu Pang (group) to
rise to leading positions in the postwar years. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”,
88.
470
Itagaki, The Annals of Hitotsubashi Academy II, 189. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 88.
194
that the Gunsei authorities integrated the Epposho with the Hodosho in an attempt to
administer the Chinese and Malays as one Malayan people instead of dividing and ruling
them. As Elsbree and Benda point out, although the hostility between the Chinese and Malays
increased during the occupation, it was not “the result of deliberate Japanese policy”. 471
Indeed, the objectives of the Hodosho were “to foster and promote the spirit of mutual
understanding and cooperation of all communities, to eliminate antagonistic feelings and
racial prejudices through collaboration in the Hodosho, and . . . to re-create social unity in
Malaya by the people's awakening to common social responsibility and common
consciousness of their own homeland”.472 A postwar Chinese characterization of the Hodosho
as nothing other another form of police control under the cloak of maintaining law and order
is neither accurate nor just. 473 The Hodosho and Epposho were, instead, a desperate
experiment to win the popular support of all Malayan people irrespective of their ethnicity,
one that came too late to realize its objectives and ideals.
5.2 Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Chinese in Hong Kong: The Role of the
District and Area Bureaux and Wards
5.21 District Bureaux and Wards
The delegation of functions at a local level began in mid-January 1942, when the
Gunseicho assigned responsibility for maintaining the food supply in Hong Kong to the
prominent lawyer Peter H. Sin.474 Within several days, Sin presented his proposal: The entire
471
Elsbree, Japan's Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 149; Harry Benda, “The Japanese
Interregnum in Southeast Asia,” in Imperial Japan and Asia: A Reassessment, ed. Grant K. Goodman (New York:
Columbia University, 1967), 77.
472
Itagaki, The Annals of Hitotsubashi Academy II, 190. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 88.
473
Nan ch'iao Tsung-hui, Ta-chan yu Nan ch'iao, 44. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan
Chinese”, 88.
474
A solicitor, he was the principal of P. H. Sin and Company, Vice-President of the Chung Shing Institute of
Commerce, a member of the committee of the Diocesan School Old Boy’s Association, and a vice-patron of St.
John’s Ambulance Brigade. Apparently not of altogether pure Chinese blood, he was overshadowed at Hong
195
population should be registered by household, and each household issued a rice ration card;
Hong Kong Island and Kowloon should be divided into districts, and each district should
operate a rice-rationing station from which card-carrying citizens could collect their supplies.
The Gunseicho not merely accepted Sin’s scheme but assigned him the leading role in its
implementation, earning him the appreciative sobriquet of “the Mayor of Hong Kong” from
the Chinese public.475
Building on the framework envisaged by Sin, the authorities established twelve
District Bureaux for Hong Kong Island and six for Kowloon between January and July 1942.
The districts in Hong Kong were Central, Wanchai, Bowington Canal, Happy Valley, Causeway Bay, Shaukiwan, Sheung Wan (Western), Saiyingpun, West Point, Kennedy Town,
Aberdeen, and Stanley, administered by P. H. Sin, Ho Yat-yue, Ho Tak-Kwong, Ng Manchak, Kwok Hin-wan, Tsang Sau-chiu, Siu Wai-ming, Li Kai-sun, Suen Kwong-Kuen, Kwok
Man, Wan Siu-po, and Li Chung, respectively. The districts in Kowloon were Tsimshatsui,
Yaumati, Mongkok, Shamshiupo, Hunghom, and Kowloon City, administered by Leung Kai,
Fung Ho, Chung Yung, Ng Yee-kong, Lee Lan-sum, and Tai Yeuk-lam, respectively.
In addition to the basic tasks of household registration and rice rationing, the Bureaux
were assigned a wide range of responsibilities within their jurisdictions, including health and
welfare, the preparation of an annual budget, and the determination of the rights and duties of
the local inhabitants. Their most striking feature was their composition; starting with Sin, who
was placed in charge of the Bureau for the Central District of Hong Kong, all the Bureau
Chiefs, their deputies, and the twenty-odd members of their staff were local Chinese.
Moreover, each Bureau was advised by a District Assembly consisting of between five and
Kong’s social functions by his attractive wife, a Eurasian from Australia.
475
Hong Kong News, January 17 and 24, 1942; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 194-5; Hahn, China to Me, 323; Tse,
San Nian, 80.
196
ten Chinese householders.476 As if to emphasize their importance, the Bureau Chiefs were
granted the privilege of direct access to the Governor's Office. Although initially obliged to
support them with direct financial aid from the central government, the Japanese envisaged
making them self-supporting at a later stage.
The increase in local representation did not end with the Bureaux. On 9 February 1942,
the Hong Kong News reported that 131 ward leaders had been elected in the Central District,
and predicted that two thousand ward leaders would, in due course, be elected to represent
wards throughout the twelve districts of Hong Kong Island. In theory, the establishment of
wards, each comprised of thirty households, conferred a degree of authority on local citizens
at the grassroots level. By September, the constituencies had been redesigned, and although
no more mention was made of elections, the drive to organize grassroots representation
continued. Street committees were established to represent the householders, and an initial
777 residents of Hong Kong Island had been designated as leaders of the individual streets.
By February 1943, 1,366 street chiefs on Hong Kong Island and 1,462 in Kowloon were
serving as representatives of the householders.477
On 20 July 1942, new regulations for the District Bureaux mandated that the Chiefs
and Vice-Chiefs be appointed by the Governor and the remaining staff by the Chief. District
Councils of from five to ten members were to be selected by each District Chief from among
the residents to approve his decisions. These unpaid councillors were to serve for two years
and could resign only by permission of the Governor. The regulations also provided for the
means by which residents would contribute to the expenses of their District Bureaux, with the
476
Tse, San Nian, 80-1. In March 1943, it appears that some Japanese officials were still being employed in the
District Bureaux despite the intention to replace them. By the summer, however, the staffs of the District
Bureaux were stated to be wholly Chinese. See Hong Kong News, March 5, May 25 and July 27, 1943. The
Chinese heads of the various District Bureaux are listed in the document “Scheme of the Present Japanese
Government at Hong Kong” drawn up by the British through their Indian censorship office and circulated
August 25, 1943, HS 1/171, 2. For information on the District Assemblies, See Hong Kong News, July 22, 1942;
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 156-7; Tse, San Nian, 80, 82.
477
Hong Kong News, February 24, 1943. One street chief on Hong Kong Island represented forty households
and one in Kowloon ten to twenty.
197
amount and method of collection being subject to the Governor’s approval. At the same time,
the two Chinese Councils were empowered to advise the District Bureaux and help them
communicate with the Secretariat so that Chinese habits and customs could be given more
consideration. The names of the District Chiefs and Vice-Chiefs were announced on 23 July
1942.
The regulations also explicitly stated the functions of the District Bureaux. They were
“first-line administrative bodies carrying out decisions of the Government at a level of direct
contact with the people. Secondly they were autonomous bodies with power to raise funds
locally and vote them for local purposes. Thirdly they should assist and supplement the work
of the two Chinese Advisory Councils”. Nevertheless, the District Bureaux never became
fully autonomous, for the Governor’s Office continued for to pay all their expenses and,
naturally, retain control. It was not until June 1943 that the Secretary-General announced at a
press conference that the District Bureaux were to become self-supporting, and invited
suggestions as to how funding would be raised.
In December 1943, all the District Bureau Chiefs met to discuss plans for compulsory
education, and in June 1944 established means of registering all births and deaths. The first
real pressure to allow the Bureaux to raise their own funding came from the Bureaux
themselves, and then not until October 1944, when the rise in the cost of living brought
demands for increased salaries. However, the Japanese administration refused to treat the
officials of the District Bureaux differently from other Government employees. After the new
Governor, Lieutenant-General Tanaka, had taken office, the administration finally agreed in
March 1945 that each District Bureaux should fund its own expenses by mandating that each
family contribute roughly MY30 per month and business firms up to MY300 a month. Such
was the situation until the defeat of Japan several months later brought the Bureaux to an end.
198
A similar devolution took place in the New Territories. Looking to the New
Territories’ elders to maintain order, the Japanese established District Bureaux in the
important centres, and covered administrative costs by levying a tax on agricultural produce
collected at barriers on the roads to the towns. Generally, they recognized Chinese law and
custom, and seem to have treated the villagers justly if strictly. The New Territories were
vital in the declared policy of making Hong Kong self-supporting; nevertheless, the Japanese
imposed no production targets, preferring to improve farming in the New Territories as part
of a development policy. In the absence of any effective Japanese control during the early
weeks of the takeover, authority in the New Territories had been assumed in a haphazard
fashion by the village elders and the leading traders, who ran the chambers of commerce in
the market towns. Uneducated and even more ignorant than the urban elites of the events
occurring in the outside world, these rural leaders for the most part acquiesced to Japanese
rule without a struggle. The Japanese accordingly confirmed their authority, and in some
ways enlarged it. The village elders were organized into self-governing committees, and the
chambers of commerce were recognized as components of a newly formed network of ten
rural District Bureaux. Like their counterparts in the cities, these rural bodies were
responsible for allotting rice rations, but were also expected to act as purchasing agents for
the Japanese troops in the neighbourhood and provide labour for local construction
schemes.478
In November 1943, an Agricultural Training Institute opened at Fanling into which
thirty-four students eventually matriculated. In March 1943, a Hong Kong Fertilizer
Syndicate was formed and the Taipo Experimental Farm established under the Taiwan
Engineering Company, which also prepared large irrigation schemes; distributed first-grade
See David Faure, “Sai Kung: The Making of the District and its Experience during World War II”, Journal of
the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol.22, 1982, 122-4. The author is also indebted for this
paragraph to Mr. Chan at the Hong Kong Museum of History for his lecture of October 18, 1995. The
establishment of the first rural District Bureaux is reported in Hong Kong News, March 27, 1942.
478
199
vegetable seeds; and, in March 1944, an improved rice strain. Fish ponds for good supply
were promoted, and construction of roads such as that to Saikung, later to be completed by
the British, were begun.
Despite these measures, the New Territories experienced hard times. The Japanese
imposed restrictions on movement, required visitors to obtain a permit or an identity card,
and banned the export of rice. Lack of transport affected delivery of vegetables, which had to
be brought in by hand-carts, and fishing was hazardous. Not surprisingly, many young men
drifted off to join the guerrillas as the only alternative to remaining at home semi-starved and
in rags. The villagers, particularly the Hakkas, were subject to communist propaganda,
leading to a rift between the communist youth and the elders, especially when the latter
promised to aid the Japanese in dealing with British agents, an undertaking that they probably
had no intention of honouring.
5.22 A Case Study—Central District Bureau in the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong
On 21 January 1942, the Japanese set up new government agencies in Hong Kong
called District Bureaux; there were twelve for Hong Kong Island and six for Kowloon. Each
of these entities, under a Chinese official, was responsible for public health, business,
repatriation, and welfare for the residents of the district, as well as for representing residents’
needs and wishes to the Japanese authorities. For instance, prominent Chinese lawyer Peter H.
Sin (Sin Ping-hei; 冼秉憙) was appointed head of the Central District Bureau and was
popularly referred to as ‘the Mayor of Hong Kong’.479 Early in February 1942, a scheme for
dividing each district into wards was announced, on a basis of thirty families for each ward.
The Central District Bureau immediately named 131 Chinese ward leaders.
479
See Hong Kong Administration, Office of Strategic Services, U.S. Department of State, Office of Intelligence Research,
dated January 12, 1945, reproduced in Appendix 8.
200
The Central District Bureau underwent significant development at this stage. As early
as 1 March 1942, it was made responsible for rice rationing; the census on which the rationing
was based followed automatically. From 15 April 1942, it gave residents free assistance and
advice related to the completion of the numerous forms by which the Japanese sought to
control every aspect of Hong Kong life—a service that had to be prolonged beyond the two
months originally suggested.480
The Central District Bureau was even responsible for all ‘migration’ inside the district.
People wishing to move were required (under the threat of ‘severe punishment’ for noncompliance) to report the move to the District Bureaux in charge of their old and new
neighborhoods in addition to the local branches of the Kempeitai. Further, the change in
residents’ whereabouts was recorded on boards that were hung up outside every building to
indicate the names of the occupants. Residents’ physical progress around town was also
impeded by checkpoints and barriers. When the Governor swept from one place to another, a
senior officer passed through on a tour of inspection, or some secret troop movement was
being conducted, all traffic in the Central District was brought to a halt. Pedestrians were
expected to ‘freeze’ where they stood until the cortege had passed and were sometimes
obliged to remain in their ‘frozen’ posture for up to eight hours.481
Peter H. Sin, the ‘Mayor of Hong Kong’, hoped to revert to his pre-war legal practice
after his year-long service as chairman of the Central District Bureau. In April 1943, one year
after their first petition to the Governor’s Office, the members of the Association of Chinese
Lawyers of Hong Kong were finally given permission to stage an inaugural ceremony. But
what kind of law could be practised under a military regime? The chief of the General Affairs
480
The chief of the Civil Affairs Department of the government explained that the District Bureaux were the ‘same as those
in towns and villages in Nippon; they cannot be regarded as autonomous bodies as they are being supported by the
Governor’s Office…apart from the distribution of rice, the bureaus will henceforth look after the distribution of other
essential commodities of the populace and look after public health and other welfare work.’ See Hong Kong News, July 20,
1942.
481
Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 151.
201
Department in the Governor’s Office reminded Peter Sin and his fellow solicitors that their
function could only be to ‘assist in the proper administration of martial law’ insofar as it
impinged on civil matters.482
At the end of June 1943, staff of the Central District Bureau petitioned the head of
their Area Bureau for an increase in salary and extra rice rations. As a result, in the spring of
1944, the authorities made it clear that rice rations would still be maintained for those people
directly involved in the war effort and the reconstruction of the ‘new Hong Kong’. In practice,
this provision applied to the members of the two Chinese Councils, the staff of the Governor’s
Office and the District Bureaux, and the employees of firms working closely with the
Imperial forces. Rice supplies were also to be kept up for the families of people in these
categories.483
Low-grade functionaries also seem to have done their share of good works. Beginning
at the end of 1943, the Bureaux chiefs were said to be spearheading a renewed effort to
organize free schooling for children of the poorer classes. The Central District Bureau was
reported to be operating free medical centres and to be raising funds for the rescue of newborn
babies and invalids who were being found abandoned at the roadside.
New emphasis was placed on the role of the District Bureaux. On 12 January 1945, the
day after Tanaka took over, the Governor’s Office declared rather peevishly that although
Hong Kong people had been accustomed to having their street cleaning and refuse clearance
done for them, ‘they should try to do this work themselves.’484 The task was promptly handed
down to the District Bureaux. By the end of February, the Central District Bureau had been
482
Hong Kong News, April 16 and 17, 1943.
In November 1943, the garrison troops joined hands with the South China Expeditionary Force on the mainland to clear
the Nationalists from the stretch of the Kowloon-Canton railway line between Shenzhen on the border and the town of
Shilong, and the following month the line was formally declared open for the first time in six years. Hope was now held out
for new shipments of rice and vegetables overland from Guangdong province, which would offset to some extent the colony’s
near-total inability to bring goods in by sea. In the meantime, the elite were to be shielded from the worst effects of the
regime’s decision to abandon the distribution of rice to the Chinese masses. See Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 209.
484
Hong Kong News, January 12, 1945.
483
202
divided into fifty-two sections, each of which was supposed to raise funds from householders
to pay the wages of the local ‘sanitary coolies’.485 Moreover, the Central District Bureau was
also called upon to maintain order by backing the police and by helping to rid the colony of its
destitute masses. Two or three Chinese from the Central District were asked to join the gentry
on the Police Affairs Committee, and Bureau staff are said to have been present regularly at
police stations. However, the Hong Kong News went so far as to publish a critical editorial
opposing the Tanaka administration’s plan to let the Bureaux raise their own funds and
denouncing them as ‘sanctuaries of complacent egotists’ that had ‘outlived their
usefulness’.486
Nevertheless, in late March 1945, the Central District Bureau was assigned the job of
distributing Residents’ Certificates, a new device that had been introduced to help track down
subversives and vagrants, and it was given the power to issue exit permits ‘to simplify the
procedure for people wanting to leave.’487 In May 1945, Chan Kwai-pok, who had taken over
from the ‘Mayor of Hong Kong’ in the Central District, appealed to the rice merchants to
desist from their habit of profiteering and to play their part in providing affordable food. By
July, they appear to have been on the point of inheriting almost all of the routine functions of
local administration. In the middle of that month, a meeting of District Assemblymen was
held at the Central District Bureau for the purpose of discussing the ‘work of self-governing
by residents’ and to examine a plan that had been drawn up to that end.488
From the perspective of the public, there is some evidence to suggest that the Hong
Kong people were by and large fairly comfortable with the schoolmasters, storekeepers, and
485
Hong Kong News, February 28, 1945. Within two weeks, the Bureau was said to be employing thirty ‘coolies’ to sweep
the District’s roads. Hong Kong News, March 11, 1945.
486
Hong Kong News, March 17, 1945.
487
Hong Kong News, March 24, 27, and 28; May 7; and June 11, 1945. See also testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa,
Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093, 347-8. Kanazawa appears to confuse the Residents’ Certificates and exit permits.
488
Hong Kong News, 18 July 1945. The District Bureaux were also earmarked as key sounding-boards through which the
authorities might ‘obtain a full knowledge of the people’s opinion’. See Hong Kong News, July 21 and 29 and August 8, 1945;
Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 133.
203
other obscure worthies who were selected to serve as their local chiefs in the Central District.
It was widely recognized that the staff of the Central District Bureau were in a difficult
position, and they were not generally viewed as collaborators.489 The Bureau staff continued
to maintain in post-war testimonials that their Bureaux were ‘organizations for the people’,
and that ‘therefore we had the closest connection with the population’.490
Peter H. Sin worked under Major-General Yazaki Kanju in the Civil Affairs
Department and provided an alternate channel, a check and balance against the two Chinese
Councils under Robert Kotewell and Shouson Chow. Therefore, Peter H. Sin came to be, after
Kotewell and Chow, the third most responsible Chinese in Hong Kong and among the
English-speaking Chinese of the ‘captured territory’. He was also called the ‘Mayor’,
although this title implies the possession of powers that, as a minion of the Japanese, he did
not enjoy.
5.23 Area Bureaux
For the Japanese, the objective of delegation was not, of course, to surrender control
of the colony. On the contrary, the Japanese were doing all in their power to exert control as
intensively as conditions allowed. In creating new Chinese-run bodies, for instance, they took
care to provide against any danger that those bodies might evolve into genuine centres of
power. Supervisory structures were simultaneously established to severely limit the freedom
of action that the new Chinese bodies in theory enjoyed. In April 1942, for example, Isogai
and his colleagues introduced a still further layer of local government in the form of the
establishment of three Area Bureaux in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New
Territories491 headed by Japanese officials492 that acted as checks on the Chinese-run District
489
David Faure, ‘Sai Kung: The Making of the District’, 123-4.
Testimony of Lo Chung-ching, head of Stanley District Bureau and near-identical testimony of Kwok Hin-wang, head of
Causeway Bay District Bureau and Kan Man, head of Kennedy Town District Bureau, Noma trial, WO 235/1999, 300, 305,
307. The British prosecutor, Major D. G. MacGregor of the Black Watch, expressed agreement with these assertions. See
Ibid., Prosecutor’s Opening Address, 12-13.
490
491
Hong Kong News, April 16 and 22, 1942. See also Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 129. In the Hong
204
Bureaux. As such, their Japanese chiefs were given authority over the District Bureaux in all
major fields of activity, including education, health, and the rice supply, and went on tours of
their Bureaux to ensure that they were functioning as intended.
It was the Area rather than the District Bureau Chiefs who selected local householders
to sit on the District Assemblies, appointed “responsible citizens” to serve as street leaders,
and organized the Street Committees according to detailed regulations regarding their duties
and personnel. Each maintained the three sub-offices of a General Office to address matters
regarding general business, finance, education, and culture; an Economic Office for those
regarding the economy, communications, transport, and the development of raw materials;
and a Health Office for those regarding public health and medical services. They were
comprised of a Chief, a Deputy Chief, and three Assistant Chiefs, who were all Japanese, and
forty-two Chinese personnel.
As the three Area Bureaux were responsible to the Chief of the Governor’s Office for
the execution of the decisions of the administration, they formed an essential part of the
machinery by which the Japanese governed the Colony. The Japanese could learn of Chinese
opinion on matters of general policy through the two Chinese Councils, which had advisory
powers only, and the impact of the administration on the life of the people through the District
Bureaux. The District Bureaux were expected to work through the Area Bureaux, where the
authority truly rested, but their Chinese Heads enjoyed the right to communicate with the
Governor’s Office directly, and therefore never became simply puppets.
Kong News, the Area Bureaux are often confusingly referred to as “District Bureaux” or simply “Bureaux”. I
have followed Endacott and Birch in using the term “Area Bureaux” to distinguish them from the District
Bureaux set up to implement the rice rationing scheme of Peter H. Sin. In Chinese quite distinct terms are used,
viz. diqu shiwu suo for the Area Bureaux and qu zheng suo for the District Bureaux.
492
Even here, however, Chinese staff were employed at a junior level. See, for example, Hong Kong News, June
11, 19, and 23, 1943.
205
5.24 Significance of the District and Area Bureau System
The District Bureaux were important elements in the Japanese administration of Hong
Kong. Although they became more self-sufficient only just before the Japanese defeat, they
proved themselves able to establish collective local responsibility for individual behaviour
and obedience to Japanese regulations. As such, they were hated by the local inhabitants.
However, the Area Bureaux were not intended to supersede or displace the Chinese-staffed
District Bureaux and their ward leaders but rather work along with them while enjoying much
greater actual authority. In practice, the District Bureaux were only supplementary to the Area
Bureaux, although the former always enjoyed a channel to higher Japanese authorities
independent of the Area Bureau in which they were encompassed. As the existence of the two
forms of organization tended to create a certain amount of confusion as to which held
ultimate responsibility, they provided a means of checks and counterchecks in accordance
with the suspicious nature of Japanese rule.
The Japanese administrative model clearly contrasted with the British model, under
which only a relatively small number of Chinese was allowed to serve on the Executive and
Legislative Councils. In the Japanese model, actual control was exercised by (1) the Governor
and his office, the latter comprised of administrative departments directed by a group of
Japanese experts and administrators who numbered no less than eight hundred and probably
well over a thousand; (2) the Area Bureaux, which were directed by about two hundred
Japanese officials; and (3) the gendarmerie. Few doubt that the British model was
incomparably the better one; the rule provided by the Japanese administrative bodies was
completely ruthless, interested in the lives of the governed only as much as they could further
Japanese aggrandizement and power, and unhindered by any concerns regarding freedom,
justice, or popular representation that could possibly arise to embarrass their single-minded
pursuit of the aims of the Japanese Empire.
206
However, a closer examination reveals that a large number of Chinese were associated
with this rule: the leaders of the Chinese community formed the four-man Representative
Council; the major trades and activities of the colony were represented on the twenty-twoman Cooperative Council; the eighteen District Bureaux, each with a Chief, a Deputy Chief,
and a Chinese staff, employed several hundred Chinese in responsible advisory positions; and
likely as many as three thousand “ward leaders” served their respective wards. Among the
many motives for allowing Chinese “representation”, the most compelling was as a technique
of control. Every Chinese with whom the Japanese associated with their administrative
machinery was answerable to his superiors, and his defection could be the more readily
detected and punished because of the responsibilities that he had assumed. By this means, the
Japanese increased the strength of their hold on many of the most prominent Chinese, for
whom adequate performance of the tasks assigned to them was required to “save face” in the
community, and their self-respect thus inextricably associated with successfully serving the
Emperor of Japan.
Whereas the two Chinese Councils were primarily used as a type of megaphone for
transmitting orders from the Governor’s Office to the general public, the District Bureaux
were used to place Hong Kong under the minute supervision of daily life that had been
exercised in the towns and countryside of Japan since the mid-1920s. As such, their main
tasks were to collect information on the residents through the household registration process
and “make all the people cooperate fully with the authorities”. 493 The Street and Village
Committees were designed to extend Japan’s grip to the grassroots by enforcing the old and
draconian East Asian principles of mutual policing and collective responsibility,494 while the
493
Hong Kong News, October 6, 1942. See also Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 156-7.
See remarks of Lau Tit-shing quoted in Hong Kong News, December 20, 1942 and of Kotewall quoted in
Hong Kong News, December 29, 1942; Tse, San Nian, p. 81. The policing system referred to as the baojia or
“household guarantee” system was first introduced in China under the Tang dynasty (AD 618-907), and from
there imported into Japan. In this context, its imposition in Hong Kong was a reintroduction consistent with the
494
207
major function of the Street Chiefs and the Village Representatives was to spy on their
neighbours and report any suspicious activity to the District Bureaux or the Kempeitai.
Having been established to facilitate administration on the local level, the Area
Bureaux were directly under the control of the Civil Administration Department. Their role
was never clearly defined, leading some to speculate that they were a type of parallel
organization to the District Bureaux. This dissertation proposes that they were equivalent to
organizations headed by Army men who supervised the work of the civilian administrators at
the local level that, responsible for duties so general and all-embracing, seemed to have no
specific function.
As the true executive organs, the District Bureaux were responsible for conducting the
census, rationing daily necessities, repatriating the excess population, organizing defence and
health campaigns, registering inhabitants, transmitting information, and overseeing the wards
and ward leaders in their districts. Their responsibility to maintain the ration shops was
especially important, as these shops not only provided the bulk of the food supply to the
population but also served as the main information centres for transmitting new governmental
rules and regulations. The functions of the wards and the ward leaders, the grassroots aspects
of the bureaucracy, were widely publicized and commented on by Japanese authorities in the
press. Among the many perspectives on the wards, the most succinct analysis of their
functions may have been given by a member of the Chinese Representative Council, Lau Titshing, who asserted that whereas the military police were negative and covered time, the
ward leaders were positive and covered space. By this he meant that whereas the tasks of the
military police were to monitor the inhabitants in the streets and punish those who broke the
law, those of the ward leaders were teaching people to respect the law and monitoring them in
conqueror’s pan-Asiatic ideas.
208
their homes. The functions of the military police and the ward leaders were thus
complementary.495
5.3 Dynamics and Interactions between the Japanese and the Different Classes in Hong
Kong Society
The dynamics and interactions between the Japanese and the Hong Kong public
between 1942 and 1943 differed according to social class.496 In response to the Gunseicho’s
call for their services, a large numbers of Asians who had occupied junior posts in the Britishrun civil service returned to their posts after the Japanese military administration had been
established. By 5 January 1942, the only remaining obstacle to the return of the Asian police
was a “dispute over conditions”, whose subsequent resolution resulted in two thousand
Chinese policeman, seventy-five to eighty percent of whom were members of the old colonial
police force, serving on the beat two weeks later. At the same time, eighty-five percent of the
prewar fire brigade returned to their duties, as did about seventy-five percent of the previous
government’s clerical staff.497
495
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, chapter 4.
One result of the extension of Japanese military operations to South China in 1938 was a massive influx of
refugees into the Colony seeking safety in its traditional security. The Colonial Secretary estimated that during
the twelve months ending July 1938, a quarter of a million persons entered the Colony by railway and steamer
alone, and that 30,000 of them were sleeping in the streets. A census of the urban population taken by the air-raid
wardens during the two nights of 14 and 15 March 1941 gave a total of 1,444,337 persons, of whom 20,000 were
sleeping on the streets. Adding 200,000 for the New Territories, this gives a total Colony civilian population at
that date of about 1,650,000, compared to an estimated 997,982 in December 1937 and 988,190 in December
1936. This huge increase severely taxed available living accommodations and strained the Colony's resources in
every sphere while greatly increasing the diversity of the population. When the Japanese arrived, they found, in
addition to the local people, people from neighbouring Kwangtung Province; the Chiu Chow or northern
Kwangtung people; the Hakka or guest families; the Hok Lo or Fukinese, who were mainly a fishing community;
the Tanka or Egg families, who lived permanently on boats; and the Shanghainese and other Northerners. These
Chinese communities lived side by side, having almost as little to do with each other as they had with the
foreigners. The Chinese remained Chinese at heart, and few were absorbed into the Western community. Most
came to Hong Kong seeking economic opportunity and looking forward to returning to China when they could
afford to do so; in the meantime, they asked only that they should be left alone and were quite prepared to shift
for themselves. Basically law-abiding, they gave little trouble to the authorities, and as they asked for no share in
political control or for any form of State aid, and they did not expect the government to make any demands on
them beyond the normal land dues, rates, and indirect taxation on luxuries.
497
Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 122-3; Hong Kong News, January 19, 1942; Lieutenant J. D. Clague, Intelligence
Summary no.1 from Qujiang, May 28, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 161, report on Hong Kong, June 4, 1942, HS 1/171,
2
496
209
Equally noticeable was the delegation of functions to petty civil servants and clerical
personnel, whose skills the Japanese lost no time in utilizing. Reports reaching British
intelligence in the spring of 1942 stated that while Japanese bureaucrats occupied the more
senior positions in the new Governor’s Office created by Isogai, all others were held by the
Hong Kong Chinese.498 Not all of these jobs were entirely menial: one Chinese is known to
have been employed as Director of the Department of Postal Affairs. It is also apparent that
many posts were filled by new recruits and prewar civil servants who returned to their posts.
Quite a number of prestigious new appointments were dispensed to the Hong Kong Chinese
alumni of Japanese universities, who had assembled during the first fortnight of the takeover
at the summons of the Koa Kikan. One former clerk who was a Japanese speaker was
installed as an interpreter in the main Kempeitai office on the Victoria waterfront at the end
of February.499
With the return to order came the return to business. In the first weeks of the takeover,
business operations were largely confined to small enterprises, such as restaurants and barber
shops, that had few fixed assets and, consequently, few worries regarding looting. By spring,
a general revival of trade had become apparent, and by mid-1942, 23,812 shops had applied
for permission to operate again. 500 Several small Chinese traders managed to earn hefty
profits in the midst of general want. Pawn-broking establishments enjoyed a sudden revival,
with more than thirty having reopened by September 1942, and most firms engaged in what is
now called recycling doing well. Furniture dealers, for instance, were said to have done good
business throughout 1942, buying old articles and restoring them to look like new ones, and
498
Calcutta Censor Station, Further Notes on Conditions in Hong Kong, May 13, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 190.
“Hong Kong Chinese” in this context should be understood to include the Eurasians and Portuguese.
499
Hahn, Hong Kong Holiday, 159. In the same way Luo Jiyi, a Chinese who had worked as a Japanese
translator for a Hong Kong newspaper, was rapidly put in charge of one of the districts in Kowloon. Sa,
Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 161.
500
Hong Kong News, May 3, July 31, and August 19, 1942; Tse, San Nian, 161. Many new businesses were
reported to have started in the spring, including large numbers of restaurants and teahouses. By the latter part of
the summer, over 40,000 applications had been submitted for the continuation of trade or the establishment of
new firms, and 34,000 for the reopening or establishment of shops and stalls.
210
second-hand clothes dealers in the Wanchai District reported good profits for the year. Dyeing
enterprises were busy, as people poured in to have their clothes darkened, whether for reasons
of economy or to dodge the attention of the Japanese troops. Quite a number of traders went
into the freight business, transporting second-hand clothes, medicines, and cooking oil to
Macao and the mainland and returning with grain. Naturally, business was brisk for coffin
merchants, about sixty of whom were observed to be functioning.
5.31 Collaboration with Triads and the Hong Kong Chinese
The triad organizations also played an important role in the back streets of Hong Kong.
The Japanese administration stated that if residents still considered Street Guards to be
necessary, they could “apply to the Governor’s Office for their recognition”. Three weeks
later, the residents of the Shamshuipo District in Kowloon had organized their “own group of
watchmen”.501 In September, the conquerors themselves were once again reaching out for
triad support. Having decided to convert a large section of Wanchai into a red-light district as
part of their programme for channelling the lusts of the soldiery, they sent out triad gangs to
evict the inhabitants—and bear the brunt of whatever odium the evictions might entail.502
Under the Japanese administration, most of the triads were organized into a group
known as the Hing Ah Kee Kwan (Asia Flourishing Organization), in which the Wo Triad
played a prominent role. The principal role of the Hing Ah Kee Kwan was to serve as a
“Peace Aid Corps” responsible for maintaining order and reporting anti-Japanese activities.
Collaboration was encouraged by Wang Ching Wei from China, and the Ng Chau Hung Mun
(Five Continents Hung Family) was formed with the purpose of integrating all societies.
Local societies were willing to collaborate because they were invested with power over local
citizens and shared in the open organization of prostitution, narcotics, and gambling, which
had always been the main sources of triad revenue. The Peace Aid Corps obtained payment
501
502
Hong Kong News, May 22, 1942
Zhang Sheng, Xianggang Hei Shehui huo dong zhen xiang, (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1979), 60-1.
211
from a company known as the Lee Yuen Company, which controlled twelve large lottery
establishments in the colony.
Such favoured treatment during the occupation enabled the local triad organizations to
strengthen their system of organization, which had been suffering from a lack of coordination, and explains why they were able to quickly corner monopolies in vice and certain
sections of the labour force in Hong Kong on the defeat of the Japanese.503 They might have
become even more powerful if they could have established more effective central control
during the occupation, but the Japanese administration had strictly monitored their activities
and maintained a check on their power by overthrowing various leaders when their individual
influence became too great.
As the weeks passed, the Kempeitai found it steadily harder to track down important
mainland Chinese figures, who were increasingly slipping out of the colony or melting into
the general populace. They therefore established a body composed of Hong Kong Chinese
detectives who had been employed by the British Special Branch that, by mid-February, had
been “activated in all quarters”.504 In addition, a motley assortment of between 1,300 and
4,000 local citizens were attached as agents to the Kempeitai and the garrison or worked for
them as freelance informers. They included the low-life characters who had helped the
Japanese before and during the invasion, such as George Wong, Howard Tore, and Millie
Chun and her ring of female spies. Wong in particular came to loom increasingly large
among the murkier underpinnings of Japanese rule. Starting out as a driver for the Political
503
It is estimated that about one in six Chinese in Hong Kong belonged to a triad group in 1960. See Ibid.
See Koa Kikan Gyomu Hodo, no. 2, 251.According to the Koa Kikan, the Hong Kong Chinese detective force
had crossed over to serve the new rulers en masse under the leadership of their Chief, Chung Shui-nam. This
defection is confirmed in Lieutenant J. D. Clague’s Intelligence Summary no. 1 from Qujiang, May 28, 1942,
and a letter of Brigadier G. E. Grimsdale, British Military Mission, Chungking, to Director of Military
Intelligence, New Delhi, June 8, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 156,161.
504
212
Section of the Koa Kikan, he was hired as one of the garrison’s Chinese secret agents before
eventually becoming the Kempeitai’s chief “local tough”.505
In the interests of putting an end to the general turmoil, the Kempeitai had also
assumed management of the colony’s routine policing work from the Civil Affairs
Department. For the successful performance of their policing functions, Colonel Noma’s
small outfit of 150 officers and NCOs were compelled to rely heavily on the services of a far
larger number of local Chinese police, who were among the many former government
employees who had resumed their posts under the Japanese. While the local Chinese police
were present at interrogations, all questioning and torture were performed by the Japanese.
One Chinese man who had joined Admiral Chan Chak’s organization described receiving
HK$2 per day for his services for running a gambling house for the short time allowed by the
Japanese. He then used the two ships that he owned to trade buy rice in his native Heung Sah
to sell to the Japanese at a quarter or fifth of what he paid, and then recouped his losses by
selling matches, oil, and soap obtained from the Japanese to the rice farmers at a large profit.
One manufacturer of metal ware recalled working for the Japanese for eight months before
they closed his factory and bought the machinery. Although several policemen were reenlisted members of the old prewar force, a great many others were the new recruits who the
Kempeitai turned out regularly at their “very active” police training school. Noma later
recalled having had between 2,300 and 2,400 local Chinese and Indian policemen at his disposal. The importance attached to these Kensa, as the Japanese called them, is suggested by a
505
Testimony of Major Hirao Yoshio of the Kempeitai at the trial of George Wong, HK RS 2-1-1513, summary, 5;
testimony of Major Shiozawa Kunio of the Kempeitai at trial of Joseph Richards, HK RS 245-2-150; Tse,
Zhanshi Ri Jun, 115-16. Estimates given on different occasions for the number of Hong Kong Chinese and
Indian agents employed by the Kempeitai varied from 2,000 to 1,300 to 3,000 and from 1,300 to 4,000. Small
groups of the agents are said to have been attached to each Kempeitai officer. The number of agents employed by
the garrison appears to have been relatively small: Hirao mentions “about twenty”. The wartime career of
George Wong is described in the testimony of William Chang, William Lee, and others and the defence of
George Wong, Wong trial, HK RS 2-1-1513, 10-46, 52-3. For activities of Howard Tore see Searle
diary,December 27 and 31, 1942 and January 3, 1943; Hahn, China to Me, 391-4, 417-18 and Hong Kong
Holiday, 225-18; Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads,156-7. For Millie Chun’s ring, see Hahn, China to
Me, 349.
213
report that stated that they were the only local employees of the new regime who were paid in
cash.506
The attitude of the Chinese general public in Hong Kong towards their Japanese
masters has never been in any serious doubt. In the words of one survivor, “the hatred was
immeasurable”.507 Many people who managed to avoid the attentions of the Kempeitai death
squads seethed nonetheless at the daily round of humiliation to which they were subjected.
Much anger was aroused, for example, by a ruling that all visitors to government buildings
should first wash their hands in a basin of antiseptic, which no doubt made good sense in the
context of the regime’s drive for hygiene but was widely perceived as implying that the
Chinese were dirty. Still more keenly resented were the continual slappings. Decades later, an
airport cleaner named Lee Lap recalled of the Japanese, “They made me feel low, very
low”.508 By the last months of 1942, a senior Japanese official who had been installed in the
Matsubara Hotel was complaining that he had to order Western dishes rather than Chinese
ones for fear that the Chinese chefs might poison his food (Europeans on the staff were
apparently free from suspicion) and that he did not dare sit in his room with the windows
open to the street.509 The increasing brutality that the Imperial Forces displayed as the war
began to turn against them discouraged any attempt to pursue normal life, and by the middle
of 1943 most of the Chinese public were said to have sunk back into the mood of fear and
withdrawal that had followed the British surrender.510
506
Fehily conversation with Ride, Guilin, December 18, 1942, CO 129 590/22, 164; letter from K. E. Mogra,
January 27, 1943, 8, HS 1/171; testimony of Colonel Noma, Noma trial, WO 235/999, 322. Six hundred Chinese
clerks were said to have been enrolled in the Water Police alone. See Lieutenant J. D. Clague, Intelligence
Summary no. 1 from Qujiang, May 28, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 161. Information relating to payment for Kensa is
given in report of B. G. Milenko, CO 129 590/23, 53. Milenko’s assertion is tentative and seems implausible, but
the fact that this idea was current is significant in itself.
507
Interview with Y. K. Chan, March 23, 1995. Quoted in Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 115.
508
Quoted in article by Adam Williams, SCMP, November 19, 1978.
509
Conversation of J. P. Fehily with Lieutenant-Colonel L. Ride, Guilin, December 18, 1942, CO 129 590/22,
164.
510
See for example Hahn, China to Me, 395.
214
The conquerors expected little trouble from the mass of Chinese shop assistants,
waiters, factory hands, stevedores, hawkers, and vagabonds, many of whom had poured into
Hong Kong precisely in order to get away from the Imperial Army. Like the Nazis who
marched in to “liberate” Ukraine from the Soviet Union, they had the advantage of taking
over a society already under alien rule, granting them scope for appealing to restive enclaves
and beginning with, as Li Shu-fan described it, a few “iotas of goodwill”.511 With more tact
and greater discipline, they might have taken advantage of this goodwill to appeal to the
locals, but, like the Nazis, they wasted the opportunity to do so.
5.32 Dynamics and Interactions between the Japanese and the Local Masses during the Final
Stage of the Occupation
Throughout 1944, the Governor continued to play on the old theme of pan-Asiatic
fraternity and the ideal of Hong Kong as a testing-ground for developing a model friendship
between the Chinese and Japanese peoples.512 During a brief tour of the New Territories in
spring, he paid his respects at a shrine commemorating a number of local ancestors who had
been killed resisting the British occupation of the area half a century earlier. In October, he
once again displayed his enthusiasm for Chinese culture by buying the work of a local painter
that had been included in an art exhibition at the Matsuzakaya department store.
Fitful efforts were now at last made to address the mass complaints about Kempeitai
lawlessness. Isogai told Colonel Noma to carry out “some rectification” of the way in which
arrests were being conducted as part of the mass deportation scheme, foreseeing that the
random arrests of respectable citizens would “affect the feelings of the population very
much”.513 He voiced similar mild reproaches about the widespread use of torture in Kempeitai
511
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 159. For an assessment that the Japanese “had a chance in Hong Kong with their
doctrine of ‘Asia for the Asiatics’”, see Hahn, Hong Kong Holiday, 259; Tse, Zhanshi Ri Jun, 11.
512
See comments of Tani Masayuki, Japanese ambassador to Nanking, and of Ichiki Yoshiyuki, Head of the
Civil Affairs Department, in Hong Kong News, January 29 and February 3, 1944.
513
Testimony of Colonel Noma, Noma trial, WO 235/999, 339.
215
prisons the following year. On three occasions between September and November 1944, the
Governor passed on complaints to Noma and asked him to tighten up on the conduct of his
gendarmes.514 In the meantime, the elite were to be shielded from the worst effects of the
regime’s decision to abandon the distribution of rice to the Chinese masses. In spring 1944,
the authorities made it clear that rice rations would be maintained for those people directly
involved in the war effort and the reconstruction of the “new Hong Kong”, which in practice
referred to the members of the two Chinese Councils, the staff of the Governor’s Office and
the District Bureaux, and the employees of firms working closely with the Imperial Forces
and their families.
The authorities were eventually forced to fall back on the support of the triad gangs. In
spite of Isogai’s attempts to curb triad activities, from late 1943 onwards the triad-based
Street Guards gained increasing power with the slackening of the Japanese grip on the colony.
Officially reckoned “necessary to assist the administration of the District Bureaux”, 515 the
Street Guards had been used to spearhead a series of censuses conducted with brutal
thoroughness for the purpose of flushing out vagrants and resistance elements. In March 1945,
they were earmarked by Tanaka and Kanazawa as the basis for a new corps of vigilantes
formed to supplement the regular police, the Protective Guards Body, who would be elected
by the Street Guards in each district to keep order under the auspices of the District Bureaux.
Armed with batons and basic police training, the Protective Guards were deployed in the
following months around the neighbourhoods of Kowloon and Victoria to guard against theft.
By mid-June, the Protective Guards had been consolidated into a standing force of around
two thousand in each of the cities, and by early July an auxiliary corps of a further two
thousand was being recruited in the Central District of Victoria. To discuss plans for
514
Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa, Noma trial, WO 235/999, 25, 27. Noma for his part admitted
receiving a warning from Isogai through Kanazawa that some local policemen (Kensa) had been “doing bad
things”. See Noma testimony, 344.
515
Comment of Secretary-General Tomari quoted in Hong Kong News, November 12, 1943.
216
maintaining order, the Chairmen of the Police Bureau and the Police Committee for the Island
invited the Heads of the Protective Guards on Hong Kong Island to a dinner. Highlighting
their importance still further, Kan Man, a District Bureau Chief who had recently been
promoted to a seat on the Chinese Cooperative Council, acted as their spokesman. Together
with the more exalted local organizations, the Protective Guards were called upon to
contribute to the maintenance of government in a broader sense by assuming responsibility
for such functions as rubbish disposal and the reporting of any outbreaks of infectious
diseases.
Through running the black market, itself organized by the triads, the Protective
Guards assumed responsibility for almost all distribution of food to the populace during these
months of collapse. The basic needs of these gangsters were met by the triad leaders
themselves, with one of the main triad chieftains, a certain Wan Yuk-ming, even organizing
and funding a Hong Kong Law and Order Assistance Group to look after their welfare.516 The
same pattern of stress and withdrawal can be made out in the conduct of the middle classes.
The petty functionaries employed by the Governor's Office were well aware that Japan was
heading for defeat. Chinese and Indian constables in the police force had been thrown, their
employers remarked, into “mental chaos and worry” and hence “were not eager in
discharging their duties”.517
The great mass of the Chinese were, as Police Chief Kanazawa remarked
deprecatingly, “not bright and cheerful”. 518 Tucked away in the newspaper columns most
weeks were reports of anonymous individuals who had opted to put an end to their
wretchedness by jumping off buildings or ferries. Many residents who contrived to avoid
516
Tse, San Nian, 296.
Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa, Kanazawa trial,WO235/1093, 353.For description of similar
“uneasiness” among the Chinese and Indian guards in Stanley, see Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads,
231.
518
Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa, Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093, 325.
517
217
starvation were picked off instead by the frequently misdirected American air raids. On 18
April 1945, for example, American planes machine-gunned a crowded ferry crossing from
Hong Kong Island to Yaumati in Kowloon, and on 12 June fifty-nine American raiders
dropped incendiary bombs on the Central District. Despite the deaths of almost 10,000
Chinese civilians in these attacks, the bulk of the populace steadfastly refused to blame the
United States. They laid blame for the attacks squarely on the Japanese military, and even
seem to have been welcomed the attacks as evidence that the occupation was nearing its
end.519 The Chinese public could sense the impending fall of the Japanese as surely as they
had sensed that of the British four years earlier. As one asked, “How long will the Japanese
forces be able to hold on? . . . How long will people go on accepting the military yen?”520
Their view was reflected in an epigram ascribed to the poet Dai Wangshu that was circulating
throughout the colony:
Greater East Asia,
What a surprise—
All that hot air
Was a pack of lies.521
5.4 The Japanese: Friend or Foe?
The overall Chinese reaction to Japanese domination was one of sullen acceptance,
borne of dazed surprise at the British debacle and subsequent sad disillusionment with British
rule. Large numbers who had flooded into Hong Kong to escape the Japanese now found
themselves in an even worse position than that they had left. As an editorial in the Hong Kong
Samejima, Xianggang Huixiang Ji, 123; Hirano, Shigeru,“Women zai Xianggang de Kezheng Yu Baoxing”,
in Ling Ming (trans.), Riben zhanfan huiyilu, (Hong Kong: Four Seas Publishing, 1971), 54; Buping Shanren,
Xianggang Lunxian Huiyilu,(Hong Kong: Xiangjiang Publishing House, 1978), 62; comments of former internee
Sherry Bucks quoted by Adam Williams, article in SCMP, November 19, 1978.
520
Samejima, Xianggang Huixiang Ji, 124. See also testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa, Kanazawa trial,
WO 235/1093, 367, 384.
521
Quoted Tse, San Nian, 427.
519
218
News described, “The vaunted supermen of the white race have melted like butter. In eighteen
days of conflict it was all over, a horrible muddle of inefficiency and helplessness which has
bequeathed a miserable aftermath”.522
Nevertheless, disillusionment with the British did not mean acceptance of the
Japanese, despite their dissemination of the ideal of “Asia for the Asians”. Outwardly,
Japanese rule was accepted, by some with hope, but the ruthlessness with which the Japanese
conducted operations against China, the rape of Nanking, and the arbitrary shootings and
bayoneting of Chinese offenders in Hong Kong created a hatred for the Japanese that
expressed itself in the form of subtle obstruction, requiring continuous modification and
simplification of administrative bodies.
Despite this need, there is no reason to believe that these administrative bodies did not
adequately serve Japanese objectives. While the Chinese could nominally express their views,
control rested firmly with the Japanese. As war pressures permitted the military
administration in Hong Kong little discretion in carrying out policies decided in Tokyo, the
ability to act on Chinese wishes was likely strictly limited. At the same time, the use of the
District Bureaux as their main forms of local government clearly showed that the Japanese
had no intention of riding roughshod over the Chinese community. This intention was also
demonstrated by the intense pains that they took to publicize and explain their policies, which
took the form of a regular series of press conferences given by the Governor; the Heads of the
Administration, the gendarmerie, and various central government offices; and members of the
two Chinese councils.
The Chinese had but a slight feeling of belonging to Hong Kong, scant loyalty to the
state, and little willingness to sacrifice for the community. To them, the defence of Hong
Kong was a matter for the British. Hong Kong was an artificial society composed of primarily
522
The Hong Kong News, February 12, 1942.
219
temporary residents seeking economic advantage or escape from Japanese attack. Only the
Eurasians and Portuguese, as well as some Chinese and Indians who had become Westernized,
regarded Hong Kong as a home worth fighting for. The British knew little of the background
of the refugees, and were understandably hesitant about appealing for cooperation from the
resident Chinese community. Therefore, the Hong Kong Government had had only partial
success when it sought their participation in defence preparations, generally from those
educated at the University or in the Anglo-Chinese schools run by European organizations.
The Hong Kong Chinese masses were, understandably, less impressed by the gospel
from Tokyo. Many had come to the colony precisely in order to escape from the Imperial
troops who were devastating their country. Even there, however, certain enclaves collaborated
with the Japanese. After Wang Jingwei deserted the Nationalists at the end of 1938, his
partisans used Hong Kong as their initial headquarters, and a significant Wang faction
subsequently emerged that published its own newspaper, Nan Hua Ribao (South China Daily)
and ran its own underground network.523 Its ranks were augmented by the arrival of several
hundred supporters, some partially armed, who had slipped into the colony alongside the
mainland refugees. 524 By mid-1940, the British authorities had come to view the Wang
faction as a potential source of revolt.
As always occurs when war leads to shortages of food, clothing, and fuel, a vigorous
black market emerged. One local citizen recorded his experiences with the market that
emerged in Hong Kong:
523
On June 8 1945, Consul-General Iwai in Macao forwarded reports to Tokyo emanating from a number of
different Japanese intelligence posts on a conference that had recently been held by the Communist forces in
South China. The conference had decided that when the Communists launched their planned “general offensive”
in South China, Canton was to be occupied in a “swift anticipatory stroke”. A number of Communist units in the
Canton area were currently being reorganized with this plan in mind. Further Communist activity near Canton
was reported on June 22. See MAGIC Documents Reel XIV, June 22, 1945.
524
Report of Major Ronald Holmes, July 12, 1944, HS 1/171, 3. For the role of the East River Band in impeding
a possible Nationalist advance, see also Ride, British Army Aid Group, 270-1.
220
At that time I was the bread-winner for the whole family, although I was eight years
old. I managed to make friends with the Japanese and climb in and out of the barracks
very often. The Japanese soldiers were like any other soldiers, they needed money and
many other things. So we did a little business with them—blackmarket business.
There were lots of things in the barracks, lying about, that the Japanese wished to get
rid of so I was the person to go up there to contact them and get them to sell. The
goods were delivered to us in the middle of the night by Japanese soldiers and then
were thrown over the wall and we had to go down to the street to pick them up. The
next morning we’d take them to the market and sell them.525
The greatest dilemma facing prominent Chinese, and even some less prominent
Chinese, was that if they remained in Hong Kong to protect their own interests, or even to
protect those of the community generally, they would appear to be traitors. This dilemma
became even greater after several leading figures had been astutely appointed by the Japanese
to head local representative committees and District Bureaux to give the appearance of local
representation while ensuring local responsibility for any misdeeds of resistance against the
occupiers. Ironically, several men who appeared to be collaborators had been asked by
officials of the defeated Hong Kong government to assume these difficult roles. It is therefore
not surprising that many refuse to talk about their experiences even today. Dr Zia, one of the
few willing to speak, described his experiences with the administration:
While classes for Japanese lessons were still going on, there was a circular issued by
the medical department inviting applications from doctors to take up medical posts in
Hainan Island. I went to the bureau the next day and interviewed the Director, who
introduced me to the chief interpreter and the head of the department, a Japanese
returned student. They let us fix up my monthly family allotment, rice allowances,
525
Birch and Cole, Captive Years, chapter 9.
221
gave me all the information about the nature of the work and told me to get in contact
with the office as often as I could. I returned home and told my wife that I had
accepted the job. My wife took the news half-heartedly, with an expression of
consolation combined with perplexity. She was consoled because the family got
protection but she was worried because my future was in absolute darkness. After
pausing for a while she spoke impressively, “Can't you withdraw your application?
How am I going to look after the home and the children and pass the lonely years?” I
replied, “This is a time of emergency and as long as you have got enough money for
the family we should all be content. The Japanese have great respect for doctors and,
when you work for them, they treat you as one of their own men. The Jap soldiers
fought because they were under orders from the Generals not because they had
personal hatred against all Chinese. If you have fair feelings for them they do not kill
you without reason, like savages do. In this wide world it is the language bar and
politics which make people of different nations treat each other like aliens. I can
withstand a hard life, and loneliness will vanish when you understand that there is a
group of doctors and nurses going together” I explained, and convinced her.526
526
Ibid., chapter 9.
222
Chapter 6
Collaboration at the Economic and Social Levels
6.1 Japanese Economic and Social Policy towards the Chinese in Singapore
The 1930s witnessed the spread of the ideology and vocabulary of Pan-Asianism and
the official national policy of a “New Order in East Asia” throughout Japan (see chapter 2).
The main features of this New Order were the creation of a tripartite bloc connecting Japan,
the leader of this bloc, with Manchukuo and China based on recognition of their ethnic
affinity and cultural ties. Such ties would serve as the bases of their engagement in close
political, economic, and cultural cooperation with each other and against Western
imperialism.527
Southeast Asia had not always been an area of such Japanese concern. 528 It only
assumed great importance after 1937, when Japan’s attempt to incorporate China into the
New Order in East Asia through the Second Sino-Japanese War led to serious tension with the
United States, as such aggression on the Asian Continent was incompatible with the
traditional American Open Door policy. Unprepared to relinquish its existing economic and
social ties with China, the United States sent aid in the forms of cash, munitions, and military
advisors to assist China in its fight against the Japanese. The Americans next sought to check
Japan’s expansionism in China through economic sanctions that deprived Japan of raw
materials essential for its war machine.529 In 1940, the United States prohibited the export
without license of petroleum, petroleum products, and scrap metal, and placed an embargo on
the export of aviation gasoline to all countries outside of the Western Hemisphere. In the
527
A. J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs 1938, I (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 498.
Joyce C. Lebra, Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere in World War II: selected readings and
documents, (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), x-xi. Lebra explains that the Asian continent had
always been conceived by Japan as pivotal to its national security and economic viability, leading its
policymakers to disregard Southeast Asia.
529
Ibid., 59-62, 75-82.
528
223
same year, Great Britain joined the United States in placing an embargo on the export of scrap
iron and steel, which the United States followed by freezing all Japanese assets held in its
banks in July 1941.530
In desperate need of access to materials and markets, Japanese Foreign Minister Arita
made the following historical announcement on 29 June 1940:
The countries of East Asia and the regions of the South Seas are geographically,
historically, racially and economically very closely related. The uniting of all these
regions in a single sphere on a basis of common existence, insuring thereby stability,
is a natural conclusion.531
Arita’s open advocacy of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was soon supported by
consolidation of the various ties already existing between East and Greater East Asia. At the
Liaison Conference between the Japanese Cabinet and the Imperial Headquarters on 2 July
1940, a resolution was passed officially approving the creation of the greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere as envisaged in Arita’s speech.532
Economically, the Sphere would operate according to the principle of the international
division of labour, with the economic specialization of products and industries being based on
geographical, economic and “other relevant factors”.533 Central and South China would be deindustrialized and reorganized to engage in a form of self-sustaining agricultural production
that would supply raw materials and surplus food to the other components of the Sphere.
Manchukuo and North China would provide the materials that would serve as the basis for
Japan’s industrial complex. Japan would thus relocate many of its heavy industries to
530
Julius W. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 379382.
531
IMTFE, Exh. 529. Quoted in M.A. Aziz, Japan’s colonialism and Indonesia, 63.
532
IMTFE, Exh. 541, Timetable no. 3: “Resolution of the Second Konoye Cabinet Determining Fundamental
National Policy Aimed at Establishing a New Order in Great East Asia”. Quoted in Ibid., 64-65.
533
IMTFE, Exh. 675A. Quoted in W. E. Elsbree, Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 1940
to 1945, 27-8. The most relevant of the other factors is the objective of making the countries incapable of
separating from Japan politically.
224
Manchukuo and the greater part of its light industries to North China, while centring all hightechnology industries, such as the precision tool, arms, and chemical products industries, in
Japan. 534 Japan would also act as the financial controller of the Sphere, supervising all
financial affairs; hold a monopoly on the shipping and fishing industries; and become the
supplier of scientifically trained and technically skilled labour.535The remaining components,
namely Australia, New Zealand, and India, were to become a vast market for the
manufactured goods produced in the Sphere.536
The stated goal of this economic structure was to “work with the opportunity of
sharing in the profits of industry that is afforded everybody” such that the native peoples were
to receive a fairer share of the fruit of their labour than under the colonial regimes. This
principle and the following principles were outlined in the document “Draft of Basic Plan for
Establishment of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”: 537
1. The Southern region would be freed from colonial rule, with the politically
dominant influence of Europe and America to be gradually eliminated.
2. The desire of native peoples for their independence would be recognized. After
consideration of its military and economic requirements and its specific historical, political,
and cultural elements, each newly independent state would, dependent on the approbation of
Japan, adopt the form of government most appropriate for its existence within the Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
3. Military zones and key points necessary for the defence of the Sphere would be
established and directly or indirectly controlled by Japan.
534
IMTFE, Exh. 861: “Outline of the Economic Construction of Japan, Manchukuo and China,” decided at a
Cabinet meeting on October 3, 1940. Quoted in M.A. Aziz, Japan’s colonialism and Indonesia, 69-70.
535
Ibid., 69-70.
536
IMTFE, Exh. 1336, Document 2402B: “Draft of Basic Plan”. Quoted in Tsunoda, Ryūsaku, Wm. Theodore
de Bary, Donald Keene, Sources of Japanese tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 801.
537
IMTFE, Exh. 1336, Document 2402B: “Draft of Basic Plan”. Quoted in Ibid., 804.
225
4. Serving as the nucleus of the Sphere, Japan would forge a new common identity
among the various peoples.
It can be seen from the second principle that Japan’s conception of independence was
not based on liberalism and national self-determination. The so-called “independent” areas
would be subject to policies laid down by an Upper Council of the Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere under Japanese leadership and supervised by Japanese advisors, while
military and diplomatic affairs would remain in Japanese hands. 538 The direct or indirect
control of military bases by Japan would prevent any area from breaking away from the
Sphere, as it would have no armed forces to back its cause. With the division of labour, the
components of the Sphere would be mutually dependent on one another for their economic
survival and would enhance their political integration, leaving little cause for political
separation from the Sphere.
The Greater East Asiatic War was thus the logical consequence of Japan’s ideology of
Asian co-existence and co-prosperity. Since Japan needed the resources of the Southern
region to win the Greater East Asiatic War, it had to ensure that they would be channelled
accordingly. As a wartime measure, military governments or Gunsei were established to
administer each occupied area in the South, restore public order, engage in the rapid
acquisition of resources, and secure the self-sufficiency of the military forces in the field.539
The first and the last objectives were preconditions for the fulfilment of the second objective,
as the establishment of public order would create an environment conducive to the collection
of each region’s resources. As the occupied areas would become self-sufficient in terms of
food and other necessities, Imperial shipping would not be burdened with supplying these
538
IMTFE, Exh. 675A. Quoted in W. H. Elsbree, Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 1940
to 1945, 28.
539
The English translation of the document “Principles Governing the Administration of Occupied Southern
Areas” (“Nampo Senryochi Gyosei Jisshi Yoryo”) can be found in H. Benda, J. K. Irikura, and K. Kishi,
Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia: Selected Documents,1.
226
resources, leaving it free for the transport of the massive amounts of resources from the
Southern Region to Japan to feed its defence industries.
Imbued with war propaganda, the rank and file of the Japanese Army were strongly
prejudiced against the overseas Chinese, seeing them as mercenary and having “no racial or
national consciousness, and no enthusiasms outside the making of money”. 540 Military
planners, on the other hand, were well aware that Chinese commercial talents were essential
for the realization of economic self-sufficiency in the occupied territories. The “moneymaking” abilities of and the economic infrastructure created by the overseas Chinese were
even more indispensible in the case of Singapore, as the island was to be the capital and
defence headquarters of the Southern Region. For this reason, the Japanese military
administration was anxious that the Chinese resume their economic activities as soon as the
war ended.
6.2 Japanese Socioeconomic policy towards the Chinese in Singapore
6.21 The Endau Settlement
When Singapore’s trade with other countries was disrupted due to the war,541 a great
strain on was placed on the island’s one million inhabitants, as most of Singapore’s food
supply had been imported. To increase food production, the Japanese authorities encouraged
the population to become self-sufficient by growing their own food, which required resettling
part of the population outside of Singapore in areas where they could farm and live off the
Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 61.
The first signs that the war was beginning to turn against Japan were seen in August 1943, when the Japanese
administration in Singapore launched a “grow more food” campaign and conceded it was necessary “because of
enemy activity” that was depleting even the scanty food supplies available to feed Singapore's population.
On 11 February 1943, after six months of bitter fighting, the Americans drove the Japanese out of Guadalcanal in
the Solomon Islands, which lie to the north of Australia. The following month a large segment of the Japanese
Navy was destroyed in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea off New Guinea. In November, the Americans invaded
Bougainville bland off New Guinea as the Japanese were pushed back towards the north. American and British
submarines sunk ships carrying food supplies to Japanese forces in Southeast Asia (including Singapore) and
remote islands in the South and Central Pacific. The Japanese confiscated all food produced in occupied
territories for consumption by their armed forces and to build up reserve supplies resulting in severe food
shortages for civilian populations.
540
541
227
land. Preoccupied with the defence of the territories in Southeast Asia, army strategists in
Tokyo decided to use the shortage of food as an excuse to move as many Chinese as possible
out of Singapore. The High Command in Tokyo feared that if the British or Americans
invaded Singapore, the entire population, especially the Chinese, would give their fullest
cooperation to the Allied forces. The Seventh Area Army, which was in charge of the defence
of Singapore, was ordered to evacuate 300,000 Chinese immediately, to be followed by more
evacuations as soon as possible.
The responsibility for the evacuation lay with Mamoru Shinozaki 542 , Head of the
Welfare Department in the Syonan Municipality, who in turn approached the OCA to build a
settlement for Chinese migrants. Shinozaki persuaded the OCA to agree to the project by
promising that the new settlement would be self-governing, that no Japanese would set foot
within it, and that it would receive supplies of rice until it became self-sufficient. A New
Syonan Model Farm Construction Committee established under the chairmanship of Lim
Boon Keng was then was dispatched to Malaya to identify a suitable site. After examination,
it selected Endau in Johore as the site for the new settlement.
When the evacuation order was issued in August 1943, Naito had recently been
appointed Mayor of Singapore. Knowing little about the people and conditions in Singapore,
he assigned responsibility of carrying out the evacuation order to Shinozaki, who then
consulted the OCA about his plans. Of all the communities with whom Shinozaki was
expected to discuss the evacuation plan, he approached the Chinese community first. As the
Chinese community was the most closely watched by the Kempeitai due to their anti-Japanese
activities before and during the occupation, it appears that Shinozaki wanted to spare them
542
Before the war, Shinozaki was a press attaché of the Japanese consulate in Singapore. During the Japanese
occupation of Singapore, he showed his sympathy for the plight of the local people, especially the Chinese. In
the early period of the occupation, he risked his life securing the release of many Chinese and Eurasians who had
been detained by the Kempeitai. Because of his activities, he was closely watched by the Kempeitai and “hated
and ostracized in certain Japanese circles”.
228
from further hardship. In an OCA meeting in which he unveiled his plan of creating a new
settlement for the Chinese in Malaya, Shinozaki stressed that if the Chinese accepted
evacuation to the settlement, it would be autonomous, out of bounds to the Kempeitai, and
receive supplies of rice until self-sufficiency had been achieved. The OCA responded
favourably to the evacuation proposal, viewing it as an opportunity for freedom. Whereas the
Japanese saw the scheme as a means to alleviate the food problem in Singapore, the Chinese
saw it as a means to obtain freedom from the Kempeitai.543
Construction work began soon after the OCA raised $1 million to develop the
settlement. Workers cleared the jungle and built roads and houses in preparation for the
arrival of the migrants. To entice Singaporeans to participate in the scheme, pioneer settlers
were promised an allotment of four acres of land; free supplies of rice, sugar, and salt; and a
small monthly cash payment for the first six months. The first migrants who arrived at Endau
in September 1943 were forced to live in crude huts made of opeh leaves until the
administration allocated land for them to build their own houses. The pioneering work was
challenging to many, as most did not have construction or farming experience, and all were
forced to be resourceful and make necessity items such as soap, coconut oil, and condensed
milk.
Despite the difficult new environment, many were attracted to the settlement because
of the promise of a supply of rice and, more importantly, the fact that the affairs of the
settlement would be administered by the OCA with no interference by Japanese authorities.
By the end of the first year, twelve thousand settlers had arrived in Endau, which had opened
a school, a bank, a paper factory, a sawmill, and several restaurants. However, life at the
settlement was disturbed by activities of Chinese anti-Japanese guerrillas, who claimed the
543
See Rodziah Haji Shaari, Japanese Resettlement Schemes: Endau and Bahau, 1942-1945 (Singapore:
National University of Singapore, 1986-1987)
229
lives of several settlement officials and civilians. Peace was only restored after Shinozaki
entered into a secret pact with the guerrillas, offering rice in exchange for peace.544
After the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, twelve thousand families returned to
their homes in Singapore, and the Endau Settlement was taken over by the MPAJA. Besides
Endau, the Japanese also created a settlement in Bahau (in Negri Sembilan, Malaya) for
Eurasians and Chinese Roman Catholics and a settlement in Pulau Bintan for Indians.545
6.22 Educational System and Policy
When the occupation commenced, the Gunsei authorities closed all public and private
schools until further notice. Once order was restored in April 1942, they gradually authorized
the reopening of public primary schools, but not private schools. Thus, Chinese schools,
which had largely operated on private funds, could not reopen, while public schools for
Malays and Indians could do so. 546 Only in October, after petitioning by the Chinese
community leaders for the opening of privately financed Chinese schools, did Watanabe
permit the reopening of Chinese grade schools, provided that the Mayor or Governor
approved of their curriculum and teachers' qualifications. At the same time, he authorized
schools to teach Chinese as an auxiliary language.547
Although the number of reopened Chinese schools increased after October, only 185
schools enrolling 24,078 pupils, compared to prewar figures of 1,522 schools enrolling
137,328 pupils, were in operation by January 1943.548 By June, the number had increased to
544
A few members of the settlement’s committee were shot and killed by guerrillas of the Malayan Peoples AntiJapanese Army (MPAJA). Shinozaki realized that if the killings continued, people would begin leaving. To
prevent this from occurring, he made a secret agreement with the guerrillas, giving them rice supplies in return
for stopping the killing.
545
Chia, Joshua Yeong Jia, Endau Settlement, (National Library Board Singapore, August 23, 2006),
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1221_2006-12-29.html (assessed August 18, 2010).
546
Syonan Gunseibu, Shogakko Saikai No Ken, April 18, 1942; Nayaga Yuji, “Marai Ni Okeru Shiritsu Gakko
Taisaku,” Chosabuho, no. 3 (June 5, 1944), n.p. Later secondary and vocational schools reopened. See Akashi,
“Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 84.
547
Ibid., 84.
548
Marei Gunseikambu, Bunkyoka, Marei Kyoiku Jijo (March, 1943), 26, 61-2. Many Chinese private schools
were no more than the terakoya-type schools of Tokugawa Japan (1616-1868). For instance, in prewar years “in
230
only 208 public and private Chinese schools. 549 This deliberately discriminatory educational
policy towards the Chinese caused Governor Kawamura of Perak to voice concerns at the
May 1943 meeting of governors and mayors:
Not enough number of Chinese primary schools in Perak has reopened. As the result,
many Chinese are beginning to harbour the idea that they are being discriminated.
There is a mood of restlessness [in Chinese communities], contributing a great deal to
the problem of preserving security.550
An official study into the educational situation in Perak confirmed Kawamura's statement;
whereas 90.7 percent of Malay language schools and 76.9 per cent of Indian (Tamil) language
schools had reopened by May 1943, only 11 percent of Chinese schools had reopened.551
Elsewhere in Malaya, the percentage of Chinese schools reopened was also much lower than
that of Malay and Indian schools.552 This low percentage reflected a deliberate measure to
chastise the Chinese for their anti-Japanese activities and to purge “evil thought” from the
curriculum.553 To inculcate the Japanese spirit into the minds of Chinese children, fourteen
weekly hours of Japanese language instruction were required, while Chinese- language
instructional hours were reduced from fourteen to seven. The Chinese resented Japanese
Malacca there were more than 200 registered Chinese schools, but only a half of them might be justified as bona
fide schools. Many were terakoya-type schools renting a space on the second floor of stores”. This led to a
reduction in school openings and student enrolment. Nagaya Yuji, Senryogo No Maraya Rro Shoto Kyoiku,
December 1943,12-13, 18. Marked "Secret." Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”,
84.
549
Nagaya, Chosabuho, no. 3, n.p. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 84.
550
Kawamura, Marei In Okeru Gunsei Shikko Ni Kansuru Iken, n.p.
551
Perakku Shucho, Perakku-Shu Gaiyo, May 1943, n.p. Marked "Top Secret." Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese
policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 84.
552
Nagaya, Senryogo No Maraya No Shoto Kyoiku, 11-19. General Fujimura reported that as of January 1945,
only twenty to thirty percent of Chinese schools had reopened. Japan, Dai-ichi Fukuinsho, Marei Gunsei Gaiyo,
n.p.; cf. Nan ch'iao Tsung-hui, Ta-chan yu Nan ch'iao, 103-104. Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the
Malayan Chinese”, 85.
553
Bunkyoka, Marei Kyoiku Jijo, 62, 90. The disintegration of Chinese families, stagnant economic conditions,
and high tuition fees charged in Malacca and Selangor delayed the recovery of the Chinese educational system.
231
interference, comparing it negatively to the freedom in the selection of curriculum and
textbooks that they had enjoyed under British rule.554
The document “Educational Policy Concerning the Chinese”, released in March 1944,
reflected a hardline policy that had little respect for native customs.555 The policy abolished
Chinese private schools and banned “Chinese language instruction at public schools in favour
of strengthening the Japanese language programme”, although the use of Chinese for teaching
the Japanese language was still permitted. To strengthen the Japanese language programme at
Chinese public schools, the Gunsei authorities required all Chinese teachers, who were the
most anti-Japanese among all the Chinese, to attend a reorientation course at training centres.
The new policy appeared illogical in many respects. Requiring that instruction in
Chinese be replaced by instruction in Japanese was not a way to increase “the affection
consequent upon the leading of daily life” and win “the respect and loyalty of the local
inhabitants”, 556 as Hamada had earlier admonished representatives of Japanese firms.
Furthermore, the Gunsei authorities implemented the new policy at the time when the old
educational policy concerning Chinese schools, which had been promulgated in October 1942,
was working well. The discriminatory policy of not permitting the Chinese to teach in their
own language while allowing the Malays and Indians to do so would lead the Chinese, as one
Japanese educational official said, to believe that they were being treated unfairly, 557
undermine the established educational system, and breed distrust among the Chinese
regarding the sincerity of the Japanese.558 The Gunsei authorities were painfully aware of the
difficulty of implementing the policy, as evidenced in the foreword of the document: “A
554
Nagaya Yuji, "Syonan Kakyo Shigaku Chosa," Chosabuho, no. 5 (July 5, 1944), n.p. The result of this
language programme was unsatisfactory because of the woefully inadequate training of Chinese teachers in the
Japanese language and the lack of Japanese language textbooks and incentives.
555
Marei Gunseikamba, "Kakyo Ni Kansuru Bunkyo Shisaku," in Showa 19-nen San Gatsu Kaisai Marei Kaku
Shu (Shi) Chokan Kaigi Kankei Shorui Toji, n.p.
556
Quoted in Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 85.
557
Nagaya, Chosabuho, no. 3, n.p.
558
Ibid., no. 5, n.p.
232
special consideration must be given in implementing the policy not to create the impression
that the authorities are discriminating the Chinese against other ethnic groups”. To offer the
Chinese Japanese citizenship at an unspecified future date as an inducement for the
Japanization programme, of which the language policy was part, was a very clumsy
justification for the new policy, as the Chinese were less than eager to acquire Japanese
citizenship.
6.23 Chinese Responses to the Educational System and Policy
Although the Chinese generally tried to appease the Japanese military administration
by fulfilling its orders via the OCA, they exhibited remarkable indifference or passive
resistance to Japanese educational policy. Education was recognized by the Japanese as the
most powerful means of extirpating Western influence, inculcating the Nippon-Seishin of
total obedience to authority and loyalty to the Japanese Emperor, replacing English with
Japanese as the lingua franca in Singapore, and developing a skilled work force to service the
Japanese war machine and support the growth of local industries. Education was therefore of
utmost importance to the successful execution of the war and the expansion of the Japanese
Empire. To achieve these multiple aims, Chinese and English schools were ordered to reopen
in April 1942 and renamed after the streets in which they were located to eradicate any traces
of Chinese and English culture from their names. Japanese language and Japanese military
discipline were taught and in March 1944, the teaching of Mandarin for one hour each day,
which had hitherto been tolerated, was banned altogether.559
Despite all these efforts, the Japanese educational policy towards the Chinese was a
complete failure. The enrolment of Chinese students during the occupation compared
miserably with that in 1941, as shown in Table 6.1.
559
Fundamental Policy Concerning Education in the Southern Sphere. Headquarters of Southern Expeditionary
forces, January 12, 1942. From Akashi, ‘Education and Indoctrination Policy in Malaya and Singapore under the
Japanese Rule, 1942-1945’, Appendix.
233
Table 6.1560
Enrolment of Chinese students before and during the Japanese Occupation
Year
No. of English schools and students No. of Chinese schools and students
1941
81; 27,000
370; 38,000
1942
536; 5,000
21; 2,543
The indifference of the Chinese to the Japanese educational system contrasted to the
enthusiasm of the Malay and Indian communities, as shown in the table below:
Year
No. of Malay schools and students
No. of Indian schools and students
1941
29; 5,800
18; 1000
1942
522; 4,572
9; 789
Student enrolment during the occupation was 18.5%, 6.6%, 78.8%, and 78.9% of the
prewar level for English, Chinese, Malay, and Indian schools. Being treated less harshly by
the Japanese military administration, the Malays and the Indians were less hostile towards it,
and exhibited enthusiasm for Japanese-sponsored education. Although the Chinese were in no
position to abolish the Japanese educational system, which in their perception functioned to
enslave their children, they expressed their disgust by boycotting the schools.561
The negative response of the Chinese towards Japanese educational policy constituted
the only significant indication of noncooperation. Much as they hated the Japanese for their
aggression in China and their atrocities in Singapore, the Chinese were, on the whole,
compelled by the sheer necessity of survival to appease the Japanese military administration
through OCA declarations of “loyalty”, seeking employment in Japanese firms and schools,
and cooperating with Japanese merchants. To the Chinese, appeasement often implied
collaboration, as they believed there to be a very thin line between the two. However, only a
560
Annual Report of the Department of Education 1946, Singapore,1-2.
Akashi, ‘Education and Indoctrination Policy in Malaya and Singapore under the Japanese Rule, 1942-1945’,
Appendix.
561
234
very few Chinese were “collaborators” or “traitors” in that they conformed to one of two
categories established by the British after the war: (1) those who had held key positions of
power in Japanese-sponsored organizations and expressed loyalty to the Japanese in their
public statements and actions, excluding those forced to collaborate, and (2) those who had
worked as spies and intelligence officers and whose actions had caused the loss of property,
serious mutilation, or death of individuals.
In short, except a negligible few who actively participated in the underground
resistance movement, the Chinese in Singapore were generally outwardly compliant with the
Japanese military administration while inwardly seething with hatred for the Japanese and
eagerly awaiting the return of the British.
6.24 Factors in the Failure to Win Chinese Loyalty
The failure of the Japanese military administration to win the loyalty of the Chinese
despite its use of propaganda in the mass media and educational system can be attributed to
several factors. First, the Japanese military administration made no sustained and consistent
overtures to win Chinese loyalty. The curricula of the small number of schools opened for the
Chinese focused on physical education, technical training, and the Japanese language rather
than on the inculcation of those Japanese values that were deemed desirable, and it is doubtful
that simply teaching the Japanese language inculcated any Japanese ideals.
In terms of mass media efforts, three Chinese books were published in 1942 for the
purpose of propaganda, but no similar efforts were made thereafter. Two magazines, the
Syonan Pictorial and the Chinese-language Southern Light Weekly, initially popularized the
concept of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, but later became more informative than
propagandistic.562 A strict censorship on firms initially imposed was later eased to allow the
distribution of prewar Mandarin films, while Chinese operas were allowed to continue
562
Akashi, ‘Education and Indoctrination Policy in Malaya and Singapore under the Japanese Rule, 1942-1945’,
Appendix.
235
throughout the occupation. The press and the radio station were less preoccupied with
propagating the Japanese spirit than with reporting Japanese and Axis war victories, the truth
of which was often doubted by the Chinese. Moreover, Chinese exposure to this relatively
ineffective Japanese propaganda was too short-lived—three and a half years—to make any
significant impact on Chinese political thinking and loyalty.563
The most important reason that the Japanese failed to win Chinese loyalty was that
former’s actions sharply contradicted their professed aims of bringing justice and coprosperity to the occupied territories. The despotism of the military administration, the
atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers, and the economic hardships resulting from the
Japanese rule were stark and harsh realities that negated whatever impact that Japanese
propaganda might have made on the Chinese. A telling instance of Japanese intransigence
was the abolition of Chinese private schools and the imposition of the ban on Chineselanguage instruction at public schools in favour of strengthening the Japanese-language
programme in March 1944, the same period when Japanese policy towards the Chinese was
seen to have taken a “softer” turn. This seeming contradiction was but a reflection of the
incompatibility of ruthlessly exploiting a conquered people and ensuring their welfare. The
Japanese had attempted to use the stick and the carrot, but their sticks were big and frequently
applied, while their carrots were small and difficult to come by, and this was the chief reason
for the failure of Japanese efforts to win the hearts and minds of the local Chinese.564
In retrospect, it is possible to detect significant similarities between the Japanese
educational programme and that of the former British regime. 565 First, they were both
deliberately elitist: the Queen`s Scholarships were paralleled by a scheme introduced and
financed by Marquis Yoshichika Tokugawa that awarded scholarships to three young men, all
563
Ibid, 21.
Akashi, ‘Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese,’85.
565
Harold E. Wilson, Educational Policy and Performance in Singapore, 1942-45, Occasional paper no. 16,
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 27.
564
236
graduates of Raffles College, and two young women selected for their “character and
accomplishments” to pursue a course of study in Japan, the intention being to create a small
group of leaders sympathetic to the Japanese regime. Both systems were essentially authoritarian, imposed upon a population without reference to the wishes of parents and with only a
slight regard to the needs of the community.
Most significantly, both systems were used to impart the cultural values of alien rulers.
The major difference between them lies in the fact that the British system was shaped within
the liberal-arts tradition of the West, and thus tended to produce a literate population with
goals identified in terms of academic rather than technological achievement, while the
Japanese system was frankly utilitarian, geared to the imperatives of a wartime situation and
promoting the concept of a future in which Singapore would play a role very different from
that of its entrepot past. As an agent for change, the significance of the Japanese educational
policy lay in the consideration that it forced upon the minds of future educators and
politicians. An educational system designed to preserve the colonial status was no longer
acceptable, and both leaders and led came to wonder whether fulfilling the educational needs
of Singapore, which were distinct from those of some alien power, might not provide the
basis for a new educational system.566
6.3 Collaboration or Cooperation? Dynamics between the Japanese and Local Elites in
the Implementation of Socioeconomic Policy in Hong Kong
6.31 Role of Hong Kong in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
In accordance with an economic policy aimed at furthering Japan’s political goals for
Hong Kong, Yazaki argued that the Japanese military should use Hong Kong to obtain access
to the wealth of the southern Chinese provinces, in the same way that it used Dairen to obtain
566
Ibid, 28.
237
access to Manchuria and Shanghai to the Yangtze valley. If the railway line from Kowloon to
Canton could be brought back into service and a new line constructed from Canton to the
Yangtze port of Hankou, iron, coal, copper, manganese, tungsten, antimony, and other
strategic minerals could all be extracted from the interior of South China and shipped out
through Hong Kong to supply Japan's wartime industries. To achieve this end, however, help
must once again be sought from the Hong Kong elites, the repositories of large resources of
capital and know-how. A string of joint ventures should therefore be established with Hong
Kong Chinese interests, including a new Bank of Commerce and Industry to provide capital
and a shipping firm to replace the Taikoo Steamship Company of the old British trading
house Butterfield and Swire.567 Isogai seemingly sympathized with this concept of integrating
Hong Kong economically with the Chinese hinterland. In his first policy statement delivered
from Tokyo on 21 January 1942, he predicted that the colony would “rapidly take its place as
the heart of south China”.568
For a time, the regime’s policy for the colony resulted in limited economic progress.
As a military base in conditions of all-out war, Hong Kong was expected to strive for the
maximum possible degree of self-sufficiency. One way in which it could do so was by
becoming “a supply depot for industrial production”. 569 Manufactured goods could be
exported to the South in exchange for foodstuffs and key raw materials, and local produce
would replace a wide range of inessential imports. Isogai and his colleagues accordingly
attempted to sustain the prewar upsurge in the colony's light industrial sector. By March 1943,
around eight hundred factories had been brought back into service, including the bulk of the
existing textile mills. A large number of rubber footwear plants were returned to service to
recycle old tyres and process the occasional shipments of raw rubber that arrived in the
See Major-General Yazaki Kanju, “Honkon Tochi Hosaku Shiken”, 239, 242-3.
Hong Kong News, January 21, 1942.
569
Intercepted letter of Fok Shu Hong to Fok Yee Kworn, February 27, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 156.
567
568
238
colony from Indochina and Malaya, and soap making became a significant industry for the
first time.570
With the same aim in mind, a robust operation was launched to exploit the foodproducing potential of the New Territories. A racetrack on which the British had diverted
themselves at Fanling was converted to pasture for rice-growing experiments, and rice began
to be planted in virtually every available square inch of arable land. The New Territories
Agricultural Association, which the British had fostered so sleepily in the dozen years before
the invasion, was revived with a view to increasing the output of fruit and vegetables. Model
farms were created to alert local peasants to the latest methods of cultivation, and in August
1943 an Agricultural Training Institute opened its doors at Fanling.
The Japanese remained aware that other groups in the colony might have a part to play
in the new war against Britain and the United States. In particular, they might help to facilitate
the Army’s conquest of the European empires in Southeast Asia and beyond. As Hong Kong
had been one of the historic springboards for the southward expansion of the overseas
Chinese trading communities, many Chinese entrepreneurs in Hong Kong were based in
Singapore, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, or other points to the South. Sensitively handled,
they might help to reconcile their relatives or business partners in those territories to the new
reality of Japanese rule.571
6.32 Collaboration during the Early Stage of the Occupation
The organization that had ultimate responsibility for Hong Kong’s economy was the
Economic Section of the Civil Administration Department of the Japanese Army. After it
began operation following the surrender of Hong Kong, it immediately attempted to gain the
cooperation of the leading industrialists and businessmen by pleading that their cooperation
570
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 188,327; Koa Kikan, gyormu hodo, no. 2, 251; Tse, Zhanshi Ri jun, 238.
This in turn would contribute to the larger objective of enlisting the wealth of the overseas Chinese on behalf
of Japan. See Yazaki, “Honkon Tochi Hosaku Shiken”, 239, 242.
571
239
was essential to the restoration of order and the distribution of essential goods. However, they
initially received little response to their pleas. On 21 January 1942, the Chief of the Section,
Colonel Ikemoto, called a meeting of the representatives of the most important Chinese firms
in Hong Kong to discuss the revival of trade. Although the purpose of this meeting, at which
the representatives of the Japanese military took their customarily prominent places, was not
reported, it is believed that it was called in connection with other initiatives of the Economic
Section that had earlier been taken through the indigenous group of Chinese merchants that
was to become the Section's principal instrument in Hong Kong: the Chinese General
Chamber of Commerce.
Perhaps the first group to contemplate cooperation with the Japanese after their
capture of Hong Kong, and certainly the one “possessing the greatest material stake in the
colony”, the Chamber served the Economic Section as what may be called a “control-transmission board” through which the Section could reach the merchant guilds whose leaders
comprised the Chamber’s memberships. Every distinct type of trade or commerce in the
colony in which the Chinese were engaged had, as in China, its own guild. Typical of the
various press references illustrating this function of the Chamber is a report that appeared in
the Japanese-controlled Hong Kong News on 14 January1942:
The Chinese Chamber of Commerce called a meeting of representatives of the various
business guilds yesterday for the purpose of discussing proposals to submit to the
Japanese authorities for the reopening of business in the Colony. There were over fifty
persons present, and Mr. Tung Chung-wei, Chairman of Chamber, spoke to them of
the necessity of reopening business and invited them to forward any suggestions in
this direction. Matters dealt with included public safety, rice, and currency, and
suggestions were made to ask the Japanese authorities to release goods which had
240
been sealed and to open more centres for the sale of rice. The proposals adopted will
be submitted to the Japanese authorities today for consideration, it is understood.
As Tung, here referred to as Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, came forward to
end the period of looting as one of the first of Hong Kong’s so-called “collaborationists”, he
was likely acting on instructions that the Japanese had issued at this meeting.
On 24 January 1942, the Economic Section requested the Chamber to submit
proposals for the revival of business in Hong Kong and to respond to six specific questions: (1)
How did the members of the Chamber propose to import goods? (2) How did they propose to
transmit money to the exporters? (3) How would they go about restarting their businesses? (4)
How was the allocation of shipping space to be arranged? (5) What general suggestions did
they have? and (6) What arrangements were they prepared to make the release of stocks in the
godowns? In its 27 January reply, the Chamber stated that the first priorities for the revival of
business in Hong Kong were the reopening of shipping lanes and the immediate release of
stocks from the godowns.572 As Hong Kong’s trade was primarily conducted in North, Central,
and South China, Tokyo might serve as the financial centre of this trade, with the yen as the
medium of exchange and Hong Kong notes accepted at par with the yen until trade could be
restored and a new currency issued for the entire area under Japanese control. Goods imported
into Hong Kong should not be taxed; the number of ships operating between Hong Kong and
Japan, Formosa, Thailand, and Annam should be increased; banks should be reopened; the
public should be afforded better protection; and charges for electricity and water should be
reduced.
572
The lists forwarded by the Chamber to the Japanese are stated to have included a great variety of goods,
including piece-goods, glassware, tea, chinaware, electrical equipment, peanuts, chemical products, matches,
machinery, tinned goods, building material, gasoline, motorcar parts, paper, wine, stationery articles, woollen
goods, gunny bags, rice, flour, precious metals, dyes, leather, rubber goods, silk, foreign medicines, preserved
seafood, candles, salt, tobacco, sugar, printing materials, and materials for railway construction.
241
Despite its response, the Chamber was answering questions that it did not have the
competence to address, as the answer to each depended on what the Japanese planned to do,
of which the Chamber had little knowledge. Such lack of knowledge is reflected in the fact
that the Chamber’s reply did not consist of answers to the questions asked but rather a
statement of what it believed to be in its immediate interest to have the Japanese do. This is
perhaps a good example of the type of cooperation that the Japanese received in Hong Kong;
even those Chinese who sincerely preferred Japanese to British rule simply accepted their
situation and hoped to make as much out of it as they could.
As a result of the discussion that followed the presentation of this reply, the Chamber
was authorized to notify the various Chinese firms in Hong Kong holding goods in the
colony’s godowns to submit detailed lists of those goods, which the Chamber would in turn
submit to the Japanese authorities with a view to securing the release of the goods. The
merchants concerned were obliged to join the Chamber and prepare the lists by 24 March
1942. The Hong Kong News of 30 March reported, “The Chamber has received an enormous
number of applications for the release of goods. If the authorities agree to release, it is
estimated that there will be sufficient material to last a long time”.573
6.33 Treatment of the Local Elites
In response to protests regarding the withdrawal of large banknotes from the currency,
the Gunseicho announced on 11 January 1942 that banknotes of denominations HK$50 to
HK$1,000 would once again be allowed to circulate. In the following weeks, it arranged for
the Hong Kong Bank, the Shanghai Bank, and a number of other British and Allied banking
houses to open for short periods so that limited withdrawals could be made574 and granted
573
Hong Kong News, March 30.
Hong Kong News, January 19, 23, and 29 and February 15, 1942. The other institutions were the Chartered
Bank of India, Australia and China, the Nederlandsch Indische Handelsbank, the Chase Bank, the Mercantile
Bank of India, the Banque de l'Indochine, the Netherlands Trading Society, and the National City Bank of New
York.
574
242
approval for the reopening of many local business enterprises. Early in February, the Bank of
East Asia and eight other Hong Kong Chinese banks resumed operations,575 followed by the
department stores Wing On, Sincere, Sun, and the China Merchandise Emporium by early
March. The Nanyang Tobacco Company restarted production at the end of January, followed
by the Fook Hing Oil Refinery Company in May. The reasons why the Japanese approved the
reopening of these businesses remain unclear, but it seems likely that they felt the need to
show favour to several businessmen with whom they had maintained business relations in the
prewar years. The families controlling the Bank of East Asia had, as previous discussed, a
history of contact with Japan going back many decades.576
There also appears to have been a certain correlation between the ownership of these
favoured firms and the leadership of the new advisory bodies. Sir Shouson Chow, for
example, had been Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank of East Asia for the past
twenty years. Li Koon-chun, the rice merchant who had been appointed Chow's Deputy on
the Chinese Cooperative Council, was a fellow Director of the Bank, and his younger brother
Li Tse-fong, the fourth member of the more select Representative Council, was the Bank's
long-time Manager. Chow, Li Tse-fong, and Chan Lim-pak were all directors of the China
Merchandise Emporium, and Chan Lim-pak was the owner of both the Nanyang Tobacco
Company and the Fook Hing Oil Refinery Company.
By the summer of 1942, a large part of the local elites appear to have been benefiting
commercially from Japanese favour as more and more local businesses were returning to
operation. In the first half of July, nineteen Chinese insurance firms reopened, and almost two
575
Hong Kong News, February 7, 1942; Sinn, Bank of East Asia, 66. The eight other banks were the Hong Nin
Savings Bank, the Hua Chiao (Overseas Chinese) Bank, the Yien Yih Bank, the Wing On Bank, the National
Commercial and Savings Bank, the Fukien Provincial Bank, the Chu Hsin Chen Bank, and the Young Brothers
Banking Corporation.
576
A historian of the Bank records that in consequence of the “vital” prewar connection, the Japanese authorities
in general “did not treat the Bank of East Asia severely”. Sinn, Bank of East Asia, 14, 72.
243
hundred Chinese factories requested permission to reopen.577 Reports from the colony during
the following six months testify to a general bullishness in large business circles. “Prominent
Chinese merchants” whose companies dealt in foodstuffs and other imported necessities were
quoted as declaring that they had been having “a good and profitable year”. “Wealthy
Chinese” were reported to have begun investing their funds in “safe enterprises”. Shares in
Wing On, Sincere, and the other department stores were observed to have increased
“considerably”, together with shares in many Chinese-managed commercial concerns. 578
Much new money was also being invested in real estate; many businessmen jumped at the
obvious opportunities for speculation following the collapse in property prices in the
aftermath of the take-over, leading to a “roaring land boom”.579 However, as some of these
rosy accounts emanate from official Japanese sources, they should be regarded as suspect. On
12 January 1943, however, the overall picture was confirmed in a letter sent from Hong Kong
to California that was intercepted by British wartime censors. The writer, Kan Yuet-keung,
who was likely the son of Kan Tong-po, one of the founders and the chief managers of the
Bank of East Asia, wrote the following:
As to the conditions regarding the bank, compared with when you left Hong Kong
things are brighter: some money is being deposited every day, thus showing public
confidence. Banks with Chinese capital will soon be free with regard to the paying out
of money. Chinese business is now showing good results. The value of shares is
rapidly rising. A share originally worth $10 has now risen to $25. “East Asia” shares
that were originally worth $100 have now risen to $140 and more. Property generally
in Hong Kong is rapidly improving in value (like bamboo shoots after rain). In the
Central District it has risen to double the value. . . . At present joint stock land
company business is increasing daily.580
577
Hong Kong News, July 6 and 9, 1942. See also Wong Lin, “Xin Xianggang De Toushi”, 69.
Domei news agency in English, October 24, 1942, quoted in Extract from Far Eastern Economic Notes, CO
129 590/24, 28, 29; Hong Kong News, December 20, 1942 and February 4, 1943; Hahn, Hong Kong Holiday,
265. Encouraged by the more settled conditions, stockbrokers had apparently got together and created a kind of
informal stock market. Sinn, Bank of East Asia, 72.
579
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 136.
580
Letter from Kan Yuet Keung in Hong Kong to Mrs. Nancy Eu of Palo Alto, San Francisco, California,
January 12, 1943, CO 129 590/22, 106.
578
244
Some official encouragement also seems to have been given to local entrepreneurs
who aspired to take on Japanese business partners. On 11 November 1942, the Hong Kong
News reported that the Hong Kong Trust Company, a joint Hong Kong Chinese-Japanese
venture with starting capital of HK$1 million, had been established three weeks earlier. This
Japanese appropriation of the Hong Kong economy did not take place solely at the expense
of the British. In the first months of Isogai’s reign, the Governor's Office appropriated most
of the light industrial enterprises, including the rubber and textile factories, wooden
boatyards, and sawmills, that had been set up by Chinese businessmen over the past two
decades. The Governor’s Office bought several outright in exchange for a very small amount
and in other cases forced the owners to take on Japanese partners as part of a new system of
“guided management”. 581 The new Japanese business elite were accorded permission to
operate well in advance of most local firms, and it soon became clear that they were enjoying
opportunities not offered to the Chinese and other Asian communities. In July 1942, the
Governor’s Office proclaimed the establishment of the Hong Kong Commercial Federation,
a type of chamber of commerce. Consisting of ninety-two leading Japanese businesses, it
was empowered to supervise all trade that occurred between Hong Kong and the ports in its
immediate neighbourhood, and enjoyed exclusive right to engage in long-distance trading
beyond the South China coast.582 In January 1943, a group of Hong Kong Chinese merchants
joined forces with Japanese interests with a view to opening a large soy factory in the
Mongkok District in Kowloon.
To a certain extent, the new rulers also showed themselves willing to accept the local
elites’ more public-spirited representations. On 2 February 1942, the Gunseicho announced
581
Report on Hong Kong, June 4, 1942, 3, and report of K. E. Mogra January 27, 1943, 6, HS 1/171.
For the Hong Kong Commercial Federation, see Hong Kong News, October 9, 1942, March 23, and October 9,
1943; German newspaper article of summer 1943 quoted in extract from Far Eastern Weekly Intelligence
Summary no. 48 for week ending November 26 , 1943, CO 129 590/22, 63; Domei news agency report quoted
in extract from Daily Digest of World Broadcasts, December 25, 1943, CO 129 591/4, 64; Kathleen J. Heasman,
“Japanese Financial and Economic Measures in Hong Kong,”, 68.
582
245
that in light of the complaints received from Chinese community leaders, charges for water
and electricity would be reduced. Kotewall confirmed the next day that the reduction had
largely been achieved through the efforts of the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee.583 The
appeal over tram fares was less successful: the Communications Department insisted that the
fare increases were necessary to prevent congestion on the trams. However, and more
importantly, the Japanese Chiefs complied with the gentry’s request to put a stop to the crime
wave. On 14 March, Kotewall announced that there had lately been a general re-imposition of
order, a development for which the public had much to thank the authorities, and cheekily
acknowledged, “I may say I contributed a little towards this result”.584
All these gains were, however, were secured at a price. To extract what they wanted
from the new regime, the local elites had to be prepared to allow themselves to be used in
some measure for the purposes of Japanese propaganda. In mid-March, the elusive Sir Robert
Ho Tung unexpectedly reappeared from Macao after, claimed the rumours in circulation,
having lost HK$16 million as a result of the war. 585 Reported to have been particularly
worried about the fate of his HK$1,100,000 balance with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank,
he seems to have been lured back to Hong Kong by being promised access to his British and
Allied bank accounts by the Japanese. In a later description of the visit, he explained that he
returned for the humble purpose of “withdrawing money from the bank for household
expenditures”.586 In return for this privilege, Ho Tung clearly felt that he had to make one or
two formal nods to the new administration. On 23 March, he paid a courtesy call on Governor
Isogai. At an interview he granted to a team of local reporters after the meeting, he expressed
583
Hong Kong News, February 3 and 4, 1942.
Hong Kong News, March 15, 1942.
585
Report of Mrs. A. J. Martin, September 11 1942, CO 129 590/24, 95.
586
Telegram of Sir R. Campbell, British Ambassador, Lisbon, to Foreign Office, May 16, 1942, CO 129 590/23,
131; “The Ho Tung Saga (Part 1)”; Hong Kong Inc., March 1990, 105.
584
246
his desire to help the authorities build up the New Hong Kong and to contribute to the
establishment of Japan’s projected Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
However, Ho Tung was far too canny to allow himself to be drawn into an outright
endorsement of the Japanese conquest. Pressed for his views on the war, he declared that as
he had devoted his entire life to business, he was not qualified to give an opinion.587 He
subsequently declined to take a seat on the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee, and by early
May had returned to Macao. Some further necessity, however, drove him across to Hong
Kong once again in the course of the summer, where he once again appears to have towed the
Japanese line. He was reported to have delivered a speech in praise of Japan, and it is
possible that he may also have found it expedient to make a token investment in the
occupation regime. On June, he was referred to by the Hong Kong News as the “chief
organiser” of a Tai Tung Publishing Company being established to produce pictorial
magazines with titles like New East Asia.588
Few of the local elites appear to have been perturbed by the need to make such
statements. With the British removed, their allegiance showed little sign of drifting, as might
have been expected, to the beleaguered rulers of Nationalist China. Even M. K. Lo joined his
colleagues in appending his name to a 26 January cable pledging the support of the Hong
Kong Chinese community to Wang Jingwei and the puppet regime in Nanking.589
587
Account of Sir Robert Ho Tung visit given in Hong Kong News, March 29, 1942. See also telegram of Sir R.
Campbell to Foreign Office, May 16, 1942, and minutes of W B. L Monson, June 4 1942, CO 129 590/23, 9, 131;
minutes of Monson, October 1, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 8; Gittins, Eastern Windows, 133, and Stanley: Behind
Barbed Wire, 123.
588
Telegram of Sir R. Campbell to Foreign Office, May 16, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 131; letter of William Wright
of Dodwell and Co to G. Dodwell in Watford, September 3, 1942 and minutes of Monson, October 1, 1942, CO
129 590/24, 8,132. On the basis of information from Macao dated 13 May, Sir R. Campbell reported that Sir
Robert Ho Tung was currently back in the Portuguese colony “for about ten days”, while Wright’s letter in early
September described him as having attended a dinner in Hong Kong recently. It seems clear, therefore, that Ho
Tung made at least one trip back to Hong Kong following his initial visit in March, and he may well have made a
second. For the Tai Tung Publishing Company see Hong Kong News, June 8, 1942. New East Asia was produced
in Chinese under the title Xin Dong Ya. The first issue appeared on 1 August 1942. Articles covered such topics
as the history of the Indian independence movement, Australian attitudes to the war, and the progress made in the
reconstruction of Hong Kong over the past six months.
589
Hong Kong News, January 28, 1942. See also report by Professor Gordon King March 18, 1942, CO 129
247
In contrast to the pure-blooded Chinese leaders, the Eurasians appeared visibly
distressed by the need to take a public stand incompatible with the Nationalist war effort.
Chow, the one-time mainland diplomat, is said to have cut “a pathetic figure, attempting
repeatedly to communicate to the Chungking government his entreaty that they withhold
judgement on him”. The lawyer Peter H. Sin was reported to appear “thin and pale” as he
sought to rebut the suggestion that his decision to help the Gunseicho with rice rationing had
discredited him in the eyes of Chungking.590 In addition, he turned over the running of the
government's new Opium Sale Syndicate to his former classmate Xu Chongzhi, an elderly
warlord from the Chinese mainland. Xu, who had declined to act as Isogai's envoy to
Chungking, was quite happy to receive the lucrative monopoly, evidence that the refusal of
mainlanders in Hong Kong to collaborate in a political sense did not necessarily rule out
collaboration in a commercial sense, and the Governor was reported to have taken a cut of
the proceeds.591 Such dealings led a British observer to comment that the Japanese rulers of
Hong Kong were “a queer mixture of official rectitude and unofficial corruption”.592
The elites’ policy of compromise was followed in most respects by Aw Boon-haw, the
Tiger Balm King, who agreed to establish a company called the Kok Sui Kai to accept “token
imports” of rice from Southeast Asia, most for the benefit of the Imperial forces. He also
agreed to permit the newspaper that he published in Hong Kong, Xing Dao Ribao (Sing Tao
Daily), to be used as a vehicle for Japanese propaganda. He changed the title to Xiang Dao
Ribao (Fragrant Isle Daily) because, he later explained, all his “true” newspaper titles
contained the word “star”, and he wished to avoid sullying the purity of the original brand.
Aw was also named, along with Ho Tung, as a “chief organiser” of the new Tai Tung
590/23, 139.
590
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 15; Hahn, China to Me, 328.
591
Report by Major Y. H. Chan on Trading in Opium in Hong Kong, February 3, 1947, appended to file on
Isogai trial, WO 325/135; Hirano, “Women zai Xianggang de Kezheng Yu Baoxing”, 53.
592
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 12, 1945
248
Publishing Company. In return for these gestures, he was allowed to continue operating his
Tiger Balm business and raking in profits from his newspaper.593
The Japanese tended to cede authority regarding spheres in which they did not wish to
become involved to the two Chinese Councils and the local elites. One such sphere was rent
management. In the months following Isogai’s accession to Governor, the Chinese Councils
were used to mediate the squabbles that had arisen between local landlords and tenants
following the collapse of the property market.594 Ichiki Yoshiyuki, an official who had taken
over as Chief of the reorganized Civil Affairs Department, flatly declared in August 1942
that the government had “no intention whatever” of fixing the rents. Any disputes should be
settled by the landlords and tenants themselves, and if they were unable to reach an
agreement, the matter should be referred to the Representative Council for a definitive
ruling.595
Certainly, not every member of the local elites chose to collaborate. Dr. Li Shu-fan
described his reasons for declining to do so:
Taking office as the official representative of the medical profession would
automatically make me a member of that collaborationist organization, the Chinese
Guilds Council. The thought of taking an oath of allegiance to the Japanese Mikado
and kowtowing to the Rising Sun flag was galling to me, who had once lived in the
light and the glory of Sun Yat-sen. I felt that my oath and my kowtow would
593
Sam King, Tiger Balm King, 328-9; Hong Kong News, June 8, 1942. A third “chief organiser” referred to in
connection with the Tai Tung Publishing Company was Aw Boon-haw’s son, Aw Hoe.
594
In mid-April, the Chinese Representative Council instructed the Chinese Cooperative Council to “consider
the rent question”. See Hong Kong News, April 14, August 16, and September 6, 1942. In mid-year it was
reported that Li Koon-chum, M. K. Lo, and other members of the Chinese Cooperative Council were to meet
shortly with representatives of the local Chinese landlords and the Hong Kong and Kowloon
Tenants’Association to “work out a fair basis for the collection of rents”. Hong Kong News, July 1, 1942.
595
Hong Kong News, August 19, 1942.
249
symbolize, at least to me, the last bitter dregs of China's humiliation. I decided to
escape before that fateful first of August.596
Although many Chinese capitalists were left in possession of at least some of their
property and their plants, and their businesses remained operational, even if at only a fraction
of capacity, they paid a steep price for such advantages at the end of the war: being labelled
collaborators. Overall, few Chinese businessmen and industrialists had been eager to join the
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and had fled unoccupied Shanghai if they had the
ability to do so. However, when later trapped in Shanghai or Hong Kong in December 1941,
their options were limited. For most, the lure of regaining their enterprises was such that, with
great reluctance in some cases, they began to work with the Japanese and the Wang Jingwei
government. Unfortunately for them, many found their enterprises confiscated at war’s end
when the returning KMT condemned them as “enemy property”.
6.34 Collaboration during the Final Stage of the Occupation
Much publicity was given to a policy seemingly designed to improve the conditions of
the local business community during the final stage of the occupation.597 One major feature of
the policy was a relaxation on trade restrictions, which was announced in December 1943.
Permits would no longer be needed to bring foodstuffs into the colony from most outside
ports, although the shipments would still have to be reported to the authorities on arrival.
596
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 131-2.
It is possible to distinguish among three periods in the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong closely connected
with financial and political events. The first was from the capitulation to June 1943, during which the Japanese
successfully restored normal conditions and organized Hong Kong as a Japanese colony. Prices, taking into
account scarcity, were maintained and as long as the Hong Kong Dollar circulated with the Military Yen,
confidence in the currency was not shaken. The second period was from June 1943 to June 1944. The critical
factor was the banning of the Hong Kong Dollar, which was accompanied by a marked upward movement in
prices and doubts as to the maintenance of its value. Thus, trade conditions became increasingly difficult, with
the consequent reaction on the economic progress of the colony. The third period from June 1944 to June 1945
opens with the capitulation of ltaly, which experiences the heavy raids of October 1944 and January and April
1945, and concludes with the surrender of Germany. The upward movement in prices becomes increasingly
uncontrolled; the necessities of life are prohibitive in price, while luxuries, except for the wealthy few, are
unobtainable. The government finds it impossible to meet its obligations and raise revenue, and increasingly
difficult to maintain order. See Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures in Hong Kong.”
597
250
Merchants wishing to launch a new company would still have to submit the particulars to the
Governor's Office, but would no longer need to obtain the approval of the Kempeitai. In a
typically cloying simile, Isogai likened the regime’s policy towards local business to the
“handling of an infant who has to be given a special diet of milk etc. at first until it is able to
assimilate other food, after which a change is then made”.598
This new liberal policy was implemented throughout 1944 amid the lifting of a series
of irksome constraints. In February, compensation at last began to be paid to the gentry for
the goods that had been sealed off in the godowns, and continued intermittently throughout
the first half of the year. “Nothing like this”, the Hong Kong News observed proudly, “has
ever occurred in any occupied territory during wartime”.599 At the start of September, the
Japanese-only Hong Kong Commercial Federation was abolished and replaced by a new
Trade Association in which local Chinese firms were allowed to take part. Prominent local
businessmen now had the opportunity to engage in transactions outside the colony’s
immediate neighbourhood.600 In mid-November, it was announced that Chinese banks were
now free to accept remittances for the public from Shanghai and other nearby ports. Some
days later it was revealed that this particular privilege had been extended only to the Bank of
East Asia, but all Chinese banks could now finance mortgages and loans. 601 In the first
months of 1944, the authorities lifted all the remaining curbs on the import of firewood and
textiles, and in November no longer required governmental approval for the import of goods
of any kind.
Export as well as import procedures were also beginning to be simplified. In February
1945, clearance was given to export virtually anything from the colony except precious
598
Isogai quoted in Hong Kong News, January 11, 1944.
Hong Kong News, June 6, 1944.
600
Hong Kong News, September 1, 2, 3 and 5, 1944. The Japanese name of the new Trade Association was
Koeki Kosha. Emphatic assurances were given to local Chinese merchants that they would be accorded the same
facilities and treatment as their Japanese counterparts. See Hong Kong News, September 3 and 8, 1944.
601
Hong Kong News, November 12, 16, and 17, 1944. See also Sinn, Bank of East Asia, 70-1.
599
251
metals, machinery, and electrical equipment. By this stage, the regime appears to have
“abandoned any attempt at interference or control”. 602 In March, the apparatus of the
Governor’s Office was streamlined when the various sections that had handled civil affairs,
finance, communications, and so forth were amalgamated into two super-sections, a No. 1
Department and a No. 2 Department, whose principal tasks were to increase production and
promote communications and trade, respectively. More and more effort was focused on
importing food supplies from Guangdong Province, and Tanaka went on record advocating
the economic “unification” of Hong Kong and Canton.603
At the same time, mounting discomfort could be detected within the colony’s middle
class. By 1943, there were signs of widespread unhappiness with soaring prices, a trend
blamed at least partly on the imposition of the military yen. In early June, one of the
journalists at Isogai’s monthly press conference pointed out to the Governor that since the
recent ban on the use of the Hong Kong dollar, the cost of virtually all goods had rocketed.
Many people were suspicious that the new currency was not worth what the authorities
claimed. At another press conference held later the same month, Nakanishi, Chief of the
Finance Department, was forced to defend the military yen, explaining that it was backed by
the home government in Tokyo and “placed on the same basis as banknotes,” as well as that
the Governor’s Office was keeping a record of the notes issued “to prevent any inflationary
tendencies”.604 The uncontrolled surge in prices hit local Asians employed in government
service particularly hard, who complained incessantly that their salaries were no longer
keeping pace with the high cost of living. At the end of June 1943, various District Bureau
602
Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures,” 73.
Remark of Vice Chief of Staff quoted in Hong Kong News, April 24, 1945. See also comments of
Yamanouchi, the Secretary-General of the Governor’s Office and of Tanaka himself quoted in Hong Kong News,
January 13 and 14, 1945.
604
Hong Kong News, June 25, 1943. For suspicion of the military yen, see also Report on Hong Kong June 4,
1942 and report of G. Leslie Andrew, October 22, 1943, HS 1/171, 1-2, note of Colonial Office discussion with
Dr. Li Shu-fan, February 10, 1944, CO 129 591/4, 54; Hirano, “Kezheng yu baoxing”, 51; Gittins, Stanley:
Behind Barbed Wire, 135.
603
252
staff petitioned the Heads of their Area Bureaux for an increase in salary and extra rice
rations.
Small businessmen experienced their own frustrations with military rule. Traders
complained that their business plans were often strangled in a mass of red tape and that the
new business profits tax was arbitrary, allowing the government to levy any amount that they
saw fit rather than assessing the tax in a uniform way on the basis of the profits reported by
each firm. By the first half of 1943, the optimism that had buoyed many merchants during the
previous year had perceptibly faded. Even pawnbrokers were finding conditions increasingly
difficult and furniture dealers were having a “quiet time”.605
6.35 The Price of Collaboration
Despite the fact that Yazaki had recommended that the Japanese follow the British
example of allowing free trade and that the new rulers were, in principle, keen to revive
economic life in the colony, their actions did not accord with their words and beliefs. The
new administration required official approval for the resumption of business and launched an
inquiry to determine which of the 1,027 companies registered with the prewar government
were hostile to Japan. Although 250 of these registered companies were eventually
authorized to resume operations, their scope was greatly reduced by a ban on the holding of
meetings, which made it effectively impossible for them to hold an AGM.606 As a further
control measure, each line of business was placed under the management of a syndicate
charged with collecting taxes and disseminating the orders of the regime.
Eventually, every stage in the regular trading process became encumbered with
bureaucracy. In March 1942, Isogai introduced controls on the transport and sale of virtually
all types of goods. Traders wishing to export goods had to obtain special permission from the
Finance Department of the Governor’s Office and report any imports within five days of their
605
606
Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures,” 68; Hong Kong News, March 6, 1943.
Far Eastern Economic Review, September 10, 1947.
253
arrival in Hong Kong.607 Five months later, Arisue announced that similar restrictions would
be imposed on the output of the newly reviving factories, explaining that free trade was
incompatible with the needs of a wartime economy.608
A top priority of Isogai and his team was gaining control of the HK$22 million
believed to have been circulating at the time of the British surrender. The first step in this
process had been the initial takeover of the British note-issuing banks. At the start of the
conquest, the Twenty-Third Army troops had marched into the banks and seized all the Hong
Kong dollars in the bank vaults. The second step had been summoning all citizens who had
owed debts before the invasion to the banking halls, where they were expected to pay off their
debts under the supervision of Sir Vandeleur Grayburn and his captive colleagues. The
regime then used all the hard currency collected to pay for its war preparations and general
administrative expenses.
Not content with these efforts to round up the dollars already in circulation, the
Governor’s Office hit on an inspired method of generating a fresh supply of currency. A
search of the bank vaults had revealed a huge stock of additional notes, most in denominations of HK$500 or HK$1,000. This was currency that the bankers had not yet validated
according to the cumbrous fashion of the period, when each individual note had to be signed
by hand, and had not had the opportunity to destroy before the Japanese forces invaded. In
spring 1942, the unfortunate Grayburn and his colleagues were accordingly put to work
signing these unbacked, unlawful notes, which were distinguishable from genuine notes only
607
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 121; Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures,” 68. See also
Hong Kong News, January 23, 1943. Applications had to be submitted in triplicate even for “exports” of goods to
the colony’s outer islands of Lantau, Cheung Chau, and Peng Chau. One copy went to the Finance Department,
one to the Harbour Department, and one to the Kempeitai. Hong Kong News, March 31 and June 8, 1943. Import
permits were also required for at least some goods. See Hong Kong News March 18, 1943; Hirano, “Kezheng Yu
Baoxing”, 50-1.
608
Hong Kong News, August 25, 1942.
254
by their serial numbers. Over the following years, some HK$65.5 million of these “duress
notes”, as Grayburn called them, were released into the Asian market.609
In the meantime, the authorities were trying to wean the public on to a different
currency altogether. Within two weeks of their capture of Hong Kong, the Twenty-Third
Army had set to work introducing the “military yen”, the cause of which Isogai and his
entourage advanced with great vigour. The introduction of the military yen had been
practiced by conquering Japanese troops in the regions that they occupied since the defeat of
Tsarist Russia in 1904-5. It was also one more form of organized pillage. As unbacked notes
marked with no serial numbers whose quantity in circulation was never disclosed, these
military yen had no more inherent value than the bogus “duress notes”. Their deployment
facilitated the gouging of resources out of the colony in two distinct ways. First, it afforded
another means of inducing the locals to part with their holdings of Hong Kong dollars.
Citizens were encouraged to trade in the old currency for the new one, at first at a rate of
HK$2: M$1, and then from July 1942, when the Hong Kong dollar was “devalued” by Isogai,
at a greedier rate of HK$4: M$1. With the help of this Monopoly money, the Imperial forces
could also requisition any supplies that they needed from the colony, as well as acquire land
and property from the local population effectively free of charge.
One way in which the Japanese successfully exercised control over the Chinese banks
in the colony without imposing extensive banking regulations was forcing the leading officers
of those banks to remain in Hong Kong under their surveillance, holding each of them
responsible under the penalty of death for the good conduct of all the others. It has been
609
Memoranda of G. L. Hall-Patch, British adviser in Chungking, to Treasury forwarded by Ambassador
Seymour to Foreign Office, August 1, September 1, November 10 and 30, 1942. Treasury letter to Hall-Patch
October 24, 1942 and reports of Sir R. Campbell, British ambassador, Lisbon, to Foreign Office, August 25 and
September 4, 1942, FO 371 31717, 5, 27, 41, 55, 65, 73, 75; G. A. Leiper, A Yen for My Thoughts, (Hong Kong:
South China Morning Post, 1982), 137-8; Frank H. H. King, History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking
Corporation, Volume III, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 628-9; The figure of HK$65.6 million
for the value of the circulated duress notes is given by King. The total estimated value of the duress notes is
HK$119 million.
255
authoritatively reported that whenever one of the leading Chinese banking officials in Hong
Kong attempted to escape, three of his colleagues were put to death by Japanese military
fiat. 610 Under this system, few attempts were made to escape. Despite being forced to
continue the nominal operation of their banks, the Chinese bankers ceased almost all of their
large-scale commercial activities. Although there was a revival of speculative activity among
small native banks in Hong Kong, informed banking circles in Chungking reported that such
activity constituted a very small percentage of Hong Kong’s banking business. The larger,
modern Chinese banks, such as the Shanghai Commercial, suffered from losing all their
business contacts, and, unsure of the outcome of the war, were afraid to engage in any
substantial ventures. Even if they desired to engage in any substantial ventures, they were
confronted with a virtually impregnable Japanese monopoly and bureaucracy. They therefore
became simply banks of deposit, holding the cash reserves of their depositors until the day of
liberation.
6.4 Dynamics and Interactions between the Japanese and the Local Population:
Population policy and Charity Services during the Occupation
As they assumed administration of the conquered Southeast Asian territories, the
Japanese were confronted with similar social and economic problems, leading them to apply
similar policies to different territories in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
However, Hong Kong presented the Japanese with a unique challenge—feeding a densely
populated city that had very limited food supplies—that required a unique policy.
6.41 Background
The huge refugee immigration into Hong Kong that began after the Macro-Polo
Bridge Incident in 1937 had undermined military security; created a massive food shortage;
and hindered attempts to enlist the Chinese in the war effort, as so few of the new immigrants
610
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 135.
256
regarded themselves as “belonging” to Hong Kong. Recognizing that effective defence
demanded a drastic reduction in population, and having no intention of feeding the
approximately 800,000 refugees from mainland China whom the British had allowed to drift
into Hong Kong in the years leading up to the war, the Japanese immediately introduced
measures to repatriate the Chinese that they continued throughout the occupation.611 As they
could not distinguish between the Chinese who had been in Hong Kong for several months
and those whose families had lived there for generations, they immobilized those Chinese
who were loyal to Hong Kong and had become reconciled to British rule, even though they
also sought to exploit their unquestioned potentialities for the defence of the Colony.
6.42 Repatriation Policy
Shortly after the surrender of Hong Kong and before the establishment of the Civil
Administration Department of which it was to become a part, a Repatriation Bureau was
established by the Japanese military administration to organize the evacuation of a
considerable proportion of the Hong Kong population. Early in January 1942, the Bureau
successfully advocated for the organization of a Chinese Repatriation Committee composed
of representatives of the various district and provincial guilds that had long functioned as
social and mutual societies for the Chinese in their respective districts or provinces. The
Japanese asked the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee to give press interviews urging
people to return to China voluntarily, and assured the public that no one would be forced to
return. Even at this early stage of their administration, the Japanese were able to expatriate
about 554,000 people to China.
During the first week of January 1942, the military government issued a warning
through the Repatriation Bureau that persons in Hong Kong who had “no employment or
place of residence” or had to “beg for their food” would be repatriated to their cities or
611
Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 139.
257
villages of origin in China after obtaining a repatriation permit from the District Bureau. As
applicants for a permit came under the scrutiny of the Kempeitai, many preferred to leave
Hong Kong secretly if they could pay the protection money required to do so to the
guerrillas.612 Some property owners who could not abandon their houses managed to preserve
an anonymous existence in Hong Kong, accepting the risk that the alternative to compliance
might be starvation.
As different routes into the interior of Guangdong Province became possible routes of
escape, refugees sought help in obtaining transport and protection from bandits from the
various residents’ groups that had been organized by immigrants from the same mainland
province or district. Patrick Yu remembered that “there were two available routes which
people leaving Hong Kong could take. One was by land and on foot through Shenzhen.
Another was by sea through Macau to Guangzhou Bay”.613 Most who returned to China by
land did so either via the railway or by crossing the border into Shenzhen. Recalling the
situation on the Sha Tau Kok Highway, Tsang Yuen Tai, a Hung Leng villager, described,
“At the beginning of the occupation, a large number of people were repatriated back to China
through Sha Tau Kok Highway. When I cycled to Kowloon, I saw a lot of dead bodies along
the highway and they were so skinny”.614 Ramon Lavalle, Consul in Hong Kong of neutral
Argentina, reported that the refugees rarely received a promised ration of rice on their journey,
and were almost invariably set upon and robbed by gangsters who lay in wait for them as
soon as they crossed the border.615
Although the return of a large number of repatriates created great social and economic
problems in China, it benefitted many of the repatriates themselves, especially professionals
and skilled labourers, who were able to find employment in Free China. It was reported that
612
Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 140.
Patrick Yu Shuk-siu, A Seventh Child and the Law (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), 38.
614
Chow Ka-kin’s interview with Tsang Yuen-tai at June 1996.
615
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 88.
613
258
the local government immediately placed the three hundred machine operators who had been
repatriated from Hong Kong to Shaoquan into factory positions.616 Kwan Siu Yee, a doctor at
Queen Mary hospital during the prewar period, recalled his story:
At first, my wife and I did not want to leave, because the situation in the mainland was
not very secure, and there were bandits and guerrillas controlling the repatriating
routes. When more people left and the route became safer, we decided to leave. We
joined a repatriation group and went to Shenzhen by train. From there, we went to
Dongguan on foot. Then we travelled to Shaoguan, where there was the headquarters
of the British Army Aid Group (BAAG) through Laolung. When we got in touch with
the BAAG, as a civil servant, I received our salary paid back. Finally, I went to
Zhongshan University and became a lecturer.617
During the first year of occupation, the Japanese employed relatively gentle methods
to clear Hong Kong of “useless people” of their own accord via the Repatriation Committee.
However, the process did not proceed as smoothly as the Japanese military government had
hoped, mainly because the “useless people” preferred to take their chances in Hong Kong
rather than risk starvation in the Guangdong countryside, and partly because of the
complexity of the exit process that the Japanese themselves had imposed. Finding that the
population was still around one million in the first months of 1943, the Japanese authorities
introduced a new repatriation scheme in March 1943. Governor Isogai announced, “The
Japanese administration of Hong Kong plans to reduce the population by another three
hundred thousand. . . . At present the population of Hong Kong is one million, while the city
affords work and shelter for only seven hundred thousand”.618 Homeless people would be
given free passage to their places of origin as long as did so by the end of April 1943, after
616
Xin Hua Ri Bao, July 29, 1942.
Chow Ka-kin’s interview with Dr. Kwan Siu-yee at October 1995.
618
Hong Kong News, January 21, 1943.
617
259
which “drastic measures” would be introduced. Luff recalled that “the method by which the
Japanese conducted their deportation campaign was to cordon off certain areas of the town,
and follow up with surprise raids. People found without rice cards were packed aboard junks
which sent them in remote areas on the mainland. Many of these junks did not reach their
final destination. Some of them were sunk off at Stanley”.619
By July 1943, the regime realized that its earlier efforts to persuade vagrants to leave
Hong Kong of their own accord had been unsuccessful. After the deadline had been extended
and ignored three times, the regime began all-out deportation. Once again, Isogai left the
mechanics to Noma and his aides, resulting in the Kempeitai patrolling the streets in special
trucks looking for people in shabby clothing and snatching them “like fowl”.620 Most derelicts
rounded up in this fashion were packed into a transit camp in the North Point District before
being put aboard motorized junks and dropped off, at the rate of around two thousand a week,
on the plague-ridden coast of Guangdong or on one of the barren and uninhabited islands on
the fringe of the colony to fend for themselves. Local fishermen explained why they did not
dare to go near Lo Chau Island off the Stanley Peninsula:
On this island it was said people ate each other and it was very noisy there. . . . The
people there were calling for help and there was another island in front of that island,
but the water was running very fast and they could not reach the other island by
swimming. They shouted for help and it could be heard by the village of Hok Tsui
which was in front of the island because of the east wind.621
Because no complete census of the population of Hong Kong was taken in 1941, it is
not possible to accurately state the number of people whom the Japanese military
“repatriated”. However, if the semi-official British estimate of slightly less than 1.5 million
619
Luff, The Hidden Years, 175.
Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 161.
621
Testimony of fisherman Pang Yam-sing, Noma trial, WO 235/999, 293.
620
260
living in Hong Kong at the time of Pearl Harbor is accepted, it seems the repatriation policy
was quite “effective”. A quarter of a million were reported to have left Hong Kong in
February 1942, and in March 1942 Chinese sources estimated that approximately 529,000
repatriates had returned to China from Hong Kong.622 By September 1942, the population of
Hong Kong had decreased to approximately 975,500. 623 It was estimated that by October
1944, nearly one million had been repatriated. The August 1945 estimate of a population of
500,000 indicates a reduction of about 23,000 per month throughout the entire occupation, or
slightly under the target of one thousand a day.
6.43 Effectiveness of the Population Policy
The effectiveness of the Japanese bureaucracy was also manifested in its successful
conducting of the census and waging of inoculation campaigns, primarily through its
successful mobilization of people and resources. Regarding an understanding of the
composition of the Hong Kong population as very important, the Japanese conducted two
censuses during their short occupation, one in September 1943 and one in May 1944, in order
to collect the data necessary to conduct rationing and repatriation operations. The main
responsibility for conducting the census was entrusted to the Military Police Department,
while the General Affairs and the Civil Administration Departments, together with the Area
Bureaux, supervised the census work of the District Bureaux and the wards. Their efforts
were aided by the Chinese Councils, which urged the population to cooperate.
The Japanese conducted two censuses within such a short period because their method
of conducting the first census—collecting data from the residential permits issued by the
government and from ration cards—proved unsatisfactory. The method of conducting the
second census—ordering the military police to cordon off a section of a street and, with the
622
Deng Kaisong and Lu Xiaomin, Yue Gang Ao Jin Dai Guan Xi Shi (The Modern History of Guangdong-Hong
Kong-Macau Relations; Guangzhou, Guangdong Renmin, 1996), 295.
623
Hong Kong News, September 29, 1942.
261
help of ward leaders and District Bureaux staff, record the demographic data that they
collected from the inhabitants—proved much more successful. The results of the second
census revealed that 115,400 people had been unregistered in the first census, that several
thousand had reported two or more times, and that some were illegal residents.
Claiming that the British had never been able to enforce population-wide inoculation,
the Japanese demonstrated their superiority in this respect by holding inoculation campaigns
three times a year. While these efforts also demonstrated the successful mobilization of
people and resources by the regime, buttressed by the urging of the Chinese Councils for
cooperation, they were also backed by the military police, who warned of the consequences
of noncompliance and required that anyone not carrying the necessary inoculation papers be
inoculated on the spot. More than three hundred doctors and nurses were divided into
stationary and mobile units to provide free inoculations. In addition to all these measures, the
military and civil police would often cordon off an entire area and force all inhabitants to be
inoculated.
While the census and inoculation campaigns appear to indicate that the Japanese
military administration’s control of the population was very well structured and, depending on
the criteria one uses, very effective, such structure and effectiveness resulted from the
totalitarian nature of the administration. Such an administration can implement policies much
more effectively than can a representative government, but at the cost of personal freedom
and rights.624
624
The totalitarian nature of the Japanese occupation could be seen in many of its procedures. First, all Chinese
civil servants were appointed by the Governor. Their terms of service were not clearly defined and they could
neither decline nor resign without the permission of the Governor. Even the ward leaders, who were supposed to
be "elected" from groups of families, were subjected to the same sanction. Second, the government controlled all
aspects of life of the people. Nearly all the daily necessities were rationed, and the government decided on both
amounts and prices. Even movements of the population from one area to another were severely restricted; passes
had to be obtained, and there were check and search points everywhere. Third, there was no legal protection.
Anyone could be arrested at any time and place for no particular reason; Army and Navy personnel and military
police could go into any home, search, loot, and even occupy it. Private banking accounts and business
enterprises were subject to confiscation without compensation. See Han Wing-tak, “ Bureaucracy and the
262
6.44 Charity Services during the Occupation
In addition to feeding a large proportion of the population, a second, more extensive
sphere of official disinterest was that of relief work. From the outset, the Japanese showed
themselves anxious to delegate such work to the Tung Wah and Kwong Wah Hospitals and
similar local elite-run bodies that had traditionally assumed responsibility for the care of the
destitute. The Gunseicho gave notice that while the Twenty-Third Army were temporarily
providing rice and gruel to the poor, the latter were “very numerous” and “it was hoped that
charitable organizations would hasten to extend their activities”. In the same spirit, Isogai
advised the Representative Council that any scheme for relieving local unemployment should
be worked out by “the people themselves”.625
Widespread Japanese delegation of functions permitted many local elites to play an
increased public role in comparison to their roles under the British administration. True to
their strong tradition of social duty, the local elites accepted the invitation to extend their
charitable work with vigour. Their first major effort manifested in the summer of 1942, when
the Japanese requested contributions to an East Asia Construction Fund from leading citizens
as a kind of “loyalty” test. When Kotewall proposed, seemingly on his own initiative, that
approximately HK$160,000 that had been raised for this fund be used to alleviate hunger in
the colony, Isogai graciously acceded.626 The Construction Fund monies were converted into
a government grant that the two Chinese Councils were instructed to manage. When the
Councils were more generally ordered “to take full charge of plans to give relief to the poorer
people of Hong Kong”, they formed a body known as the General Association of Chinese
Japanese Occupation in Hong Kong＂, in William H. Newell (ed.), Japan in Asia, (Singapore: Singapore
university Press, 1981), chapter 2.
625
Hong Kong News, January 6 and August 23, 1942.
626
The proposal was endorsed by the Chinese Representative Council. At its regular meeting on 1 September
with Governor Rensuke Isogai, Sir Kotewall presented the issue and requested government assistance to
augment community efforts. Governor Isogai, in his turn, offered to make the East Asia Construction Fund
collected so far available for the cause, and directed the CRC, the CPC, Bishop Nunes and the Roman Catholic
Church, and the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals to submit a scheme for approval. It was then agreed the Fund
should be duly presented to the Governor, who transferred it to a relief fund.
263
Charities (GACC), the first central welfare agency in the colony's history,627 to distribute the
grant among the various individual charities and coordinate future efforts to raise money for
charitable purposes from the colony's wealthy. Kotewall was elected Chairman and the Bank
of East Asia was appointed to oversee the distribution of the funds.628
On 14 November, the GACC presented MY40, 000 to Governor Isogai, which he
immediately appropriated for charities. In response, Aw Boon-haw629 donated MY 12,500,
which was followed by further public donations. At its inception, the GACC decided that top
priority should go to emergency relief work, defined as feeding and clothing the destitute, and
delegated this task to the Roman Catholic Church and the Chinese hospitals. One of the first
grants it released was MY 5,000 to Tung Wah and Kwong Wah Hospitals for the medical
treatment of one hundred refugees for one month and the distribution of one thousand
wadded jackets to the poor through Regional Affairs Offices and District Service Bureaux.
As did almost all organizations, the Tung Wah Group was experiencing financial
difficulty. It could draw on its bank reserves only in small instalments, and then only by
special permission from the Japanese authorities. Aw Boon-baw’s donation of MY12, 500 in
mid-1942 was slightly more than the amount that the Group spent in a month. As few new
627
Immediately before WWII, charities in Hong Kong managed hospitals, nurseries, orphanages, old-age homes,
homes for the blind, schools, and, at the beginning of Sino-Japanese hostilities in July 1937, also refugee relief.
Most charity organizations provided a range of these services. The major organizations were the Tung Wah
Group, the Po Leung Kuk, St. Paul’s Hospital and Convent, the Italian Canossian Convent, the Precious Blood
Society, and the World Red Swastika Society. In addition, several groups provided specialized services, such as
the Bbeneza Home for the Blind, King's Park Orphanage, Kwong Old People’s Home in Kowloon City, Tai Po
Orphanage, and the Fanling Nursery. Most charities, it can be seen, were managed by or associated with
religious bodies.
628
Accounts of the origin of the GACC are provided in Kwan Lai-hung, “The Charitable Activities of Local
Chinese Organizations during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong” in Faure, Hayes and Birch (ed.), From
village to city: studies in the traditional roots of Hong Kong society, (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies,
University of Hong Kong, 1984), 181-2, and Tse, San Nian, 70-2. See also Hong Kong News, August 19, 1942;
September 28 and 29, 1942; October 25, 1942; and November 14 and 15, 1942. According to Kwan’s account,
Kotewall had been approached in the course of the summer by Bishop Jose da Costa Nunes of the Roman
Catholic Church about the possibility that part of the grant that the Church received from the Vatican be made
available to help feed the starving. He apparently took the opportunity presented by this overture to seek
financial help from the government for the community’s overall welfare drive.
629
Aw Boon-haw was the founder of Tiger Balm, the owner of large estates in Singapore and Hong Kong, and
the proprietor of newspapers in both territories. He returned to Hong Kong from Singapore shortly before the
war. When he came under surveillance by Japanese military authorities in early 1942, he was compelled to
cooperate. He made substantial donations to charities, and was an influential and well-known philanthropist.
264
members were willing to assume directorship of the Group, the 1941 board of twelve
directors were re-elected for 1942, with a new board thereafter elected annually until the war
ended.630The other major Chinese charity organization, the Po Leung Kuk, was in similar dire
straits. It accommodated at least 125 orphans, but kept its admission under very strict terms.
Kuk officials had to ensure that only genuine orphans were admitted, destitute families being
too eager to send their children disguised orphans. In mid-1942, Aw Boon-haw donated
MY28, 000, hoping to double the number of children that the orphanage could accommodate.
The orphanage was able to increase the number to 225 before the end of 1942, and after
receiving a subsidy from the government, to 300 in early 1943. One firm in particular, the
Yue Ching Company, which had a Japanese-approved monopoly on the sale of opium,
donated to the public readily and invariably. As instructed by the Civil Administration
Department, the Yue Ching Company donated MY10, 000 in December 1943, MY20, 000 in
early 1944, and MY 20, 000 in May 1945. Ironically, the Tung Wah Hospital, with the
financial support of Aw Boon-haw, set up two wards to treat 40 patients each for in-ward
treatment period of two weeks.
In early 1943, the GACC embarked on the first in a series of major fundraising drives
that led to considerable donations from local business leaders. Among the more prominent
donors were Li Tse-fong, Manager of the Bank of East Asia, and Ho Kom-tong, the Master of
Ceremonies. As the wealthiest among his contemporaries, Aw Boon-haw made the most
handsome contribution of all, fortifying both the GACC and the individual charities that had
been brought under its umbrella with cash injections of up to HK$125,000. As well as trying
to meet the basic need for food, the GACC launched an appeal for cotton padded jackets to
see the poor through the winter, while the member charities stepped up their attempts to
630
The Chairmen for 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 were Fang Tse-ying, Li Chung-po, Ho Pen-kai, and Yung Saifong, respectively, who all contributed much to the deliberations of the GACC.
265
provide free medical treatment to the poorest residents and take orphaned children off the
streets.
The local elites also assumed the responsibility passed to them by the Japanese. In
response to Isogai’s admonitions, the Cooperative Council prepared a scheme for
unemployment relief that it passed on to the Representative Council and the Governor’s
Office. The Council also made a sustained endeavour to respond to the glaring deficiencies in
education, always a sector of paramount importance for the Chinese. In January 1943, the
Cooperative Council decided to ask wealthy families to contribute funding towards the
education of disadvantaged children. The Chinese Councils then formed the Education SubCommittee to supervise the process and assigned a portion of the GACC’s grant to endow
places for disadvantaged children in primary and secondary schools. By September, about one
thousand pupils in selected schools had benefited from the scholarship programme.631 During
the prewar years, several free schools had been operated by charities, but no scholarship
system had existed to give poorer children a foothold in the regular teaching establishments.
In this context, the elite's educational thrust represented a real innovation in spite of the
modest numbers involved, one which one postwar British historian described as “a significant
social welfare project”.632
Through such endeavours, the colony's upper and middle classes stepped forward
where needed to fill the void created by the Japanese abdication of responsibility in certain
areas. Responding to Japanese promptings to help with the food supply and on the initiative
of Au Boon-haw, in November 1943 the elites formed a Hong Kong People's Food
Cooperative Association, whose task was to negotiate with the authorities in neighbouring
centres for the import of rice, and the Chung Kiu Company, whose task was to arrange the
631
Hong Kong News, September 28, 1943. See also Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures in
Hong Kong,” 86.
632
Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 155.
266
import of any rice that might be secured as a result of these efforts. Au Boon-haw was the
largest shareholder in the Chung Kiu Company, with a stake of MY500, 000 of a total capital
base of MY10 million. “Most of the wealthy Chinese” in Hong Kong also bought shares,
which were underwritten by the Bank of East Asia.633 Over the following year, a succession
of gentry leaders were sent to Canton to take advantage of any new opportunities for
importing goods that might have arisen from the tentative reopening of the Kowloon-Canton
Railway. Prominent among them was the Wang Jingwei supporter Kong Kai-tung, who was
twice dispatched to persuade his counterparts in the Chinese puppet government of
Guangdong Province to relax the various restrictions that they had imposed on the shipment
of rice to the colony.634
6.45 Reasons for Elite Participation in Charity Services
Two reasons lay behind the elites’ visible willingness to assist with public charity.
First, it provided a means of earning profit. Beth Woo, a Chinese woman who returned to the
colony in the spring of 1944, referred to observing “those making millions”.635 Even if they
were not actively making millions, they were sitting on millions: the Governor's Office
explained that the reason that the Bank of East Asia, unlike the rest of the Chinese banks, had
been given the privilege of handling remittances to Shanghai and its sister ports was that no
other bank had so large a capital base or so many facilities.636 Empowered by those millions,
many top tycoons were able to enjoy a remarkably good lifestyle in the midst of the general
deprivation.637 The Comte de Sercey, a Frenchman formerly employed in the Chinese Postal
Service who left the colony at about the same time as Beth Woo entered it, reported that
633
Hong Kong News, November 27 and 30, 1943; December 15, 1943; and January 7 and 8, 1944; Heasman,
“Japanese Financial and Economic Measures,” 72; Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 109.
634
See Hong Kong News, December 5 and 18, 1943; August 13, 18, 23, and 27 and October 15, 1944.
635
Intercepted letter from Beth Woo to Sergeant Richard W. Foo, April 10, 1944 HS 1/171, 3.
636
Hong Kong News, November 17, 1944.
637
The Hong Kong News inveighed periodically against the luxurious lives still being indulged in by the rich.
See, for example, editorials in Hong Kong News, November 27, 1944 and February 13, 1945.
267
although the cost of living was higher there than it was in Chungking, “with money anything
could be had”.638 As late as July 1945, advertisements were being placed in the Hong Kong
News by the Alex Chocolate Shop in Ice House Street. The gentry quickly realized the
potential for gain from the newly issued Japanese invitations to import rice, and they
immediately seized the chance to improve their position still further. Indeed, the rice
imported into the colony by the Chung Kin Company was earmarked “primarily” for the
company’s shareholders.639
It followed equally that the gentry had much to lose from a drift into complete social
chaos, and their efforts to shore up the colony's crumbling police force should therefore be
seen in this context. In July 1945, the Cooperative Council held a meeting to discuss ways of
working with the police as part of Tanaka's new drive for the deportation of “undesirable
characters”. 640 The Council members regretted that the lower-grade police still showed a
tendency to rope in “respectable persons” by tearing up residence permits and identity cards,
but agreed—and continued to state in postwar testimonials—that the idea underlying the
scheme was a good one.641
Second, the local elites still retained their traditional sense of duty to the public at
large. Even if most of the rice imported by the Chung Kiu Company was to go to the
shareholders, the remainder was to be put on the market at a favourable rate, and as the
shortages worsened, more strenuous efforts were made to ensure that such rice as came in did
reach the masses. Soon after the suspension of the government’s rice rationing scheme at the
638
Report of Comte R. de Sercey forwarded by British Consul-General Chungking, June 27, 1944, CO 129
591/4, 15
639
Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic Measures,” 72.
640
Hong Kong News, July 25, 1945.
641
Extract from minutes of meeting of Chinese Cooperative Council, July 23, 1945; Hong Kong News, July 28,
1945; testimony of Kwok Chan, Cheng Chung-wing, and Kan Man, Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093, 243, 252,
261, 271. The Deputy Judge Advocate General, HQ Far Eastern Land Forces, who conducted the defence at this
trial, pointed out that the Tanaka mass deportation scheme was launched “with the qualified approval of the more
responsible elements of the population”. Submission to Commander, Land Forces, Hong Kong, January 20, 1948,
2, attached to transcript of Kanazawa trial, WO 235/1093.
268
beginning of May 1944, “a number of wealthy members” of the United Christian Church of
Hong Kong were reported to have formed a Consumers’ Cooperative for the exclusive
purpose of bringing rice into the colony and selling it at a low price. The office of the
Consumers’ Cooperative was in the Bank of East Asia.642 In November, and again with some
help from the Bank of East Asia, a Hong Kong Wholesale Rice Merchants' Association was
organized in an effort to keep the rice price as low as possible. The experiment foundered
after only two weeks, as the bulk of the rice merchants were unwilling to agree to “losing all
the time”. 643 Undaunted, Kotewall pleaded with them to cooperate, and the two Chinese
Councils embarked on a week-long series of conferences with the merchants in the hope that
the Association might be revived.
Throughout these months, the local elites continued pleading for concessions from the
Japanese, some of which seem to reflect a desire to promote their own businesses and
maintain their own comforts. In September 1944, for instance, the two Councils submitted a
proposal to Isogai that an Enquiries Section should be attached to the newly created Hong
Kong Trade Association so that help could be given to Chinese merchants now entitled to
join the Association and take part in long-distance trade. The Councils also pressed for a
resumption of the electricity supply so that “the numerous factories” could remain
operational.644 In November, Kotewall and his colleagues appealed to Isogai to reconsider a
suspension of the water supply that had been imposed on certain districts in the upper levels
of Victoria, where, naturally, most of them lived.
Various other overtures, however, reflected a genuine concern with the public interest.
After the regime began to substitute beans for rice in the government rations in November
1943, the Council members urged the regime to stop doing so because the Chinese population
642
Samejima, Xianggang Huixiang Ji, 99.
Hong Kong News, November 22 and December 9, 1944; Heasman, “Japanese Financial and Economic
Measures,” 72.
644
Hong Kong News, September 7, 1944.
643
269
did not consider a diet of beans to be good for their health. After the rice rationing scheme
was discontinued in summer 1944, Li Tse-fang held a press interview to propose that workers
in factories and business firms be given a pay increase and that those who did not receive
food and lodging as part of their compensation should continue receiving a certain quantity of
rice every month. 645 Following a sudden drastic surge in the price of rice in December,
Kotewall and the other Chinese representatives paid several calls on the Governor's Office to
ask the authorities what they intended to do.646
No doubt gentry interests were involved here—Chan Lim-pak commented that the
price increase had caused much anxiety to Council members “as it not only affected the
poorer classes but even the rich”—647but it seems fair to conclude that the gentry leaders
were also trying their best to save lives. From the autumn of 1944, efforts were also made to
induce the regime to reopen the air-raid shelters so that the public could have some protection
from the American bombing. Keen though they were that the colony should be rid of its
“vagabonds” in the interests of social order, the gentry leaders attempted to prevail upon the
Japanese to improve the conditions of destitute repatriates. In November 1943, the two
Chinese Councils asked the Harbour Department to allow repatriates to take with them a
small bag containing their personal effects, and a year later Kotewall and the other
Councillors requested the abolition of the compulsory stool tests and vaccinations that had
been required of repatriates before their departure.
645
Hong Kong News, July 4, 1944; Ching, The Li Dynasty, 119-20.
Hong Kong News, December 10, 23, and 24, 1944.
647
Hong Kong News, December 12, 1944.
646
270
Chapter 7
Postwar Politics and Arrangements
7.1 The Legacy of Japanese Occupation in Singapore
National heritage, according to David Lowenthal, is often constructed according to
present-day concerns with fostering nationalism, and with little regard to accurately
representing the past.648 Enshrining an ideology of common suffering into a national history is
a form of heritage regularly used by states to unify their peoples. Ernest Renan suggests that
people different in “race and language” can be bound together by an ideology of having
“suffered together. . . . Indeed common suffering unites more strongly than common
rejoicing . . . for they impose duties and demand common effort”.649 The collective memory
of common suffering creates an image “that a nation is a great solid unit, formed by the
realisation of sacrifices in the past, as well as of those one is prepared to make in the future”.
The atrocities committed in Singapore during the Japanese occupation present
interesting case studies for testing Lowenthal’s and Renan’s theses within a Southeast Asian
context. In postcolonial Singapore, the remembrance of common suffering under the Japanese
provided the foundation of a collective memory that was nurtured by Singapore’s political
leaders, who “found themselves in possession of a state without a nation”. Encouraging a
collective experience of historical suffering was thus a means of binding the diverse peoples
of the newly emerging nation-state together. After Malaya was granted independence in
August 1957 and Singapore was granted complete autonomy in July 1959, the Federation of
Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah was established in 1963. Singapore only remained in
the new federation until August 1965, when it became a separate independent republic. Thus,
648
David Lowenthal, “Fabricating Heritage,” History and Memory, 10, no. 1 (1998), 5-24.
E. Renan, “What is a Nation?” in Race and Nation: A Reader, ed. Clive Christie (London: B. Tauris, 1998),
39-48.
649
271
between 1945 and 1965, the modern nations of Malaysia and Singapore emerged from the old
British Malaya through a complex process of independence, annexation, and separation.650
In this sense, the Japanese occupation of Singapore was important because the change
of regime and the violence of war had altered the pattern of race relations and raised the
political stakes. To the local population, politics in the broad sense became a life-and-death
struggle. Local responses to Japanese policies, especially those that led to changing Malay
and Chinese perceptions of one another during the Japanese occupation, helped to determine
the direction of Malaya and Singapore’s postwar political development.
Historically, the occupation of one state by another generally results in political and
economic stagnation. The Germans who pulled out of France in the wake of the Normandy
landings not only left nothing constructive but nothing different. The social discourse that
thereafter resumed in France appears to have been much the same as that which broke off in
1940.651 In East Asia, however, the Japanese conquests, for all the misery that they inflicted,
had a dynamic effect; the Japanese left behind them societies that were not only brutalized
and desolated but irreversibly changed. The occupation not only disrupted Malaya’s society
and economy but also brought about profound changes among its peoples. It awoke a new
consciousness within them by injecting seishin (“spirit”) while simultaneously intensifying
communalism and racial conflict by leaving them ill-equipped to develop a consistent racial
policy. While some Malayan institutions had maintained continuity throughout the war, the
occupation had pre-empted many of their functions.
7.11 Postwar Collaborators
On 5 September 1945, 708,000 Japanese soldiers surrendered to the British military
authorities in the Far East, and all Japanese military forces in Southeast Asia surrendered to
650
Halinah Bamadhaj, The Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya on Malay Society and Politics, 19411945, University of Auckland, 1975.
651
See Robert Gildea, Marianne in Chains: everyday life in the French heartland under the German occupation,
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 353, 358-9.
272
the British in Singapore on 12 September 1945. The British high command issued directives
to the British military authorities on the ground to detain those Japanese who were in charge
of the POW camps, the members of the Kempeitai, and others believed to be responsible for
war crimes against Allied POWs and peoples of the occupied territories. To investigate these
detainees, the high command sent three war crimes investigation teams to Malaya and
Singapore, with Singapore serving as the centre of the British war crimes program in the Far
East. Soon nine thousand war crimes suspects had been rounded up among a Japanese
population that had dwindled to 203,000 by February 1946 as a result of mass repatriation.652
Apart from those who had joined guerrilla forces operating in the jungle, nearly all the
population had in some way collaborated with the Japanese. Recognizing this reality, the
British, while reserving the right to punish serious offences, adopted a conciliatory attitude
towards collaboration. In setting down his policy for the military administration of Malaya,
Admiral Mountbatten specified, “The first guiding principle to be observed is that no person
shall suffer on account of political opinions honestly held, whether now or in the past—even
if these may have been anti-British—but only on account of previous crimes against the
criminal law or actions repugnant to humanity”. 653 Instructions prepared by the SACSEA
Security Intelligence for Planning Section cautioned,
Pro Japanese and anti-Allied opinions expressed publicly by prominent citizens during
the Japanese Occupation should not be taken invariably at face value. Many such
individuals have co-operated under pressure, and have acted as intermediaries on
behalf of their respective communities. Similarly, reports of “donations” made by
local citizens to the Japanese war funds should be treated with reserve.654
652
Pritchard, Robert John. “The Gift of Clemency Following British War Crimes Trials in the Far East, 19461948” in Criminal Law Forum 7 (1), 15-50 (1996), 20-1.
653
Supreme Allied Commander’s Policy for the British Military Administration of Malaya. WO203/13880.
654
SACSEA Security Intelligence for Planning Section, Proforma ‘B’—tactical: Malacca, NARA RG226 21414.
273
The Civil Affairs directive regarding collaboration enunciated the administration’s
policy regarding working with those who had collaborated:
It is the aim of His Majesty's Government to dissipate as speedily as possible whatever
pro-Japanese sentiments may still remain, and to promote conditions under which the
territories concerned may resume their position in the Empire on a basis of goodwill.
To this end, and subject to what is said below, treatment of those who have
collaborated with the enemy should be founded on a tolerant view of their conduct, if
this will encourage the loyal support of men on whom (by reason of their
administrative qualities) we must necessarily depend, but who in view of their position
have in the past been employed by the Japanese.655
In January 1946, the Eurasian leader Dr C .J. Paglar was put on trial for treason. His
defence argued that community leaders such as Paglar had acted under duress, while Mamoru
Shinozaki, the former Head of the Welfare Department in Singapore, testified that he had
drafted a message, claimed by the prosecution to be treasonable, that Paglar had read during a
ceremony to celebrate the Japanese Emperor’s birthday, adding that leaders of the other
communities had been given slightly different versions of the same message. Although the
Court decided not to proceed with the trial, the case was simply adjourned without the charges
being withdrawn, leaving a shadow hanging over Paglar but sparing him any punishment.
Similar charges against other community leaders were also dropped.656
Members of the INA posed a different problem, for they had taken up arms against
Great Britain, and some had done so in violation of oaths taken as members of the British
armed forces. Force 136 officers sent into Malaya during the occupation had been directed to
attempt to persuade INA members to desert, but not to make any promises regarding future
655
Memorandum on Treatment of Renegades and Quislings, and Policy Regarding the Trial and Punishment of
Disloyal Persons in Malaya Who Collaborated with the Enemy, WO203/4203A.
656
Mamoru Shinozaki, Syonan-My Story, 105-8.
274
treatment. 657 After the war, INA soldiers who had surrendered were transferred to India,
where their fate became embroiled in the politics of independence. Jawaharlal Nehru, who
had opposed the INA in 1942, now issued a statement of support, and public opinion in India
hailed INA members as heroes. Responding to this situation, the British allowed many
soldiers to rejoin their old units, and simply dismissed most of the rest from service. A small
number of key figures were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, but these sentences
were commuted to simply dismissal from the army.658
7.12 Japanese and British system of administration and the question of Independence for
Malaya
In contrast with the prewar British practice of having a dual form of government, that
of direct and indirect rule, the Japanese governed Malaya as a single intergrated colony under
one supreme government headed by the Malaya Military Administration (MMA) in
Singapore. 659 In doing so the Japanese reduced the status of the Malay Sultans to that of
minor officials, heads of the State Islamic affairs bureau, in contrast to their position under the
British when they enjoyed the prestige of being, at least nominally, heads of their own states.
With the exception of Singapore, which became a Special Municipality with a Mayor, all
Malay States—plus Malacca, Penang and Province Wellesley—were converted into provinces
administered by Japanese Governors. The Sultans also lost part of their authoriety over
matters concerning the Islamic religion until 1943-44, while in pre-war days these
responsibilities had been left entirely in their hands.660
657
Brief for Head of ‘P’ Division on Force 136 Operations in Malaya, WO203/5767.
Kratoska, The Japanese occupation of Malaya: a social and economic history, 314.
659
The postwar British Military Administration (BMA) continued to use the Japanese-type integrated
government for the whole of Malaya, with central authority based in Singapore, from September 1945 until April
1, 1946 when the Malayan Union civil government took over.
660
Akashi, ‘Japanese Military Administration in Malaya with reference to Sultans, the Islamic religion and the
Muslim Malays, 1941-1945,’ Asian Studies, 7, no.1 (April 1969), 103-4.
658
275
With these significant exceptions, the Japanese administration in Malaya resembled
the British administrative system it superseded. In the early months of the occupation, the
Japanese made relatively few changes in prewar personnel, but later pursued a policy which
favored Malay appointees over Chinese and Indians. The most important changes occurred at
the higher levels, where the Japanese replaced British civil servants, while the provincial and
local government staffs remained much as they were before the war. In the Straits Settlement,
where a larger number of non-Malays had been employed in the British civil service, prewar
officials of all races continued to hold office in 1942 and 1943, but Malay officials increased
in numbers and rose more rapidly through the service. One of the main instruments of the
‘pro-Malay’ policy were the Koa Kunrenjo (leadership training schools) which were
established at Singapore, Malacca and Penang. Seventy percent of the trainees were Malays
and graduates were given relatively high appointments.661
Japanese military officers occupied a few top position such as Governors, while
Japanese civilians, among them former residents of Malaya and technical experts or
representatives of large Japanese companies, were chosen as heads of departments, mayors,
governors, and appointees for important staff positions. Due to insufficient data, it is not
possible to state whether the number of Japanese administrators in Malaya exceeded the
prewar number of British administrators.662
Although the Japanese Army administered Malaya as a colony throughout the war,
Tokyo did consider the question of granting independence to Malaya. In February 1945, a
study group in the Political Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs examined the
possibilities of granting political independence to Malaya, and in a working paper suggested
three possibilities:
661
662
Cheah Boon kheng, ‘Social impact of the Japanese occupation of Malaya’, 100.
Ibid., 100.
276
a) To incorporate the four Sultanates of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Perlis into
Thailand, and the rest into China.
b) To grant autonomy through the creation of a political administration with the
cooperation of the Chinese, the main race in Malaya, and the Malays.
c) To make Malaya a state of a federated Indonesia.663
The incorporation of the four northern sultanates into Thailand had already occurred in
October 1943. The idea of integrating the remaining states of Malaya into China was based on
a change in the colony’s demographic balance following transfer of the four northern States to
Thailand. The Chinese population thereafter constituted 47%, the Malays 34%, and the
Indians and others 18%. Based on these estimated figures, the study group concluded that the
‘main race’ in Malaya was the Chinese.
Therefore, in granting independence to Malaya it is impossible to ignore
the Chinese on population grounds alone, even without taking into
consideration their economic activities...... These days, the present Malayan
Military Government is starting to show signs of changing the policy enforced
in the early stages of military administration and which had been claimed to
stand for principles emphasizing the position of Malays, because it has become
impossible to ignore the power of Overseas Chinese merchants in various areas
such as commerce, industry and labor.664
However, in reconsidering the question, the group concluded in another document that it was
not feasible to grant independence to Malaya owing to the low level of political sophistication
and the conditions of the indigenous people (i.e., the Malays).665
663
‘Marai no dokuritsu mondai,’ February 20, 1945.
Ibid.
665
Political Affairs Section, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo, ‘Marai dokuritsu no kanosei ni tsuite’ [On the
possibility of granting independence to Malaya], February 20, 1945, in Senryochi gyosei kankei [Documents
relating to the Administration of Occupied Areas], File Daitoa senso kankei [Greater East Asian War]. This
document, cited only in Akashi, ‘Education and Indoctrination,’ 1-2, appears to contain the actual decisions of
the Ministry, while the other document, ‘Marai no dokuritsu mondai,’ outlines the main problems.
664
277
Table 7.1 Total Population of Malaya, including Singapore, 1936
Malays
2,095,217
44.6%
Chinese
1,821,750
38.8%
779,299
16.6%
Indians and others
Table 7.2 Total Population of Malaya, including Singapore, but excluding the Four Northern
States ceded to Thailand in 1943
Malays
1,210,718
34.3%
Chinese
1,699,594
47.7%
651,948
18%
Indians and others
The idea of granting independence to Malaya and other occupied territories in
Southeast Asia had been secondary to the Japanese aim of using these areas to supply
resources vital to the war effort. Tokyo began to consider the idea only when Japan suffered
major reverses in the war at the battle of Midway in June 1942 and later when the U.S. Navy
inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese naval fleet. After defeats at Guadalcanal and at Buna in
Papua in January 1943, Japanese strategy became largely defensive666 and the military began
to justify the continuing hardship to the Japanese people as sacrifices in the cause of ‘the
liberation of Asian peoples’.667 There was also hope that, if and when Southeast Asia became
a battleground, its inhabitants would fight with the Japanese rather than the Allies. This could
only be the case if some major political concession such as independence was granted.
Once these considerations began to influence Tokyo the question arose: which of the
occupied countries of Southeast Asia was ready for independence? One criterion for
determining this was the prewar record of the nationalist movements in each of the occupied
666
667
S. Woodburn Kirby, The War Against Japan, 396-97, 408.
Cheah Boon kheng, ‘Social impact of the Japanese occupation of Malaya’, 114.
278
territories. Certain ‘lobbies’ within the Japanese armed forces and the government, each
having some prewar contacts with and commitment to certain nationalist groups, now began
to assert themselves. In January 1943, moved by such pressures and their need for the front
line cooperation of the ruling oligarchy in the Philippines and the pro-Japanese groups in
Burma, Tokyo promised to grant early independence to both these countries. Indochina was
still under the Vichy French administration, but contacts with pro-Japanese groups were
stepped up as part of Japanese political maneuvers to establish an independent Indochina
within the Greater East Asia sphere. The IIL was also encouraged through formation of the
Indian National Army aimed at liberating India from British rule. But in the Netherlands East
Indies and in Malaya no moves were made in early 1943 to promote movement towards
independence. Soon forced by the deteriorating military situation to act on its promises,
Tokyo granted independence to Burma on 1 August and the Philippines on 14 October 1943.
Nine days later Tokyo extended recognition to the Provisional Government of Free India, an
act prompted by the military imperative of launching a counteroffensive in Burma. In
November the heads of these governments, as well as those of Thailand and of the pro-Japanese government in Nanking, attended a Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo.
In February 1945 the question of granting independence to Malaya was raised as part
of this continuing discussion. Two considerations now seemed to assume great importance.
First, the greater the geographical isolation of an occupied territory from Japan, the greater
the need to accelerate the movement towards independence. Second, there was the hope that
Southeast Asian countries would fight on the Japanese side against the Allies if some major
political concessions were granted.
For Malaya there was still no hint of Japanese plans to grant independence, and the
only positive sign was the formation of certain advisory bodies during 1943-44 in which local
participation was encouraged. State and city councils were established from August 1943 to
279
January 1944, but even these were similar to the former prewar British Executive Councils for
the Straits Settlements Colony and the Malay States.668 Although the functions of these bodies
were nominal and advisory, they had the potential for development into a system of selfgovernment. The abrupt Japanese surrender forestalled this possibility, however, unless some
local organization was able to pick up where the Japanese had left off. Anyway, all the above
plans were cut short by the surrender of Japan.
7.13 Interruption or Transformation?
Did the Japanese occupation of Singapore represent an interruption or a
transformation? Gildea argues that the occupation brought about a psychological, social, and
political transformation of a “land which was a political backwater” and changed it “into a
political maelstrom”. The impact of the war on Malayan society and the response to the
occupation varied among the different ethnic groups. Few would disagree that the most
significant impact of the forty-eight-month occupation upon the Malays was its catalytic role
in the emergence and development of nationalism. After the great rolling back of European
power in the region between 1941 and 1942, the local populations could never return to the
view of their former masters that they had maintained before the war. In Indochina and the
East Indies, local partisans took up arms to resist the return of the French and the Dutch,
while the guerrillas who had fought the Japanese in Malaya returned to the jungle to drive out
the British. In China, where the European powers had been driven to court the goodwill of
their wartime Chinese Nationalist allies by signing away their rights in the old treaty ports, the
Nationalists took swift action to show the expatriates that it was they who were in power.669
By politicizing a Malayan society characterized by three major ethnic groups and a weak
political consciousness prior to the outbreak of war, the Japanese policies of economic
668
Itagaki, “Some Aspects”, 259-60.
See Marie-Claire Bergere, “The Purge in Shanghai: the Sarly Affair and the End of the French Concession,
1945-46,” in Wartime Shanghai, ed. Wen-hsin Yeh, (New York: Routledge, 1998), 157-78.
669
280
autarchy and Japanization acted as significant catalysts in the transformation of Malayan
society and politics during the postwar years.
To a large extent, the Japanese military administration’s policies and actions towards
the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya had determined not only Chinese attitudes towards the
regime but also towards other ethnic groups, especially the Malays and Indians. Japanese
policies that produced resentment and hostility among the ethnic groups, exacerbated by the
competition for favours, privileges, jobs, goods, and foodstuffs necessary for survival, had
created great ethnic tension that persisted into the postwar era. Such tension is reflected in
postwar Chinese accounts of the war that generally depict cooperative Malays as Japanese
“collaborators” and “informers”, even though some Chinese could also be accused of
cooperating. However, greater Malay cooperation was inevitable due to Japanese policies
towards the Malays, which were much less repressive. When the Japanese used Malay village
chiefs, police, and Volunteer Corps units against the Chinese resistance, the Chinese
interpreted Malay involvement as cooperation, and the Malays as the “chosen” group of the
Japanese. Such tension only needs further misunderstandings to trigger large-scale conflicts.
The British failure to defend them and their success in providing for themselves
during the exigencies of war had awakened and imbued within the Chinese in Singapore a
new drive to promote their own interests,670 one that made deep impressions on those who
were later to assume the leadership of Singapore.671 They realized that they must rely on their
own strengths and resources to ensure that they will not be subjected to occupation and
subsequent exploitation by others ever again. This enhanced consciousness that their way of
life was worth preserving and that their country was worth fighting for was a necessary step in
creating a sense of national loyalty in a country largely composed of immigrants.672
670
Bamadhaj, The Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 202.
Bamadhaj, The Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 203.
672
The Sunday Times, September 2, 1992.
671
281
Before the war, Malay nationalism had been at only an incipient stage, and confined to
a small group of left-wing intellectual radicals with neither a well-organized national body
nor mass support for a reformist political platform. This weak nationalist movement atrophied
after the MMA disbanded the KMM and banned its political activities. The opportunity to
reactivate the Malay nationalist movement arrived in July 1945, when the DATA turned to
the KMM and encouraged former KMM officers to prepare the ground for independence,
leading to the formation of the Kekuaten Ra'yat Istimewa (KRIS). A further consequence of
the Japanese occupation was a change in Chinese and Indian political orientation. Until 1945,
Malay nationalism had no distinct platform because the major ethnic groups had three distinct
foci for their nationalistic aspirations. However, as Malay nationalism, energized by the
Japanese, asserted its power in the postwar years, the Chinese and Indian communities found
it necessary to form their own political associations to protect their respective interests. Their
increasing concern for their own welfare demanded their involvement in local political affairs,
thus turning them more towards a Malay-centric political perspective. They became interested
in Malayan issues and identified themselves increasingly with the destiny of Malaya,
considering Malaya their country of permanent residence; they were no longer overseas
residents or aliens who were either apathetic or loyal to Britain, China, or India. The
formation of the MIC and the MCA was evidence of this change to a Malay orientation.
The rapid growth of a new consciousness among the different ethnic groups was not
entirely a blessing for postwar Malayan society and politics. Whereas the British had
maintained harmony among the three major ethnic groups through their policy of divide and
rule, the Japanese engendered communal conflict, particularly between the Malay and
Chinese communities, by their failure to develop a racial policy. Consequently, the two
communities began to harbour a mutual enmity that manifested as communalism until it
erupted into open communal warfare. This communal strife, combined with the MPAJA’s bid
282
for power, which threatened the very existence of Malay, encouraged, at worst, the division of
Malayan society into two hostile camps, or, at best, settlement into an uneasy coexistence.
The first racial clash occurred in February 1945, in what appeared to be the beginning
of a general blood-letting, when Malays killed several Chinese on the outskirts of Batu Bahat,
Johore. In retaliation, MPAJA soldiers burned Malay villages and executed their headmen.
Malays responded by attacking Chinese and taking revenge on any Chinese in the vicinity for
the murder of their leaders.673 The Japanese were at first delighted by these local initiatives
against the Communist bandits, giving support to predominantly Malay Jikeidan (self-defense
corps) which were reinforced by Japanese troops. Malays took the opportunity to vent their
hatred of Chinese, killing hundreds and destroying and looting several hundred houses. Only
when the situation got out of control did the Japanese intervene and mediate the bloody racial
conflict between the two antagonistic groups.
It is against this background that the communal strife of the interregnum between the
Japanese surrender on 15 August and the British arrival on 5 September 1945 must be
understood. The Japanese MMA withheld information from the public about Japan’s
surrender for a week. In the meantime MPAJA soldiers, in accordance with previous
arrangement with British officers of Force 136, came out of their jungle hideouts and took
control of the whole of Johore outside of Johore Bahru. They occupied police stations,
disarmed Malay policemen, and rounded up Malay collaborators for trial and execution.674
The jungle fighters, intoxicated by victory and honored by the British as national heroes,
established political hegemony in the interregnum period. This was a bid for power resulting
from the ‘identification of the AJA [Anti-Japanese Army] with Chinese which had taken
place during the Japanese occupation and of the protective role they had assumed during the
period from February and July when Malays were attacking Chinese residents in Johore.’ The
673
674
Malai Sinpo, May 29 and June 29, 1945.
Bamadhaj, The Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 202.
283
MPAJA was determined to establish Chinese hegemony in Malaya, and a bid for power was
evident in its propaganda that (1) it would ‘fly the flags of the Soviet Union, the Chinese and
three stars in Malaya;’ (2) it would unite Chinese to chase the British out of Malaya if they
returned; (3) it would ‘reject the service of the high ranking Malaya officials’ and ‘Rulers and
Chiefs of this state;’ and (4) it would replace British government officials with Chinese
because Malaya would ‘belong to the Chinese.’675
Therefore, we may argue that a large share of the present communalism in Malaysia
must be attributed to MMA wartime policy. Out of expediency and the absence of a coherent
racial and educational policy, the MMA allowed the British educational system to continue
along communal lines, planting the seeds of separatism. The MMA thus missed a prime
opportunity to bring about a fundamental change in the communal relations that have plagued
Malaysia since the postwar period, and were epitomized by the bloody May 1969 racial riots.
The sultanate was perhaps the only institution that went through the occupation without much
transformation, largely on account of the MMA’s preferential treatment, although occupation
policy had weakened the sultans’ authority and tarnished their prestige.
Last but not least, an equally significant factor emerging from the period of the
Malayan Union controversy was a growing Malaya-oriented political focus on the part of the
Chinese. Before the war the Hua chiao (Oversea Chinese) of Sinkeh origin in Malaya were
largely concerned with the affairs of their home country, while Peranakan Chinese (local
born Chinese) and Baba Chinese (Straits born Chinese) remained either apolitical or loyal to
Britain. After the war, Chinese began to turn their interest towards Malaya and Malayan
issues. The MPAJA attempt to seize power was but one example of this political change.
Other examples were the formation of political association such as the All-Malaya Council of
Joint Action, the Malayan Democratic Union, and finally the Malayan Chinese Association
675
Ibid., 204-5.
284
(MCA) to protect their communal interests—citizenship, taxation, representation in the
Federal Council and the like. The emergence of the MCA under the leadership of Tan Cheng
Lock, a prominent Baba from Malacca, at the time of the Chinese Communist victory on the
Mainland in February 1949, was a definite turning point in the political attitudes of the
Malayan Chinese and represented a break with their earlier mainland orientation. This was the
beginning of the transformation of the Chinese from Hua chiao, Huayi (Chinese person), Ma
Hua (Malayan Chinese) to Malaysians—in effect defining themselves permanent residents of
Malaysia and identifying themselves with its destiny. It is unfortunate, however, that Chinese,
like Malays and Indians, organized a political party along communal lines, contributing to the
perpetuation of communalism in present-day Malaysia. Consequently, pluralism continues in
Malaysia, despite the transformation in Chinese political attitudes—a change whose seed was
planted during the Japanese occupation period.676
In summary, under the Japanese, Malay’s administration underwent several important
changes. For the first time in the country’s history an integrated government was imposed for
the whole of Malaya, with a central authority based in Singapore a marked contrast with the
prewar dual system of direct and indirect rule. The Japanese demoted the Sultans further by
removing their nominal status as rulers, which the British had allowed, thus turning them into
minor officials. Like the British, the Japanese pursued a ‘pro-Malay’ policy of appointing
more Malays than Chinese and Indians in government service. But they went further than the
British in encouraging Malays to rise to higher positions than had been allowed in the prewar
era. These Japanese policies were to have important effects in postwar Malaya.
Second, the Japanese occupation enabled the predominantly Chinese MCP to increase
its political influence in Malaya during the war and in the postwar period. As the only
political organization prepared for an active anti-Japanese insurgency, it attracted widespread
676
Akashi, ‘ The Japanese Occupation of Malaya: Interruption or Transformation?’, 83.
285
support among the Chinese who suffered greatly from the brutality of the Japanese. The MCP
succeeded therefore in establishing a strong politico-military resistance movement, the
MPAJU/MPAJA, in the midst of the Chinese community. There was, however, less support
for the MCP from Malays and Indians, because Malay and Indian cooperation with the
Japanese was clearly greater than that of the Chinese. Nonetheless, because of its large
guerrilla army, the MCP became a major political force in postwar Malay.
Third, the Japanese occupation helped to bring about certain changes in the structure
of Chinese society in Malaya. Traditional Chinese leaders had either fled the country or were
forced to cooperate with the Japanese if they remained. Consequently, the prewar elites were
discredited and frequently despised. Their place tended to be filled by Chinese communists
who were mostly of a younger generation. On the whole, the Japanese occupation and the war
experience strengthened Chinese nationalism and their sense of ethnic identity.
Finally, the greatest overall change produced by the Japanese administration was in
the area of race relations. Although the Japanese did not deliberately foster racial conflict
between Malays and Chinese, their policies had this effect. Repressive measures against the
Chinese led to the formation of a Chinese dominated resistance movement; their ‘pro-Malay’
policy created an undercurrent of resentment and distrust among Chinese towards Malays.
Malay cooperation made them appear a chosen instrument of the Japanese. As Willard
Elsbree later observed, had there been equal proportions of Chinese and Malays in the
resistance as well as in collaboration, ‘the bitterness which came in the wake of the
occupation would not have had such a pronounced racial tinge.’
In short, the transformation of Malayan society instigated by occupation policies and
the Malayans’ responses to them resulted in revolutionary changes in the political, social, and
286
psychological outlook of the Malayan citizens. 677 Having either fled the country or been
forced to cooperate with the Japanese if they remained, traditional Chinese leaders and prewar
elites found themselves discredited and despised and their places filled primarily by a younger
generation of Chinese communists. The Japanese occupation and the war experience thus
strengthened both Chinese nationalism and ethnic identity in Singapore.
7.2 Responses of the Hong Kong Elites to the Return of the British
News of Japan’s collapse had provoked an instant resumption of the familiar
partnership of the most important pair of local elite leaders: Kotewall and Chow. On 16
August, Kotewall, seemingly having made a rapid recovery from the illness that had
immobilized him two weeks earlier, and Chow engaged in several hours of talks with
Rakuman Kinji, the civilian head of the No. 1 Department of the Governor’s Office. Kotewall
and Chow then went to Police Headquarters, where they exchanged views with Kanazawa,
the Police Commissioner and Kempeitai chief. On the following day, the two men gave a
press conference at which they declared that the situation in the colony was now “on the
verge of change”, and praised the Chinese public for their “patience and good behaviour”
over the past three years and eight months.678
Kotewall and Chow were clearly making a bid to fill the vacuum of authority in the
stupefied city, an endeavour supported by the elites’ concern to fend off social chaos. At their
meeting with Kanazawa, they discussed ways of strengthening the existing police apparatus,
stressing that “law and order must be fully protected”.679 In his capacity as Chairman of the
Police Affairs Committee, Chow then attended a meeting of the Directors of the Cooperative
Yoji Akashi, “Interruption or Transformation? The Japanese Occupation of Malaya” in ed. McCoy, Alfred W.,
Southeast Asia under Japanese occupation, 85.
678
Wah Kiu Yat Po, August 17 and 18, 1945.
679
Ibid., August 17 and 18, 1945.
677
287
Society, which had been set up in May to raise funding for the police. “Sparing no effort to
devise protection for the Hong Kong Chinese” in spite of his eighty-six years, Chow held a
second meeting with Kanazawa on 18 August at which they decided that the Cooperative
Society would distribute rice to the police paid for by the Police Affairs Committee. 680
Kotewall and Chow also organized a drive to sustain the activities of the auxiliary Protective
Guards through donations from the elites, resulting in most of the Guards’ expenses over the
following week being met by voluntary donations by “wealthy people” in each district. These
donations gradually began to flag as the days passed, but they seem to have had some effect:
on 26 August the Protective Guards were still reported to be “continuing their efforts to help
maintain order”.681
Second and equally urgent, the two local leaders were seeking to manage a smooth
transition from one regime to the next, which required maintaining an outwardly cordial
relationship with the beaten Japanese during the final days of the occupation. On 20 August,
they attended a farewell banquet that Governor Tanaka had organized for the Chairman and
Vice-Chairmen of the two Chinese Councils and the editors of the local Chinese newspapers
to thank them for their assistance over the past four years. On 29 August they returned the
compliment, treating Tanaka to a banquet at the East Asia Chinese Restaurant, where they
made speeches expressing thanks to the Japanese Governor for his past administration and
his kindness to all the residents of Hong Kong.682
680
Ibid., August 19, 1945.
Ibid., August 26, 1945.
682
Wah Kiu Yat Po, August 20 and 29, 1945 (evening editions). The reported presence of Tanaka at these
functions constitutes a real puzzle. Other sources give the impression that the Governor was away in Canton
throughout this transitional fortnight, but he was certainly there at the time Harcourt’s squadron arrived in Hong
Kong on 30 August. See Clark, An End to Tears, 19-20; Lindsay, Going Down of the Still, 203; Yuan, Xianggang
Shilue, 188; Tse, San Nian, 51. One British account, however, appears to confirm that Tanaka was in Hong Kong,
at least on the date of the first banquet on 20 August. See Ride, British Army Aid Group, 295. The most likely
conclusion is that Tanaka was in the colony for some time during these two weeks or made one or two short trips
there. Alternatively, it may be that the newspaper reports are inaccurate, and that Tanaka was represented at these
two functions by some deputy, e.g., the Chief of Staff, Major-General Fukuchi. The main point here, however, is
not the identity of the top Japanese present but the gentry leaders’ effort to maintain a smooth formal relationship
681
288
At the same time, they were quietly re-establishing communications with the British.
By the last week of August, they had made contact with Gimson’s officials. Kotewall is
reported to have made a daily trek to the French Mission building to call on R. A. C. North,
the former Secretary for Chinese Affairs, and Brian Hawkins, who had been designated as
North’s successor. A newspaper report from some days later confirmed that Hawkins had
been engaged ever since his emergence from Stanley in discussions with “a number of
Chinese residents” about matters relating to the reconstruction of the colony.683
The remainder of the local leaders moved with equal dexterity to adjust to the likely
postwar shape of things, unobtrusively severing their more gratuitous ties to the beaten
regime. On 23 August, Phoenix, the BAAG agent, arrived at the home of M. K. Lo with a
message from Gimson stating that Lo had been assigned the additional task of “prompting
local initiative”.684 At this stage, no other British effort (perhaps significantly) appears to
have been made to contact any local leaders apart from the trusted Lo. On 25 August, the
House of Commons in London denied that a Chinese Nationalist army would accept the
Japanese surrender and affirmed that a British fleet was about to move in, which “without
doubt indicates that Hong Kong is to be a British colony”.685 The first reference to Gimson's
skeleton government and British preparations to resume control were made on 29 August.
The newspapers reported on the need to concentrate on restoring Hong Kong to its former
prosperity and highlighted a recent speech in which General Eisenhower had declared, “From
ancient times Britain has emphasized freedom”.686
Keen to assist in the safe restitution of Hong Kong to their fellow imperial rulers, the
Japanese command encouraged the pro-British drift of the local elites by endeavouring to
with the occupation authorities until the end.
683
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 6, 1945.
684
Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 230; South China Morning Post, February 5, 1978.
685
Wah Kiu Yat Po, August 25, 1945.
686
Ibid., August 25, 1945.
289
provide Kotewall, Chow, and other local elite members with what a later generation would
call a “through train”. On 29 August, the Governor’s Office was reported to be trying to
maintain “the various organizations” operated by the Hong Kong Chinese “so that after the
handover has taken place they may continue to be consulted and employed by the British
military authorities”. 687 The same principle was applied at a more mundane level. In
accordance with the promise made by the Governor’s Office to keep the public utilities in
working order, Chinese personnel were retained at their posts in the telephone and telegraph
offices, the Tramways Company, and the Electricity Works.
7.3 Responses of the Local Masses to the Return of the British
The British realized that “a smart appearance” would go a long way in helping to
restore their prestige in the Colony. Harcourt observed in his briefing,
Face is important to the Orientals. When we surrendered Hong Kong we lost face; we
now have to regain Hong Kong and face. The Chinese will judge us by our behaviour
ashore and first impressions will count. Troops should be marched in an orderly
fashion giving the impression that we are moving back into what is rightfully ours,
rather than taking an area by assault against resistance.
The conduct of the force had to be exemplary, and like Kitchener’s volunteers in 1914, avoid
misbehaving with “wine or women”. If these guidelines were followed, there was good
reason for thinking that those Chinese who had worked with the prewar British rulers would
“fully appreciate” that a benevolent, stable government was in their own interests, and would
be “even more cooperative” than they had been in the past.688
687
Ibid., August 25, 1945.
Enclosure to Commander, Task Force, August 21, 1945 Landing Force Administrative Order, August 29, 1945;
Landing Force Commander, Swiftsure to Euryalus and Prince Robert, August 30, 1945, Papers Relating to Naval
Agreement, HK MS 74-6.
688
290
When the British task force arrived off the Stanley Peninsula and glided slowly
through the Lei Yue Mun Channel and into the ruined harbour on 30 August, they
experienced almost none of the expected resistance from Japanese diehards. After sighting
three Japanese boats moving out of a bay on the nearby island of Lamma on an apparent
suicide mission, the British immediately bombed them and the rest of the craft in the bay.689
Scattered shots were directed at Harcourt's flagship from the Naval Dockyard, but these were
soon halted after the flagship had made wireless contact with the garrison commander, MajorGeneral Okada Umekichi.
However, British concern regarding the response of the Hong Kong Chinese was, to
some extent, justified. As they drifted through Lei Yue Mum in an eerie silence, scarcely any
local fishermen even looked at them. An Australian journalist on Harcourt's flagship
described the scene:
On the rocks a coolie whistled shrilly. It was like an obscenity in that stillness. Then
we were in Victoria Harbour. And still there was no movement. . . . There was not a
launch or a sampan moving on the water. A few Chinese—not more than about fifty—
stood on the waterfront opposite the Peninsula Hotel, watching. We walked into our
berth in Kowloon and tied up. The Chinese clapped and cheered. It was a watery
reception and made practically no impression on the oppressive silence. It was like
entering a near dead city.690
Gradually, the crowds thickened, the smiles broadened, and the firecrackers began to
be lit. Nevertheless, it was still not clear whether these were signs of welcome for the British;
arguably, the populace would have been pleased to see anybody. An old Chinese clerk well
689
Harcourt lecture to Royal Central Asian Society; Louis Allen, The End of the War in Asia, (London: HartDavis MacGibbon, 1976), 254; Lindsay, Going Down of the Sun, 211; Ko and Wordie, Ruins of War, 182. The
British had apparently received reports of “almost a hundred small wooden Japanese suicide boats”. According
to Harcourt, the “suicide boats” were manned by the Japanese Army rather than the Navy who were “terrified” of
their Army opposite numbers and asked him to round them up. The old Army-Navy friction went on to the last.
690
Clark, An End to Tears, 27-9.
291
disposed to the British authorities reported that no one cared whether the incoming ships were
British, American, Russian, or Chinese, only happy that “now we will eat”.691 If the Chinese
masses were expecting any particular saviour, it did not seem to be Britain. Many buildings
and virtually every junk flew the White Sun flag of the Nationalists, which outnumbered the
Union Jacks by four to one.692
Still, Harcourt’s squadron had reached Hong Kong ahead of any possible Chinese or
American force, and Gimson had hovered for two vital weeks in the vacuum that might so
easily have been filled by local Chinese activists. In the first press conference held by the
British, Duncan Sloss, the Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University and now Publicity
Officer in Gimson's Government, observed there remained danger from “lawless elements”
that might try to cross into the colony “with a view to creating disturbances”. Brushing off the
“rumours” that had been circulating about the “political future” of Hong Kong, 693 he
confirmed that no Chinese army had made its appearance.
In the absence of British officials, much of the work necessarily devolved on the local
population. Many Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, and Portuguese employed before the war were
reported to have returned to their posts. The fire brigade, for example, was almost entirely
composed of the prewar Asiatic staff; a large number of clerical workers, including “the key
men” had “reported for duty” in the Imports and Exports Department; and a fair proportion of
the Chinese revenue officers had also returned “back”.694 Some of these prewar employees
691
MacDougall to Gent, November 7, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 32. See also Harcourt to A.V Alexander, First Lord
of the Admiralty, November 7, 1945, CO 129 592/6, 25; Harcourt lecture to Royal Central Asian Society; Tsang
interview with MacDougall, 50; Lindsay, Going Down of the Sun, 211.
692
Lindsay, Lasting Honour, 195; Tse, San Nian, 400; Steve Tsang, Democracy Shelved: Great Britain, China,
and attempts at constitutional reform in Hong Kong, 1945-1952, (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988),
26; Jan Morris, Hong Kong: epilogue to an empire, (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1993), 261. Most of these
flags had been distributed by agents of Chiang Kai-shek and Wedemeyer earlier in the year. See Morris, 236. For
local Chinese ambivalence towards the British return, see remarks of “Mr X” quoted by Adam Williams, article
in South China Morning Post, November 19, 1978.
693
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, August 31, 1945. See also Luff, Hidden Years, 231.
694
Appreciation of the Police Organization, October 10, 1945 and report of Colonel Thomson, Imports and
Exports Department, November 1, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 63, 74.
292
may have genuinely “returned” in the sense that they had gone underground during the occupation and re-emerged after Harcourt arrived to sign up once again with their old British
masters. However, most had likely continued on with their jobs through the years, regardless
of changing regimes.
The British also drew on the large pool of new local employees whom the Japanese
had brought into government service in the course of the war. The new regular police force
that began being recruited in early September consisted mostly of Chinese men aged eighteen
to twenty-five who had been originally recruited by the Japanese. 695 Whatever their
background, these Asian employees were clearly instrumental during the early months of the
British military administration. The Telecommunications Department’s provision of “skeleton
technical services” was supplied by “non-Europeans”, and the Asians in the fire brigade
performed with sufficient effectiveness that the Chief Officer was “prepared to carry on
without replacing Inspectors”.696 The situation was far different than it had been during the
European-dominated prewar period.
7.4 Postwar “Collaborators” in Hong Kong: Dynamics and Interactions between the
British and Elites
The restored British colonial government next endeavoured to rebuild its local support
base. The greatest challenge that the British faced at this stage was gaining the cooperation of
the local elites. In the first months after the Japanese surrender, the colony witnessed signs of
a massive backlash against the community leaders who had acquiesced so tamely to the
Japanese takeover, primarily within expatriate circles. Angry reports had made their way back
to London from a range of sources, including the British and other Europeans who had fled
695
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 4, 1945. They were said to be “not very well
trained”.
696
Central Executive Branch Progress Report no. 2, November 1, 1945 and Appreciation of the Police
Organization, October 10, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 49, 63.
293
the colony as well as Ride and his assistants at the BAAG headquarters in Guilin and Reeves
at the British Consulate in Macao.
Particular opprobrium was heaped on Sir Robert Kotewall, whom rumour maintained
had been chosen by the Japanese as their puppet governor and had “publicly made some
venomous anti-British and fervently pro-Japanese speeches”.697 An Irish doctor debriefed by
Ride reported that Kotewall had a monopoly on tobacco in Hong Kong and was “buying up
all kinds of silver, crystal, etc.” A Russian woman declared that Kotewall’s daughters were
“among the few women who seemed able to shop for anything save the bare necessities of
life”. 698 Sir Shouson Chow was castigated alongside Kotewall as a local leader who had
matched him in “pro-Japanese fervour and anti-British advocacy”.699
Other elite figures also came in for their share of vitriol. Sir Robert Ho Tung had
earlier attracted some notice as he slipped between Macao and Hong Kong in the spring and
summer of 1942. An employee of the British firm Dodwell and Company reported that Ho
Tung had made a speech at a Japanese dinner praising the Co-Prosperity Sphere and thanking
the conquerors for all they had done for China. The critics were slower to catch up with Aw
Boon-haw, but catch up they did. One intelligence report drew attention to the newspapers
that the Tiger Balm King had been sponsoring under Japanese auspices in both Hong Kong
and Canton, describing him as “a typical rich Overseas Chinese, enterprising but politically
an opportunist”.700
697
MacDougall report of conversation with Sergeant David Mann and Mrs. E. C. K. Mann, December 4, 1943,
CO 129 590/22, 37.
698
Fehily conversation with Ride, Guilin, December 18, 1942 and MacDougall report of conversation with Mrs.
Eugenic Zaitzeff, December 6, 1943, CO 129 590/22, 56, 161.
699
MacDougall report of conversations with Sergeant David Mann and Mrs. E. C. K. Mann, December 4, 1943,
and Mrs. Eugenie Zaitzeff, December 6, 1943, CO 129 590/22, 37, 56.
700
Comment on Sir Robert Ho Tung contained in letter from William Wright of Dodwell and Co. to G. Dodwell,
September 3, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 132. For comments on Aw Boon haw, see remarks of British officials on
Extract from Fortnightly Intelligence Report no. 13, Far Eastern Bureau, MOI, New Delhi, July 1-15, cited in
letter from Yumoto, Japanese intelligence officer, to Joseph Richards, August 21, 1944, Richards trial documents,
HKRS 245-2-150.
294
The British soon found themselves struggling with a dilemma: Could they afford to
discount the services of those local leaders on whom they had relied for upwards of twenty
years? From the perspective of Whitehall, the answer was a definitive NO. Within days of
Harcourt's arrival, Kotewall and his colleagues had quietly taken up their familiar role as the
Chief Representatives of the Hong Kong Chinese and, on the strength of the contacts that they
had made with Gimson’s officials in the final days of the interregnum, were installed as
members of a new Chinese Advisory Council.701 Kotewall, Chow, and Li Tse-fong, who were
all received with “high favour” at Government House, “formed the backbone of the group of
VIPs at all functions”.702
Other prominent figures of the occupation lost equally little time in re-emerging. On 4
September, Peter H. Sin, the wartime “Mayor of Hong Kong”, joined his fellow solicitors at a
meeting convened by Chief Justice MacGregor to announce the reestablishment of the
colony’s courts of law. On 20 September, Tung Chung-wei, formerly of the Rehabilitation
Advisory Committee, and Kwok Chan, lately of the Chinese Representative Council, presided
at an early postwar session of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce. Ho
Kom-tong, the perennial master of ceremonies who was last observed directing Jockey Club
races on behalf of the Japanese, organized the Allied victory celebrations held throughout the
colony in mid-October.703
Despite showing such favour to these figures, the Colonial Office duly opened a file to
house the accumulating sheaf of reports regarding collaborators and traitors. Although some
officials expressed that Kotewall and Chow might eventually have to be stripped of their
701
See South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 6, 8, and 27, 1945; Zheng Bao, January 1, 1946.
The new body was also referred to as the Hong Kong Reconstruction Advisory Committee, a name ironically
reminiscent of the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee set up by the Gunseicho. It was formally established on
September 10, 1945.
702
T. M. Hazlerigg memorandum to Gent, December 31, 1945, CO 129 594/9, 151. See also WIS no. 7,
November 6, 1945, CO 129 592/6, 51; Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip-Heads, 254.
703
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 4, 21, and 30, 1945.
295
knighthoods,704 none was in any hurry to rush into action. As early as February 1942, W. B. L.
Monson, the official in charge of investigating accusations of collaboration and treason,
remarked of accusations that Kotewall had served as a puppet governor, “It is safer for us to
reserve judgement of the person selected until the facts of his selection are clearer”.705 In fact,
from the summer of 1943 onwards, the officials in London began to display a marked
tendency to give their former protégés the benefit of the doubt. In an analysis of Kotewall's
Christmas broadcast that year, Monson observed that it had been “very carefully phrased” to
compare Isogai’s regime favourably with the chaos of the Gunseicho period rather than with
the prewar British era, which he interpreted as a sign that despite his eulogy of the Isogai
administration, Kotewall was “hedging”. 706 A second official strongly agreed with this
interpretation:
I am most pleasantly surprised at the content of this speech. It seems to boil down to
this—things got in a bloody mess at the time of the [initial] occupation but the Nips do
seem to be trying to get things a bit better and to our surprise the arrangements often
work out smoothly. . . . That is what our Robert seems to be saying. . . . I’m glad to
see that he refrains from saying anything derogatory of our Government—if he
refrains from comparisons, it may have been from the feeling that he's playing on a
sticky wicket.707
Sir Shouson Chow was viewed with even greater indulgence. N. L. Smith, a prewar
Colonial Secretary who had been named the First Head of the Hong Kong Planning Unit,
insisted that Chow had been “a loyal servant of the British” and was “violently anti-Japanese”,
704
See minutes of W. B. L. Monson, June 4, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 10; minutes of W. B. L. Monson, October 1,
1942 and J. J. Paskin, October 7, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 2-3, 8-11.
705
Monson minutes, February 9, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 4. Opening the “quislings” file eight months later, the
same official reiterated that many reports of collaboration could not be confirmed and that it was not currently
necessary to form any definite conclusion except in one or two clear cases. See Monson minutes, October 1,
1942, CO 129 590/24, 8.
706
Monson minutes, February 17, 1944, CO 129 591/14, 4.
707
Letter of T. M. Hazlerigg to N. L. Smith, March 23, 1945, HK RS 211-2-41.
296
but in any event he was “too old to matter much now”.708 Lesser figures on the two Chinese
Councils, such as Li Tse-fong, his brother Li Koon-chun , and the comprador Kwok Chan,
seemed to Smith “not a great deal worse than the postmen or sanitary employees who carried
on the machinery of government”.709 As for Sir Robert Ho Tung, Monson “would not be
prepared to say anything other than that he is keeping a foot in both camps”.710
Rather than harp on the possible sins of the elites, officials in London eagerly seized
on the one figure whom reports from Hong Kong and South China had tended to depict in a
favourable light. M. K. Lo, they observed, was reported to have “worn the armband
unwillingly, to have joined the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee only after being
subjected to considerable pressure”, to have been “so violent in his opposition to everything
Japanese that he was in considerable personal danger”. 711 As such, he represented the
natural starting point for any British bid to reconstitute a local leader following, and
attempts were accordingly initiated to reach out to him. As early as September 1942, a
BAAG deputation made contact with Lo, who was said to have voiced his pleasure that he
“had not been forgotten”.712
7.41 Factors in the Absolution of “Collaborators”
Several Japanese officials and staff who had served in Hong Kong, notably the
Japanese executioner at Stanley Prison, and some Chinese underlings, informers, and torturers
were lynched or manhandled. However, revenge killing for collaboration stopped after order
had been restored following the first few weeks of British military administration, and the
708
N. L. Smith minutes, October 18, 1943, CO 129 590/22; N. L. Smith minutes to Monson, January 7, 1944,
CO 129 591/4, 70, and minutes, March 22, 1945, HK RS 211-2-41.
709
N. L. Smith minutes, March 22, 1945, HK RS 211-2-41.
710
Monson minutes, June 4, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 9.
711
Calcutta Censor Station Further Notes on Conditions in Hong Kong, May 13, 1942, taken up in Monson
minutes, October 1, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 8,189; report of Professor Gordon King, March 18, 1942, CO 129
590/23, 139, taken up in Monson minutes, June 4, 1942, CO 129 590/23, 9, and October 1, 1942, CO 129 590/24,
8; observations of Dr. Wen Yuanning quoted in N. L. Smith minutes to Monson, January 7, 1944, CO 129 591/4,
70. Smith was glad to see from the various reports that Lo was “a reluctant puppet”. Minutes of October 18,
1943, CO 129 590/22.
712
Ride, British Army Aid Group, 182.
297
Annual Report of the Hong Kong Police Force 1946-47 lists only one murder in which the
motive was suspected to be collaboration with the enemy. In contrast, some thirty to forty
thousand suspected collaborators were executed in France.713
What prevented the Hong Kong populace from engaging in the mass killing of
collaborators witnessed in France? One is the existence of plentiful evidence that the local
elites had made efforts to attend to the needs of the Hong Kong population. It was they, after
all, who had directed, funded, and generally sustained an entire network of local charities.
Most of the charities were still hard at work when the British took over, and in the following
weeks they played a key role in distributing such food as the British managed to bring in to
Hong Kong. MacDougall remarked that in their “long and honourable history”, those bodies
had “never given better service than now”.714
There were other, more pragmatic considerations for forgiving the local elites. One
was their role as interlocutors between the British and the Hong Kong Chinese masses.
Although the press called vociferously for “new blood” in the leadership of the Chinese
community and “a brand new set of advisers to Government”,715 it failed to suggest where
such leaders could be found. The fact was that in spite of the criticism, none of the local
people were willing to come forward and challenge the Anglicized Chinese and Eurasian
oligarchy that had represented them for the past fifty years, and the British knew no other
source of leadership.716 Chinese informants to this dissertation reported that there was little
713
Robert Aron, Histoire de Vichy, 1940-1944, (Paris: Fayard, 1954), 651.
MacDougall, General Report, November 2, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 28. Harcourt commented similarly on the
large quantities of rice that had been distributed by the local charities. See Harcourt to Alexander, November 7,
1945, CO 129 592/6, 25; Harcourt lecture to Royal Central Asian Society.
715
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times editorial, September 14, 1945
716
MacDougall to Gent, November 7, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 32. MacDougall went on to explain more
concretely, if less picturesquely, “Locally the most serious (and from the point of view of our pre-war system, the
most damning) factor is that there seem to be no new Chinese of the younger generation anxious to shoulder the
responsibility of public affairs. I have been unable to find candidates anxious to dispute local leadership with the
established order”. See also extracts from MacDougall letter to T. I. K. Lloyd, Gent’s successor as the Hong
Kong overseer at the Colonial Office, February 16, 1946, CO 129 594/9, 143; Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under
Japanese Occupation”, 118; Lindsay, Going Down of the Sun, 240.
714
298
resentment against the members of the Chinese Councils during the occupation; the Chinese
understood that such people had to bow before the Japanese Governor and occasionally shout
“Banzai!” However, they did note those who shouted too vociferously.
It may be justifiably concluded that most of the members of the Chinese Councils
accepted nomination either to protect their families and interests or to mollify the severities of
the occupation. Few were collaborators in the strict sense of the term or allowed themselves
to be brainwashed by the Japanese; they remained implacably Chinese and racialist. When
asked what they had done during the occupation, they could give Sieyes’ answer regarding
what he had done during the French Revolution with a clear conscience: they had survived.
Other citizens, however, were not disposed to allow accusations of collaboration to
remain unchallenged. Many expatriates who poured out of Stanley were outraged to discover
that the same people who had shouted “Banzai!” yesterday were singing “God Save the
King” today.717 The result was a torrent of protest in the resuscitated English-language press.
On 12 September, an editorial in the South China Morning Post commented on “the ease
wherewith the scallywags who worked for the Japanese have been able to ingratiate
themselves anew not only with the restored Hong Kong government but also with the public
utility managements and private firms”.718 Two days later, an ex-internee urged the paper to
print a list of such culprits, and on 17 September a writer who had assumed the pseudonym “a
Jail Sufferer” cheered on the campaign:
The traitors themselves were quite frightened three weeks ago, and only the
tenderness of Government officials made them more brazen as the weeks passed
by. . . . The Government should let the public realize in no uncertain terms that men
717
718
Hazlerigg memorandum to Gent, December 31, 1945, CO 129 594/9, 153.
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 12, 1945
299
who can turn their coats with chameleon-like rapidity are not the type of men to
assume the responsibilities of public service.719
The expatriates were not alone in their outcry. One Chinese correspondent alluded to
“the fawning gentries”, and calls started mounting for the immediate detention and trial of the
local leaders, Kotewall in particular. 720 The elites’ re-emergence thus threatened to create
more difficulties than it resolved. A real danger existed that the reclaimed Hong Kong might
be torn down the middle by recriminations. The local public was not the sole group to be
clamouring for the heads of the gentry. Many of the Nationalists wished to see Kotewall and
his associates called to account for their hypothetical treason to another nation: China.
The British administration responded with the argument that by working with the
Japanese instead of fleeing to “Free China”, these “loyal Chinese” had “proved that their
loyalty was, in the last resort, to Hong Kong exclusively. For the sake of Hong Kong they
would strike an accommodation with whoever happened to rule it. They were thus,
paradoxically, the segment of society on whom the returning British could now best rely in
the face of the intensified threat from the mainland”.721 MacDougall acknowledged that “few
substantial citizens of the colony escaped contact with the occupying forces in one form or
another . . . [and] it seems certain that a proportion of them behaved very badly”.722 However,
the British “needed Hong Kong Chinese, Chinese loyal to the concept of a separate status for
Hong Kong, even if some among this group had worked, seemingly for the establishment of a
Japanese ‘New Order’ in Hong Kong”.723
719
Letter from Dr Harry Talbot, South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 14, 1945; South China
Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 17, 1945.
720
Letter from “A Yenless Chinese,” South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 16, 1945. See
also letters from “Chatter-Box” and “Pro Bono Publico,” South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times,
September 10 and 12, 1945. A local surgeon was reported to be among a number of Hong Kong Chinese
complaining about the presence of leading local personages at British functions who had been equally prominent
at Japanese ones. See WIS no. 7, November 6, 1945, CO 129 592/6, 51; Lindsay, Going Down of the Sun, 240.
721
Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 281.
722
MacDougall, General Report, November 2, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 30.
723
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 117.
300
The Colonial Office eventually determined Chow and Kotewall had been acting in the
colony’s best interest based on the fact that both men had worked with the Japanese to ensure
a smooth transition back to British rule shortly after Japan surrendered to the United States in
August 1945.724 Regarding Kotewall, MacDougall alleged, “So far as I can see no one has a
scrap of real evidence, and all I have seen so far would not stand up in court for two seconds”.
In support of his judgement, MacDougall drew a distinction between Kotewall and his
counterparts in occupied Europe; while the local elites might have shouted “Banzai!”, there
was no suggestion that they had betrayed a single soul to the Japanese.725
On 2 October, R. A. C. North, the prewar Secretary for Chinese Affairs, issued a
statement to the newspapers before embarking for Britain with the rest of the ex-internees.
Regarding what had happened when he called on Kotewall and Chow in the China Building
in January 1942, he stated that he asked them “to take upon themselves what should have
been my duty in working with the Japanese”. As a result, the two local leaders and their
colleagues had been not merely humiliated by the conquerors but also “misrepresented and
abused” by some of their friends, leading him to “regret more than I can say that
misunderstandings should have arisen over this matter, and I sincerely hope that the true facts
will now be realised”.
The administration used other, more direct methods to stem the outburst in the
newspapers, the details of which are unclear. In later years, MacDougall simply stated, “We
jumped on it; I jumped hard on it”. 726 By the second week of October, the topic of
collaboration had suddenly and completely disappeared from the colony’s press. In keeping
with a policy formulated during the latter part of the war, the British military administration
724
In Hong Kong, a few Japanese and several Chinese underlings, informers, and torturers were manhandled, but
it appears this only occurred in the first few weeks. The Annual Report of the Hong Kong Police Force 1946-47
lists only one murder in which the motive was suspected to be collaboration with the enemy.
725
MacDougall letter to Ronald Holmes, Acting Secretary for Chinese Affairs, July 13, 1969, in private papers of
Mrs. Helen Zimmern; Tsang interview with MacDougall, 64.
726
Tsang interview with MacDougall, 65.
301
set up a War Activities Committee to look into the conduct of “quislings and renegades”, but
the Committee had barely started work before it started experiencing resistance. The
resistance began when Harcourt rejected the Committee’s recommendation that Kotewall be
put on trial. 727 Committee focus then shifted to Li Tse-fong of the Bank of East Asia,
Kotewall's former colleague on the Chinese Representative Council, but by this point the
gentry themselves has started to protest.728
In December, MacDougall dispatched T. M. Hazlerigg, an official who had served
before the war in the legal department of the Hong Kong government and who was now
attached as a special adviser to MacDougall's Civil Affairs staff, to London to confer with the
Colonial Office about the Li Tse-fong case specifically and allegations of collaboration
generally. In his talks, Hazlerigg was emphatic that the drive to prosecute the gentry should
be brought to a halt, as it was “reasonable” to assume that their wartime pronouncements had
been delivered in a state of fear and duress, and that they would have tried to flee from the
colony if the surveillance on them had not been so intensive. In any event, the British military
administration had been unable to find any other “informed and representative” Chinese
advisers, and now that the public mood had begun to grow calmer “it would seem highly
impolitic to stir up animosities”. The outcome was, as MacDougall expressed it, that “we
727
South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, October 2, 1945; Notes of G. A. Wallinger and WIS no. 2,
October 4, 1945, CO 129 592/6, 96,114; Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 244-5. The draft directive
issued by the Colonial Office in this connection indicated the desirability of a lenient approach. “In order”, it
advised, “to dissipate as speedily as possible whatever pro-Japanese sentiments still exist in the Far Eastern
territories and to promote the conditions in which those territories can resume their position in the Empire on a
basis of goodwill, it will repay us if our treatment of those who have collaborated with the enemy during the
years of Japanese occupation is founded on a generous and tolerant view of their conduct. Experience has
already shown that only by so doing can we secure the services of the men of education, ability, initiative and
authority on whom we must necessarily depend, but who, by virtue of their position, have been employed by the
Japanese”. Colonial Office Draft Directive on Treatment of Renegades and Quislings, March 1945, 2-3, HK RS
211-2-41. For Harcourt’s refusal to have Kotewall tried, see Alice Ruston minutes, February 4, 1946, CO 129
594/9, 3. In another report written three days earlier, a colleague of Ruston’s observed that the Kotewall question
“appears to have been dealt with as a Hong Kong political matter”. Note to Ruston of February 1, 1946, CO 129
594/9, 3.
728
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 118.
302
cleared the whole thing”.729 The Colonial Office agreed that Li Tse-fong should not be tried,
and within several weeks had endorsed the entire tenor of the British administration’s
thinking. On 30 March 1946, London issued formal instructions that only those persons who
had helped the Japanese inflict acts of cruelty on the Hong Kong population should be
brought to trial.
In short, several factors contributed to the immunity of many prominent Chinese from
prosecution for alleged collaboration with the Japanese against both the British and Chinese
governments. One factor was the argument that these leaders had acted as a shield between
the people and the Japanese, and had attempted to represent the needs of the Chinese
population to the occupiers. The British now needed these Hong Kong Chinese, who were
loyal to the concept of a separate status for Hong Kong even if they had seemingly worked
for the establishment of a Japanese “New Order” in Hong Kong. Another factor was that only
about six hundred thousand people remained in Hong Kong, with the rest having died or been
forcibly evacuated, leaving few who were qualified to fill leadership positions. A third factor
was that those who returned after the war had little firsthand knowledge of events under the
Japanese occupation, and were therefore unlikely to have strong negative feelings regarding
the former leaders of the Chinese community.
7.42 Future of the Local Elites
The formal instruction that only those persons who had helped the Japanese inflict
acts of cruelty on the Hong Kong population should be brought to trial, issued on 30 March
1946 did not mean that the local elites escaped altogether. A “very general feeling” lingered
that those who had been associated with the Japanese regime should at least not “continue to
729
Hazlerigg memorandum to Gent, December 31, 1945, CO 129 594/9, 152; Tsang interview with MacDougall,
65.
303
bask in the sunshine of official favour”. 730 The most prominent local leaders were,
consequently, edged into retirement. In October 1945, Harcourt instructed MacDougall to
instruct Kotewall to withdraw from public life until investigations into his wartime record
could be completed, and banned his attendance at the sessions of the newly formed Chinese
Advisory Council. A British officer sorrowfully recalled, “I was under strict orders not to
admit [Kotewall] to a Council meeting, and it was a terrible moment in my life to have to tell
Sir Robert that he could not come in, for I had dined many times in his house before the
war”.731
When civil government was restored the following May, Kotewall was obliged to
resign without ceremony from his prewar seat on the Executive Council. MacDougall had
argued that the fallen leader should be allowed to attend the first session of the Council, after
which he could bow out in a face-saving manner on grounds of ill health, but the returning
Governor Young adamantly opposed him (“It was this Banzai thing”).732 There is no doubt
that Kotewall was greatly affected by these actions; he had apparently counted on being
praised for his wartime attempts to improve the lot of the Chinese population. In a piteous
circular, he appealed to his old British patrons that “a Scottish verdict of ‘not proven’ is
insufficient to drive away the unjustified odium which, in ignorance, is permitted to besmirch
the good name of one who has given the Crown half a century of loyal, wholehearted and
faithful service”.733 Shadows also fell over the other leading figures, albeit to a lesser extent.
Sir Shouson Chow, the ageing leader of the Chinese community, never completely returned
to public life, yet his family still received a message of sympathy from H.R.H. the Duke of
730
Hazlerigg memorandum to Gent, December 31, 1945, CO 129 594/9, 152.
Lindsay, Going Down of the Sun, 241.
732
Ruston minutes, March 12 and 16, 1946; Ruston letter to MacDougall, March 18, 1946; Ruston minutes,
March 19, 1946; Young telegram to Arthur Creech-Jones, Secretary of State for the Colonies, May 8, 1946, CO
129 594/9, 8, 11, 12, 107, 127; Tsang interview with MacDougall, 72. See also Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under
Japanese Occupation,” 118.
733
Circular distributed by Sir Robert Kotewall, May 1946.
731
304
Edinburgh upon his death in 1959. Li Tse-fong failed to win reappointment to the Legislative
Council when it was re-established in 1946, and Peter H. Sin, the “Mayor of Hong Kong”,
had some difficulty in renewing his lawyer’s licence.734
Apart from losing their prestige, the community leaders found their “punishment” to
be remarkably mild, with ways found to cushion the fall of even those who faced prosecution.
In the month that Kotewall resigned from the Executive Council, the House of Lords in
London passed a motion endorsing his conduct, and both Harcourt and Young were induced
to write letters assuring him of their continued regard. Neither Kotewall nor Chow was
deprived of his knighthood in spite of the wartime rumours swirling at the Colonial Office.
Following his exclusion from the Legislative Council, Li Tse-fong found it judicious to
absent himself for a ten-month period in the United States. When he returned in February
1947 to resume his post as Manager of the Bank of East Asia, he was once more invited to
public functions, and continued to sit on a number of advisory bodies and on the boards of a
number of charitable concerns.735 By the end of 1945, Peter H. Sin had secured the right to
appear as an authorized advocate in the defence of persons brought up before the military
courts on charges of war crimes.736 More peripheral figures received complete absolution.
Towards the end of 1945, Sir Robert Ho Tung was “invited” by the British military
administration to return from his retreat in Macao to resume his business and participate in
rebuilding the colony.737 Aw Boon-haw continued operating his newspaper, which had now
resumed its prewar title, Xing Dao Ribao,738 and Tung Chung-wei and Kwok Chan remained
as Heads of the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber of Commerce with little interference.
734
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 119.
Far Eastern Economic Review, February 5, 1947; Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 119;
Ching, The Li Dynasty, 125-6.
736
See Hong Kong (BMA) Gazette, vol. 2, no. 1, CO 132 89, 10.
737
“The Ho Tung Saga (Part 1),” 105.
738
The change of title, which took place in October 1945, was apparently accompanied by a fairly drastic purge
of the newspaper’s wartime staff. The placid reappearance of the paper nonetheless caused a certain amount of
indignation among ordinary Chinese residents. See Fan Jiping, “Xianggang zhi Zhan Huiyilu, ” in Da Ren, no.8,
735
305
In the meantime, the British set to work constructing a new elite leadership out of the
handful of candidates whom they believed to have been relatively untainted by the events of
the war. Foremost among them was M. K. Lo. Nevertheless, Lo was not altogether free from
controversy, having served successively on the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee and the
Chinese Cooperative Council and signed an early statement saluting the puppet regime of
Wang Jingwei. Almost all the wartime reports that came through to Whitehall had, however,
testified to the extreme reluctance with which he had performed these duties, and by October
1945 there was a “general feeling” that he might be the “best representative” of the local
Chinese. 739 After MacDougall recommended him for the newly formed Chinese Advisory
Council, Harcourt appointed him as Rice Controller with the key assignment of organizing
the food supply. As the British military administration prepared for the new civil government
in spring 1946, MacDougall appointed him to a seat on both the Executive and the Legislative
Councils. When a query about Lo's wartime activities was tabled in the House of Commons,
the Colonial Office rebutted that Lo had acted “in accordance with the instructions he was
given, and was inspired by no motive other than those of concern for the suffering and
distress of the people of Hong Kong”.740
Singled out for advancement along with Lo was T. N. Chau, the senior member of the
prewar Legislative Council who had fled to Macao several shortly after the Japanese takeover.
Describing him as “the only public figure who appears to have entirely clean hands”, 741
MacDougall recommended him for both the Executive and Legislative Councils. The
authorities also alighted on Sik-nin Chau, the nephew of Sir Shouson Chow who had won the
December, 1970, 10 and “Shengli Zhi Chu Zai Xianggang”, in Da Ren, no.16, August, 1971, 24; Buping
Shanren, Xianggang Lunxian Huiyilu, 45.
739
Notes of G. A. Wallinger, CO 129 592/6, 114.
740
Harcourt telegram to Creech-Jones, April 20, 1946; Ruston memorandum, May 16, 1946; and Lloyd to Gater,
May 20, 1946, CO 129 594/9, 17, 18, 108.
741
MacDougall report of October 4, 1945 quoted in attachment to Lloyd letter to Young, March 6, 1946, CO 129
594/9, 140. See also Ruston minutes of May 16, 1946 and Lloyd minutes to Gater, May 20, 1946, same file, 1718.
306
gratitude of the captive British bankers in the Sun Wah Hotel by attending to their medical
needs. Harcourt recommended him for the Legislative Council, pointing out that his wartime
record had earned the high praise of both the British and Chinese governments.742 These three
elite leaders soon began to be sanctified in the classic British way. By the end of the British
military administration period in April 1946, T. N. Chau had been awarded the CBE, and two
years later Lo was awarded a knighthood for his “outstanding service in Hong Kong’s
rehabilitation programme”.743
7.43 End of Preoccupation with Collaboration
In May 1949, Sir Robert Kotewall died from heart disease and, according to some
sources, from grief. His sidelining had undoubtedly inflicted a deep wound on him and his
family. His fate had deterred at least two of his children from pursuing a public career, and
one of his daughters maintains to this day that her father's treatment was “the most unfair
thing the British have ever done”. 744 The British did their best to keep up appearances,
sending the Governor’s Aide-de-Camp and the Acting Secretary for Chinese Affairs to attend
his funeral—a lower-key send-off than he might once have expected, but better than
nothing—and publishing an “appreciation” of him in the South China Morning Post.745 In
later years, British officials went to some lengths to head off any prurient depiction of his
wartime activity, and MacDougall recalled kindly that he “was a poor man . . . the only one
of the bunch who was a poor man”.746 In Hong Kong his memory is preserved by Kotewall
Road in the Mid-Levels, which was named after him during his prewar days of glory, and a
742
Harcourt to Creech-Jones, April 12, 1946 and Ruston to Young, April 13, 1946, CO 129 594/9, 118-119.
Gittins, Eastern Windows, 216 and Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 123; Ride, British Army Aid Group, 190 n. 4;
Ching, “The Lo Dynasty, ” 80; Dan Waters, Faces of Hong Kong: an old hand’s reflections, (Singapore:
Prentice-Hall, 1995), 141.
744
Snow’s interview with Mrs. Helen Zimmern, June 29, 1995
745
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 119.
746
Letters from Ronald Holmes, Secretary for Chinese Affairs, to former Colonial Secretary MacDougall, June
11, 1969 and MacDougall to Holmes, July 13, 1969, regarding forthcoming history by G. B. Endacott, in private
papers of Mrs. Helen Zimmem; letter from MacDougall to Frank Ching quoted in Ching, The Li Dynasty, 125;
Tsang interview with MacDougall, 73.
743
307
bronze bust of him that adorns the Sir Robert Kotewall Room in the Hong Kong Public
Library, to which he donated his large collection of books.
Sir Shouson Chow did a great deal better. By the 1950s, he had been fully restored to
his prewar status as one of the “grand old men” of the Chinese community.747 At the annual
banquets held in Government House for the local Justices of the Peace, he was seated at the
Governor’s side, and when he died in 1959 at the age of ninety-eight, his family received a
message of sympathy from the Duke of Edinburgh. One postwar Governor’s memoir recalled
him as having been “jovial, human and everybody’s friend”.748 His name lives on in Shouson
Hill on Hong Kong Island and the Shouson Theatre of the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
By the 1950s, the charges of fence-sitting during the early months of the occupation
that had been levelled at Sir Robert Ho Tung had been swept into the obscurity of the
government files, with the veteran plutocrat having been once again joined Sir Shouson in the
status of a “grand old man”. The last years of his life were passed in a glow of directorships.
In 1955, his knighthood was upgraded to a KBE, and when he died in the following year the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (at his special request) flew its flag at half-mast.749
Kwok Chan, the one leader to have had the distinction of serving on both the wartime
Chinese Councils, was elected to the chairmanship of the Rotary Club in 1951. By 1957, he
had become an OBE and the Honorary Vice President of the Hong Kong University
Economics Society.
The “good” local leaders who had been picked out and approved by the postwar
authorities progressed even further, perhaps none more so than M. K. Lo, who went from
747
For application of this phrase to Chow in his final years, see, for example, Ingrams Harold, Hong Kong,
(London: HMSO, 1952), 111, 194 and Cheng, T.C., “Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and
Executive Councils in Hong Kong up to 1941,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,
vol.9, 1969, 21.
748
Alexander William George Herder, Sir Grantham, Via Ports, from Hong Kong to Hong Kong, (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 1965), 127.
749
Gittins, Eastern Windows, 11 and Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 10; “The Ho Tung Saga (Part 1),” 108; King,
History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, 309.
308
prewar gadfly to pillar of the postwar colonial establishment. In the 1950s, he became a
permanent fixture on the Executive Council, where he was admired by the Governor for his
“first class brain” and “great moral courage”, and a member of dozens of public
commissions.750 In 1959, he died suddenly while preparing to attend an official reception at
Government House in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh.
By the summer of 1947, the wartime role of the local elites had largely been
forgotten,751 with any lingering odium attached only to Chan Lim-pak and Lau Tit-shing, both
of whom were conveniently dead. In 1952 Harold Ingrams, a British writer who published an
account of Hong Kong under the auspices of the Colonial Office, confidently stated that the
loyalty of those Chinese who remained in the colony during the Japanese occupation to the
Allied cause was “never in doubt”.752
7.5 The Myth of Interruption: Legacy of the Japanese Occupation in Hong Kong
Several scholars have argued that the Pacific War and the Japanese occupation not
only did NOT destroy Hong Kong’s prewar social and economic order but also strengthened it
by eliminating several conflicts of interests and modifying the position of the British
Mandarinate. Several factors support their arguments. First, source of new leadership,
whether in the form of a trade union, political party, or other association, has emerged
immediately after the war to challenge the privileged, the entrenched, and the wealthy—the
foundation of Hong Kong society. Most Chinese appear not to be troubled by this fact,
although some, including businessmen, support and speak in favour of Communist China.
Despite its appearance as a Chinese city characterized by traditional Chinese social
750
Grantham, Via Ports, 110; Peter Hall, In the Web, (Heswall, Wirral: Peter Hall, 1992), 112.
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 121. As early as March 1946, MacDougall was
expressing the view that “the issue of collaboration was almost dead in Hong Kong”. Ruston minutes, March 12,
1946, CO 129 594/9, 8.
752
Ingrams, Hong Kong, 242. Already in 1947 an expatriate journal was talking of “the few Hong Kong
merchants who had carried on business under the Japanese”. See Far Eastern Economic Review, March 26, 1947.
751
309
organizations and values, Hong Kong continues to maintain a British-style administration
whose top echelons are almost completely monopolized by Europeans creating the conditions
necessary to allow a small group of Chinese and European businessmen to express their talent
for making money.
For the most part, Japanese occupation had little influence in the creation and
character of postwar Hong Kong; none of the Japanese administrative institutions or theories
of government survived the war, and practical reforms in social welfare, education, and health
did not survive the British takeover. The reasons are fairly clear. First and foremost, Japanese
hostilities left a legacy of Chinese hatred of the Japanese and all that they represented. Second,
as the population had been reduced to 600,000 at most by 1945, relatively few were
influenced by Japanese ideas over any length of time before being exposed to those brought
in by the large waves of Chinese who immigrated after the war. Finally, the Japanese were
never able to test their ability to govern constructively owing to the demands of the war.
Hong Kong has never been community in the ordinary sense, but an agglomeration of
individuals seeking their own economic salvation as they have always done, and asking only
to be left alone. Having few local resources, Hong Kong has always been supported by the
commercial expertise of its immigrants, which cannot be democratized or reorganized in the
interest of the community as a whole except by some form of nationalization, which is
anathema to a commercial free-enterprise society. The war-time controls imposed by the
Japanese administration thus had little permanent impact, and were continued after the
occupation ended only until the traditional laissez-faire business and societal practices could
resume full operation. Practices inconsistent with the predominately laissez-faire philosophy
of the Chinese community, including the re-imposition of direct taxation in the forms of an
income tax, a property tax, and a tax on business profits in 1947, met with prolonged Chinese
protests. When several liberal-minded observers urged the Government to place public
310
utilities under some form of Government ownership and control as part of the postwar
rehabilitation, they found the opposition of Chinese and foreign businessmen to be too strong
to overcome.
In 1948, journalist Su Fuxiang described Hong Kong as a “meeting point of East and
West”, but one whose rulers remained English and subjects Chinese, preventing the birth of a
new Hong Kong culture. Su argued that after a century of British colonialism, the Chinese in
Hong Kong still could not properly be called Hong Kong citizens because they did not enjoy
full representation. Although several Chinese served on the colonial Legislative Council,
Executive Council, and Sanitary Board, they were appointed by the Governor rather than
elected. 753 The end of Japanese administration did not lead to self-government for the
Chinese but merely a return to the colonial government and another rule, albeit a more
benevolent one. The new Hong Kong was dominated by Chinese who intended to remain
Chinese and had little desire to build a separate, independent Hong Kong community as an
amalgam of East and West. Only a relatively small number of Eurasians, Portuguese, Indians,
local Chinese, and foreign families of long standing considered themselves Hong Kong
citizens.
7.51 Interruption only?
Although Japanese rule was brief, Japan’s successful invasion destroyed the myth of
the invincibility of the British Empire in Hong Kong. The clock could not be turned back; the
nature of British rule after the war could not be the same as it had been before the war.754 One
authority argued that the “British Mandarinate, whatever that might mean, had come to an end
in the war and had not been replaced!”755 Still, the Hong Kong masses and elites did not rise
up to resist the return of the British in the same way that the peoples of Vietnam and
753
Carter J. Eckert, Offspring of Empire: The Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism,
1876-1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), chapter 2.
754
Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), chapter 7.
755
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 78.
311
Indonesia rose up to resist the second coming of the French and the Dutch. Nevertheless, they
explicitly expressed that they were not prepared to accept a re-erection of the barriers that had
hemmed them in so efficiently in the decades before 1941.
The Hong Kong population’s refusal to be entirely dominated by a foreign ruler was a
significant legacy of several Japanese policies and actions during the occupation. First, the
Japanese administration had appointed more Chinese into the “central administration of the
colony than the British had ever done”, 756 which had granted the Chinese greater
representation, regardless of the motives of the Japanese for doing so. Second, the Japanese
supplemented this greater representation by delegating certain responsibilities to the Chinese
representatives, which had conferred a measure of prestige upon even the humbler officials.
Third, the Japanese provided for representation at the local level by creating the District
Bureaux and ward system, thus endowing the colony with an entirely new infrastructure of
local government. The Japanese bureaucratic machine in Hong Kong was an adaptation of
Japan’s administrative system, which provided services on the local level while maintaining
links with the central government. The Japanese derived the ward system from the Chinese
part chia system, which was also practised in Japan. The wards were grassroots organizations
that provided a tighter structure for the common people 757 and whose leaders served the
important role of complementing the work of the military police. None of the informants for
this dissertation could cite any example of ward leaders being punished for offences occurring
in their wards. The Japanese also created structures that allowed for limited progress in
popular representation. No district assemblies had existed under the British in either Hong
Kong Island or Kowloon, and the British had been content to deal with one or two headmen
756
Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 130.
The chief of the Hong Kong Area Bureau, Yamashita, explained in a speech that the wards were established as
grassroots organizations, consistent with a system that had been practised in Japan for many years. He also said
that the District Affairs Bureaux and the wards should, ideally, be financially self-sufficient. Since circumstances
did not allow this, the government was paying the cost of administration. See Hong Kong Daily, December 25,
1942.
757
312
in the villages rather than encouraging the formation of any kind of a local committee. Even
the Japanese promise of elections at the ward level, propagandist in purpose though it
undoubtedly was, marked a contrast with prewar Hong Kong, where the only elected officials
had been the two members of the Urban Council.
The role of the District Affairs Bureaux and ward system in the Japanese occupation
cannot be underestimated towards the present one. The present District Administration
Scheme in Hong Kong was implemented in 1982 with the establishment of a district board
and a district management committee in each of the districts in Hong Kong. The aim of the
scheme is to achieve a more effective coordination of government activities in the provision
of services and facilities at the district level, ensure that the Government is responsive to
district needs and problems and promote public participation in district affairs. The Home
Affairs Department is responsible for the District Administration Scheme, community
building and community involvement activities, minor environmental improvement projects
and minor local public works, and the licensing of hotels and guesthouses, bedspace
apartments and clubs. It promotes the concept of effective building management and works
closely with other government departments to consistently improve the standard of building
management in Hong Kong. It monitors the provision of new arrival services and identifies
measures to meet the needs of new arrivals. It also disseminates information relating to and,
where necessary, promotes the public’s understanding of major government policies,
strategies and development plans; and collects and assesses public opinion on relevant issues
affecting the community. These responsibilities are discharged primarily through the 18
district offices covering the whole of Hong Kong.
As head of each district office, the district officer is the representative of the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region Government at the district level. He has the
responsibility of overseeing directly the operation of the District Administration Scheme in
313
the district. He is charged with implementing and coordinating the execution of district
programmes, ensuring that the advice of the district council is properly followed up, and
promoting residents’ participation in district affairs. In addition, he is required to maintain
close liaison with different sectors of the community and reflect their concerns and problems
to the Government. It is his duty to ensure that district problems are resolved promptly
through inter-departmental consultation and cooperation. Also, he acts as a link between the
district council and departments and serves as a mediator between them when problems arise.
The district officer is also involved with the community at every level. He has a role to
mediate in the resolution of disputes between corporate bodies and residents. He performs an
advisory and liaison role in providing assistance to building management bodies. He operates
a public enquiry service to enable the community to have easy access to services and
information provided by government. In emergency situations, the district officer is
responsible for coordinating various departments’ efforts on the ground for ensuring the
effective provision of relief services.
To what extent this present system is a legacy of Japanese occupation is open to
debate. There is little doubt, however, that the functions of these district offices are
remarkably similar to those of the District Affairs Bureaux under the Japanese occupation.
Prewar Hong Kong had had districts, but these had been primarily geographical expressions,
and the British had never tried to maintain any regular district offices, let alone offices run by
Chinese.758 The utility of the Japanese administrative structures and their representatives were
later supported by postwar testimonials. There is some evidence to suggest that the Hong
Kong public were by and large fairly comfortable with the schoolmasters, village
758
Point about central government made by Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 68-9; Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under
Japanese Occupation,” 115; Morris, Hong Kong, 252; Ching, The Li Dynasty, 111. For local government, see
Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 127; Kobayashi, “Taiheiyo Sensoka No Honkon”, 217; Tse, San Nian, p.
80. Professor Kobayashi maintains that Hong Kong was the sole territory occupied by the Japanese during the
Pacific War in which they created new local government bodies.
314
storekeepers, and other obscure worthies who were selected to serve as their local chiefs, and,
widely recognizing that the staff of the District Bureaux were in a difficult position, did not
generally view them as collaborators.759 The Bureau staff continued to maintain in postwar
testimonials that because the Bureaux had been “organizations for the people”, they had “had
the closest connection with the population”.760
In short, the establishment of these officers recalled in some measure the wartime
attempts of the Japanese to extend their control at the local government level. This
demarcation was observed to be “conceptually modelled” on the precedent of the wartime
District Bureaux.761
Fourth, unlike the British, the Japanese went to great lengths to publicize and
explain their policies and the nature of their bureaucracy, the latter of which was remarkably
adaptable and suitable for the situation in Hong Kong. At the very beginning of the
occupation, the Japanese demonstrated that they had no hesitation in using their most
powerful weapon, their overwhelming military strength. However, once their power had been
firmly established, they were prepared to restore at least a facade of civilian rule. They
realized that a government, however omnipotent or ruthless, must make some compromises
with at least some of the demands of its people. They extended the practice of using natives
as figureheads, which they had used in Taiwan and Korea, to Hong Kong, realizing that
despite the lack of national sentiment or community spirit in Hong Kong, the appointment of
several influential Chinese as representatives would create some sense of community
coherence. As the Chinese leaders whom they eventually appointed to the Chinese Councils
759
Faure, “Sai Kung: The Making of the District,” 123-4.
Testimony of Li Chung-ching, Head of Stanley District Bureau; near-identical testimony of Kwok Hin-wang,
Head of Causeway Bay District Bureau; and testimony of Kan Man, Head of Kennedy Town District Bureau,
Noma trial, WO 235/999, 300, 305, 307. The British prosecutor, Major D. G. MacGregor of the Black Watch,
expressed his agreement with these assertions. Ibid., Prosecutor’s Opening Address, 12-13.
761
Information confirmed by Mr. S. J. Chan, former Hong Kong government officer, September 22, 1995.
Quoted in Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 435.
760
315
had been used to working under a colonial government, the Japanese had little trouble
inducing them to resume their leadership roles under the new administration. Such
appointments of representatives with little power or influence did little to serve Chinese
interests but served Japanese interests by helping pacify the population.
The Japanese propaganda campaign waged in Hong Kong against Western
colonialism and ethnic prejudice and its associated bureaucracy, together with three-and-ahalf years of diligent indoctrination of the population, left behind an indelible legacy that
would not allow for a complete return to the status quo ante after the war had ended. The
sudden collapse of British power in the East was too difficult to explain away; the humiliation
of the British in Hong Kong too visible. An editorial of 14 January 1942 in the Hong Kong
News gave powerful expression to this mood of disillusionment:
Today the British and Americans have a much greater respect for the Oriental
soldier—for in Hong Kong, Malaya, and the Philippines the outcome has been the
same: the vaunted supermen of the white races have melted like butter. . . . In eighteen
days of conflict it was all over—horrible muddle of inefficiency and helplessness
which has bequeathed a miserable aftermath.762
It addressed a particularly memorable statement to Lo Man-kam:
Your return, Sir, signifies the birth of a new Hong Kong, which, in surviving the
ordeal of the war years, has learned to appreciate the inestimable boon of law and
order, the sense of responsibility in a greater measure of self-government
foreshadowed by Your Excellency, and the need to strive for and attain an even higher
standard of life and living through unity of purpose and effort. . . . Imbued with this
spirit, [we are] thankfully rejoicing in deliverance from an intolerable yoke.
762
Hong Kong News, January 14, 1942.
316
Facing both a Chinese population that had been separated from its control by the
Japanese interregnum and an increasingly nationalistic China, the British administration
found it expedient to adopt a more placatory and less racialist attitude. The legacy of Japanese
occupation was the foundation of a new Hong Kong government that drew the local elites and
masses more closely together than ever before.
In letters to newspapers and in conversations with Western acquaintances, bankers,
compradors, teachers, journalists, junior civil servants, and company clerks all began to give
vent to their distaste for the old colonial system and suggest ways in which it should be
changed. Harcourt considered the immediate priorities for the civil government to be the
introduction of a new constitution, the appointment of Chinese into positions of responsibility
in the administration, the elimination of ethnic and racial discrimination in government
service and society, and the dismissal of those who failed to realize the need for a new
outlook.
In turn, the populace urged an end to discrimination in the workplace as well as to the
“old order based on race and privilege”, under which Asians had been denied the right to live
on the Peak and debarred from admission to the Hong Kong Club, and to the stigma attached
to miscegenation, as for a European to marry “a well-bred Chinese or Eurasian” was “no sin
against society”.763 They advocated that more positions, including high-ranking government
posts, be opened to non-Europeans, and that a plan be developed for training young Chinese
for government service. They also advocated for equal pay for equal work, arguing that
because the cost of living was ten times higher than it had been before the war, a Hong Kong
Chinese who had spent fifteen years on the government payroll could no longer be expected
to get by with a fraction of the salary drawn by his European colleagues, regardless of how
763
Comments of a “Hong Kong Chinese lady teacher” and a “well known and respected banker” cited in WIS no.
5, October 25, 1945, and comments of a “Chinese lady graduate of the University of Hong Kong” cited in WIS
no. 6, November 1, 1945, CO 129 592/6, 61, 74-5; comment of a young university-educated Chinese with a
Eurasian wife quoted in Clark, An End to Tears, 165.
317
unfavourably the latter might compare with him in terms of experience or ability. To press
their point even further, they warned, “Such a state of affairs can have only one result—
namely, the transfer of the victims’ friendship and likings to the Americans, a trend already
apparent in China”.764 To ensure greater representation of the Chinese in the running of the
colony, they asserted that an increased number of Chinese should “sit on the Legislative or
the Executive Council to coordinate public opinion and the Government’s Urban and District
Councils should be organized so that ‘lesser fry’ too could have opportunities for public
service. And the censorship which had been slapped on the Chinese press in the twenties and
thirties should be repealed”.765
More rapidly than had the Japanese administration, the British administration became
aware of an “undercurrent of discontent” among their more articulate Asian subjects. 766
Harcourt recognized that any British behaviours that reflected a prewar mentality were
“absolutely taboo” and discordant with the enlightened “1946 outlook” 767 that the local
population expected of the administration. Such a perspective accorded with that of the
British drive for reform in London. The new Labour government under Clement Attlee
pledged to pursue the goal of decolonization in every part of the Empire, and the top officials
whom London sent to pursue that objective in Hong Kong were personally sympathetic to the
“1946 outlook” of the local public and convinced of the need to accommodate it.
Pursuing long-term, systematic, legislated change after his return, Young enacted
legislation that led to a spectacular break with the past almost immediately. On 27 July 1946,
764
Comments of a Chinese lady formerly employed as a clerk by Jardine Matheson and of a Chinese employed
by the Hong Kong government cited in WIS no. 5, October 25, 1945 and WIS no. 7, November 6, 1945, CO 129
592/6, 50, 74; letter from J. Lee, South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 9, 1945.
765
Letters from J. Lee and “Res Publica,” South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 9 and 18,
1945.
766
Harcourt, Rear Admiral Ceil, lecture on the British Military Administration of Hong Kong to Royal Central
Asian Society, London, November 13, 1946, published in Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, vol.34,
1947, 7-18.
767
Ibid. See also Tsang, Democracy Shelved, 26; Frank Welsh, History of Hong Kong, (London: HarperCollins,
1997), 434.
318
the restored civil government announced the repeal of the carefully crafted 1918 ordinance
that had debarred Asian citizens from living on the Peak—from now on anyone who could
afford to do so could live on the prestigious heights overlooking Victoria—and abolished a
ruling designed to prevent local settlement in the hills on the island of Cheung Chau, another
choice part of the colony confined to Europeans. Residential apartheid had ended. Young
then confirmed and expanded the tentative moves that the British military administration had
made to provide local Asians with new opportunities, officially announcing that more local
people were to be recruited for government jobs.
By autumn 1946, a broad push for “localization” was well under way. In October, a
Hong Kong Chinese was enrolled for the first time in the Cadets, the elite stream of the
colony’s civil service. The choice for this privileged posting fell on Paul Tsui, the wartime
loyalist who had played a major role in selecting local Chinese for the BAAG. Young and his
team then aimed at nothing less than a complete substitution of local for expatriate personnel
lower down in the hierarchy. Radical ethnic changes were launched in the police force, and,
in keeping with the ideas that had been mooted in Stanley by Police Commissioner
Pennefather-Evans, Young readied plans for the phasing out of European inspectors, a project
aided by the fact that the bulk of the prewar European officers had been sent home to
recuperate. After 1,002 local Chinese and no Europeans were recruited into the police force
in 1946, the Chinese contingent of the police force exceeded fifty percent for the first time.768
Lastly, Young set to work on an overhaul of the colony’s political system. As his
predecessor had done in the late 1920s, he called for a slight increase in the number of local
leaders attached to the Governor’s side, but the objective this time went a great deal further.
768
See Annual Report on the Hong Kong Police Force 1946-47, 9-10; Miners, “Localisation of the Hong Kong
Police Force, 1842-1947”, in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. XVIII, no.3, October 1990,
311-2. A contingent of British police from the former Shanghai Municipal Police Force were brought to Hong
Kong in 1945 and 1946, mostly in the capacity of sub-inspectors. This move was presumably intended to tighten
the British grip in the first precarious months after Harcourt’s arrival, and does not seem to have held back the
drive towards localization that took place under Young.
319
In his inaugural statement in May 1946, he proclaimed Britain’s purpose of giving the entire
Hong Kong population “a fuller and more responsible share in the management of their own
affairs”.769 Young advised the Colonial Office that it would be “useful as well as politically
expedient” to increase Chinese membership on the ten-seat Executive Council from one to
two (hence the combined elevation of M. K. Lo and T. N. Chan).770
Young had brought with him a scheme for reform that had been sketched out in the
final months of the war by the Hong Kong Planning Unit in London. In its essence the Young
Plan, as it came to be known, entailed nothing less than the transformation of Hong Kong
from an autocratically managed Crown Colony into a self-governing city-state. The old Urban
Council with its modest element of election was to be expanded into a thirty-seat Municipal
Council set up “on a fully representative basis”. Half of the seats would be occupied by Hong
Kong Chinese and half by Europeans, while two-thirds of the seats would be directly elected
and the remainder appointed by representative bodies such as the Chinese professional guilds.
Vastly more powerful than its predecessor, the Municipal Council would operate in tandem
with the established Government, gradually taking over such major spheres of activity as
education, social welfare, town planning, and public works. During the course of the summer,
the Young Plan was submitted for consideration to the Hong Kong Chinese General Chamber
of Commerce and other local bodies, and in October it was formally recommended by the
Governor to the Colonial Office.
769
Quoted in Endacott and Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 280; Tsang, Democracy Shelved, 32 and Hong Kong:
Appointment with China, (London: I.B. Tauris, 1997), 54. See also Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese
Occupation,” 123. A move of this kind was seen as all the more desirable in view of the “tainted” character of the
prewar Chinese leadership. See Hazlerigg memorandum to Gent, December 31, 1945, CO 129 594/9, 153-4.
770
Young to Creech-Jones telegram no. 84, May 10, 1946, CO 129 594/9, 104; Tsang, Democracy Shelved, 47.
Several officials, including both Gent in London and MacDougall in Hong Kong, had argued in favour of
strengthening the Chinese presence on the Legislative Council as well. MacDougall had urged that at least three
seats on the Legislative Council be occupied by Chinese, and had recommended that as few Europeans as
possible be appointed to the Council. Young maintained more cautiously that there should be at least three
Europeans on the Council to balance the Chinese. Other influential figures, notably the special adviser Hazlerigg,
were opposed to making drastic changes in either the Executive or Legislative Councils at a time when the
altogether novel Municipal Council was being introduced.
320
A more tentative form of democratization was introduced into the established
governmental structure as well. The “unofficial” members of the Legislative Council, the
members appointed from the major firms and other non-governmental bodies, would now
have a majority over the ex-officio members who were obliged to vote as the Governor
ordered, and two of these unofficial members would be nominated by the new—and partly –
elected— Municipal Council. The push for democracy even extended into the colony’s
hinterland. In 1946, elections were held for the first time in some of the districts of the New
Territories, where representatives of twenty-eight sub-districts were chosen to sit on a
network of rural committees.771
Economically, British impoverishment through the sacrifices of the war was
discouraging the inflow of British capital into the Colony at the same time that the Chinese
were increasingly expanding small family businesses and often generating their own capital
for expansion. Increasing numbers of Chinese entered the professions, such as law, medicine,
and accountancy, partly because the Government had opened professional posts to them.
Chinese self-respect was enhanced by their success in competing with Europeans in the
professional examinations and in gaining high academic qualifications in overseas
universities, achievements that made it impossible to deny them a correspondingly enhanced
status in the Colony. At the same time, the Hong Kong foreign community was undergoing
great changes. War casualties and early retirement due to privation meant that a great number
of Europeans never returned to the Colony, and the old colonial element was considerably
diluted by newcomers from Britain who brought a more liberal attitude with them. The
771
Lethbridge, “Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation,” 120. Part of the reason for this experiment was the
generation gap between the village elders who had acquiesced to the Japanese occupation and the younger
people who had joined the resistance. Rancour and recrimination had persisted in the villages considerably
longer than in urban Hong Kong. Under these circumstances, popular election was judged to be the sole way to
choose rural committees that would be regarded as representative and on whose authority the government could
rely. The British decision was also influenced by the continuing presence in some places of village committees
set up by the Japanese. See Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, 303.
321
customary loud shouts of “Boy!” by clients in bars and clubs gradually ceased. The war had
clearly spelled the end of what may loosely be termed the colonial era.
Later events, such as the Communist takeover of China in 1949, followed by the flood
of Chinese refugees, including entrepreneurs from Shanghai, into Hong Kong merely fortified
the tendency of making the leaders of the business community the most important and
powerful figures in the Colony and the unofficial formulators of government policy. The
refugees imposed an enormous financial burden and created social problems in the colony
that these business leaders could partially resolve by providing jobs. They could accept no
help from the government, which had never adhered to any form of Keynesian economic
policy; to this day, even the public utilities are privately owned. The laissez-faire philosophy
of the business community had prevented, and continues to prevent, the development of any
form of “municipal socialism”. Hong Kong continues to prosper, as The Economist notes, “on
a governmental philosophy of laissez faire that one had not expected to meet this side of the
nineteenth century”.772 Government may have been more progressive in its views than the
Chinese community and business leaders, but when it lacked the support of this important
constituency—one whose power it had just increased—it was often forced to compromise
with it.
In conclusion, the overwhelming Japanese victories in the first few months of the
Pacific War inevitably undermined confidence in the security offered by the British flag. Most
European colonists had, until that time, been utterly secure in the conviction that their empires
were immortal. That dream ended abruptly with the Japanese invasion; in less than six months,
the Japanese had seized with impunity what the European colonial powers had taken several
centuries to acquire, ending what may loosely be termed “the colonial era”, and
772
“Hong Kong: A Survey,” The Economist, November 14, 1964.
322
demonstrating to the Chinese that the British were no longer an international power of real
importance.
7.6 Significance of the Japanese Occupation in the Transformation of Postwar Hong
Kong
After their invasion and occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese ensured that the myth
of supreme British power had indeed been shattered by ceaselessly promoting their doctrine
of Asian self-government and hostility towards Westerners. Even Westerners who spent part
of the war in the occupied city had no doubt that this doctrine would leave its mark: their side
would win, but, as one put it grimly, “ours will be no victory”.773 The effects of this doctrine
manifested in the calls for reform that broke out among articulate Asian citizens just weeks
after Harcourt’s arrival. The clamour for an end to social and political discrimination recalled,
almost point for point, the critiques of prewar British rule that had filled the pages of the
Japanese-sponsored Hong Kong News in January and February of 1942. The local Chinese
were buttressed by their new power at the expense of the British by China’s new status as one
of the victorious Allies. One local schoolmaster observed that now that the Chinese had “risen
in the social scale”, they “wished to live on equal terms with the Europeans”.774
In view of all the suffering inflicted by the Japanese occupation, few citizens were
willing to acknowledge that Japanese policy or administration had created the conditions that
had given rise to their demands for reform. However, several postwar demands were
explicitly ascribed to a Japanese precedent. One South China Morning Post correspondent
who advocated a system of District Councils to increase opportunities for “lesser fry” to
participate in government declared frankly that “the Japanese introduced it here and it might
773
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics? p. 10. In September 1943, Emily Hahn similarly predicted, “We’ll win, but we’ll
still be up against the colour bar and all the resentment it stirs up”. The Japanese, she noted, had got a “head
start” in this respect. See Hahn, Hong Kong Holiday, 259.
774
Chinese schoolmaster quoted in WIS no. 8, November 13, 1945, CO 129 592/6, 36.
323
be revived for the new Hong Kong”. Alluding to the grassroots control measures employed
by the wartime regime as a possible basis for his proposed Poor Law arrangements, he
pointed out, “The Japanese made use of the District Bureaux to compile a register of residents,
and a new Hong Kong should have little difficulty in compiling a better one”.775
In an August 1945 report, S. Y. Lin, a former Superintendent of Fisheries Research,
provided a surprisingly positive account to Dr. Herklots, who was on the point of launching
his new Fisheries Organization, of the “considerable success” achieved by the fish-handling
system introduced under Japanese rule. Advising that the wholesale fish market be “similar in
the main to that which the Japanese had adopted, with some modification”, Lin suggested that
the District Syndicates of the Japanese period could be “changed easily into a Fishermen’s
Cooperative Society”.776 Dr. Herklots later recorded that his eventual scheme for cooperative
fish marketing had “incorporated a number of Mr Lin’s suggestions”.777
Although few British were willing to acknowledge that any specific reform that they
had enacted had in any way been inspired by Japan, the legacy of Japanese occupation
manifested nonetheless. Possible legacies of Japanese wartime practice appeared in the
holding of regular press conferences to keep the public abreast of their latest decisions and in
British postwar promotion of intensive crop-raising in the New Territories, but such links are
at best hypothetical. More obvious manifestations of Japanese legacy appeared in a system
775
Letter from “Res Publica” in South China Morning Post/Hong Kong Times, September 18, 1945. The vision
of Chinese members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, whose task would be “to coordinate public
opinion and the Government”, may reflect memories of the wartime Cooperative Council, whose function was to
act as a sounding board. The call for free schooling may have indicated a desire to maintain the innovative if
limited scholarship system that the gentry had pioneered through the General Relief Association between 1942
and 1945. In both cases, however, the links cannot be proved.
776
See S. Y. Lin, “Brief Report on Fisheries of Hong Kong under the Japanese Occupation,” enclosed with G. A.
C. Herklots’ report to MacDougall on the Fisheries Organization, October 18, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 11-13. The
fact that the writer’s name is given as Lin rather than the Cantonese equivalent Lam seems to suggest that he was
of northern rather than local origin.
777
G. A. C. Herklots’ note on Lin Brief Report enclosed with Herklots’ report to MacDougall on the Fisheries
Organization, October 18, 1945, CO 129 591/20, 13. See also Tse, San Nian, 76.
324
introduced for marketing vegetables778 and the rural representative committees that Young
and his officials began to organize in 1946, which were essentially modelled on those that the
Japanese had established during the occupation as a more efficient substitute for the loose
prewar British system of ruling through village headmen. Japanese-sponsored committees
had still been functioning in Saikung and other districts at the time of the British return, and
the spread of representative bodies in the countryside was described as “owing something to
Japanese-inspired wartime creations”.779
As these new aspects of the British administration demonstrate, the Japanese
succeeded politically in establishing the foundations of a New Order in Hong Kong despite
their ultimate defeat militarily. Thus, although difficult for them to acknowledge, the
occupation ultimately worked to the benefit of the leaders of the Chinese community. As a
result of the British failure in the Far East, the Chinese were able to make the Government of
Hong Kong a government that served their own interests, one of which, as expressed in
Lethbridge’s words, was the acquisition of wealth:
The British Mandarinate collapsed in 1941: it has never been replaced. The “Peak
mentality” and colonial arrogance were put aside. . . . The local population . . . seem to
have acquired greater trust in the Administration. They were impressed by the speed
with which the rehabilitation of the economy was achieved, by the establishment of
law and order and of a milieu favourable to the acquisition of wealth.780
778
Hayes, “The Nature of Village Life,” 60.
Ibid., See also Faure, “Sai Kung: The Making of the District,” 202-3.
780
Within the first month after Hong Kong was opened to trade on November 23, 1945, the Colony was thrown
open to trade, and in the following month the first commercial ship arrived in the harbour. During this early
period of rehabilitation, over 23,000 free meals were provided daily to feed the destitute, rationing and pricecontrol systems were established, the basic worker wage was raised from twenty-five cents to one dollar, and the
Hong Kong dollar was successfully reintroduced. At the same time as the poor were receiving assistance, the
business community was receiving especially favourable treatment, as the Government found itself forced to
prop up the business community to ensure its survival. For example, the boards of directors of public utility
companies, which were supposed to function under the general supervision of the Government, were allowed to
run their companies with only nominal Government control, and their shareholders were safeguarded by the
Government’s agreement to meet any losses and pay a fair rent for the use of the companies’ property and plants.
779
325
The Government honoured its pre-war debts and obligations and compensated its former
employees. Its post-occupation record was admirable—it believed in business first.781 Despite
this great achievement and sporadic attempts to introduce a more advanced structure of
municipal governance, Hong Kong’s legacy as a colony has impeded its evolution into an
independent nation to this very day.
Many of the Hong Kong notables benefited from this policy, and no doubt felt gratitude, or at least less
antagonism, toward the administration, one that was prepared to guarantee, or at least provide the conditions for,
their continued existence as members of a high-status group. Finding their credentials endorsed by a government
that desperately needed them and that sought their loyalty, Hong Kong notables found themselves part of a
process that drew government and business more closely together than had been the case before the war.
326
Chapter 8
Conclusion
8.1 Conflicting Loyalties: A Review of Collaboration in Hong Kong during the Japanese
Occupation
8.11 Difficulty in Defining “Collaboration” in a Hong Kong Context
As explained in detail in chapter 1, this dissertation used the term collaborator to refer
to one who willingly assists the enemies of his or her state in conducting military operations
against his or her state or in implementing policies after gaining control of the state. The
Hong Kong Government in the Chinese Collaborators (Surrender) Ordinance of 17 May 1946,
which made provisions for the handover of Chinese collaborators taking refuge in Hong
Kong to China in accordance with a United Nations decision, defined a collaborator as one
who had “done any act or thing designed or calculated to benefit the enemy, or hostile or
detrimental to, or designed or calculated to defeat, hinder or prejudice the cause of the United
Nations or the prosecution of any war in which any of such nations were engaged”, with
design and calculation clearly being the operative words.
According to English Common Law, collaboration can take the extreme form of
treason, historically a capital offence defined as being “adherent to the King’s enemies in his
realm, giving them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere” committed (a) by any British
subject in any part of the world or (b) any alien who voluntarily resides on British territory.
Alternatively, the offence may be a breach of defence regulations, for which the maximum
penalty has historically been imprisonment for life, and could be committed by anyone. The
Hong Kong Defence Regulations of 1940, based directly on the British Defence (General)
Regulations of 1939, provided that “if, with intent to assist the enemy, any person does any
act which is likely to assist the enemy or to prejudice the public safety, the defence of this
Colony, or any other part of His Majesty’s dominions or the efficient prosecution of the war,
327
then, without prejudice to the law relating to treason, he shall be guilty of an offence against
this regulation and shall on conviction on indictment, be liable to imprisonment for life”.782
Collaboration with the enemy was not a phenomenon peculiar to Hong Kong or
WWII. All the peoples of Southeast Asia faced similar conditions and choices, as indeed all
the conquered have faced in every age; there have always been and always will be those
willing to break the law in pursuance of ideals to which they believe they owe a greater
loyalty. Collaborators in Hong Kong may have genuinely believed in the doctrine of Asia for
the Asians, however much they might suspect that the Japanese were bent on substituting
their own domination of Asia for that of the West. How many willingly supported the
Japanese cause is difficult to ascertain. There was certainly no lack of volunteers for posts in
the Japanese administration, including in the police force, but what evidence there is suggests
that the vast majority of local people cooperated with the Japanese with reluctance and
misgivings, and as a matter of mere survival.
Perhaps a distinction can be made between collaboration during the hostilities and that
during the occupation. The offence remains legally the same, but in the former case the intent
is obvious and the individual has made a deliberate choice. Occupation posed different and
difficult problems, as the Hong Kong Government could no longer provide protection or
enforce laws, leaving individuals to decide for themselves what to do after weighing the
possible consequences and understanding that any course of action was necessarily a
compromise. The nature of collaboration is particularly ambiguous in a colonial society
where the difference between the rulers and the ruled was based on ethnicity. Collaboration in
Hong Kong was quite different from that in a homogeneous community like France which,
under Petain, was forced to determine whether to cooperate with the Germans. Hong Kong
was not one but a number of communities, each with its own loyalty and whose members,
782
Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse, 237.
328
free to leave and return, were held together only by economic self-interest. If the Chinese
could secure the same economic opportunities under the Japanese that they enjoyed under the
British, there seems little reason why they should not accept the substitution of Japanese for
British rule, was the purposes for which they resided in Hong Kong would be equally served
by both. None was compelled to reside in the colony except a few indigenous Chinese
villagers. In such a society, collaboration was not regarded as the heinous action that it was in
close-knit communities in France.
Several other factors must also be considered when assessing the nature of Hong
Kong collaboration. First, the masses of newcomers fleeing from the Japanese had no time to
develop any loyalty to Hong Kong. Second, the British had made little attempt to enlist the
loyalty of the Chinese until just before hostilities broke out, no doubt because of the high
proportion of refugees among them. Third, the Hong Kong Government was neither
representative of nor responsible to the people of Hong Kong, who did not seek political
power as long as they could carry on their economic activities freely. Fourth, there was great
uncertainty regarding the outcome of the war, as Japan’s unbroken chain of successes and
range of conquests made a Japanese victory appear as likely as an Allied victory during
certain periods of the occupation. Until 1943, there was likely widespread belief that the
Japanese conquest of Hong Kong might prove to be permanent, in which case the prudent
course of action would be coming to some terms with the occupying authorities, aiming to
achieve the least harmful compromise until the situation became clearer while hoping not to
jeopardize the chances of an Allied victory. Gaining understanding of this context is
necessary to gaining understanding of why only a very few individual or group was prepared
to confront the Japanese openly during the occupation in Hong Kong, as did some French
patriots against the Germans.
329
The essential element in criminal collaboration is a deliberate intention to assist the
enemy. Therefore, while some consider all obedience to Japanese regulations during the
occupation to have been a form of collaboration, most understand that it was a form of
obedience mitigated by the absence of intent. Often individuals had no choice but to obey,
such as when the only form of employment necessary to obtain basic goods for survival was
working for the Japanese. The mainland Chinese could and did return to their villages, where
the most that they could expect was bare subsistence. Many Eurasians had nowhere else to go,
and after their supply of gold ornaments had been depleted, they were forced to choose
between serving under the Japanese or starving. Locally recruited Government officers were
faced with a unique dilemma: They had not only not been discouraged from continuing in
their positions by the British but actively advised to do so. Many police who served under the
Japanese were undoubtedly assisting the enemy, but only a limited number did so with any
enthusiasm. For most it was simply a matter of survival; there could be no moral obliquity is
such a context of duress, regardless of what the law might say.
The main argument used to defend collaboration was that some collaboration was
necessary to serve the interests of the people. For an example, the teaching of the Japanese
language might be considered a form of collaboration, as it assisted the Japanese in imposing
their own language and culture on the proposed Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Many religious neutrals who controlled schools conscientiously felt they could not object to
teaching Japanese because it did not conflict with their main purpose, which was to educate
Chinese youth according to principles that they believed to be right. They had taught English
when the British were in control, and by the same token they could see little justification for
refusing to teach Japanese under the new administration. A few rare Hong Kong Chinese
citizens with a sense of social responsibility reluctantly expressed that it had been necessary
to cooperate with the Japanese as the only way to serve their community and mitigate the
330
severity and rigours of the occupation, arguing that some had had to represent the interests of
the people to make the views of the Chinese majority heard. Those prominent figures who did
not flee Hong Kong, as did many of their compatriots, were in a very real sense making their
loyalty to Hong Kong known, regardless of unofficial requests by British officials to
undertake this responsibility. Apparent collaboration in Hong Kong by such people was
certainly fraught with more serious consequences than the inconspicuous deeds of comparatively unknown members of the public that often passed unnoticed. Members of the
Executive or Legislative Councils could never escape the significance of their former official
positions, particularly as the Japanese had put great pressure on them to collaborate, along
with the unofficial members of the Chinese Councils and the leaders of commerce and
industry. If, after being rounded up at the onset of the occupation, confined in admittedly
reasonably comfortable conditions,783 and then called on to collaborate to further an Asian
agenda at a luncheon, these Chinese leaders had refused to collaborate, they would have
inevitably laid themselves open to suspicion.
As Sir Robert Kotewall had been the senior unofficial member of the Executive
Council, it was vitally important for the Japanese to secure his cooperation, as well as that of
Sir Shouson Chow, the first Chinese to be made a member of the Executive Council. After
the war, these two men were in a special category, not only because of their standing but also
because they had worked with the Japanese at the invitation and with the express approval of
leading members of the Hong Kong Government. On 1 January 1942, R. A. C. North,
Secretary for Chinese Affairs; J. A. Fraser, Defence Secretary; and C. G. Alabaster, AttorneyGeneral, called on Kotewall and Chow and requested them to act on behalf of the Chinese in
Hong Kong, where British officials were now powerless, and to promote friendly relations
783
FO 371/31671/1942. Telegram M.205, January 29, 1942 from Military Attache, Chungking. This reported
that a Chinese puppet governor had been appointed. However, as well as local considerations, the Japanese had
diplomatic motives in China for this treatment of prominent Chinese citizens.
331
between the Chinese and Japanese to the extent necessary to restore public order, protect life
and property, and preserve internal security.784 Kotewall and Chow therefore had reason to
believe that the British had empowered them to cooperate with the Japanese to the extent
necessary to enable them to do whatever possible to assist the Chinese community.
To what extent they were in fact able to do so for the Hong Kong community is
difficult to determine. They were treated in a cavalier manner, if not with disrespect, except
in public venues where their “face” was respected. The Rehabilitation Committee held fiftynine meetings until its brief tenure ended on 30 March 1942, but its members were not
allowed to consult Heads of Departments and were forced to work with Japanese interpreters.
Members were given orders for which they had to assume responsibility in public, and after
being ordered to make speeches, give radio talks, and submit drafts for approval, endure
seeing garbled versions of their presentations in the press. When the British returned,
Kotewall resigned his membership of the Executive Council on the grounds that doing so was
the honourable course to take. Governor Young agreed, and warmly commended him for his
public service to Hong Kong.
Other prominent Chinese, including unofficial members of the Legislative Council
and commercial leaders, found themselves forced into membership of the Chinese Councils,
but managed to keep in the background by toeing the line just enough to allay suspicion. A
few were undoubtedly whole-hearted collaborators. The Japanese-educated Lau Tit-shing,
President of the Chinese Japanese Returned-Students Association and Chairman of the
Japanese-sponsored Chinese Bankers’ Association, was very pro-Japanese, as his speech of
congratulations on the fall of Singapore reported in the Hong Kong News of 17 February
784
See the account given after the war by R. A. C. North in South China Morning Post, October 2, 1943. North
stated that he had “requested Sir Robert Kotewall and Sir Shouson Chow and their colleagues to take upon
themselves what should have been my duty. These gentlemen in carrying out this task were abused and
humiliated by the Japanese and were misrepresented and abused by some of their friends. I regret more than I
can say that misunderstandings should have arisen over this matter and I sincerely hope that the true facts will
now be realized”.
332
1942 clearly shows. Chan Lim-pak, a prominent businessman who later became a fourth
member of the Chinese Representative Council, was a well-known Japanese supporter who
had been arrested by the British during the fighting on a charge of aiding the enemy. A larger
number of Chinese collaborated with the Japanese in districts where close contact with the
people afforded greater opportunities for community service. Some no doubt acted from selfinterest and others from a genuine belief in Japan’s self-proclaimed mission of freeing Asia,
but many more as a way to survive.
The British tended to take a broad and understanding view of collaboration with the
Japanese, and in some cases condoned it on grounds of political expediency. For example, the
Burmese National Army had fought for the Japanese during the Burma Campaign, an active
collaboration amounting to the clearest treason, until deserting in order to fight once more on
the British side. Regardless of their treason, the British welcomed their return on the grounds
that the Burmese had been primarily fighting for their own independence and that it would be
politically undesirable to take punitive action. The New Territories villages did not escape the
controversy regarding collaboration. Many of the younger men who had joined the
communist guerrillas and imbibed communist ideas, particularly those in the Hakka Districts
in the Saikung area and the area north of Tolo Harbour, returned after the end of the war
proud of their record in resisting the Japanese and assisting the United Nations’war effort. As
such, they tended to be contemptuous of the village elders who had remained behind, whom
they accused of collaboration.
Deep and bitter feelings within local communities resulted in a spate of accusations,
mutual recriminations, and a strident demand for retribution against the guilty. In response,
the British military administration established a War Activities Committee to identify and
inquire into the activities of suspected collaborators. To assist its efforts, it appealed to the
public to come forward with information and reviewed BAAG files and descriptions of the
333
experiences of its underground agents. Although over fifty suspected collaborators were
being held in custody by December 1945, there was considerable delay in bringing them to
justice because of the shortage of police, the absence of witnesses, and a hesitation to bring
these cases before the military courts under the military administration.
The proceedings against collaborators were quite different from the War Crimes trials
of Japanese nationals, chiefly members of the armed services accused of crimes against
humanity and the accepted usages of war, which were contemporaneously being held in Hong
Kong before specially constituted Allied military tribunals. As, unlike the Japanese, the
collaborators were charged with specific offences under English law, such as treason or
breach of the Defence Regulations, it was considered preferable to bring them before the
ordinary civil courts in due process of law, even if this meant waiting until normal civil
government had been restored. This arrangement also had the advantage of avoiding the
awkward situation of some suspects being tried by the military courts under the military
administration and others by the ordinary civil courts. Instructions from London the previous
March directed that future proceedings should be taken only against collaborators proved to
have committed atrocities, a ruling that gave the collaboration trials even greater similarity to
those being conducted by the special War Crimes Military Courts.
However, when the restoration of civil government continued to be postponed, it
became clear that further prolonged delay would be unfair to those in custody. The
collaboration trials opened on 17 February 1946 with public committal proceedings being
held against six persons accused of treason before a summary military court. One defendant
was sentenced to death and hanged in Stanley Gaol the following July after an appeal for
clemency had been rejected. Another, a Eurasian, was acquitted but banished for life, while
the charges against the two others appear to have been dropped, as their names do not appear
in any subsequent newspaper reports of proceedings or in any official records. After the
334
restoration of civil rule on 1 May 1946, a total of twenty-nine suspected collaborators,
including one woman, appeared before the magistrates in committal proceedings. This figure
includes the twenty-one committed by the magistrates and presumably the remaining eight
who came up from the Summary Military Court. Of these twenty-nine, five were sentenced
by the magistrate on a charge reduced from treason or breach of the Defence Regulations, and
three were acquitted.785 According to newspaper reports, thirty-one persons appeared before
the Military Courts before 30 April 1946, when the military administration ended. The trials
attracted some criticism on the ground that relatively unknown collaborators were being
charged while more important figures felt to be equally guilty were escaping justice.
As time passed, the Court demonstrated a tendency towards greater leniency, for
example ordering that the sentence of three years’ hard labour awarded in one case should
commence from the date of arrest of the accused. The annual reports of the judiciary show
that no committal proceedings were taken against collaborators in the magistrates’courts
between 1947 and 1948 and that the Supreme Court had completed its last collaboration case
in May 1947. Amongst the thirty-one persons reported by the newspaper, five of the accused
received the death sentence, four from the Supreme Court and one from the Standing Military
Court, and were hanged in Stanley Gaol after their appeals had been dismissed. The
remainder, except one who was acquitted, received terms of imprisonment with hard labour
as follows: two received fifteen years, one being reduced by the Appeal Court from a life
sentence; two received ten to twelve years; seven received six to nine years; nine received
785
Included in the total was Inouye Kanao, the Japanese interpreter who was so hated by the men in Shamshuipo.
He had been tried for war crimes by the special Military War Crimes Court and condemned to death on 25 May
1946, but it was then decided that as a Canadian, he had been guilty of treason, and would have to be re-tried on
that count by the Supreme Court. He claimed to be a Japanese citizen who owed no allegiance to the Crown, but
was found guilty, sentenced to death on 23 April 1947, and hanged in Stanley Gaol the following August after his
appeal had been dismissed and leave to appeal to the Privy Council refused. One of the twenty-nine, a European
who worked for the Japanese at the Dairy Farm during the occupation, was acquitted. The remaining twentyeight were found guilty on one or more counts of their indictment and sentenced. They included six Indians,
seven Europeans or Eurasians, and fifteen Chinese.
335
two to four years; one received one year; one received six months; and two, including a
woman, received one day.786
Two distinctive features of these collaboration trials stand out: they occurred within a
relatively short period of time—between February 1946 and May 1947—and affected
relatively—according to newspaper reports, only thirty-six people were formally prosecuted.
Proceedings against the remainder held in custody appear to have been dropped.
8.12 Reflection on Collaboration in Hong Kong
By exploring the manner in which the Japanese government in Hong Kong both
exploited and appealed to the interests of the Hong Kong elites and masses, this dissertation
endeavoured to explain the seeming readiness with which the Hong Kong populace accepted
Japanese occupation and engaged in cooperation with the Japanese military administration. In
the course of doing so, it demonstrated the manner in which the Japanese in Hong Kong
simultaneously assumed the roles of agents of socioeconomic change and oppressors, creating
a partnership based on “mutual dependence and advantage”.
The actions of the Hong Kong elites and masses during the Japanese occupation
demonstrated that self-rule was not a skill confined to Europeans, and that one aspect of
survival by self-rule had been acceptance of the need to cooperate with the Japanese for the
survival of their community. From the establishment of British administration in the
nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, Chinese notables had collaborated with the
colonial authorities to build and preserve Hong Kong as a special place dependent on not
being part of China “proper”. Having collaborated with British colonialists before the war, 787
786
Hong Kong Law Reports, Vol. XXX (1946-7), 66-77.
From the perspective of the forerunners of the local Chinese elites, Japanese occupation in Hong Kong had
not been imposed in a “one-way” manner. The occupation in Hong Kong was made possible with local Chinese
cooperation, consistent with a long tradition of cooperation with foreigners. LooAqui and Kwok Acheong had
helped the British during the Opium War, which led to the cession of the island, and contractors such as Tam
Achoy were instrumental in the building of the infant colony. Indeed, without their help, there could well have
been no colony for the British to rule. For the Chinese who helped found and build the colony, British
colonialism provided invaluable opportunities. By rewarding these men with privileges such as land grants,
787
336
it likely appeared rational to continue collaborating with the new colonialists—the
Japanese—particularly as most felt only a diffuse loyalty to either an emerging entity called
“China” or the village or region that they had left behind many years ago.788 Therefore, using
the term “collaborators” to denote the local elites who had cooperated with the Japanese
occupiers is disingenuous. As no comparison can be made, for instance, between occupied
Hong Kong and occupied France, no comparison can be made between so-called Chinese
collaborators in Hong Kong and French collaborators in Vichy. The French collaborators
were citizens of what had been an independent country, whereas the Hong Kong
“collaborators” had merely exchanged one overlord for another.
To whom and to what did the Hong Kong Chinese properly owe allegiance? The
postwar British administration appears to have understood the conflict of loyalties resulting
from the anomalous position of the Hong Kong Chinese, who expressed loyalty and
maintained ties to their families and kin, the Chinese community in Hong Kong, and to
certain regions and associations, but not to any entity as large as a nation-state. Being neutral
under the prewar British administration, the local Chinese community in Hong Kong believed
it only pragmatic to remain neutral under the Japanese military administration; had the
Chinese communists overthrown the Japanese, they would have undoubtedly remained
neutral. Their loyalty was never to a people but always to the concept of Hong Kong. As one
resident best expressed their belief, “Our loyalty has never been to the Queen. But it has been
to Hong Kong”.789
lucrative monopolies, and separation of the business and residential districts, the colonial government helped
foster the growth of a Chinese business elite in Hong Kong. As the colonial nature of Hong Kong enabled the
members of this elite to join a traditional order from which they had been excluded in China, their success was
inseparably linked with the colonial nature of the island.
788
The Cantonese term Heung Ha is used to describe “the province, district and village from which each person
derives his ancestry, usually in the direct male line and usually for many generations, even if neither he nor his
father has ever set eyes on that village or knows the way there”. Hong Kong: Report on the 1961 Census, vol. 2,
xlviii.
789
Quoted in The Economist, London, April 13, 1996.
337
8.2 Comparison of the Japanese Administrations in Hong Kong and Singapore
Examination of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and Singapore reveals that the
Japanese invaded both territories for the same purpose—ensuring the security and supporting
the economy of Japan—before subsequently installing a similar military administration in
both territories. However, the nature of the administration in each colony had differing
political, economic, and social impacts on these territories that indelibly affected their later
development.
8.21 Similarities in the Japanese Administrations in Hong Kong and Singapore
The pre-eminence of strategic considerations and the quest for prestige ensured that
the Japanese administrations in Hong Kong and Singapore would be overwhelmingly military
in nature.790 Having reserves of war resources for about two years, top policymakers in Japan
understood that a prolonged war would require the import of resources from other territories,
resulting in their priority on conquering new territories to exploit their resources to the
maximum extent. Such policy accorded with the Japanese military’s belief in self-sufficiency,
which could be achieved through colonial expansion, and brought with it military glory and
respect. Due to the predominance of the military in Japan and the Japanese colonial empire,
Japanese colonial planning and administration were removed from the civilian approach.791
The policies implemented in Hong Kong and Singapore had to serve both the
immediate objective—the ruthless exploitation of resources—and the long-term objective—
the creation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere—of the Japanese Empire. In
between fulfilling these objectives a series of other goals must be fulfilled: first, ensuring that
the colonies could be defended from attack; second, exploiting the colonies’ potential
contribution to the prosecution of the war; third, politically and economically assimilating the
790
Lewis H. Gann, “Western and Japanese Colonialism: Some Preliminary Comparisons”, ed. Ramon H. Myers
and Mark R. Peattie, The Japanese Colonial Empire,1895-1945, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1984),
503
791
Ibid., 506-7.
338
colonies into the Japanese Empire and a pan-Asian system controlled by Japan; and fourth,
serving as bases for the assimilation of other colonies into Southeast or East Asia by
functioning as major centres of transport and production.
Historically, civilians have rarely played a vital role in the design and development of
colonial empires. The colonization of Singapore and Hong Kong was no exception, as their
administration was largely the domain of the military. The Governors, mostly Army men who
put military objectives first, were vested with executive, legislative, and judicial powers, in
effect giving them absolute power to rule their colonies. As the military in Japan enjoyed a
higher status than any of its European counterparts, its officers were not only more powerful
than their civilian counterparts in Hong Kong and Singapore but also their military
counterparts in other empires. Granted special rights by the Meiji Constitution and under the
direct command of the Emperor, they could force their will upon civilian leaders in Japan as
well as those in the Japanese colonial empire.792 The structure of the military supported the
hardline nature of the occupation of Hong Kong and Singapore. The Army was always
prepared to be dispatched for the suppression of any armed or unarmed resistance, and as both
civilian and military Japanese colonial officials knew that they could rely on strong military
support in implementing their policies or facing down any opposition, they had much less
incentive to compromise with the wishes of local populations than their European
counterparts.793
The nature of Japanese occupation in Singapore and Hong Kong differed from that of
Korea and Taiwan. Although the Japanese initially met much resistance in Taiwan, they had
the time necessary to employ a “carrot-and-stick” approach to the maximum extent possible.
While introducing the Chinese pao chic system to deprive the guerrillas of their bases and
imposing the Japanese system of urban and rural administration, they endeavoured to
792
793
Ibid., 504.
Ibid., 508-10.
339
improve the agriculture and industry for the benefit of the people. In contrast, they had little
time to implement their administrative policies in Hong Kong and Singapore, leading to their
exclusive use of “the stick”. As a result, the Japanese were never able to fully win the hearts
and minds of the Chinese in Singapore and Hong Kong. By late 1942, by which it had
become clear that Japanese governance was far more despotic, bureaucratic, and corrupt and
less rational and efficient than British governance, only die-hard collaborationists still
supported “new-order” colonialism.
The Japanese attempted to change Chinese attitudes and establish a structure of
control by methods far more brutal, coercive, and unskilled than those used by the British.
Many Japanese officials, usually seconded from the armed forces, behaved like feudal
overlords, first alienating the masses by failing to provide sufficient food and employment,
then alienating the elites by depriving them of the means of making money (although some
made money during the war by acting as buyers or agents for the Japanese army). Certainly,
the British had socially, politically and economically discriminated against the Chinese, but
their forms of control were much less violent. In order to exploit their occupied territories, the
Japanese had to maintain a much closer control over the local people in terms of the
administrative, legal, law enforcement, and educational systems; the distribution of food and
necessities; the development of commerce, industry, and agriculture; the means of
communication; and the maintenance of public health.
The British system was only concerned with the actions of the local Chinese elites and,
as it did not reach down to include the masses in an all-embracing network of controls, was
not concerned with gaining the cooperation of the masses. In contrast, the Japanese system
controlled every aspects of day-to-day administration in Hong Kong and Singapore through a
top-down approach. Japanese policy required most, if not all, of the Chinese population of
Hong Kong and Singapore to submit to Japanese rule. While some submitted for profit and
340
some from a sense of being betrayed by the British, most submitted as a result of the ruthless
techniques of the Japanese.
8.22 Differences between the Japanese Administrations in Hong Kong and Singapore
Despite their similarities, the Japanese military administrations in Hong Kong and
Singapore were characterized by several differences that had different impacts on each
territory. One factor that led to these differences was the nature of the prewar leadership in
each territory. When the Japanese invaded Singapore, they encountered no influential local
opposition leaders whose cooperation or acquiescence was necessary for the Japanese
administration to succeed, whereas they found that gaining the cooperation or acquiescence of
prominent Hong Kong leaders was essential. Being well aware of their limitations, these
leaders did not resort to radical means, which would only have provoked Japanese repression.
Regarding the Hong Kong masses, the Japanese had allowed those who so desired to flee the
colony. Therefore, those who had decided to remain were likely prepared to accept Japanese
rule and cooperate with their new rulers.
Second, in Singapore, 70,500 British servicemen had been defeated and captured by
36,000 Japanese, who suffered 1,713 killed and 2,772 wounded,794 in comparison to the 1,996
killed and 6,000 wounded that the Japanese suffered over the 18 days of the Hong Kong
campaign.795 As a result, one important question could be asked: why was there only the sook
ching in Singapore, but not in Hong Kong?
The difference in the personnel of war between Japan and the two colonies in Hong
Kong and Singapore may provide the answer. It seems clear from the various accounts of the
massacre that the sook ching policy did not originate with the Japanese Military High
Command in Tokyo, and there are reasons to believe that it took shape in the course of the
794
Altogether the Allied forces lost 7,500 killed, 10,000 wounded and about 120,000 captured for the entire
Malayan Campaign. See Colin Smith, Singapore Burning: Heroism and Surrender in World War II, (London:
Viking, 2005).
795
Oliver Lindsay, The battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945: hostage to fortune, (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2005).
341
Malayan Campaign. 796 The government-military liaison conference held in Tokyo on 20
November 1941 identified the Chinese in Malaya and elsewhere in Southeast Asia as a special
problem and a possible threat to Japanese interests, but it advocated a conciliatory approach:
‘Chinese residents shall be induced to defect from the Chiang Kai-shek regime and to
cooperate and align themselves with our policies.’ 797 However, the 25th Army adopted a
much harder line following its successful campaign in Malaya, as seen in the following set of
instructions issued in April 1942 by Military Administration Headquarters:
Rely upon severe judgements. Those who refuse to cooperate shall be dealt
with by means of extremely severe measures - specifically, confiscation of
property and deportation of the entire family with prohibition of reentry while hostile elements shall be answered with capital punishment, thereby
influencing the course to be adopted by the entire Chinese community.798
The War Crimes trial held in Manila in October 1945 found Gen. Yamashita guilty of
war crimes, as he was overall commander of the Japanese troops that committed atrocities in
Malaya and elsewhere. However, most, if not all, Japanese and non-Japanese accounts have
identified Col. Masanobu Tsuji, Yamashita’s senior Planning and Operations Officer, as the
person really responsible for the massacre in Singapore. Retired major General Kiyote
Kawaguchi first made this accusation some eight years after the Japanese surrender, when
Tsuji emerged from hiding in China and declared his intention to stand for a seat in the
Japanese parliament. Kawaguchi had returned to Japan after spending six years in a Manila
prison as a punishment for the murder of Jose Abad Santos, the Chief Justice of the pre-war
796
Akashi, ‘Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese, 1941-1945’, 61-89; and Shinozaki, Syonan - My
Story, 20-1. For an account blaming Tokyo for starting the sook ching, see Lee Tieh Min, Ta-than-yu Nan-cbiao,
169-70.
797
‘Principles Governing the Administration of Occupied Southern Areas’ [Nampo senryochi gyosei jisshi
yoryo], adopted at the Liaison Conference between Imperial Headquarters and the Government, November 20,
1941, Doc. No. 1, para. 8, in ed. Benda, Selected Documents, 2.
798
‘Principles Governing the Implementation of Measures Relative to the Chinese’, April 1942, Doc. No. 47, in
ed Benda, Selected Documents, 180.
342
Supreme Court of the Philippines, an action ordered by Tsuji. His accusation appeared in the
Japanese daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun on 4 March 1953. Notwithstanding the
controversy over his wartime activities, Tsuji won a seat in the Diet, but Kawaguchi pursued
him, repeating the accusations and engaging Tsuji in public debates. This airing of his
criminal past ultimately caused Tsuji to be barred from holding public office. In a book
published in 1992, Ian Ward called Tsuji Japan’s ‘No. 1 War Criminal’, and blanned British
bureaucrats and American intelligence operatives for allowing him to evade war crimes
charges at the end of the war. Both Ward and Chen Su Lan, author of a memoir about the
occupation entitled Remember Pompong and Oxley Rise, claim that before the war Tsuji’s
Singapore-based espionage network had collected lists of residents with anti-Japanese
tendencies, and that these lists were used in the screening operations.799
Someone may wonder why nothing of the sort had been done upon the earlier
occupation of the various states of the Malay peninsula? According to Cheah Boon Kheng,
this question is complicated. There are two possible reasons why sook ching operations were
not carried out in the peninsula until after the fall of Singapore: either the 25th Army had no
time to deal with ‘mopping-up’ operations, or the Japanese considered Singapore the best
place to begin their anti-Chinese operations. Evidence on this point is insufficient to supply a
definitive answer.800
Third, Hong Kong was only important as an entrepot, and could only function in
relation to other ports. Even though the Japanese declared that they intended to develop Hong
Kong’s economic potential, their objectives were firstly military and secondly
799
Ward, The Killer They Called a God, 85, 305-11; Chen Su Lan, Remember Pompong and Oxley Rise,
(Singapore: The Chen Su Lan Trust, 1969), 185-7. For other accounts linking Tsuji with the Singapore massacres,
see Shinozaki, My Wartime Experiences in Singapore, 15, and Syonan; My Story, 20-1. However, surprisingly,
Yoji Akashi’s 1970 article, ‘Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese’, does not link Tsuji with the
Singapore massacres.
800
Cheah Boon Keng, ‘Japanese Army Policy toward the Chinese and Malay’, 6.
343
psychological.801 These differences were reflected in the Japanese military administration’s
overall policy towards the people of the two colonies. Although the Japanese installed an
authoritarian political system and strict social control in Hong Kong, the Governor had to
maintain the façade of running a fair and liberal government, and the people were granted
some degree of freedom and certain rights. A Chinese escaping to Chungking from Hong
Kong as late as the fall of 1944 corroborated earlier reports that there had been and was then
very little underground activity directed at hampering Japanese control. Informants to this
dissertation agree that the Chinese in Hong Kong may have hated the Japanese military, but
tended to regard the Japanese civilians as being of the same race as themselves, allowing for
an easier camaraderie between them.802 The Chinese in Hong Kong could talk quite freely
among themselves and were not ordinarily overborne by any feelings of very strict
supervision; 803 they suffered more from the confusion of the government than from its
harshness.804 There were thus no deep loyalties, no sound historic or political bases from
which the desperate underground activities that characterized Yugoslav or Greek resistance
could have arisen in Hong Kong.805
Finally, the Japanese also assumed differing approaches towards ethnic issues in each
colony. In Malaya, the Japanese authorities highlighted the distinctions among the three main
ethnic groups and pitted the Malays and Chinese against each other. Although it has been
argued that the impact of the Japanese military administration was less profound in Malaya
than it was in Hong Kong and that there was considerable continuity between prewar and
801
H. P. Willmott, Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific strategies to April 1942, (Annapolis, Md.:
Naval Institute Press, 1982), 178.
802
Author’s interview with Dr. Yip Lai Lam (葉禮霖), a resident in Wan Chai (Hong Kong Island), during WWII.
May 13, 2004.
803
Author’s interview with Miss Cheung San-mui (張三妹), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. April 2,
2004.
804
Author’s interview with Miss Leung Wai-fong (梁慧芳), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. March 28,
2004.
805
Author’s interview with Mr Tang Kam-wai (鄧錦華), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. April 20, 2004.
344
postwar British rule in Malaya, the Japanese invasion of Malaya is remembered as the most
important event in modern Malaysian political history. Despite its administrative subdivisions,
Malaya formed a single social complex under British rule, but the Japanese, perceiving the
population as divided into three ethnic groups, stimulated nationalism in three different
directions, giving rise to a communalism that has remained a fundamental feature of postwar
Malaya and Malaysia. In contrast, ninety-nine percent of the wartime Hong Kong population
was Chinese, preventing the Japanese from dividing the population into three rival ethnic
groups of equal number. Furthermore, as most of the population were refugees, they did not
identify with Hong Kong, preventing the development of any nationalist sentiments that the
Japanese would be forced to overcome. The Japanese could thus assume a relatively moderate
strategy of administration in Hong Kong.
A central argument of this dissertation is there are differences for the Chinese of Hong
Kong adapted to living under a foreign, usually repressive regime. Contrary to conventional
wisdom, this dissertation argues that when compared to Singapore under Japanese occupation,
Hong Kong under Japanese occupation was not such a harsh or poor place. To support this
argument, it has traced the historical roots of the relationship between the Hong Kong
Chinese elites and the Japanese military government in the previous chapters, to demonstrate
that the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong was not simply a function of Japanese
imperialism. Rather, it was as much a function of the collaboration of local people, who
cooperated with the Japanese to build the new economic, social, and political infrastructure.
This dissertation had to probe the processes by which such collaboration arose, how
the Japanese elicited collaboration, and why and how the local Chinese community responded
to Japanese overtures. This examination is based on the assumptions that all parties had
limited or no knowledge regarding the extent of the Japanese invasion and subsequent
occupation or of the complex nature of the intersection between Chinese and Japanese
345
interests in Hong Kong. As the Japanese colonial empire was largely strategically motivated
and military in character, it adapted its administrative approach to each colony according to
local exigencies rather than applying a single model to all colonies. Thus, its approach to the
administration of Hong Kong and Singapore differed in accordance with each colony’s
characteristics and situation, and was not merely a duplication of European colonialism. All
these factors have made Japanese colonialism an anomalous phenomenon in modern history.
8.3 Final Assessment of Japanese Policy towards the Chinese Communities in
Singapore and Hong Kong
8.31 Policy in Singapore
The Japanese policy towards the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore over the three-anda-half-year occupation changed from moderation to both repression and repression, then to
moderation marked by vacillation and ambivalence.806 The policy prepared before the war
appeared moderate and was phrased with vague terms and generalities, suggesting some
flexibility in its operation. Finding the Chinese loyal to China, friendly towards Britain, and
generally hostile to Japan, as evidenced by their long record of anti-Japanese activities, the
military’s view of the Chinese hardened. The most extreme manifestation of the military’s
increasingly hardline policy towards the Chinese community was its sook ching of the
Chinese community after the fall of Singapore. The brutal purge of the Chinese left a deep
and indelible scar on the community, and drove many Chinese into the arms of the
Communist-dominated guerrillas.
Having acquired extensive experience with the Chinese in China, Watanabe had a set
of definite and fixed ideas about the Chinese, foremost among them that the Chinese were not
806
Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 88.
346
to be trusted and must be made to repent for their past crimes against the Japanese. Thus,
from the outset of his Gunsei, Watanabe pursued a policy of repression first and pacification
later, a prime example of which was his order that the Chinese community “donate” $50
million. The anti-Japanese guerrillas were able to propagandize this order, which “badly
misfired”,807 and other examples of Japanese cruelty to win support for their cause.
One great tragedy was that many Chinese who had no involvement in the war in China
were targeted by the Japanese simply because they were of Chinese origin. When they
arrested and executed the Chinese, the Japanese did not distinguish between those born in
China and local-born Chinese of third-, fourth- or even fifth-generation descent, or between
those who were Chinese patriots and those who had no political affiliation. Even those Malay
speakers of Chinese descent who were proud to identify with Malaya were suspected of being
pro-British, and thus equally an enemy of the Japanese Empire. The effect of this repression
was enforcement of a Chinese cultural identity on all people of Chinese descent, no matter
how long they had lived in the colony, which inevitably led to the consolidation of a sense of
Chinese nationalism.808
As the Japanese had no blueprint for Singapore, they had no detailed policies to
implement when they established their administration in February 1942. Their polices
subsequently fluctuated constantly as administrators struggled with the unfamiliar and often
intractable conditions in which they found themselves. 809 Almost all administrators, even
those at lower levels of the military hierarchy, had a great deal of scope for private initiatives,
which, combined with frequent transfers at all levels, created great confusion. The aimless
807
Elsbree, Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 149.
P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, (Singapore: Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies, 2000).
809
Itagaki, Yoichi, “Some Aspects of the Japanese Policy for Malaya under the Occupation, with Special
Reference to Nationalism,” in Papers on Malayan History, ed. K. G. Tregonning (Singapore, 1962), 256-67; Yoji
Akashi, “Japanese Military Administration in Malaya,” Paper no. 42, International Conference on Asian History,
University of Malaya, 1968, 8-9, 48-50.
808
347
nature of the Japanese administration was partly a function of conflicts between different
service heads and politicians in Japan, as well as within the Army, and in Malaya between
military and civilian administrators. It was also partly a function of the fact that the Japanese
authorities could never decide on the future status of Malaya or on the relative position of the
various communities within it, which they were still debating when Japan surrendered in
August 1945.810 As Mamoru Shinozaki explained,
There were many bosses in Syonan. All of them were the “Supreme” Command of
the Southern Army Headquarters. Then came the Twenty-Fifth Army Headquarters
(when they left to Sumatra, the Twenty-Ninth took over). Then came the Military
Administration Department, and under this Department were the Malai (Malayan)
Military Administration Headquarters and the City Government (T'okubetsu-si).What
created considerable confusion was that all the “bosses” issued orders or made
requests to the Tokubetu-si, usually disregarding the lines of command. They all
issued a stream of notices, laws and regulations. As such, there arose a situation where
a lesser “boss” could pass regulations, having the effects of law which were
inconsistent with that of a higher authority. It is submitted, however, that this problem
was a self-resolving one, for the bigger “boss” always superseded the smaller boss.
Nevertheless, this situation caused much confusion to the local population, who had to
observe all Japanese orders very strictly, if they wanted to avoid trouble.811
With Watanabe’s reassignment, the hard-line policy gradually gave way to the
moderate policy. The deteriorating war situation demanded the military authorities to make a
moderate change in the Chinese policy in order to solicit Chinese cooperation, upon which the
gunseikambu was increasingly dependent for establishing an economic self-sufficient Malaya
810
Itagaki, “Some Aspects of the Japanese Policy,” 263-4.
Goh Kok Leong, “A Legal History of the Japanese Occupation in Singapore,” The Malayan Law Journal,
(Singapore: Malaya Pub. House Ltd), January 1981.
811
348
– one of the three gunsei objectives. As Fujimura states, how to administer the Chinese for
eliciting their cooperation became one of the central problems for the gunseikambu.812 The
authorities allowed remittances, appointed a larger proportion of Chinese to the advisory
council in recognition of their importance, relaxed Japanese company monopoly permitting
Chinese participation in economic affairs, and created the Epposho. The Epposho experiment
won hearts of an important segment of the Penang Chinese community. It was unfortunately a
limited success only to be cut short by military expediency.
The real difficulty in the gunsei’s Chinese policy is that the Japanese were out to
‘utilize’ Chinese resources and talents but gave them little in return. The Japanese
administrator–rarely tried to see the Chinese other than an economic animal who found his
life’s satisfaction in making money. Therefore, according to this thinking, he could be
induced to cooperate with the Japanese so long as profit was to be made in business. Such
was the general attitude of the Japanese that the Chinese understandably did not respond to
Japanese request for economic and commercial cooperation. Another difficulty is the
ambivalance of Japanese policy. On one hand, the authorities enunciated a moderate policy
but, on the other, they pursued a repressive policy, partly as a result of expediency. The
banning of Chinese language instruction for the Japanese language negated such moderate
policy, making it appear only a lip-service. Such ambivalence caused the Chinese to be
suspicious and distrustful of the Japanese.
Overall, the main limitation of the Gunsei policy towards the Chinese was that it
aimed to “utilize” Chinese resources and talents through issuing nonnegotiable orders while
giving the Chinese community little in return. In effect, the Japanese were hoping to use the
Chinese as a milk cow despite giving them little incentive to produce milk.813
812
813
Akashi, “Japanese policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 89.
Akashi, “Japanese Policy towards the Malayan Chinese”, 112.
349
8.32 Conflict among the Army, Navy, and Kempeitai
Shortly after Japan began preparing for prolonged war, the Imperial War Cabinet
essentially became a conflict-resolution body. This phenomenon explains the peculiar fact
that many decisions were made based on inadequate information; as those departments that
had essential information about the prosecution of the war could not directly influence policy,
they were only “consulted” by another powerful group to support a decision essentially
already taken. The official of one such essential but powerless department, the Ministry of
Supply, attended War Cabinet meetings only when asked to do so, despite the fact that
accurate information on food, oil, and other supplies was obviously important in prosecuting
the war. As the two principal bureaucracies in the War Cabinet, the Army and Navy
developed their own “special” sources of information to support their own points of view,
even claiming to have obtained special knowledge regarding foreign affairs from their
military attaches.
On 20 November 1941, the Army and Navy Headquarters in Tokyo agreed to a
division of authority in the soon-to-be conquered Southeast Asian colonies. Although Hong
Kong was primarily the domain of the Army, the Twenty-Third Army and the Second China
Expeditionary Fleet, the latter being the Navy force off the coast of South China, had made a
subsidiary pact providing for some naval role in the colony. The Navy had played its part in
the invasion by blockading the colony’s offshore waters, but had failed to take part in the first
“peace mission” to browbeat governor Young into surrender. Nevertheless, its officers and
troops insisted on being represented—with separate and equal status—in the second
mission. 814 After the colony was captured, they wanted their place recognized—and their
share of the loot. Within days of the takeover, friction had inevitably arisen over the division
814
Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 190, 326-7. For the Navy’s role in the second “peace mission” of 17 December, see
Chan Chak, Xiezhu Xianggang Kangzhan, 17; Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 34; Birch and Cole, Captive
Christmas, 91. First Lieutenant Goto, the Navy’s representative on the mission, crossed the harbour to Queen’s
Pier in a separate launch from his Army counterparts.
350
of booty between the Army men in their patched, shabby uniforms and the Navy in their
smart, grass-green serge. To avoid still more turbulence, the Army had little choice but to
accommodate the Navy’s pretensions, and duly implemented the prewar pact. A naval
commander named Honda Katsukuma was seconded to the Gunseicho as Head of the
Maritime Department, and a division of turf was arrived at between the two rival services:
Kowloon and the western half of Hong Kong Island were placed in the Army’s charge while
the entire eastern half of the Island as far as the Naval Dockyard and Garden Road was placed
in the Navy’s charge.815
A second, more sinister challenge to the Army’s pre-eminence came from the
Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, whose primary task was to ferret out subversion,
regardless of whether the threat came from troops or civilians, from compatriots or foreigners,
or from inside or outside Japan. Although nominally subordinate to the Army, they operated
for all practical purposes as a law into themselves. The invasion force had included a squad of
Kempeitai officers under the leadership of Colonel Noma Kennosuke, who had initially
followed the orders of his field commander, Major-General Sano, but then began acting on
his own initiative even before the invasion force landed on Hong Kong Island. By 24
December, he had set up Kempeitai Headquarters at the Cuttlefish Commercial Bookshop in
North Point. He would later claim credit for authorizing the dispatch of Shields and Manners
through the British lines to plead the case for surrender to Governor Young. By 26 December,
he and his team had become detached altogether from the command of the Twenty-Third
Army,816 and in the following weeks they rapidly gained the upper hand in the local battle for
815
Report of Miss Thom, CO 129 590/23, 90; Lieutenant J. D. Clague, Intelligence Summary no. 1 from Qujiang,
May 28, 1942, CO 129 590/24, 157-9; Sa, Xianggang Lunxian Riji, 166; Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 124. See also
letter from K. E. Mogra, February 12, 1942, HS 1/349. Mogra’s letter appears to indicate that the Navy
controlled the whole of Hong Kong Island, but this is belied by the other sources.
816
Testimony of Colonel Noma, Noma trial, WO 235/999, 319, 351-2. See also Honkon Chosha Sakusen, 332;
Chan Chak, “Xiezhu Xianggang Kangzhan ji shuai ying jun tuwei zong baogao”, in Zhanggu Yuekan, no.4,
December 1971, 18.
351
clout and spoils. Observers described how the Army or Navy would drive the inhabitants
from a building only to be evicted in their turn by the more potent gendarmes, as well as how
the Army would order one thing and the Navy another, only to be countermanded by the
Kempeitai with a different order altogether.817
8.33 Role of Hong Kong in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: The China Faction
vs. the Southern Faction
Japan’s decision to strike out at the Europeans and Americans created tension
between two Army coteries that have since been labelled the “China Faction” and the
“Southern Faction”. The priority of the China Faction, which, as its name suggests, drew its
backing primarily from the China Expeditionary Force and its offshoots, including the
Twenty-Third Army, was to bring Japan's drawn-out conflict on the Chinese mainland to a
painless and satisfactory end. In contrast, the priority of the Southern Faction, which
consisted of the generals who were organizing the Army’s assault on Malaya, Burma, the
Dutch East Indies, and the other European-ruled territories of Southeast Asia, was to muster
all resources that might add to the momentum of their onrushing legions.
Lying at once on the coast of China and on the fringe of the European empires in
Southeast Asia, Hong Kong quite literally formed a natural bone of contention between the
two groups. The China Faction wanted to ensure that the Twenty-Third Army remain in
charge of the colony to realize their hopes of using Hong Kong as a base for “political
schemes” designed, like the failed Operation Kiri of 1940, to subvert Chiang Kai-shek’s
regime in Chungking and induce Chiang to drop his resistance to the Japanese subjugation of
China. The Southern Faction’s objective was to prise Hong Kong away from the grip of the
817
Report of B. G. Milenko, CO 129 590/23, 53; Li, Hong Kong Surgeon, 159. Europeans tended to refer to the
Kempeitai as gendarmes, a description that, while accurate from a technical point of view, carries a misleadingly
amiable connotation with French holidays for the contemporary reader.
352
Twenty-Third Army and turn it into a centre of transport and supply, a logistical steppingstone for the grand advance to the South.818
The arguments deployed by the two rival factions were summarized in a report on the
Hong Kong controversy submitted by Chief of Staff Sugiyama to Premier Tojo on 10 January
1942. The China Faction held out for the standard arrangement under which newly occupied
territories were administered by local Japanese forces; that Hong Kong be ruled by a
“defence commander” responsible to the Twenty-Third Army Headquarters in Canton; and
that the Twenty-Third Army’s Commander-in-Chief, Sakai, serve simultaneously as the
colony’s Governor. Proposing a break with standard procedure, the Southern Faction instead
recommended the highly unusual expedient of direct rule; Hong Kong, they urged, should be
placed in the hands of a Governor directly appointed by and responsible to Imperial
Headquarters in Tokyo. They rationalized that such a break in protocol was necessary
because Hong Kong “differed somewhat in character” from the other territories that the Army
had occupied on the Chinese mainland, and was consistent with Imperial Headquarters’
intention to preserve the separation of Hong Kong from the mainland in order to annex it as
an integral part of Japan.819
The differences between the China Faction and the Southern Faction can be traced to
their different perspectives on Hong Kong. The China faction considered Hong Kong a
promising part of China with a distinctive colonial background that could be exploited for its
political ends. In contrast, the Southern faction considered Hong Kong to be a politically
818
Accounts of the tussle within the Imperial Army over the future of Hong Kong may be found in Kobayashi,
“Taiheiyo Sensoka No Honkon”, 216 and Kobayashi Hideo and Shibata Yoshimasa, Nippon Gunseika No
Honkon,(Tokyo: Shakai Hyoronsha, 1996), 71-2. See also Takagi Kenichi, Kobayashi Hideo, Xianggang Junpiao
Yu Zhanhou Buchang, trans. Wu Hui, (Hong Kong: Ming Pao, 1995), 27. For details of the broader conflict
between the China faction and the Southern faction the author is grateful for information provided by Professor
Kobayashi Hideo during a personal interview on July 18, 2005 at Waseda University, Tokyo. The competing
priorities of the two factions are embodied in the Twenty-Third Army Guidelines of 9 December 1941, which
specify as objectives both the pursuit of “political schemes” and “the turning of Hong Kong into a military base
for our forces”. See Honkon Chosha Sakusen, 327.
819
Sugiyama report to Tojo of January 1942, quoted in Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 327-9.
353
unpromising part of Southeast Asia, believing that the Chinese who constituted the
overwhelming majority of its people would, unlike the colonized populations of Burma,
Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies, be unwilling to assist Japan in furthering its goals for the
South, as they did not share in these goals.
As the new long-term government became established, it appeared to assume the
agenda of the Southern Faction, one characterized by indifference to local wishes and needs.
Ultimately, the Southern faction completely prevailed.820 On 19 January, the first Japanese
Governor of Hong Kong was presented by Tojo to Emperor Hirohito in the Phoenix Hall of
the Imperial Palace. Announcing the appointment in the Diet on 21 January, Tojo explained
that because Hong Kong had for years been used by the British as a base for “creating
disturbances” in East Asia, the Empire had decided to secure it as a “bulwark” for the
region’s defence. On 1 February, the new Governor set off, as a Japanese war historian
aesthetically described, “from a Tokyo adorned with the year’s first snow, and two weeks
later he arrived in the colony”. On 20 February the Gunseicho was dissolved, the blue
armbands of the Twenty-Third Army were replaced by the yellow armbands of a newly
created Governor’s Office, and the Governor formally assumed his duties as the direct
representative of the Supreme Command. After eight weeks of turmoil, Japanese rule in the
colony had at last been established on a more or less stable basis.
8.34 Unique Status of Hong Kong in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
There had in fact been yet another conceivable option after the occupation of Hong
Kong: to return it to China for administration by the puppet mainland regime of Wang
Jingwei. As far as can be ascertained, this option was never considered by either of the two
Army factions involved in the Hong Kong debate. Expectations, however, appear to have
been raised in some Hong Kong Chinese circles by the uncertainties of the Gunseicho weeks
820
For a reaction from the losers, see diary of General Hata Shunroku, Commander-in-Chief of the China
Expeditionary Force, January 21, 1942, quoted in Honkon-Chosha Sakusen, 330.
354
that Isogai felt necessary to immediately disabuse upon his arrival. At his inaugural press
conference, the new Governor was asked by a local journalist “whether there was any
question of the administration of Hong Kong being handed over to the Nanking government
in future, on the same lines as Philippines for the Filipinos”. Isogai replied “laughingly” that
“so far as he understood Hong Kong was not part of China”, observing in this connection that
the colony had been under British rule for the previous hundred years. 821 Justifying the
annexation as matter of wartime necessity, as everything else was justified, Isogai proclaimed
that Hong Kong “had tremendous value as far as military operations were concerned, and was
to be kept for such purpose”.822
The weeks after Isogai’s arrival witnessed the end of hopes that the Wang Jingwei
option was viable. Wang supporters who had been active during both the invasion and the
Gunseicho period were shunted to the sidelines, and nothing more was heard of the Wang
partisans in the New Territories. Cheng Kwok-leung, the Chinese commandant of the Stanley
internment camp who was known to have been a Wang adherent, was replaced by two
Japanese.823 Still, the possibility of giving up Hong Kong to Wang lingered on in the minds of
some officials in the Japanese Foreign Ministry. At the end of 1942, Wang went to Tokyo to
negotiate an agreement committing his regime to Japan in the broader Pacific conflict by
declaring war on Great Britain and the United States. These negotiations took place at exactly
the same time as the two Allied powers were preparing treaties relinquishing their privileges
on the Chinese mainland to the rival government of Chiang Kai-shek.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, Wang’s puppet status, the Foreign Ministry team
assigned to draft the agreement believed that Japan would be wise to reward his regime for its
821
Hong Kong News, February 21, 1942. However, the mass of the Chinese population were considered subjects
of the Nanking government. See Ching, The Li Dynasty, 109. This attitude provided a theoretical justification for
the expulsion of the mainland Chinese refugees.
822
Quoted in H. L. Mars’ letter to Churchill, September 28, 1942, CO 129 590/25, 18.
823
Ibid.
355
entry into the war by making some concessions to Chinese irredentist feeling that were at
least on par with those that the Allies were making to Chiang. As one logical area for
concession was clearly Hong Kong, their proposals ranged from guaranteeing China’s
sovereignty over the New Territories to handing back the whole of Hong Kong in exchange
for Wang’s acceptance of Japanese long-term domination of Hainan, the large and
strategically crucial island near Vietnam.824 However, the Army, not the Foreign Ministry,
held power in Tokyo, and the Army had no intention of committing itself to the return of
Hong Kong in whole or in part, at least until the war had been won.
8.35 Assessment of Japanese Policy in Hong Kong: The Myth of Ineffective Administration
The conventional explanation for the ineffectiveness of Japanese administration in
Hong Kong is that the Japanese invaded the colony without a sophisticated agenda for its
subsequent occupation. However, the truth is more complex. First, as described in the
previous section, the Japanese occupation in Hong Kong was characterized by not only
tension between the Japanese administration and the local population but also by conflict
within the Japanese administration itself. The relationship between the Japanese Army and the
Japanese Government in Hong Kong can be compared to that between the Chinese
Communist Party and the Chinese Government. In both cases, the Army and the Party were
truly in control. In Hong Kong, the Military Police Department reported directly to the Army.
As a result, even though Noma, Head of the Military Police Department, was merely a
Colonel and lower in rank than the Governor, Lieutenant General Isogai, he was a much more
powerful man. Several sources who had contacts with both Noma and Isogai have reported
824
See “(Draft) Steps to Accompany the Nationalist Government Entry into the War,” November 15, 1942 and
“Questions to be Studied regarding the Disposition of the Leased Territory of Kowloon,” November25, 1942 in
“Participation in the War of the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China” (1) and (2) A.7.0.0. 9-41,
Diplomatic Record Office, Tokyo.
356
that the two were by no means on good terms with each other. Moreover, the civilian
department heads and administrators were often terrified of the Military Police Department.825
A second source of tension existed within the Chinese Representative Council. Of the
four members, Robert Kotewall and Li Tse-fong had been prominent in the British
administration, while Lau Tit-shing and Chan Lim-pak were believed by the Japanese to be
loyal to them. As a result, there was little informal consultation between the Council members.
Moreover, as the Japanese provided the only links between the Chinese units through their
own administrative organs, the Chinese could not work together as a whole, and as they were
forced to work under the instruction of the Japanese, the members of the Chinese Councils
and the District Affairs Bureaux had even less opportunity for communication.826
A third source of tension was the lack of understanding on the part of the Chinese
regarding how the Japanese ran the bureaucracy. 827 In accordance with Japan’s grandiose
ambition of trying to Japanize their occupied territories, the Japanese administrators insisted
that all registration and application forms be issued and completed in Japanese, believing that
forcing the population to learn the Japanese language would lead to an understanding of and
admiration for Japanese culture. However, they were remarkably unsuccessful in their
educational efforts.828 Their insistence on using Japanese as the official language and their
825
See Snow, Fall of Hong Kong, chapter 5.
Lau who had been educated in Japan and spoke fluent Japanese, was definitely pro-Japanese. Chan belonged
to the Wang Ching-wei faction and was suspected by the British of being the leader of the fifth columnists. Li
was an acting unofficial member of the Legislative Council, while Kotewall was a member of the Executive
Council under the British. See Ward, Asia for the Asiatics? 14, 64-65. Except for Kotewall and Li, all came from
different backgrounds. It was obvious that the Japanese wanted them to be suspicious of each other. Kotewall
seemed to serve under the Japanese on instructions from the British, but he was rather isolated and could do little
for the population. See South China Morning Post, October 2, 1945, address by R. A. C. North, Secretary for
Chinese Affairs.
827
Contrast this with the enterprise shown by Emily Hahn, an American who managed to stay outside of Stanley
Prison by claiming to be the wife of a Chinese man. See Hahn, China to Me.
828
By the end of 1944, there were only twenty-seven elementary schools and fifteen secondary schools in Hong
Kong with 14,600 and 1,600 pupils, respectively. The government’s own school only had about seven hundred
pupils. Information Department of the Governor’s Office, Gunseika no Honkon, (Hong Kong: Toyo Keizaisha,
1944), 279-82.
826
357
clumsy bureaucratic procedures put tremendous pressure on the District Affairs Bureaux,
which had to provide interpreters and translators.
Lacking an understanding of the Japanese bureaucratic system, the influential members
of the Chinese Councils attempted to complete their tasks through official channels, primarily
during committee meetings with the Japanese heads.829 However, doing so led to cumbersome
red tape, particularly in light of the jockeying among Japanese officers for private plunder and
lush appointments. Moreover, the entire administration was too departmentalized and lacking
in cooperation among the major authorities; the Army might order one thing, the Navy
another, and the gendarmerie would countermand both and order still something else. The
glaring inconsistencies and the blundering contradictions in Japanese rule illustrated that
Japan’s grand strategy was being executed most inefficiently.
As a result, a Hong Kong News article of 26 December 1944 could report that even three
years after the invasion, it could not “be truthfully asserted that the Japanese understands the
Chinese and vice-versa”. To a “very great extent” this was due to the language barrier.830 If
social relations between the Japanese and the local residents had been closer, the latter would
have realized that the former were “undergoing the same hardships and facing the same
difficulties”. It was “regrettable, but unavoidable, that the really creditable successes achieved
by the Administration should have been offset by the circumstances brought about by the
war”.831
In short, the Japanese made two basic and interrelated errors in Hong Kong. They
wished to dominate the region to achieve both an economic goal—self-sufficiency—and a
more complex political goal—to assume the role that China had once played in the great days
829
See Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma: Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939-1949, (New Haven: Yale University
press, 1968).
830
Hong Kong News, December 3, 1944.
831
Hong Kong News, December 26, 1944. For the same resigned tone, see also the farewell remarks of Ichiki
Yoshiyuki, the retiring Chief of the Civil Affairs Department, quoted in Hong Kong News, November 25 and 26,
1944.
358
of the Celestial Empire, when China was regarded as exemplar and fountainhead of civilized
life.832 In effect, the Japanese aimed for recognition of Japan’s ethical and cultural superiority
in the region, but pursued this goal primarily through an ineffective means—the use of
force—based on their misunderstanding of history. They did not understand that China had
achieved its past glory by first becoming vastly wealthier and more powerful than all its
neighbours, allowing it to dominate them by the display of generosity rather than force.
However, Japan did not have the wealth to be so generous with its neighbours.
Japan’s second mistake was a failure to recognize that winning “freedom for Asia”,
particularly if only achieved by the iron fist of a new hegemonic power, even if it was Asian,
“was not enough, that each national movement demanded its own freedom”.833 The Japanese
never intended to treat other Asians as equals or genuine partners. 834 Consequently, even
though they technically liberated many Asian peoples from Western imperialism, they could
not secure, with a small number of exceptions, their loyalty and support, and felt forced to
pacify their new empire by repressive measures. The Japanese administration in Hong Kong
was no exception. Whatever favour the Japanese had won from the Chinese in removing their
British colonial masters was quickly destroyed and replaced by fear and hatred. 835
8.36 Japanese Successes in Hong Kong
There are many criteria by which one can judge the success of an administration. From
an objective point of view, the success of the Japanese military administration in Hong Kong
may be judged by the criteria of (1) the development of Hong Kong, (2) the well-being of the
population, and (3) the degree of totalitarianism of the regime. By these standards, the
Japanese administration was remarkably unsuccessful. First, the administration did not pursue
832
F. Jones, Japan’s New Order in East Asia: its rise and fall, 1937-45, (London: Oxford University Press, 1954),
333.
833
Elsbree, Japan’s Role in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 10.
834
F. Jones, Japan’s New Order, 332-4.
835
Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, chapter 9.
359
the commercial development of Hong Kong, leading to a largely stagnant wartime economy
characterized by little trade. Such lack of development led the populace to experience a
standard of living much lower than that they had experienced under British rule, with a bad
situation made worse by having to live under a totalitarian regime.
Despite these failures, this dissertation finally argues that in certain respects the
Japanese administration in Hong Kong was remarkably successful. Specifically, the Japanese
attempted to adapt their administration according to local conditions and circumstances;
retained complete control of the colony; had the full, albeit reluctant, cooperation of all levels
of society necessary to implement all policies; and encountered little resistance from the
population. The Japanese had made careful preparations for the occupation of Hong Kong
years prior to the invasion. Therefore, after the Japanese occupied Hong Kong in December
1941, they implemented the military administration smoothly and impeccably. To ensure the
security of their forces of occupation, they turned over control of the city to the gendarmerie.
To gain the cooperation of the Chinese, they allowed the colony to devolve into anarchy
before demonstrating that only they could restore order. To strengthen the defence of the
island, they drove out the surplus population. To ensure control of all the population that
remained, they impoverished both the upper and middle classes, making all helpless and
dependent on them.836
Second, the Japanese attempted to involve the whole of the population by implementing
an all-embracing, two-way administrative system linking the population to the different levels
of the government that proved very effective, especially in terms of mobilizing the population.
Still, in practice the system only functioned in one way—the population was forced to comply
with Japanese orders and had little right to appeal them—allowing the bureaucracy to control
836
Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, 9.
360
the population but never willingly gaining their cooperation. 837 Failure to gain such
cooperation was a great challenge, as the Japanese had invested many resources in securing
the cooperation of the Chinese, one of their chief aims in all their conquered territories. They
had likely realized that as a nation of 450,000,000 could never be completely “Japanized”,
achieving their other aims required the cooperation of the Chinese. To this end, they
employed the same methods of propaganda in Hong Kong that they had in China. While
Hong Kong radio broadcasts continuously blasted the British “oppressors” and proclaimed
the Japanese to be the friends and deliverers of their fellow Asians, the Japanese demonstrated
their goodwill by building amusement areas, forming philanthropies, and organizing cultural
conferences.
In the final analysis, the author would argue that the Japanese military administration in
Hong Kong and Singapore was the result of two conflicting policies that reflected the basic
mode and philosophy of the Japanese Imperial Army in Tokyo. On the one hand, the Japanese
wanted to exploit their occupied territories to advance their drive for hegemony throughout
Asia. On the other hand, they wanted to Japanize their colonies as part of a pan-Asian ideal
that would free all Asians from foreign encroachment. However, their need to achieve both
aims within a brief period inevitably led to conflict between them, one which was ultimately
resolved by prioritizing the former before the latter.
837
Newell, Japan in Asia, chapter 2.
361
Appendices
Appendix A: CALENDAR YEARS ACCORDING TO THE GREGORIAN, JAPANESE,
BUDDHIST AND MUSLIM CALENDARS
According to the Gregorian calendar the Japanese invasion took place in 1941 and the
occupation lasted until 1945. Three other calendars were used in Malaya during this period:
the Japanese, Thai and Muslim (see Table 1). Japanese and Thai (Buddhist Era) dates
followed the solar year, and changed to the new year on the first of January of the Gregorian
year. The Muslim calendar is based on a lunaryear, which is shorter than the solar year by
eleven days. Fortuitously, , during the occupation the lunar New Year happened to fall close
to the solar New Year, and Muslim years nearly coincided with solar years. To make it easier
to follow the sequence of events, dates in the main text are given according to the Gregorian
calendar, but footnote citations show years from the various calendars as they appear on the
original documents.
Table 1. CALENDAR YEARS ACCORDING TO THE GREGORIAN, JAPANESE,
BUDDHIST AND MUSLIM CALENDARS
Gregorian Japanese Buddhist era Muslim (ca.)
1941 2601 (Syowa 16) 2484 1360
1942 2602 (Syowa 17) 2485 1361
1943 2603 (Syowa 18) 2486 1362
1944 2604 (Syowa 19) 2487 1363
1945 2605 (Syowa 20) 2488 1364
362
Appendix B: Member Lists of the Rehabilitation Committee, the Chinese
Representative Council and the Chinese Co-operative Council, Hong Kong
1942-1945
Table 1: Member Lists of the Rehabilitation Committee, Hong Kong 1942
香港善後委員會名單
Chairman 主席: 羅旭龢
Vice-Chairman 副主席: 周壽臣
Standing Committee Members 常務委員: 羅旭龢
周壽臣
劉鐵誠
羅文錦
譚雅士
Committee Members 委員:
李子方
李冠春
李忠甫
董仲偉
王德光
王通明
Table 2: Members of the Chinese Representative Council, Hong Kong 1942-1945
香港華民代表會名單
Chairman 主席: 羅旭龢
Committee Members 委員: 劉鐵誠, 李子方, 陳廉伯
Table 3: Members of the Chinese Co-operative Council, Hong Kong 1942-1945
香港華民各界協議會名單
Chairman 主席: 周壽臣
Vice-Chairman 副主席: 李冠春
Members 會員: 董仲偉, 黃燕清
葉蘭泉, 伍華
羅文錦, 鄺啟東
譚雅士, 王德光
馮子英, 鄧肇堅
章叔淳, 林建寅
凌康發, 李就
李忠甫, 陸靄雲
郭贊, 周耀年
王通明, 顏成坤
363
Appendix C: Structure and Personnel of Local level of Hong Kong
Administration 1942-45
Local Level of Hong Kong Administration 1942-45
Civil Administration Department
Chinese Section Chiefs
Controller of Fuels:
Lia Kia-fan
Director of District Affairs Bureaus: Hsien Ping-hsi (Peter H. Sin)
Director of Census Bureaus
Yung Ngai-sung
Hong Kong Construction Department
Member of the Staff:
Wang Yung-nien
Hong Kong Opium Commission
Chief (under a Japanese):
Liu Chuo-pak
The Asiatic Affairs Bureau
East Asia Cultural Association
President:
Chang Ku-shen
(Chairman – 1942):
Yeung Tsin-lei
Vice Chairman:
Ma Kian
Permanent Officers:
Cheung Koo-shan
Kong Po-tin
Luk Tan-lam
Tseng Kwong-kung
Labours’ Association
President:
Lin Chien-yin
364
The Control Wards
Hong Kong Wards Control Officers:
Central Ward:
Hsien Ping-his (Peter H. Sin)
Shang Huan Ward:
Shao Wei-ming
Hsi Ying Pan Ward:
Li Chi-hsin
Shih Tang Chu Ward:
Sun Kuang-chuan
Shan Wang Tai Ward:
Chien Wen
Wan Tzu Ward:
Ho Jib-ju
E Ching Ward:
Ho Te(h)-kuang
Tung Lo Wan Ward:
Kuo Hsien-hung
Race Course Ward:
Wu Wen-tse
Yuan Hsiang kang Ward:
Wang Tai
Chih Chu Ward:
Li Sung-ching
Shao Chi Wan Ward:
Tseng Shou-chao
Kowloon Wards Control Officers:
Kowloon City Ward:
Tai Jo-lan
Shen Shui Ward:
Huang Po-chin
Wang Chueh Ward:
Tseng Jung
Yuamati Ward:
Feng Hao
Chien Sha Chu Ward:
Liang Chi
Hung Kan Ward:
Li Shou-sha
Kowloon Tang Special Ward: Kuan Hsin-yen
Hsin Chieh Wars Control Officers:
Ta Pu Ward:
Chen Tiao-chin
Yuan Lang Ward:
Peng
365
Easten District Bureau
Assistant Director:
Lo Chai-sing
General Affairs Bureau for Kowloon Districts
Members of the Political Division:
Huang Chung
Banks and Banking Associations
Bank of Communciations
Manager:
Lau Tit-sing
Overseas Chinese Banks
Representative:
Tang Yat-yan
Hong Kong Bankers’ Association
Chairman:
Lau Tit-sing
Vice Chairman:
Li Tsu Fang
Members of the Executive Committee:
Cheung Suk-shun
Poon Shunt-um
Yeung Yun-tak
Hong Kong Financier:
Ho Tung, Sir Robert
Central News Agency (Hong Kong Branch)
Chief:
Wu Pei-yuan
Representatives:
Lo Ching-kwang
Wei Kuo-lun
Hsiang Tao Jih Pao
Proprietor:
Aw Boon Haw
366
Hua Chiao Jih Pao
Editor:
Lu Meng-shu
Managing Editor:
Tsen His-yung
News Editor:
Lu Mun-hsi
Hong Kong Jih Pao
Editor in Chief:
Huang Pao-shu
Nan Hua Jih Pao
Publisher:
Kuang Chi-tung
Editor:
Liu Hsieh-tang
Journalists and writers:
Chang Kuang-yen
Wong, Peter
Press Official in Hong Kong:
Kong Kai-tung
People’s Food Association
Chairman:
Aw Boon Haw
Hong Kong General Relief Association
Chairman:
Chan Lim Pak
Chairman, General Affairs Committee:
Li Tzu Fang
Vice Chairman, General Affairs Committee: (Wong Yat-chung)
Secretary for Relief and Culture Exhibition: Wang Te(h)-feng
367
Chinese Reflief Association
Chief of the Executive Departmetn:
Lau Tit-shing
Chief of the General Affairs Department:
Lo Kuk-wo (Sir Robert Kotewall)
Trading Union of Hong Kong
Director:
Kiu Kuk
Hong Kong Commercial Insititute
Director:
Yeh Lan-chuan
Chamber of Commerce
Representative for Foreign Goods:
Kwok Chuen
Representatives of Commercial Associations
Firewood Merchants:
Lai Kong-sun
Rice Importers Association:
Ma Ting
Nam Pak Hong Merchant Houses:
Tong Ping-tat
Hong Kong and Kowloon General Labor Association
Chief Executive:
Ling Hong Fat
Kowloon Markets Bueau
Chief:
Tong Ching Kan
Chinese Language Society
Hong Kong Representatives:
Chan Pai-li
368
Chu Sen
Hong Kong Race Course
Chairman of Stewards:
Ho Kom Tong
Hong Kong Jockey Club
Members of the Racing Committee:
Yip Kui-ying
Pan, S. H.
Pih, C. C.
Wei, Peter
South China Athletic Association
Chairman:
Luke Oi-wan
Source: Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, Structure and Personnel
of the Nanking Puppet Government (and Hong Kong Administration), 12 January 1945
369
Appendix D: SPEECH of LIEUTENANT GENERAL SAKAI TAKASHI To the
Leaders of the Chinese Community in Hong Kong
General Sakai spoke of the currency problem and the tasks of restoring order, the cleansing of
the city and the reopening of business. He said he would make every effort for the
reconstruction of Hong Kong and Kowloon, and expressed the hope that the Chinese guests
present would do their best to cooperate in this direction.
Both Mr. Law Kuk-wo and Mr. Chow Shou-son expressed complete agreement with what
General Sakai said, and voiced the hope that peace between Japan and China would soon be a
reality. They also promised to do whatever they could to bring about the return of normal
conditions in Hongkong and Kowloon.
Lieut-General Sakai said: It gives me great pleasure to see you all here today. For the last 100
years, Hongkong has been under the misguided rule of the British, who seized the place from
China. You, gentlemen, happened to form a part of it, but I hope that you will all recognize
the change that has come and export all your strength for the reconstruction of Hongkong so
that it may become a model city for East Asian peace.
Firstly, I hope that all of you will understand the object of co-prosperity for all the races of
Great Asia. The brave troops that I lead seized Hongkong and Kowloon in a little over then
days, and have driven out the evil forces of the British. We were not fighting against the
Chinese of Hongkong, for whom we have the deepest sympathy. Therefore, in the plan of
attack we did not use artillery and large bombs in order to avoid hurting the common people
and damaging the city. You, who were then in Hongkong, will surely understand this.
Selfish British Aim
Secondly, from the corruption of the British Colonial Administration, you may understand
that they only planned for their own profit, and did not care about the life or death of the
Chinese people.
You, who have dwelt in Hongkong for the last 100 years, should awaken to the fact that, in
this battle, the British Government used Chinese Volunteers, Canadians and Indians in the
front line. The English soldiers were hiding in the hills, and investigation of the casualty lists
shows mostly coloured troops with very few Englishmen amongst them. You can see,
therefore, that the English soldiers fear death and convet life.
Thirdly, the Chinese and Japanese are of the same people and have the same literature. They
are also of the Great East Asian race. In all the islands of south-ast Asia dwell Chinese
citizens. Although they have left their country for a long time, yet they belong to our race.
These overseas Chinese are your relatives, friends or clansmen. I hope that the words I have
addressed to you will be transmitted to them, so that they may join in the establishment of a
Greater East Asia.
Fourthly, both Hongkong and Kowloon have received a considerable amount of damage
during the fighting, and this has caused unavoidable suffering. I shall make every effort to
clear up matters for the re-construction of Hongkong and Kowloon, and to make it a place
where people may reside in peace. But if the Army is unable to make the change in the
370
shortest possible time, I hope you will forgive me; and I ask all of you to form a local
assistance committee to exert all your strength to help me, so that we may succeed at an early
date.
Important items
The following are the most important items that I have to talk to you about:
1. Order – with regard to order, this is naturally the responsibility of the Military Authorities,
but if we use too many troops, then the people may find certain inconveniences.
Therefore, the former Hongkong Chinese Police are being reemployed. All people can
safely resume their businesses, or organize their own self-protection guards under the
direction of the officials. Thus, all obstruction to order will be removed.
2. Currency – Currency is the blood of business. Therefore it must be settled. I have
appointed people to deal with this matter, and the result of the investigations will be
announced very shortly.
I have heard that the people are suffering from a lack of small notes. This will be attended
to. As regards the non-acceptance of higher currency notes, there is a reason for that but
this will be handled later.
You, gentlemen, form the influential and wealthy element of the population. Some of you
play a big role in currency circles. For the time being, you should tell all people not to
think of hurting other people, or to spread around idle rumours. If there is any matter
which may be of benefit to all, it may be written out.
3. Relief of business – After the cessation of hostilities, relief is of great importance. I hope
that you will get together and help in settling the fuel and rice problems and helping those
who are suffering hardships. I hope that you will devise methods for this and apply to the
Administration for permission to carry them out.
Source: HONGKONG NEWS, January 12, 1942
371
Appendix E: Requirements for Those Leaving Hong Kong
In order that persons leaving Hong Kong may know what to do, the Repatriation Bureau
yesterday issued a notice, mentioning the following requirements:
People leaving for Canton and Macao, must have a cholera and inoculation certificate with a
photograph attached, a vaccination certificate and a permit for departure.
In buying tickets, two photographs must be produced.
Tickets for Macao can be bought at the Inland Transportation Company, except for third class
which are sold at the Wing Lok Wharf. Tickets must be bought one day before the sailing of
the ship.
Passengers going to Taiping, Shikiu, Kongmoon, and Tongkawan are required to have a
cholera inoculation certificate, a vaccination certificate, a medical examination certificate
with photograph attached, and a departure permit.
Two photographs must be produced when buying tickets, which are sold at the Saikong Wharf.
Tickets must be bought one day before the sailing of the ship.
Inoculation centers
In Hong Kong, cholera injections can be had, by payment of 50 sen, from the Health Bureau
on the second floor of the former National City Bank Building, the Sino-Nipponese Medical
Association at the former Prince’s Building, Tung Wah Hospital town office on the second
floor of the Bank of China Building.
In kowloon, injections can be obtained at the Kwong Wah Hospital and at the Chinese
Y.M.C.A. for a similar charge.
As for medical examination, this is conducted at the Anti-Epidemic Bureau in the former York
Building. The fee is one Yen and the certificate is valid for three days.
In applying for departure permit at the District Bureaus, the person concerned must return his
or her ration card.
Persons leaving for Swatow and Kwangchowwan must obtain departure permits from the
Repatriation Office.
Source: Hong Kong News, 29 April 1942
372
Appendix F: Regulations for the Bureaus dealing with the governing of Hong
Kong
Article 1. The following Bureaus are appointed for governing the Captured Territory of Hong
Kong: - Hong Kong Bureau; Kowloon Bureau; New Territory Bureau.
The position of the Bureaus and areas governed by them will be decided later.
Article 2. The Bureaus will employ the following personnel: - chiefs of Bureau, 3; Deputy
Chiefs of Bureau, 3; Subordinate Chiefs, 9; Officials, 126.
Article 3. The Chief of Bureau under orders from the Chief of the Governor’s Office will
supervise the carrying out of the Governor’s laws and attend to the business of the Bureau.
Article 4. The Chief of Bureau will direct and supervise his subordinates.
Article 5. If the Chief of Bureau should be otherwise occupied, the Deputy Chief will take
charge of the Chief of Bureau’s duties, Should the Deputy Chief of Bureau be otherwise
occupied, the Chief of the Governor’s Office will depute one of the subordinate chiefs to act
for him.
Governor’s Order No. 13
Article 6. The Deputy Chief of Bureau will assist the Chief of Bureau in his business.
Article 7. Each Bureau will establish three subordinate offices as follows: - General Office,
Economic Office, Health Office.
Article 8. The duties of the General Office: 1. To handle the general business; 2. To deal with
financial plans; 3. To deal with educational matters; 4. To handle other matters concerning
their area.
Article 9. The duties of the Economic Office are: 1. To deal with industrial economy; 2. To
deal with communications and transportation; 3. To deal with necessities from raw materials.
Article 10. The duties of the Health Office are: 1. To deal with promotion of health; 2. To deal
with the infectious diseases and other diseases; 3. To deal with medical supplies.
Article 11. All subordinate chiefs will carry out their duties under the direction and
supervision of the Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs of Bureau.
Article 12. Officials will carry out their duties under their superiors.
Article 13. In small islands and places not easily accessible to communications, branch offices
may be instituted under the head office.
Article 14. The head of a branch office will act under the orders of the Chief of Bureau.
This order shall take effect from date of publication.
Source: Hong Kong News, 16 April 1942
373
Appendix G: The regulations pertaining to the Hong Kong Chinese Co-operative
Council are herewith promulgated
HONG KONG GOVERNMENT
Governor’s Order No. 11(Signed) RENSUKE ISOGAI
Governor, Captured Territory of Hong Kong
Regulations for the Chinese Co-operative Council
1.
In order to ensure the smooth conduct of affairs of Chinese residents in the Captured
Territory of Hong Kong, there is now established the Hong Kong Chinese Co-operative
Council, called for short the Co-operative Council below.
The Co-operative Council will be under the direction of the Chinese Representative
Council, which will submit to the various departments of the Hong Kong Government
for examination matters concerning the governing and co-operation of Chinese residents.
2.
The Chinese Representative Council will elect the president and members of the Cooperative Council from Chinese residing in the Captured Territory of Hong Kong, and
those who are to represent all sections of the people will be appointed by the Governor.
3.
The Co-operative Council will appoint one chairman and one vice-chairman from the
elected members.
4.
The Chinese Representative Council will attend the Co-operative Council’s meetings to
state their opinions.
5.
The opinion of the Council’s chairman, president and members will be discussed and
decided upon.
6.
After the opinions have been set forth and discussed, the Chinese Representative
Council will present them to the Government.
This Council will be established from the day of the publication of this notice.
Source: Hong Kong News, 28 March 1942
374
Appendix H: The organization and chain of command of H.Q Gendarmerie,
Hong Kong
Complied by Lt/Col Kanazawa, Asao
Chief – Chief of General Affairs Department
--- General Affairs Section (chief) – Staff
--- Intendance Section (chief) – staff
--- Sanitary Affairs Section (chief) -- staff
-- Chief of the police affairs department
--- police affairs section (chief) – staff
--- special branch section (chief) – staff
Organization and chain of command of the police headquarters
complied by Lt/col Kanazawa, Asao
Police commissioner
--deputy police commissioner
-- chief of the general affairs dept
-- general affairs section (chief) – staff
-- intendance section (chief) staff
-- chief of the police affairs dept
-- police affairs section (chief) – staff
-- administrative section (chief) – staff
-- special branch section (chief) – staff
-- chief of the internal inspection dept
-- first section (chief) – staff
-- second section – staff
Line of command of the police affairs
Governor – chief of staff – Hong Kong police headquarters
-- Hong Kong police station
-- police sub-station ----- 9
-- police posts ----- 6
-- fire brigade station ----- 2
-- godown guards ----- 1
-- fire brigade sub-station ----- 3
-- Kowloon police station
-- police sub-station ----- 13
-- police posts ----- 5
-- fire brigade station ----- 2
-- fire brigade sub-station ----- 3
-- water police station
375
-- police sub-station ----- 3
-- fire brigade sub-station ----- 2
-- police training school ----- 1
police headquarters --- 1
police stations --- 3
police sub-stations --- 25
police posts --- 11
fire brigade stations --- 4
fire brigade sub-stations ---8
godown guards --- 1
police training school --- 1
(total – 54)
Source: HKMS no.100-1-5, Public Record Office, Hong Kong
376
Appendix I: List of Government House and British Colonial Secretariat staff in
Hong Kong, December 1941
His Excellency Sir Mark Young, Governor
Mr.F. G.Gimson, Colonial Secretary
Mr. C. G.Alabaster, Attorney General
Mr H. R.Butters, Financial Secretary
Captain S. H. Batty Smith, A.D.C. to the Governor
Mr. C. R. Lee, Private Secretary to the Governor
Mr.M. Brickerton, Interpreter
Mr E. W Pudney, AccountantGeneral
Mr R. J. Minnitt, Assistant Defence Secretary
Source: HKRS no 112-1-1, Public Record Office, Hong Kong
377
Appenidx J: THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IMPACT OF THE WAR ON
HONG KONG
A great deal of research must be done into the social, economic, and political structure
of Hong Kong in the pre-war period. But at least it is clear that the Colony, even if it was
primarily a trading post, was not like the Shanghai of the old days, an international concession,
a cosmopolitan city; yet paradoxically the permeation of government into the everyday lives
of the inhabitants, residents, refugees, expatriates - was far less than at present. Even among
the top echelons of society, among the taipans and the top officials, as Lethbridge suggests,
there was little contact and even conflict.838 Perhaps as Agnes Smedley, herself a temporary
refugee from the mainland, said, echoing the Japanese attitude, socially Hong Kong was an
effete outpost of Empire ‘like a rotten fruit’ ready to drop into the plunderer’s hands.839 It was
a divided community, united only by the tangential interests of commerce. Indeed, a
newcomer to the Colony, F. C. Gimson, the Colonial Secretary, with a long career in Ceylon
behind him, was shocked at the lack of identification of the Europeans with the welfare of the
place where they made their wealth. And what of the poor, who previously had shared this
‘bird of passage’ 840 mentality, but who now were trapped in an insecure permanence as
Kwangtung became more and more a waste-land of destruction? It would seem, even without
the added burden of penniless starving refugees, that Hong Kong was recognized as a place
where ‘more than half [of] the Chinese population of the Colony - that is over 400,000 people
- exists in a state of semi-starvation’.841 These were, as the North-China Herald correspondent
wrote, ‘The products of the social system of the colony which does not provide wages on
which the average Chinese family can subsist.’ And, if this is thought to be a journalistic
exaggeration, the facts of utter destitution were undeniable in the embarrassing shape of the
many thousands of pavement-sleepers who, day and night, huddled on the only space to
which they could lay claim.
This might seem to depict a scene ripe for the revolution of the have-nots: but, of
course, this did not happen, chiefly because this condition of existence was a common fact of
life on the mainland. But, one might ask, these sufferers would surely respond to the
838
Lethbridge, ‘Hong Kong during Japanese Occupation’, 77-81.
A. Smedley, Battle Hymn of China (London, 1944), 357.
840
The phrase is Gimson’s.
841
North China Herald, June 23, 1937, 496.
839
378
liberating ideals of the Pan-Asiatic brotherhood propagated by the Japanese in China? The
balance of the evidence indicates that the Japanese did little to secure the voluntary cooperation of the local population, apart from a few Eurasians, and the Indians who were
mainly members of the police force and therefore vitally necessary for the control of the
territory.842 The first aim of the occupation forces was to cow the residents into submission by
brutality and terror. The overriding objective was to cut down to the minimum the needs of
the local population which even at that time was not self-subsistent and very much dependent
on imported food supplies. This was done by strict measures of administration and hygiene,
e.g. no one was entitled to a ration card unless he was in employment, and by lax control of
emigration regulations to the mainland. As many Chinese families as possible were encouraged to leave the Colony. As the Allied blockade became tighter these pressures became
greater; to remain in Hong Kong became a luxury not easily bought by working to aid the
Japanese war effort. As Tanaka, the second Japanese Governor of Hong Kong in 1944,
promised his subjects: ‘If rice is available, the people will have rice to eat. If there are only
sweet potatoes, they will only eat sweet potatoes, and if there are only beans, they will eat
beans.’843 With little work to earn a living, with no ships calling at the port, with few or no
public amenities such as electric power or public transport, with fuel or firewood almost
unobtainable, and the people dying daily of starvation, the B.A.A.G. report was undoubtedly
accurate in declaring, ‘The occupying Japanese authorities have nothing to offer except vague
promises of Utopia around the corner.’ The promises were by now threadbare and barely
credible.844
In view of this it is difficult to attach great significance to other reports, for example
that even early in the war, on the celebration of the fall of Singapore, there was great
jubilation in Hong Kong. Then there were processions of Chinese in the streets, but the
participants (probably Chinese government employees who could not refuse to be present)
had been given a cake each as a ‘present’.845 On the contrary, in the words of one report: ‘. . .
As if in full expression of their sentiments thousands of Chinese residents packed their scanty
belongings and made for their homeland - Free China.’
842
The study of Hong Kong’s Indian population by K. N. Vaid, The Overseas Indian Cammunity in Hong Kong
(H.K.U.P., 1972), says very little about this episode. As he shows, the Indian community has never been fully
integrated into Hong Kong society
843
CO 129/591. Intelligence Report No. 68, August 28,1944.
844
FO 371/31671 (1942), Report by an Australian-Chinese lady (Mrs. Gwen Priestwood?).
845
Ibid.
379
In a later similar report the writer, Count R. de Sercey, a Frenchman from the Chinese
Postal Service who left Hong Kong in April 1944, confirmed anti-Japanese feelings in even
stronger terms. He thought the Hong Kong inhabitants had more confidence in the British
than in the Chinese Government. They had great faith in ‘a not distant allied victor.’ (In this
respect the practical Chinese were voting with their precious money, hoarding their Hong
Kong dollars.) This neutral observer also pleaded extenuating circumstances for the
prominent Chinese citizens forced to be members of the puppet Councils: it was the extreme
necessity to keep their families from starving which bound them to their masters.846 On the
other hand, the Japanese administrators did meet resistance. There was the passive
unwillingness of school teachers, for example, to provide propaganda material.
Questionnaires issued to schools for pupils to fill in questions such as, ‘What would you do if
the British came back to Hong Kong?’ were skilfully parried with answers, ‘We would do
what our parents told us to do.’ Similarly opinion polls about ‘the present war’ produced
results which can only have been disappointing to the framers of those questions.847
Resistance of a more active kind was represented both by the Chinese members of the
B.A.A.G. and the guerrillas of the East River Company. Both of these aspects have been
covered by Endacott, but an article written just after the war by an author, H. C. K.
Woddis,848 amplifies that account. This article appropriately enough begins with the burning
question, ‘On which side lie the sympathies of the people of Hong Kong?’ This seemingly
authoritative account of the exploits of the East River Column and the Hong Kong, Kowloon,
and New Territories Independent Battalion - controlling the New Territories against `bandits'
and Japanese forces alike; in posting up proclamations at the entrance of the Central Market
in Hong Kong; rescuing allied soldiers and airmen; in intelligence work - claims that these
irregulars played a vital part in helping to defeat the occupying armies of Japan.849
The million or more Chinese who flocked back into the Colony after 1945 at the rate
of 100,000 a month provide some evidence that Hong Kong under British rule did appear to
846
CO 129/591, Intelligence Report 1944. In that month the Japanese were unable to maintain the supply of rice
rations, and the official distribution was abandoned.
847
Father S. J. Ryan, Steering in troubled waters. (unpublished MS.)
848
H. C. K. Woddis, ‘Hong Kong and the East River Compan’, Eastern World, vol. 3, no. 7, July 1941.
849
Woddis also claims that these irregulars were the first allied troops to march into Kowloon after the defeat of
Japan. The presence of an irregular force is confirmed by several Foreign Office papers. Indeed, as Chan has told
the story, the imminent liberation of Hong Kong by these ‘Chinese forces’ appeared as a threat to the British
plans for the re-occupation of Hong Kong.
380
have some merits. Realistically, of course, one should take into account that some of those
returning to Hong Kong calculated that British administration offered greater security for
their lives and property than China, still in tumult after the Japanese defeat.850
According to Lethbridge, despite defeat and the eradication of the Japanese
occupation - taking down the Japanese street signs and the demolition of the Japanese war
memorial – ‘The Japanese succeeded in establishing the foundations of a New Order in Hong
Kong’.851 In other words, the occupation worked ultimately to the benefit of the leaders of
the Chinese community. Through the British failure in the Far East, the Chinese were able to
make the Government of Hong Kong their own government. How this came about is
conveyed again in Lethbridge’s words: ‘The British mandarinate collapsed in 1941: it has
never been replaced.’ The ‘Peak mentality’ and colonial arrogance were put aside. As for the
Chinese, ‘The local population ... seem to have acquired greater trust in the Administration.
They were impressed by the speed with which the rehabilitation of the economy was
achieved, by the establishment of law and order and of a milieu favourable to the acquisition
of wealth. The Government honoured its pre-war debts and obligations and compensated its
former employees. Its post-occupation record was admirable - it believed in business first.’852
This reading of the Colony’s transformation at that time, of course, does depend very
much on the interpretation that the present day Hong Kong is a Colony run for a small group
of Chinese and European businessmen. To discuss the whole complex body of the Hong
Kong Government policy and administration in the years after 1945, in order to test this
premise, would take this discussion beyond its intended objectives. However, it is a truism of
Hong Kong’s development that as a Colony it is debarred from the evolution, hastened by
the Pacific war elsewhere, to independent nationhood. Thus politically, whether there is
greater welfare for the people than previously is in a sense irrelevant. However, even here, as
Endacott has described in this book and in his Government and the People, the returning
Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, did attempt, though abortively, to introduce a
more advanced stage of municipal government to Hong Kong. Where the blame should lie
for this failure is again not a question to be debated here: however, the intention to introduce
reform was there. Indeed, my own subsequent research into the Colonial Office papers
850
This point was made by Li Shu Fan in 1944.
Lethbridge, ‘Hong Kong during Japanese occupation’, 78.
852
Ibid., 127.
851
381
suggests, albeit sketchily, that immediately after the war the British Military Administration
looked for candidates ‘to dispute local leadership with the established order’. What was
ultimately in view, whether a more representative system or something more limited, is not
known. In the mind of MacDougall, at least, there was every intention to start anew, as the
following quotation from his informal report shows: ‘We have dusted out the marriage
chamber, cleaned the windows, put in some (almost) fresh linen and turned back the covers.
But there is no sign of the bride and the groom grows restive.’853 As subsequent attempts to
introduce reform into Hong Kong Government have shown, it is because of the special
characteristics of the local population that the democratic development so earnestly espoused
in other ex-colonies is difficult to encourage here.
853
CO 129/591 54132/45. F. C. Gimson, the retiring Officer Administering the Government, in a broadcast on
the eve of his departure from the Colony also expressed the need for reform: ‘I took forward to an era of rapid
progress is ameliorating the methods of public administration here in accordance with the settled policy of His
Majesty’s Government to foster the development of selfgoverning institutions throughout the Empire. There is
great need in Hong Kong for reform on the social as well as the political side; and we are now presented with the
opportunity of a clean sheet on which to sketch for early implementation schemes for educational, medical,
housing and town-planning improvements. Not least should attention be paid to the problems connected with the
promotion by legislation and otherwise of better conditions for the people of the labouring classes.’(Gimson
MSS. Rhodes House Library, Oxford.)
382
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. PRIMARY SOURCES (Unpublished)
I. Archive documents
II. Interviews or personal correspondences
III. Unpublished articles, books and memoirs
B. PRIMARY SOURCES (Published)
I. Newspaper, magazines and journals
II. Government reports and papers
III. Diaries, memoirs and biographies
IV. Official histories
C. SECONDARY SOURCES
I. Unpublished theses or dissertations
II. Published articles, books and monographs
383
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WO 235/1015
WO 235/1093
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Investigation files)
Ministry of Defence
DEFE 7/599 Registered Files: General Series
DEFE11/380 Chiefs of Staff Committee: Registered Files
Special Operations Executive
HS 1/171
HS 1/176
HS 1/208
HS 1/329
HS 1/349
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386
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Two Maps Showing British Military Dispositions in Hong Kong and the New Territories in
December 1941.
Leaflets dropped by Japan planes on Hong Kong 1942
Public Record Office, Hong Kong (Hong Kong Manuscript Series)
HKMS 30
HKMS 1-1-1
HKMS 82-1-5
HKMS 72-1-7
HKMS 72-1-11
HKMS 72-1-71
HKMS 93-1-501
HKMS 145-4-1
HKMS 148-1-75
HKMS 158-1-319
HKMS 158-1-320
HKMS 71-5-1
HKMS 74
HKMS 75-1-2-1
HKMS 75-1-2-2
HKMS 75-1-2-3
HKMS 75-1-2-4
HKMS 75-1-2-5
HKMS76
HKMS 80-1-1
HKMS 81-1-3-3
387
HKMS 100-1-1
HKMS 100-1-2
HKMS 100-1-3
HKMS 100-1-4
HKMS 100-1-5
HKMS 100-1-6
HKMS 100-1-7
HKMS 100-1-8
HKMS 100-1-9
HKMS 100-1-10
HKMS 113-1-1
Public Record Office, Hong Kong (Hong Kong Record Series)
HKRS 57-6-2
HKRS 2-1-1513
HKRS 139-19-27(1)
HKRS 141-19-29(1)
HKRS 112-1-1
HKRS 845-1-6
HKRS 212-1-7
HKRS 211-2-41
HKRS 219-3-2
HKRS 220-1
HKRS 256-4-1
HKRS 308-9-1
HKRS 308-9-2
HKRS 308-9-3
HKRS 845-1-10
HKRS 930-1-1
HKRS 112-1-1
HKRS 257-5-1
HKRS 41-1-934
HKRS 20-1-121
HKRS 20-1-122
HKRS 53-3-420
HKRS 56-5-1
HKRS 57-6-1
HKRS 120-1-93-1
HKRS 165-4-1
HKRS 169-2-1
HKRS 211-2-1
HKRS 41-1-1119
HKRS 41-1-1296
HKRS 41-1-1355
HKRS 41-1-1617
HKRS 41-1-1885
HKRS 41-1-1884
HKRS 41-1-1886-1
388
HKRS 41-1-1886-2
HKRS 41-1-2351
HKRS 41-1-2352
HKRS 41-1-2775
HKRS 41-1-2381
HKRS 41-1-3361
HKRS 41-1-3913
HKRS 41-1-4982
HKRS 41-1-6267
HKRS 41-1-6940
HKRS 41-2-555
HKRS 58-1-189-63
HKRS 58-1-191-78
HKRS 70-4-104
HKRS 70-7-638
HKRS 112-1-1
HKRS 115-1-60
HKRS 115-1-40
HKRS 125-3-406
HKRS 125-3-407
HKRS 125-3-408
HKRS 158-3-7
HKRS 158-3-8
HKRS 163-1-210
HKRS 163-1-222
HKRS 163-1-507
HKRS 163-1-508
HKRS 163-1-564
HKRS 163-1-656
HKRS 163-1-1236
HKRS 163-1-2354
HKRS 169-2-5
HKRS 169-2-889
HKRS 169-2-138
HKRS 169-2-147
HKRS 169-2-148
HKRS 169-2-218
HKRS 170-1-355
HKRS 170-1-622
HKRS 170-1-573
HKRS 229-1-77
HKRS 256-4-1
HKRS 257-5-6
HKRS 245-2-150
HKRS 245-2-208
HKRS 308-9-2
HKRS 308-9-3
389
Hong Kong Police Archive
F. W. Shaftain, Rough Draft for Proposed Articles, Hong Kong Police Archives, G56 (4), 10
War Diary of the Hong Kong Police, Hong Kong Police Archives, December 1941, 16-7, 29
Hong Kong Collection Library, University of Hong Kong
English translation of Japanese documents, largely interrogation reports, Japanese historical
studies and American studies based on or quoting from Japanese documents relating to the
Japanese occupation in Hong Kong.
Structure and personnel of the Nanking puppet government and Hong Kong administration,
1945.
Great Britain, Colonial Office. Circular: Hong Kong: official lists of civilian internees;
volunteer defence forces - prisoners of war; volunteer defence forces - casualties.
Diplomatic Record Office, Tokyo, Japan
A.7. 0. 0. 9.-41
A.7. 0. 0. 9. -41-2
Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, National Archives of Japan (JACAR)
A03010002400 内閣, 昭和１７年, 香港占領地ニ於ケル経済処理ノ為内閣ニ香港経済委
員会ヲ設置ス
B02030613100
作成者名称 軍令部第三部
記述単位の年代域 昭和１５年１１月貿易上ニ於ケル香港ノ援蒋的地位
C04123703800, 南支那派遣波第八一一〇部隊長 栗林忠道, 昭和１７年１月１０日, 陸
支密受第一九四号 参政第六号 香港陥落ノ内外ニ及ホセル影響ニ関スル件報告
C04123732200 第二十三軍参謀長 栗林忠道, 昭和１７年１月１５日, 香港（ 徳）飛行
場の状況報告
C01000014600 総軍, 昭和１７年１月１５日～昭和１７年１月１９日香港通貨対策ニ
関スル件
C01000096000 香港軍政部昭和１７年２月～３月香港軍政部 香港占領地総督部職名発
表ニ関スル件 昭和１７年２月２０日 昭和１７年３月５日 （陸亞密） 次官ヨリ香港
占領地総督部参謀長宛電報（暗） 香督参電第六号返 軍政実施上必要ナル職名ヲ貴地
390
限リ発表ノ件当方異存ナシ 陸亞密電一二六 昭和１７年２月２８日 陸亞密第一六三〇
号 秘 電報訳 ２月２４日２０時五〇分発 ２月２４日二時一〇分著 次官宛 発信者 香港
軍政部参謀長 香督参電第六号 当部軍政実施上必要ニ付キ参謀長総務長官 泊武治 民
事部長 市来吉至 財務部長 中西有三 交通部長 高松順茂ノ職名当地ニ関スル限リ発表
致度返 通電先、次官次長
C01000093500 昭和１７年０２月１０日興亜機関興亞機関業務報告 第二囘 四部 於香
港興亜機関 極秘 興亞機関業務報告（第二囘） 昭和１７年２月１０日 於香港興亜機
関 目次 一、要旨 二、業務経過概要 三、将来ノ企図 別紙第一抑留支那要人一覧表 別
紙第二興亞機関人員表 別紙第三港九中国紳士録 別紙第四興亞機関ニ関スル命令 別冊
第一港九善後処理委員会業務報告 別冊第二留日同学会業務報告 一、要旨 興亞機関ハ
香港戦略作戰開始後香港、九龍ニ殘存セル支那側特ニ重慶側要人ヲ獲得利用スル為
設立セラレタルモノニシテ爾来香港、九龍ノ支那側要人ヲ收容或ハ監視シアリ其ノ
現况別紙第一ノ如ク目下依然任務ヲ續行中ニシテ
C01000135800 昭和１７年０２月１０日駐港重慶機関調査録一〇〇部中一一－一五号
興亜機関 極秘 一八〇部中十二号 興調第九号 駐港重慶機関調査録ヘ（ 一報） 昭和１
７年２月１０日 興亜機関 目次 政府機関 １外交部駐港簽証処 ２交通部駐港購料弁事
処 ３軍政部駐港弁事処４教育部華僑教育視察専員 ５軍委会資源委員会駐港弁事処 ６
軍委会運輸站 ７軍委会後方勤務部駐港弁事処８廣東省政府駐港報処 ９廣西省特派情
報処 党部機関１０国民党中央海外部駐港弁事処 １１国民党中央宣伝部関粤宣伝専民
駐港弁事処 １２僑務委員会駐港弁事処１３中央通訊社香港分社（宣伝部ノ機関） １
４国民日報（宣伝部） １６蒋侍従室清報工作処
C01000135900 昭和１７年０２月１０日駐港重慶側高級特務機関ノ概略 一〇〇部中第
二号－第一五号 興亜機関 極秘 １００部ノ中 １１号 興調第十二号 駐港重慶側高級特
務機関ノ概略 昭和１７年２月１０日 興亜機関 目次 一、軍委員情報部特務情報処駐
港処 二、国民党中央調査統計局駐港機関 三、陳策、 城機関栄記、 記行 四、三民主
義青年団駐港弁事処 五、国民党駐港澳支部香港支部主要人員 註 本情報ハ在港藍衣社
幹部某ノ提出セルモノナリ。 （一）軍委員情報部特務情報処駐港処ノ組織。軍事委
員会情報部長 笠ノ秘密ニ設立セル特務情報処ハ人力共ニ豊富ニシテ、内勤組。外勤
組跟踪隊。行動隊。反間隊。一五部ニ分レ活動シアリ。
C01000136200 昭和１７年０２月１１日社会結社「中国中和堂」ニ関シ 五〇部中第二
号－第十五号 興亜機関 極秘 ５０部ノ中１１号 興調第一五号 社会結社「中国中和
堂」ニ関シ 昭和１７年２月１１日 興亜機関 ２月１１日 興亜機関 社会結社『中国中
和堂』ニ関シ 一、第一次中和堂ノ設立状况 中和堂ハ「反清、中華民国建設」ヲ目的
トシテ廣東省順徳県生レー尤列及孫中心二人ガ南洋及米国ニ於テ発起シタルモノニ
シテ民国２年北京政府内政部ニモ認メラレタル団体ナリ。ソノ党員ハ南洋ニ最モ多
ク十余万人ニ及ベリ。 香港澳門ニ於ケル党員ノ有力者ハ尤少甫・黎君樸・李紀堂・
林少鵬・盧光功・邱松山・欧雲軒・李天徳・張我球・李少奇等多数アリタレド概ネ
商人出身
391
C04014908200
作成者名称 陸軍省
資料作成年月日 昭和１７年５月２１日所謂香港惨虐行為に関する加納支店長の談話
に関する件
C01000387500
作成者名称 香港占領地總督 磯谷廉介
資料作成年月日 昭和１７年０５月２８日香港占領地総督部命令
C04123837600
作成者名称 次官｜｜香港経済委員会
資料作成年月日 昭和１７年１０月２１日香港占領地経済復興応急処理に関する件
C04122765500
作成者名称 南支那方面軍参謀長事務取扱 根本博
資料作成年月日 昭和１６年３月２日ｿ聯の援蒋行為並に香港の会社組織に関する情報
送附の件
C04123340700
作成者名称 波集団参謀長 加藤鉄平
資料作成年月日 昭和１６年８月２０日
「対澳門施策要領」に関する件八六四三 波集三戌第二八四号 「対澳門施策要領」ニ
関スル件 昭和十六年八月二十日 波集団参謀長 加藤鉄平 陸軍次官 木村兵太郎殿 南方
参電第一一七号ニ依ル首題ノ件別刷ノ通報告ス 報告先 総軍 参謀本部、陸軍省（参考
迄） 対澳門施策要領 昭一六、八、一九 南支陸海外協定 第一 方針 一、澳門ノ敵性特
ニ対敵交易及密輸行為ヲ禁絶セシムルコトヲ主眼トス 但シ施策ニ方リテハ表面上ハ
澳門ノ中立性ヲ残存シ香港ヨリスル物資取得並ニ情報蒐集等ノ為之カ利用ヲ著シク
不利ナラシメサル事ニ著意ス 第二 指導要領 二、別紙「澳門ニ対スル敵性排除ニ関ス
ル申入事項」ヲ澳門政府ニ対シ申入ル 之カ為先ツ澳門領事ハ澳門ニ於テ直接総
C04123674600
作成者名称 次官｜｜支那派遣軍総参謀長
資料作成年月日 昭和１６年１１月１５日香港政務方針に関する件
陸軍省受領 陸支密受第一一六九八号 香港政務方針ニ関スル件 昭和拾六年十一月拾五
日 （陸支密） 次官ヨリ支那派遣軍総参謀長宛電報（暗） 総参四電第六五二号返 香
港政務方針ニ就テハ目下海軍側ト予想占領地全般ノ処理分担ヲ協議中ニシテ近ク決
定ノ上指示セラルル筈ニ付承知セラレ度 陸支密電四二八 昭和十六年十一月十五日 秘
電報訳 一一月一四日午前後一六時五〇分発 一九時〇〇著 次官 次長宛 発信者 支那派
遣軍総参謀長 総参四電第六五二号 香港攻略後ノ政務方針ニ関シテハ先般宮野大佐上
京ノ際同官ヲシテ之ガ指令方連絡セシメタル所ナルガ当軍トシテハ至急準備（特ニ
人的準備）実情ニ調査シ度ニ付至急何分ノ御指示相成度 追テ要スレバ
C04123630100
作成者名称 南支那派遣第八一一○部隊長 酒井 隆
392
資料作成年月日 昭和１６年１２月９日
規模 24 香港攻略後に於ける軍政実施に関する件
軍事機密 陸軍省受領 陸支密受第一二九五九号 波集参戊第五七五号 香港攻略後ニ於
ケル軍政実施ニ関スル件 昭和十六年十二月九日 南支那派遣第八一一○部隊長 酒井 隆
陸軍次官 木村 兵太郎 殿 香港攻略後ニ於ケル軍政実施ニ関シ「香港九龍政務ニ関ス
ル陸海軍協定」並ニ「第二十三軍香港九龍軍政指導計画」別冊ノ通定メラレタルニ
付報告ス 軍事機密 整理番号 五拾部ノ内第八号 昭和十六年十二月六日 香港、九龍政
務ニ関スル陸海軍協定 第二十三軍司令官 第二遣支艦隊司令長官 第二十三軍司令官及
第二遺支艦隊司令長官ハ「占拠地軍政実施ニ関スル陸海軍中央協定」（以下中央協
定ト略称ス）ニ基キ左ノ如ク協定ス 一、第二十三軍司令官ハ香港島九龍租借地ニ於
ケル軍政ヲ実施ス
Collections of Mr. Wani Yukio
香港占領地総督部『軍事極秘・状況報告』磯谷廉介文書＝独自入手（1942.4.2）
香港占領地総督部『香港軍政の概要』『陸亜密大日記』防衛庁防衛研究所（目録メ
モ）
香港占領地総督部『秘・香港占領地通貨整理要領』（1942.5.15)
The National Archives of Singapore
NA868-NA879. British Military Administration. Chinese Affairs.
MSA 001-026. British Military Administration Files. Social Affairs Department.
Nankwang Weekly nos. 1-117, 1942-1945.
Good Citizens’ guide. Singapore: Syonan Shinbun, 1943.
II. Interviews or Personal Correspondences
Interviews conducted by author
Dr. Arujunan Narayanan, lecturer, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia. 25 April, 2005.
Dr. Geoff Wade, Senior Research Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of
Singapore. 28 April, 2005.
Dr. Huang Jian-li, Associate Professor, Department of History, National University of
Singapore. 15 April, 2005.
Dr. Lim Guan-hock, former Head of National Archives of Singapore. 13 April, 2005.
393
Dr. Ng Chin-keong, Director, Chinese Heritage Centre, Singapore. 18 April, 2005.
Dr. Ngo Tak-wing, Sinological Institute, Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands. 29 June, 2005.
Dr. Paul H Kratoska, Associate Professor, Department of History, National University of
Singapore. 3 May, 2005.
Dr. Teow See-heng, Associate Professor, Department of History, National University of
Singapore. 19 April, 2005.
Dr. Voon Phin-keong, Director, Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, Malaysia. 25 April,
2005.
Dr. Yip Lai Lam (葉禮霖), a resident in Wan Chai, during WWII. 13 May, 2004.
Miss Cheung San-mui (張三妹), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 2 April, 2004.
Miss Leung Wai-fong (梁慧芳), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 28 March, 2004.
Mr Hui Fat, a resident of Singapore during WWII. 2 May, 2005.
Mr Tang Kam-wai (鄧錦華), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 20 April, 2004.
Mr and Mrs Lam, a resident of Hong Kong during WWII.6 April, 2004.
Mr Chen, a resident of Singapore during WWII. 30 March, 2005.
Mr Hui , a resident of Singapore during WWII. 30 March, 2005.
Mr Hui Wai-chen, a resident of Singapore during WWII. 30 March, 2005.
Mr Ko Tim-keung. 31 March, 2004.
Mr Lai, a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 10 May, 2004.
Mr Leung Tong-yee (梁通儀), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 7 May, 2004.
Mr Lim , a resident of Singapore during WWII. 30 March, 2005.
Mr Lo Ping-kong (盧炳光), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 10 May, 2004.
Mrs Pauline Chen, a student in Kowloon during WWII. 17 March, 2006.
Mrs Tang, a resident in Yuen Long, New Territories during WWII. 19 August, 2006.
Ms Law Yin (羅賢), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 10 May, 2004.
Ms Cheung Lai (張來), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 7 May, 2004.
394
Ms Chiu Man-mui (趙雯妹), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 8 April, 2004.
Ms Fan Lai-ping (范麗冰), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 20 April, 2004.
Ms Mary Kwok, who living in the Stanley civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during
WWII. 3 November, 2006.
Ms Wong Wee-hon, Head of Archives Reference, National Archives of Singapore. 13 April,
2005.
Ms Ng (吳執妹), a resident of Hong Kong during WWII. 10 May, 2004.
Professor Ming C. Chan, Coordinator, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford,
California 94305, USA. 14 March, 2006.
Oral History interviewees by Hong Kong Oral History Archives Project, Centre of Asian
Studies, the University of Hong Kong
Anna Kwok
Annie Lee
Darwin Chen
Dorothy Lee
George Choa
Jimmy Wakefield
Jules A Siron
Magdalene Fung
Marjorie Bray
Maximo Cheng
Michael Funk
孔寶千
江潔珠
何福注
余志明
余馬潔文
余蓮彩
吳兆熙
李日樂
李江紋
李我
李流錫
李陳勁秀
李曾超群
杜佑安
阮太
周和熙
395
周廣智
林玉英
林蛟
馬玉蘭
張俊青
張麗蘭
梁有錦
莊南
陸孝佩
華慧娜
黃永儉
黃妙萍
葉若林
葉培蘭
趙雁苑
劉光
劉洪
劉炯興
鄭心墀
鄭翔奮
鄭馮潤梅
鄭學賢
黎秀姬
謝婉娜
謝綺霞
鍾偉明
簡悅強
蘇永昌
冼子霖
Oral History interviewees by the Oral History Department, National Archives of Singapore
Boey, Poh Kim
Choa, Soon Ann
Gan, Charlie
Gay, Wan Guay
Heng, Chiang Ki
Koh Soh Goh
Lee, Kang Kim
Lee, Kim Chuan
Lee, Kip Lin
Lee, Mun Hee
Lim, Bo Yam
396
Lim, Soo Gan
Ng, Jack Kim Boon
Ng, Seng Yong
See, Hong Peng
Soon, Kim Seng
Tan, Leong Teck
Tay, Yen Hoon
Teo, Siew Jin
Yap, Siong Eu
Yeo, Guan Chin
Other interviews
Birch, Alan and Cole, Martin. Captive years: the occupation of Hong Kong, 1941-45. (Hong
Kong: Heinemann Asia, 1982)
Leung, Hermia, Three years & eight months [videorecording] (Hong Kong: RTHK, c1990)
Lincoln, Chris, Occupation [video recording] (Hong Kong: Television Broadcasts Ltd., 2001)
Mopping up operation. Singapore: Oral History Department, 1986. Interviews with Lee Kip
Lin , Dr. Tan Ban Cheng , Tan Cheng Hwee , Soh Guan Bee and Chan Cheng Yean about
the mopping up operations by the Japanese army in Telok Kurau, Paya Lebar, Chinatown and
Jalan Besar. 1 sound cassette (41 min.).
Oral History Project, Centre for East Asian Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Saikung, 1940-1950 (Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1982)
Oral History Department, Sook Ching, (Singapore: National Archives of Singapore, 1992)
Oral History Department, Syonan: Singapore under the Japanese: A Catalogue of Oral
History Interviews, (Singapore: National Archives of Singapore), 1986
Zhang, Huizhen, Kong, Qiangsheng, Cong shi yi wan dao san qian: lun xian shi qi Xianggang
jiao yu kou shu li shi, (Hong Kong : Oxford University Press, 2005)
Transcript of interview conducted by Dr Steve Tsang with David MacDougall, Febraury 26,
1987, Rhodes House.
劉智鵬, 周家建 著, 吞聲忍語 : 日治時期香港人的集體回憶, (香港: 中華書局, 2009)
石田甚太郎. 『日本鬼 : 日本軍佔領下香港住民の戰爭體驗』 (東京 : 現代書館, 1993)
III. Unpublished articles, books and memoirs
Baker, Brain, Christmas in Hong Kong, 1997.
397
Muir, Augustus, The Hong Kong tragedy.
Peter, Kemp, The 1st Battalion in Hong Kong.
岡村恒四郎（海軍技術中佐）回想録『香港海軍工作部』
加藤篤彦『南華抄』（部分）香港攻略・愛知県・隊友会機関紙（1979～）
香港国民学校同窓会『香港国民学校同窓会名簿』（1987）
第三十八師団衛生隊史発刊委員会編,『第三十八師団衛生隊史』（抜粋）香港攻略・
愛知県（1982）
仲山徳四郎（敗戦時香港憲兵隊准尉）『私記・香港の生還者』私家本（1978）
渡辺武（大蔵省為替局大蔵書記官）『（香港）出張報告書』『（香港）金融事情』
（1942)
平岡貞『平岡貞自伝』主婦の友出版サービスセンター（1975）
歩兵第二二八連隊史刊行会編,『歩兵第二二八連隊史』（抜粋）香港攻略・名古屋編
成（1973)
398
B. PRIMARY SOURCES (Published)
I. Newspaper, Magazines and Journals
Newspapers
China Mail
Da Gong Bao, Chungking
Daily Telegraph
Gong Shang Ribao
Guomin Ribao
Hong Kong News
Hong Kong Telegraph
Hua Shang Bao
Shijie Zhanwang, Hankou
South China Morning Post
Sunday Morning Post
Syonan Shimbum (Shonan Times)
The Star, Malaysia
Tokyo Asahi Shimbun
Wah Kiu Yat Po
Zheng Bao
明治大正昭和新聞研究会 編集, 『新聞集成昭和編年史』 (東京 : 新聞資料出版, 1997.4)
ＮＨＫサービスセンター『日本ニュース資料』（香港攻略戦）
全日本新聞連盟『日本新聞大観－第三集』太平洋戦争・従軍記者部分（1982）
Journals and Magazines
Da Hua
Da Ren
Da tong hua bao (大同畫報)
Da zhong zhou bao (大眾周報)
Far Eastern Economic Review
Hong Kong Inc.
Nan fang wen cong(南方文叢)
The Economist
Xian Dong Ya (新東亞)
Xiang dao yue bao(香島月報)
Xiang gang dong yang jing ji xin bao(香港東洋經濟新報)
Xianggang yan jiu zi liao cong kan, (The Journal of resources for Hong Kong studies, 香港硏
究資料叢刊), (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Libraries : Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co.
Ltd,1998)
Ya-Zhou Shang-Bao (亞洲商報)
Zhanggu Yuekan
南洋学报 (新加坡：南洋学会)
399
讀物解說 (香港 : 香港日報)
香港戰犯 (香港: 香港三雄商業服務社, 1946)
II. Government Reports and Papers
English
“Japanese Intelligence Organizations in Malaya” in Analysis of Intelligence Organizations in
World War II, (Tokyo: Kashwashobo publishing, 2000). Volume 6, the Southern Regions.
1940 Blue Book (Annual Blue Book of Statistics), (Hong Kong: Government printer)
1962 Annual Report, (Hong Kong: Government printer)
A Record of the actions of the Hongkong Volunteer Defence Corps in the battle for Hong
Kong December, 1941, (Hong Kong: Lawspeed, 1953)
Annual Report of the Hong Kong Police Force 1946-47
Department of Statistics, Hong Kong, A report on post-war movements in the cost of living in
Hong Kong, (Hong Kong: the Dept., 1950)
Events in Hong Kong on 25th December, 1941, (Hong Kong : Govt. Printer, 1948)
Fraser, John Alexander, Hong Kong war emergency legislation, (authorized by His Excellency
the governor, Sir Geoffry Alexander Stafford Northcote; Hong Kong: printed by Noronha,
1941)
Foreign relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1945, vol. VII, The Far East; China,
US Government Printing Office, Washington, 1969.
Graham, Richard, Singapore War Damage Claims Commission, Report of the War Damage
Claims Commission, 1949, (Singapore: Printed by Govt. Printer, 1950)
Hong Kong Centenary Commemorative Talks, 1841-1941, (Hong Kong: World News Service,
1941)
Hong Kong Civil Service List for 1941,(Hong Kong: The Government printer, 1941)
Hong Kong. Legislative Council. Hong Kong Hansard, 1926 (The Government printer)
Hong Kong Law Reports, Vol. XXX (1946-7)
Hong Kong: Report on the 1961 Census, vol. 2
Internment of European civilians at Stanley during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong,
1941-45
Malaya Comprising the Federation of Malaya and the Colony of Singapore: A Report on the
400
1947 Census of Population (London: Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1949)
The MAGIC Documents: Summaries and Transcripts of the Top Secret Communications of
Japan, 1938-45, University Publications of America, Washington, 1980.
Sir Brooke-Popham, R. Operations in the Far East, from 17th October 1940 to 27th
December 1941, (London: H.M.S.O., 1948)
Sir Lyman P. Duff, Report on the Canadian expeditionary force to the Crown Colony of Hong
Kong (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1942)
The Hong Kong Government Gazette of June 20, 1941
Chinese
中國國民黨駐港澳總支部編, 港澳抗戰殉國烈士紀念冊 , (香港 : 該部, 1946)
Japanese
大蔵省財政室編『昭和財政史－終戦から講和まで－17 資料』東洋経済・部分（1981)
『在香日本人の參考』 (香港: 堀內書店, 昭和 18 [1943])
『私立學校規則、私立幼稚園規程』(香港 : 香港佔領地總督部, 昭和 17 [1942])
明石陽至編集解題, 『軍政下におけるマラヤ・シンガポ-ル教育事情史, 資料(19411945)』 編集復刻版 (南方軍政関係資料 ; 1), (東京 : 龍溪書舎, 1999)
東洋經濟新報社編; 『香港占領地總督部報道部監修, 軍政下の香港: 新生した大東亞の
中核』 (香港 : 香港東洋經濟社, 昭和 19 [1944])
香港占領地總督部民治部庶務課編, 『戶口事務便覽』 (香港 : 該部, 昭和 17[1942])
香港占領地總督部交通部, 『自動車電車從業員日語集 』( 香港 : 該部, 1943)
香港占領地總督部報道部. 『鐵窗見聞錄 : 赤柱監獄收容邦人座談會』 (香港: 該所, 昭
和 17 , 1942)
香港佔領地總督部報道部編, 『新香港の建設』 (香港 : 該部, 昭和 17 [1942])
『香港兵要地誌』 (東京 : 該部, 序昭和 13(1938))
倉沢愛子編解題, 『馬来公報』 復刻版 （南方軍政関係資料 ;
1990)
401
2）, (東京: 龍溪書舎,
倉沢愛子編解題,
1990)
『富公報』 復刻版 （南方軍政関係資料 ;
1）, (東京: 龍溪書舎,
『總督部公報』(香港: 香港佔地總督部)
III. Diaries, Memoirs and Biographies
English
Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma: Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939-1949, (New Haven: Yale
University press, 1968)
Basingstoke, Joseph Kennedy. British civilians and the Japanese war in Malaya and
Singapore, 1941-1945, (Macmillan, 1987)
Blyth, Sally and Wotherspoon, Ian, Hong Kong remembers (Hong Kong : Oxford University
Press (China) Ltd., 1996).
Corr, Gerald H. War of the springing tigers. (London: Osprey, 1975)
Ferguson, Ted, Desperate siege: the battle of Hong Kong. (Toronto, Ont.: Doubleday Canada,
1980)
Fisher, Les, I will remember: recollections & reflections on Hong Kong 1941 to 1945 internment & freedom. (England : Hobbs, 1996)
Fujii, Tatsuki . Singapore assignment. (Tokyo: Nippon Times, 1943)
Gandt, Robert L., Season of storms: the siege of Hongkong 1941. (Hong Kong: South China
Morning Post, 1982).
Gittins, Jean , Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1982)
Greenhous, Brereton. "C" force to Hong Kong: a Canadian catastrophe, 1941-1945.
(Toronto ; Buffalo, NY : Dundurn Press, c1997)
Harrop, Phyllis, Hong Kong Incident (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1943)
Internment diary of Dr Kenneth Uttley Diary, December 1941.
Internment diary of Assistant Superintendent Lance Searle, Rhodes House.
Kuala, T.P.M. Lewis. Changi: the lost years: a Malayan diary, 1941-1945. (Lumpur:
Malaysian Historical Society, 1984)
Lan, Alice Y. and Hu, Betty M. We flee from Hong Kong, (Hong Kong: Bethel Mission of
China )
402
Lee, Kuan Yew, The Singapore story: memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. (Singapore: Prentice Hall,
1998)
Leiper, G.A, A Yen for my thoughts. (Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, 1982)
Li Shu-fan, Hong Kong Surgeon (London: V. Gollancz, 1964)
Lindsay, Oliver, The Lasting Honour: the fall of Hong Kong, 1941 (London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1978)
……………….., A report on the conditions in Hong Kong subsequent to the surrender, and
on the events which lead up to my escape from the prison-of-war camp in Sham-Shui-Po.
……………….., Personal papers of Sir Lindsay Tasman Ride [electronic resource].
(Canberra, ACT: Australian War Memorial, 2001)
……………… , At the going down of the sun: Hong Kong and South-East Asia, 1941-1945.
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981)
Luff, John, The Hidden Years: Hong Kong 1941-1945 (Hong Kong: SCMP, 1967)
MacDonell, George S., One soldier's story 1939-1945: from the fall of Hong Kong to the
defeat of the Japan , (Toronto : Dundurn Press, 2002)
Onishi, Satoru, Hiroku: Shonan Kakyo Shukusei Jiken (Secret Document: The Singapore
Overseas Chinese Purge; Tokyo: Kongo Shuppan, 1977)
Personal experiences during the siege of Hong Kong, December 8th-25th, 1941; Internment
by the Japanese, January 5th - June 29th, 1942. ; Trip home and exchange civilian prisoners
Laurenco Marques, June 30 - August 26th, 1942. Hong Kong: United Press Association.
Rock of fortune [sound recording]: memories of Hong Kong. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
Society for Child Health and Development)
Ryan, Thomas, Jesuits Under Fire in the Siege of Hong Kong, 1941 (London: Burns Oates &
Washbourne, 1944)
Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints: the memoirs of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke (Hong Kong: SinoAmerican Publ. Co., 1975)
Shinozaki, Mamoru. My wartime experiences in Singapore. Singapore: Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies, 1973.
Shinozaki, Mamoru. Syonan, my story: the Japanese occupation of Singapore. Singapore:
Asia Pacific Press, 1975.
Sir Farndale Martin, The Far East theatre, 1939-1946, (London : Brassey's, 2002)
403
Sir Grantham, Alexander William George Herder, Via Ports, from Hong Kong to Hong Kong,
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965)
Soviak Eugene, A diary of darkness: the wartime diary of Kiyosawa Kiyoshi, (Princeton, N.J. :
Princeton University Press, c1999)
Tan Chong Tee, Force 136 : story of a WWII resistance fighter (Singapore : Asiapac Books,
1995)
Tarling, Nicholas. A sudden rampage: the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941-1945.
(London : Hurst, c2001)
Tsuji, Masanobu . Singapore 1941-1942: the Japanese version of the Malayan campaign of
World War II. (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988)
Ugaki, Matome, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945 (Pittsburgh,
Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991)
Vincent, Carl, No reason why: the Canadian Hong Kong tragedy: an examination, (Ontario :
Canada's Wings Inc., 1981).
War Diary of the Hong Kong Police, complied by Superintendent L.H.C. calthrop and with a
preface by Police Commissioner John Pennefather-Evans, 29 October 1942, Hong Kong
Police Archives, Police Training School, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong
Ward, A.H.C., Chu, Raymond W. and Salaff, Janet, The Memoirs of Tan Kah Kee (Singapore:
Singapore University Press, 1994).
Ward, Ian, The killer they called a god. (Singapore: Media Masters, 1992)
Weisbord, Merrily and Mohr, Merilyn Simonds. The valour and the horror: the untold story
of Canadians in the Second World War. (Toronto, Canada : Harper Collins, 1991).
Wilson, Keith, You'll never get off the island: prisoner of war, Changi, Singapore, February
1942 - August 1945, (North Sydney, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 1989)
Wright-Nooth, George, Prisoner of the turnip heads: horror, hunger and humour in Hong
Kong, 1941-1945, (London : Leo Cooper, 1994).
Chinese
茅盾, 脫險雜記, (香港 : 時代圖書公司, 1980).
唐海, 十八天的戰爭: 香港淪陷記, (上海: 新新出版社, 民國 35 [1946])
夏衍, 劫餘隨筆, (香港 : 海洋書屋, 民國 37 [1948])
馬寧, 香島煙雲 , (北京 : 中國華僑, 1989).
404
張才, 大埔風雲 : 東江縱隊港九大隊革命回憶錄 , (廣州 : 廣州現代出版印刷有限公司印,
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莫世祥, 陳紅著, 日落香江 : 香港對日作戰紀實 , (廣州 : 廣州出版社, 1997).
舒巷城, 艱苦的行程 , (香港 : 花千樹出版有限公司, 1999)
葉淺予, 細敘滄桑記流年 : 葉淺予回憶錄 , (北京 : 群言出版社, 1992).
黎樹, 早歲 , (長沙 : 湖南人民出版社, 1986).
鍾紫, 風雨憶同舟 , (廣州 : 廣東人民, 1987).
鄭宏泰, 周振威 著, 香港大老 : 周壽臣, (香港 : 三聯書店, 2006).
鄭宏泰, 香港大老 : 何東, (香港 : 三聯書店, 2007).
鄭宏泰, 香港將軍 : 何世禮, (香港 : 三聯書店, 2008).
陳君葆, 陳君葆日記全集 ,(香港: 商務印書館 (香港) 有限公司, 2004)
Chan, Kwan-po, Chen Junbao ri ji quan ji , (Xianggang : Shang wu yin shu guan (Xianggang)
you xian gong si, 2004)
薩空了, 香港淪陷日記, (北京 : 新華書店, 1985)
Sa Kongliao, Xianggang Lunxian Riji (Beijing: Xin hua shu dian, 1985)
Japanese
小林一博, 『｢支那通｣一軍人の光と影 : 磯谷廉介中将伝』 (東京 : 柏書房, 2000)
Kobayashi, Kazuhiro, "Shina-tsū" ichi gunjin no hikari to kage : Isogai Rensuke Chūjō den,
(Tōkyō : Kashiwa Shobō, 2000)
河村参郎, 『十三階段を上る : 戦犯処刑者の記録』 (東京 : 亜東書房, 1952.4)
Kawamura, Saburo, Jusan Kaidan Wo Noboru (Tokyo: Ato Shobo, 1952)
『香港戰記抄』 (東京 : 六藝社, 昭和 17 [1942])
鮫島盛隆, 『香港回想記 : 占領下の教会に召されて』 (大阪 : 創元社(製作), 1970.1)
鶴来直孝, 『南洋戦の記憶 : 偵察飛行班の太平洋戦争』 (富山 : 桂書房, 2002.3)
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English
50th anniversary of the liberation of Hong Kong, 1945-1995: official programme. (Hong
Kong : Government Printer, 1995)
Alderson, G.L.D., History of Royal Air Force Kai Tak, (Hong Kong : Royal Air Force Kai
Tak, 1972)
Bhargava, K. D. and Sastri, K. N. V., Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the
Second World War 1939-45: Campaigns in S.E. Asia (Delhi: Combined Inter-Services Hist,
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Commemoration Canadians in Hong Kong 1990. (Ottawa, Ont.: Veterans Affairs,
Government of Canada, 1990).
Kathleen, Harland, The Royal Navy in Hong Kong since 1841, (Liskeard, Cornwall : Maritime
Books, 1986)
Kirby, S. W., The War against Japan: Official History of the Second World War, Vol. I
(London: H.M.S.O., 1957-61)
Maltby, C.M., Major-General, “Despatch,” Supplement to the London Gazette, January 29,
1948.
Melson, P.J., White ensign red dragon: the history of the Royal Navy in Hong Kong 18411997 (Hong Kong : Edinburgh Financial Publishing (Asia) Ltd., c1997)
Stacey, C. P., Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War: Six Tears of
War (Ottawa: Cloutier, 1955)
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Publications Ltd., 1985).
Young, Sir Mark, “Despatch: Events in Hong Kong on 25 December 1941,” Special
Supplement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette, July 2, 1948, 1-3.
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中共深圳市委黨史辦公室, 東縱港九大隊隊史徵集編寫組編, 東江縱隊港九大隊六個中
隊隊史, (中共深圳市委黨史辦公室, 1986).
中共廣東省委黨史研究室編. 省港抗戰文化, ( 廣州 : 廣東人民出版社, 1994).
中共寶安縣委黨史辦公室編, 回顧東縱交通工作 , (廣州: 廣東人民出版社, 1987).
中共寶安縣委黨史辦公室編.回顧東縱衛生工作, (廣州 : 廣東人民出版社, 1987).
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東江縱隊史編寫組, 東江縱隊史 ( 廣州 : 廣東人民出版社 : 廣東省新華書店, 1985).
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香港義勇軍華人會編, 香港義勇軍光榮史 , (香港 : 香港義勇軍華人會, 1949).
Japanese
外務省政務局, 『大東亞戰爭ヲ繞ル各國動向』 (東京 : クレス出版, 2001.6)
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