Abstract
By the 1860s, Hong Kong was seen by Britain not only as an economically valuable trading hub and gateway to the Chinese market, but also as an integral part of a network of military bases that could convey both British force and prestige on a global scale – it had become the empire’s most ‘Eastern Fortress’. In this book, Kwong Chi Man and Tsoi Yiu Lun provide a fresh perspective on Hong Kong’s colonial history by firmly embedding it into Britain’s overall imperial defence strategy between 1840 and 1970, marking the beginning and end of serious British military commitment in East Asia. Kwong and Tsoi bring together the latest scholarship on the territory’s military history and augment it with insights drawn from a wealth of British, Chinese, and Japanese sources, some of which have only recently been declassified.
In a total of 11 chapters, organized chronologically, Kwong and Tsoi illuminate Hong Kong’s ever-changing strategic role in the above defence network: from a springboard for projecting the Royal Navy’s power throughout the region to its gradual demise into an imperial ‘outpost’ that relied more on deterrence and its symbolic worth rather than the actual military strength it could muster. Repeatedly, the book offers intriguing insights into the complicated power struggles between the military in Hong Kong, the colonial government, and the authorities in London, revealing that local political objectives often had to take a backseat to strategic concerns.
Much to the delight of the reader, Kwong and Tsoi do what other military historians often fail to do. They successfully connect attention to technological and strategic-military detail with overarching socio-economic developments, while also avoiding military or academic jargon. The authors show, for instance, how urbanizing processes of the growing port city and defence plans markedly influenced each other. The installation of hospitals, passing of venereal disease legislation and regulations as well as the emergence of amusement opportunities, such as those found in the red light district of Wan Chai, all impacted on life in the colony and, in part, shaped Hong Kong’s appearance to this day.
Kwong and Tsoi deserve further praise for offering a new take on Hong Kong’s European–Chinese relations as they evolved under British rule. They do away with the myth that local Chinese had been largely absent from British military units, mostly owing to what was seen as a deep suspicion the British harboured towards the Chinese. While racial tensions and prejudice did undoubtedly exist in colonial Hong Kong, the authors show that even before the Second World War well over 1,000 Hong Kong Chinese had been trusted to serve in regular and auxiliary units, even in their own formation, the Hong Kong (Chinese) Regiment. In the 1950s, service numbers increased significantly with the advent of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps, which accepted Chinese as career soldiers. The chance to also include in the analysis the Indians and Gurkhas who made up the bulk of the military personnel protecting colonial Hong Kong is, however, woefully left unexploited here.
It is worth noting at this point that the overwhelming majority of the book was penned by Kwong, an expert of modern military history at Hong Kong Baptist University. Co-author Tsoi, a history and liberal studies teacher at Hong Kong’s Mu Kuang English School, weighs in on only a single but central chapter which discusses the colony’s most violent episode, its invasion by Japanese forces in December 1941. The British surrender after 18 days of battle has long stood as alleged proof for Britain’s lack of both commitment to and competence in defending Hong Kong. This ushered in the commonly held belief of Britain having abandoned the colony and its people in their greatest hour of need. While the authors largely follow the established view that Hong Kong was deemed indefensible, they show that Britain had repeatedly exhibited its willingness to invest large sums into the colony’s defence nevertheless, fielding complicated experimental hardware or funding the construction of expensive fixed defences, like the Gin Drinker’s Line. Such commitment, Kwong and Tsoi argue, made Hong Kong actually better prepared for war than many other British possessions. Taking full advantage of their multilingual sources, the authors furthermore recast the popular image of Japanese military expertise. They argue that the execution of Hong Kong’s invasion was relatively poor and much of its success was owed to mere coincidence or the obvious asymmetry in troop strength in favour of the Japanese.
Eastern Fortress is an excellent addition to the study of military history in Asia that connects detailed and source-heavy micro-analysis with a meaningful macro-perspective. The reader will also find the appendices helpful, which include a review of the relevant literature, further details on the command structure of the British garrison, and lists of local service commanders. Crucially, the book covers a locale that has hitherto often been sidelined for a focus on its rival in the imperial defence network – Singapore – Britain’s designated main naval base in Asia. A full-length comparison between Hong Kong and Singapore, in military matters and beyond, would be a promising endeavour for future research.