The History of Hong Kong (Part 3)

This is the story of the one as a shipping manager he's running the dock, stocking supplies and making sure every order goes out on time. And Granger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Granger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRanger. Click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done. Hey everyone, welcome back from our history of Hong Kong, part 3 today. Everything is going to become official in this episode with the China History Podcast. Last time in part 2, we went as far as the Chuan Beach hall year, the convention of Chuan B that met well but didn't please anyone on either side. No one on the British side liked it and neither did the emperor and his minders. So today, we're going to pick up from that point in January of 1841. Now the Treaty of Nanjing gets signed in August of 1842. So we have 19 months between the Chuan Beach hall year and the Nanjing Tiao year. So without further ado, let's go examine the gory details of what happened and why. Poor old Qi Shan, remember him? He couldn't please his boss, the Daokwang Emperor. And neither could he please Captain Charles Elliott. Qi Shan was weighed down in the South, no Skype, no QQ, weChat, nothing, not even a fax machine. And he's trying to deal with Elliott, who although a most civil and diplomatic kind of guy was no doubt still breathing heavily down Qi Shan's neck. And he was getting unbearable pressure from the emperor to be tough with these British and don't give an inch at the same time. Elliott was putting maximum pressure on Qi Shan, like only a pushy foreigner knows how to do. He was really leaning on Qi Shan in so many words saying, "You better tell your boss, we mean business." And the emperor was saying, "Don't sign anything." So despite trying to make the best of a hopeless situation, Qi Shan was simply overtaken by events and got himself swept up by the tide of history. The Daokwang Emperor was completely insulated from reality. The retinue that surrounded him in the palace, all manchews, they kept him in the dark. The emperor, even as the opium war was about to erupt, still hardly knew anything about Britain. He had no idea what kind of a place it was, what it was all about, nothing. He seemed fascinated about the one thing he did know about, they had a young queen who ruled them all. And how is it that such a nation was giving China so much heat, those who had access to the emperor controlled everything he saw or heard. Now as I mentioned last time when the whole convention of Chen B was concluded, the British traders had mixed feelings. They thought having a place like Hong Kong to base their operations was convenient and, you know, had almost no downside. They no longer had to cool their heels and macao where they were hardly welcome, you know, but the Portuguese tolerated them somewhat. So having a place like Hong Kong worked out great, but they had one single condition, that one thing that Captain Elliott did, I guess to perhaps a piece that Chinese, saying that even though trade was carried out in Hong Kong as far as tariffs, you know, and what not went, everything would be handled as if they were carrying out the transactions in Huangpu or Wang Poah, you know, the port of Canton. That really didn't sit well with anyone on the British side. Now the captains of trade and those back in London were wondering what the heck was the use of carrying this big fat stick if you didn't use it. It was already well known both in London and amongst the traders that the military superiority of Britain was way beyond anything China had at this time in the Qing dynasty. Why didn't they just take all the marbles? All those of Lord Palmerston's ilk believed that Elliott had been too soft to touch. Lord Palmerston in a letter to Elliott regarding his settlement at Chen B said, "You have disobeyed and neglected your instructions. You seem to have considered my instructions were waste paper which you might treat with entire disregard and that you were at full liberty to deal with the interests of your country according to your own fancy. Without the full employment of that force which was sent to you expressly for the purpose of enabling you to use compulsion if persuasion should fail. I cannot understand why you omitted to employ that force for the very purpose for which it was sent." This was the time when Palmerston would scoff at this whole thing and uttered his legendary words about settling for some useless and barren island with hardly a house upon it. Oh, if Lord Palmerston could only know that 2012 flats and the best parts of that barren island would be going for $7,500 US per square foot. Hey, who knew? How could Palmerston have known the payback on this deal? Captain Elliott's truck would be right up there with the 24 bucks Peter Minuet paid for all of Manhattan from the native Lenape tribe of Indians. Elliott disagreed with Palmerston's way of looking at it. From the point of view of a career naval officer in the British Navy, Captain Charles Elliott could see the share and utter perfection of this harbor that separated Hong Kong island from a peninsula that he could envision filled with ships lined up by the hundreds dropping off and picking up cargo serving the role in southern China. They at Singapore was already performing effectively as a merchandise mart in Southeast Asia. Lord Palmerston also, by the way, was the one who during the US Civil War sided with the Confederates and said the North would never be able to keep the South in the Union. Did he get buried with his foot in his mouth or what? And after his dismissal by Palmerston and after Palmerston was replaced by Lord Aberdeen, this is the fourth Earl of Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon. Elliott wrote to him, quote, "A port such as Hong Kong had the advantages of a large and safe harbor, abundance of fresh water, ease of protection by maritime ascendancy, and no more extent of territory or population than may be necessary. Sir John Barrow, who was then Secretary of the Admiralty, once said of Hong Kong, it had, quote, "an excellent harbor for ships of any size which might be defended against a superior force in time of war." It had a good roadstead for the anchorage of a multitude of ships and plenty of fresh water. Here, a few guns mounted and men to work them, with a ship of war, would afford protection to merchant shipping. In any case, Lord Palmerston would later see the merit in Barrow's advice, but he still thought, why limit themselves down in the South? When a stronghold off the coast of Ningboi in Zhou Shan would be right there on the Yangtze, where since the 5th century BC, everything and everything flowed in and out of the China Heartland, thanks to the Grand Canal and the Yangtze. That was where Palmerston and a lot of traders had their sights on. They had place would have been ideal. Elliott had also written to one of his kin, Lord Auckland, then the Governor General of India, ill advising against any thoughts of pushing for a base off the East China coast. He wrote, "I take the liberty to record my opinion that a treaty which consigns British merchants and ships to the ports of Amoy, Ningboi, and Shanghai, will do no more than place very valuable hostages in the hands of an irritated government, with what may be taken to be a certainty that the impatience of our merchants and the perfidy of the Chinese will rapidly produce new troubles. That her Majesty's government must keep the island of Hong Kong and the immediate organization of the settlement upon a very firm and comprehensive footing is not a question, but in the strictest terms and necessity." Now, despite Commodore Sir Gordon Bremer declaring sovereignty over Hong Kong on January 26, 1841 at possession point, Elliott by February 1841 knew this whole trendy thing wasn't going to happen, and therefore they had to go to Plan B. Possession point, by the way, after years of land, reclamation, and development would be somewhere near where possession street rounds into Queen's Road right near the Macau Ferry terminal. That's where Captain and later Admiral Edward Belcher wrote, "We landed on Monday, the 26th, at 15 minutes past 8, and being the bona fide first possessors, Her Majesty's health was drank with three chairs on possession mount." That's right by that circle K over there. there. Hey, in Belcher, he had a street named after him too, over in Kennedy Town. So, Plan B called for the British ships to force their way into the bog and into the Pearl River all the way to Wampoa. And this is exactly what they did, and in no time at all, the port was theirs, and the Union Jack was flying over the factories from which they had been previously forcibly ejected. And for a while at least, it was business as usual. Half a million pounds a day of tea was loaded on board vessels who would take it back to Europe. In the meanwhile, under these shaky circumstances, Elliott began taking all kinds of ad hoc measures to begin establishing some semblance of order and administration in Hong Kong. Useful projects like roads were begun, the main thoroughfare and the first being Queen's road. In his urgency to get the merchants to come set up shop in Hong Kong, Elliott offered quite favorable land grants that later on had office in London said were too favorable and refused to honor. But in order to get the jar deans and the dense and all the merchant princes to come to Hong Kong, Charles Elliott was most industrious and convincing. There was no governor yet. So Elliott in his capacity as superintendent of trade served as the chief executive for the time being. His main legal official was William Kane of Kane Road up in the mid-levels. He was the one who met it out justice for most of the common problems of the day. July 21, 1841, so early in the game, Hong Kong's residents got to enjoy their first typhoon. Everything constructed up to that moment, which was Ramshackle at best, was destroyed in the storm. Now that they had a good taste of a typhoon, they kept this in the back of their mind and decided to build things a little more solid next time. I think this may have been the typhoon that killed Mamie and Dirk Struehn in Taipan. I'll check on that. What was that later? Anyway, opium was outlawed, but the unwritten rule at the time was that the opium problem was China's to deal with. The British side would neither encourage nor protect opium smugglers, but they didn't make it their policy to go after them either. In other words, status quo. Business as usual, the Dalgwang Emperor, taking the advice of the anti-Western faction who controlled his ear, had made the decision to attack the foreigners and use overwhelming force to evict them from China, and while they were at it, snatched Hong Kong back to. His man, now down in the south, was Yang Fang. He was the one tasked to take over from Qi Shan. Yang Fang ended up finding himself in the same hopeless corner as Qi Shan. He walked down this knife edge of trying to say anything that would placate and assure the Emperor that he was standing up to the British in battle, and at the same time, with Elliott making all this demands, keeping the trade flowing. He was doomed from the get-go, and once the Emperor got wind of what this guy was doing, he canned him. The next one to get the dirty job was Qi Shan. He didn't fare any better than his predecessors as a negotiator. There were 2,395 troops under the command of Major General Sahu Gof, local Hong Kongers might recognize that name from Gof Hill, or Gofushan, with the loss of only one single soldier. Gof took Canton. For all intents and purposes, that is. I mean, this was no knockout punch or anything, but with this show of force by the British, the Chinese had figured out that with their 18th century muskets and dirt of training and discipline, wherever and whenever these two sides faced off against each other, this was never going to be a fair fight. Serving alongside Major General Sahu Gof was Admiral William Parker, first baronette. These two, Gof and Parker, they were the ones doing most of the clobbering. Over the years, the Western media sometimes would pay particular attention to one incident or tempest in a teapot between China and another Western country where China's response is, you know, particularly, bella coasts. And a lot of that, which you hear even today, has this time in history to thank the early 1840s. This is a scam that keeps getting knocked off. It happens once in a while, where the Lao Baishing feel their government doesn't standing up to the west on some issue or another in this whole episode and history has trotted out and pointed at when the occasion arises. Sometimes the government in China has to be mindful of this past humiliation and do or say things to make sure their citizens don't compare them to the manchews of the 1840s. One other interesting thing going on in the background all this time in the city of Canton, Guangzhou, a lot of people, and I mean a lot, earn their daily bread and end in a lot of cases, their sizable fortunes, on this trade with the British and all the westerners who called at the port of Wampoa. A lot of local people depended on this trade, either they had skin in the game and were themselves engaged in the buying and selling of commodities or manufactured goods. Or they were just, you know, a cog in the wheel, clerks, laborers, stevedores, captains of their own, lorches, you know, whatever. So keep in mind, although this was a confrontation between China and Great Britain, you had a lot of people down south who were asking, why should we back the emperor up in this case? Why should we act against our own self-interest? There was this scent in the air amongst those who worked in this trading and manufacturing industry that this was a political problem that the manchew ching rulers needed to sort out themselves. The Cantonese merchants didn't want to do anything to destroy their own livelihood. So the point being when all the fighting was going on and when the British were at their most forceful in making their demands, these guys who were, you know, sent down by the emperor to act tough, they just crumpled. They became fully aware that on the Chinese side, many were working against them. They couldn't win no matter what. No one was going to let them, not the British, and to a large extent, the locals as well. So we all know the story. April 21st, 1841, Captain Charles Elliott, was recalled back to England and it's here where Sir Henry Pottinger enters from stage right, appointed May 3rd, 1841. Now, Sir Henry's instructions were clear. He was to hold on to Hong Kong and check the place out and get the lay of the land. He evaluated its usefulness to Britain. But at the same time, he was to look for a better spot to plant the flag on the East Coast or nearer to Canton. He had arrived in Macau, August 10th, 1841. From this point forward, the diplomacy that Elliott had tried and failed to carry out was replaced with Sir Henry Pottinger's more militaristic ways of providing solutions to certain challenges. Without wasting any time, he set up for the East Coast of China with his force of 2500 men under the able command of Sir William Parker, First Baronette. In no time at all, they captured Shaman on October 1st and then Joe Sean and Ningbo shortly thereafter. Winter set in and the expedition then sailed back to Macau to wait for the return of spring and then to finish up what they started. While they were wintering in the south, the Tories came to power, which as I mentioned just before, saw Lord Aberdeen replacing Palmerston as Foreign Secretary. He didn't see Hong Kong as anything more than a future bargaining chip. He was in the camp of those who didn't care whether Hong Kong or any other island was secured as long as free trade opened up at the usual ports along the East Coast. Pottinger was of a different mindset by now and was convinced of Hong Kong's usefulness and criticality to the future commercial efforts of Britain in China. Then in the year of the Tiger, the water tiger that is March 1842, things get going again when the Chinese try to take back Ningbo and are decisively beaten back. Nine minutes was all it took to smash Joe Sean's defenses. This was a one-sided affair if there ever was one and the British just steamrolled over the Chinese defenders. Then in June, they took the city of Wu Song at the mouth of the Yangtze River followed by Shanghai and then July 21st, 1842 after taking Jiangjiang, home of the best vinegar in China. They closed down the Grand Canal and more or less shut down the Yangtze River. By August of 1842, there was nothing standing in between the British forces and the city of Nanjing. Meanwhile on the Chinese side, once again, the Qing dynasty ruler and his administration were scrambling trying to find a way to deal with the situation at hand. Acting in his role as plentiful potentiary, Pottinger was not in a compromising mode. The days gone by with Captain Charles Eliot's velvet glove were over. over, and he gave the orders to go full steam ahead and attack Nanjing. Now with Nanjing cornered, the Emperor and his whole court knew this choked off the whole supply chain for the grain ships making their northern runs up the Grand Canal. For that and other reasons, the deciders up in Beijing knew the truth. They were outgunned, and if they didn't acquiesce to these demands, it could get much worse for them and the dynasty. Therefore, on August 29, 1842, a date which has lived in Infamy and China, the Treaty of Nanjing was concluded. The terms are well known, but let's go through them anyway. China had to pay war reparations worth 21 million, six million of which had already been paid against the Convention of 20B. This 21 million was to cover the loss of the opium, destroyed on Linsa's shoes orders, in March of 1839, as well as all debts owed by the Kohong, plus the whole cost of the British expedition. Most important though, and the main thing they wanted, the Canton system was smashed, and four new ports were opened to free trade. These were the usual suspects, Maoy, Fucho, Ningbao, and Shanghai. British subjects and consoles were allowed to reside there, and the consoles acted as real consoles, no more funny business. Now, Britain and China were equals, and engaged in trade and diplomacy as equals. Ooh, I bet that was particularly distasteful up in the Forbidden City. Other stuff, you know, exchange of prisoners, agreements on reasonable tariff rates and whatnot were also hammered out. Oh, and also Hong Kong was seated in perpetuity, which last time I checked meant forever and ever, and the Chinese lived with that whole matter of seating Hong Kong for 155 years. The Chinese called this whole Treaty of Nanjing, the first of the Bu Ping Deng Tiao Yit, or the unequal treaties. Back in London, they raised a glass of sherry or two. Aberdeen had insisted to Henry Pottinger that hanging on to Hong Kong, or any chunk of land larger, small and South China Sea, was by no means essential and not part of the ultimate objective of the mission. But Pottinger, he wrote back to Lord Aberdeen about this, and had given his fully loaded unabashed thumbs up regarding Hong Kong. And hanging on to this, Baron Rock, as Aberdeen's predecessor, Lord Pomelstein had called it, Lieutenant General Sir Henry Pottinger, first Baronette GCB PC, he wrote, quote, "The retention of Hong Kong is the only single point in which I exceeded my modified instructions, but every single hour I have passed in the superb country has convinced me of the necessity and desirability of our possessing, such a settlement as an Emporium for our trade, and a place from which her majesty subjects in China may be alike, protected and controlled." After several rounds of back and forth, and given the speed of communications way back then, it wasn't until June 26th, 1843, that a final, ratified treaty was exchanged in Hong Kong. And that is the official date that Hong Kong became a British crown colony. And for all his troubles, Sir Henry Pottinger was named the first governor. And today he is immortalized on the street and the steps named after him that run up from Conout Road and Central across from the IFC and Exchange Square, all the way up to where Hollywood Road and Windham Street sort of come together. That was where my first home was when I moved back there in 1989. Now in between the time Eliot left Hong Kong after the resumption of hostilities, and then after he was dismissed, control was left in the hands of his deputy superintendent of trade, AR Johnston, he of Johnston Road in Wanchai, Johnston ran things until Pottinger's later return in December of 1842. Lord Palmerston, he didn't get his treat. I don't think he got a mountain either, but he sure served as a timeless reminder about how you just never know sometimes the powers that be in London were generally satisfied, but there was this nagging suspicion about what might happen if you know, if you look at a map of China and see the variation in size between Hong Kong and the rest of China, this really is an ant and an elephant situation. So this officially became the first time the British government had to consider the reality that any time they wanted, and if the Chinese could just get their act together in a day or less, tens or even hundreds of thousands of Chinese could swarm in and take Hong Kong back any time they wanted to. And this what if scenario was sort of bubbled at the top every now and then over the 155 years of the colonial period? So nobody was rushing out yet to go by property and central of the peak. The feeling was to wait a bit and see if China was really going to swallow this bitter pill, you know, of the Treaty of Nanjing. Then once it looked like the concrete was about to set, then they went to work. October 8, 1843, more details were worked out at the Treaty of the Boge where the city of Hulman is located, site of the destruction of all the opium under Linz's shoes orders. They settled the whole matter of how much customs duty was to be paid by Britain to China for all traded goods. A myriad of other details related to shipping and how to settle disputes and whatnot was agreed to. Extra territoriality was also insisted upon. And as far as the catalyst that had led everyone to this moment in history, which of course was opium, that got swept under the rug for the time being and no mention was made on paper at least, you know. Due to previous agreements, you know, the opium trade was already outlawed. So if no one over there in China could enforce it, didn't have anything to do with official British policy, then as far as taking the first giant steps to become an Emporium of Trade is so many from William Jardine to Charles Elliott, now potager envisioned. That too was worked out. The British said Hong Kong was totally open for business. Free trade allowed any boat sailing from any of the five treaty ports that carried all the, you know, necessary permission and assorted official documents issued by the Chinese authorities was allowed to come to Hong Kong to trade. Chinese vessels would be inspected by British customs inspectors to make sure they were legit and, you know, had their documentation in order. This was also part of the deal. In other words, the British had said, you China, you can control who you wish to allow to sail here. You know, we're not just going to open this place up to anyone. Now this, as you can imagine, in the eyes of the merchant community, this was a major bummer. They were in an uproar wondering, why the heck did you go and do that? They felt you leave these things like, you know, who controls the waters and who gets permission in China from the Chinese authorities to trade in Hong Kong? I mean, you were just asking for trouble, you know, in complications and corruption on a grand scale. These traders were all thinking, don't regulate a dang thing, just allow everything to be totally open up for grabs. You know, you have something to sell or you're looking to buy, come to Hong Kong. No questions asked. But now, potager had gone ahead and allowed that condition to be inserted. Some say, unknowingly, because only the Chinese version of the treaty contained it. So that threw some major cold water on the hopes and aspirations of the trading community who had all expected this would be the get around to the notion of, you know, open trade only with the five treaty ports. You see, already five treaty ports weren't enough to limiting. Well, now they had to live with it. After this, potagers, popularity plummeted, but you know, you still got the street named after them. As for this condition, the politicians ended up caving on the issue. The way it was supposed to work, a British customs officer would enforce the control of traffic originating in China. This efficient British administrative would police this whole thing for China. He wouldn't expect the papers that were issued by the China government to make sure, you know, this boat was legit. Well, now the go around was that no longer would this British officer inspect any papers. So essentially, whether you carried official documents or not, nobody checked. So this was an early victory for the business community, one of the multitude to follow. Potenture never bounced back from this, and you know, he'd be gone by May of 1844. So this is how things started off. Not too good. It was a very unsteady arrangement that was in place, and it still needed some major ironing out. But no matter what lie ahead, the immediate task at hand was organizing this new colonial possession of theirs. It needed some kind of administration and order. This all began in earnest in early January 1843. The attitude in England was Hong Kong was going to be all about trade and nothing else. So one of the first things that was called for was that the person in charge of all the trade would also be the one in charge of the government. So the roles of superintendent of trade and the governor were to be combined into a single person. And there was some talk about putting the Hong Kong government under the authority of the governor general of India, but you know that idea didn't go anywhere. The immediate concern, you know, Britain being Britain at all and the thing that's also in our American DNA was the matter of law and order. Sir Henry Potager had to start thinking about how to frame a constitution that would, you know, determine the powers and authority of the chief executive, who in this case was himself. And once this was solved, it had to be decided the process of how members of the representative body known forevermore as the legislative council or Ledgego would be selected, you know, and what their powers would be. So once this was taken care of, the matter of the chief executive and the legislative body, the next thing was to establish the courts that would frame the laws and to, you know, put in place the necessary police to enforce the laws and to put that interesting spin on everything. Now Britain had to take this great invention of theirs, this system of law and order and get it up and running at a place where most of their subjects were local Chinese with their own legal traditions and, you know, legal sensibilities. Hong Kong's first constitution came in the form of the Hong Kong Charter of April 5th, 1843. It called for the governor to be assisted by an executive council, Exco, the legislative council or Ledgego was given the powers to make laws, but the powers that be also gave extraordinary powers to the governor to pass his own laws outside Ledgego if he felt it was necessary. This was nothing like it is today. Exco and Ledgego consisted of about two or three men, each of, you know, substantial stature and power in the embryonic Hong Kong society. They were men who all had close access to the governor and in no way was this a liberal, democratic kind of thing in any shape or form. The members were selected by the governor, but final approval on any choices made by the governor was still, you know, confirmed in London. Among the herd of elephants in the room was the matter of Chinese who had been living in Hong Kong, mining their own business and doing their own thing. Many of them had been there since the ancient days of the Song, or even before, and more Chinese were to make their way to Hong Kong in the foreseeable future. How to deal with them and whose law were they subject to should the British try and govern them using Chinese sensibilities whenever possible or should it be clear cut? Their British subjects now and they must do it the British way from now on. Well, they figured out the smart thing was after a great amount of heated discussion was to allow the Chinese to be subject to their own law, at least for the time being. You know, these were all big decisions that I suppose any founding father might have to deal with, but in addition to these big pillars that would hold society together, there was also the immediate necessity of creating a civil administration. Stuff had to be done and departments and offices needed to be created to carry out the actual execution of all these matters, big and small. People needed to be registered, health and sanitation needed to be addressed, so much needed to be done yet. I know I've been peppering this episode with names of this one and that one who got this street or hill named after him. When I lived in Hong Kong back in the 90s, I walked and drove past these street signs thousands of times. Nathan Road, DeVoe Road, Robinson Road, what came first? Hollywood Road in Hong Kong or Hollywood, California? Well, as we plod through the early history of Hong Kong in the coming episodes, we'll meet all these people who played a role and they all played a major role in the establishment of the colony. Man and women, Chinese and Western, are going to emerge who will make contributions that will create that uniqueness that is Hong Kong culture and society. And we'll look at as many as possible as we trace the history of Hong Kong in this post-opium war period. Remember, it's far from over. We still have the era war, second Anglo-Chinese war, second opium war, it's sometimes called. And there's the Treaty of Tianjin, 1858, the Convention of Peaking that's coming in 1898. Next episode, hopefully we'll get through all that. Then when we get to the 20th century, we'll look at how this place evolved. It's a great story filled with the most amazing people. I've already introduced a couple of the greats, Sirun Ran Shah, Mr. Li Ka-sheng, in episodes 49 and 13. I already covered the opium war, although not very thoroughly, in episode CHP #6. So I didn't go into too many details in this history of Hong Kong episode. I strongly urge you to go read Julia Lovell's book, The Opium War, Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China. I urge you to go wallow in the pleasure of this addictive book. Dr. Lovell is a world-renowned scholar and translator of Chinese works. This one was quite good. I have links to it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble on my website. This is Lossel Montgomery, signing off from sunny and pleasant Claremont, California 91711. Take care, everyone, and I hope to see you next time for another exciting episode of The China History Podcast. This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. Call 1-800-GRanger. Find Granger.com or just out by Granger for the ones who get it done.