Smooth Transition? Dismantling and Accommodating Colonial Rule in Late 1940s South China

ABSTRACTThis article explores connections and continuities between the Second World War and the early Cold War in three territories under European colonial rule in South China. It argues that the dismantling of French power in Guangzhouwan and the maintenance of British and Portuguese rule in Hong Kong and Macau owed as much to the specific wartime experience of these territories as to the convergence of competing post-war interests in China and Southeast Asia. Drawing on multilingual sources, this comparative study sheds new light on the challenges and opportunities posed by remnants of colonialism in South China for the Kuomintang, the CCP, and other actors in a context of Chinese Civil War, early Cold War and decolonisation.KEYWORDS: ChinaGuangzhouwanHong KongMacauGuangdongcolonialismdecolonisation AcknowledgementsResearch for this article was generously funded by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. Versions of this paper were presented at the Association for Asian Studies and the British Association for Chinese Studies conferences in 2022. I would like to thank Lane Harris and other fellow panellists and audience members for their questions and comments. I also want to thank Gary Chi-hung Luk, Michael Sugarman, Covell Meyskens, Pete Millwood and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and suggestions.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 Chiang Kai-shek, China’s Destiny & Chinese Economic Theory (New York: Roy Publishers, 1947), 102, 151-2.2 Rana Mitter, ‘British Diplomacy and Changing Views of Chinese Governmental Capability across the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945’, in Hans van de Ven, Diary Lary, and Stephen R. MacKinnon, eds., Negotiating China’s Destiny in World War II (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 42.3 Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Geoffrey C. Gunn, ed., Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016); Antoine Vannière, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, colonie clandestine: Un territoire à bail français en Chine du Sud, 1898–1946 (Paris: Les Indes savants, 2020), chapter 13; Bertrand Matot, Fort Bayard: Quand la France vendait son opium (Paris: Éditions François Bourin, 2013), chapter 7; Chuning Xie, ‘China’s Casablanca: Refugees, Outlaws, and Smugglers in France’s Guangzhouwan Enclave’, in Joseph W. Esherick and Matthew T. Combs (eds), 1943: China at the Crossroads (Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2015), 391–425.4 Wu Su-feng, ‘Song Ziwen yu “jianshe xin Guangdong” (1947nian 9yue–1949nian 1yue)’, Donghua renwen xuebao, 5 (2003), 119-59; Steve Tsang, Hong Kong: An Appointment with China (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997); Wm. Roger Louis, ‘Hong Kong: The Critical Phase, 1945–1949’, The American Historical Review, 102/4 (1997), 1051–84; Chi-kwan Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War: Anglo-American Relations, 1949-1957 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Priscilla Roberts and John M. Carroll, eds., Hong Kong in the Cold War (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016); Moisés Silva Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 1949–1979 (Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2006); Francisco Gonçalves Pereira, Accommodating Diversity: The People’s Republic of China and the ‘Question of Macao’ [1949–1999] (Lisbon: CCCM, 2013).5 ‘Decolonisation’ is used here in a narrow sense of transfer of power. There are, however, different perspectives on when – or if – Hong Kong was ‘decolonised’. See, for example, Chi-kwan Mark, ‘Lack of Means or Loss of Will? The United Kingdom and the Decolonization of Hong Kong’, The International History Review, 31/1 (2009), 45–71; Wing-sang Law, ‘Decolonisation Deferred: Hong Kong Identity in Historical Perspective’, in Wai-man Lam and Luke Cooper, eds, Citizenship, Identity and Social Movements in the New Hong Kong: Localism after the Umbrella Movement (London: Routledge, 2018), 13–33.6 The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, etc. (Hong Kong: Hongkong Daily Press Office, 1910), 1029.7 Steven Pieragastini, ‘State and Smuggling in Modern China: The Case of Guangzhouwan/Zhanjiang’, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 25 (2017), 116.8 Yang Weizhen, ‘Postwar Sino-French Negotiations about Vietnam, 1945-1946’, in Negotiating China’s Destiny, 205–6.9 Chan Lau Kit Ching, China, Britain and Hong Kong (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1990), 265–7; Philip Thai, China’s War on Smuggling: Law, Economic Life, and the Making of the Modern State, 1842-1965 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), chapter 5; Xie, ‘China’s Casablanca’,401; Denise Y. Ho, ‘Hong Kong, China: The Border as Palimpsest’, Made in China, 3 (2020), 96.10 Xie, ‘China’s Casablanca’, 399; Li Yinghui, ‘Wu Tiecheng yu zhanshi Guomindang zai Gang’Ao de dangwu huodong’, in Chen Hongyu, ed., Wu Tiecheng yu jindai Zhongguo (Taipei: Huaqiao xiehui zonghui, 2012), 65–88; Christine Loh, Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 56–66; Cindy Yik-yi Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 1937–1997 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), chapter 2.11 Vannière, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, colonie clandestine, 536; Matot, Fort Bayard, 201–202.12 Matot, Fort Bayard, 203.13 E.g. ‘En plein accord avec le government français – Les troupes japonaises occupent la concession de Kouang Tchéou Wan,’ L’Œuvre, 23 Feb. 1943, 1.14 Matot, Fort Bayard, 204.15 See files in Arquivo Histórico Diplomático (AHD), 2P, A48, M212, proc. 33,2 Relações Políticas de Portugal com o Japão.16 Gabriel Maurício Teixeira, governor of Macau, to Francisco José Vieira Machado, minister of colonies, 19, 23, and 27 Feb. 1943, Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo, Arquivo Oliveira Salazar (ANTT, AOS), NE-10A2, cx. 768.17 ‘Vapor Ving Vá’, A Voz de Macau, 4 Jan. 1943, 3; Teixeira to Machado, 12 June 1943, ANTT, AOS, NE-10A2, cx.768; Extract from Macau letter to Guilin, 14 June 1943, sent with despatch from the British Embassy in Chongqing to FO, 8 Sept. 1943, The National Archives (TNA), FO 371/35736; Research Department, Foreign Office, ‘Macau. The Territory and Population’, 23 Aug. 1948, 5, TNA, CO 537/3339; Geoffrey C. Gunn, ‘Wartime Macau in the Wider Diplomatic Sphere’ in Wartime Macau, 28–29.18 Teixeira to Machado, 27 Feb. 1943, ANTT, AOS, NE-10A2, cx. 768.19 ‘Accord particulier faisant suite à l’accord local franco-japonais pour la défense commune du Territoire de Kouang-Tchéou-Wan et accord des details d’exécution’, 17 May 1943, Archives nationales d’outre mer (ANOM), GGI CM 780.20 Matot, Fort Bayard, 203.21 Fabienne Mercier, Vichy face à Chiang Kai-shek: Histoire diplomatique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995), 202; Vannière, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, colonie clandestine, 537.22 Mercier, Vichy face à Chiang Kai-shek, 194–5.23 Ibid., 237; Yang, ‘Postwar Sino-French Negotiations’, 206.24 Ibid., 206; Mercier, Vichy face à Chiang Kai-shek, 244–5.25 Zinovi Pechkoff, ambassador in Chongqing, to ambassador and commissioner of foreign affairs in Algiers, 12 Sept. 1944, ANOM, 2 HCI, 156.26 Roques, ‘procès verbal’, 26 Mar. 1945, 2-6, 6–18, ANOM, 2 HCI 220.27 Roques to heads of constituencies (chefs de circonscription) and department heads (chefs de service), 11 Mar. 1945; Roques to Colonel Yamada, head of the Japanese mission in Fort Bayard, 12 Mar. 1945, ANOM, 2 HCI 220.28 Roques to Pechkoff, 26 Aug. 1945, ANOM, 2 HCI 220.29 Ibid.30 Tsang, Hong Kong, 38.31 J. C. Sterndale Bennett, record of conversation with Francofort, 9 July 1945. TNA, FO 371/46270.32 Ibid.33 Vannière, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, colonie clandestine, 550–1; Matot, Fort Bayard, 212.34 See files in TNA, FO 371/46270.35 ‘Sino-French Convention on Rendition of Kwangchowan signed today’, 1, 18 Aug. 1945, sent by the British embassy in Chongqing to the principal secretary of state for foreign affairs on 22 Aug. 1945. TNA, FO 371/46270; for the original French version see ANOM 2 HCI 2020.36 Matot, Fort Bayard, 215; Roques to Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, high commissioner in Indochina, 20 Nov. 1945, ANOM, 2 HCI 220.37 ‘Zhanjiang shouren shizhang Guo Shouhua yu chuqi jianshe’, Zhanjiang wanbao (29 Aug. 2019), https://h5.newaircloud.com/detailArticle/8566344_11593_zjrb.html (accessed 14 Feb. 2021); Roques to d’Argenlieu, ANOM, 2 HCI 220; Vannière, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, colonie clandestine, 553; Matot, Fort Bayard, 216–7.38 Matot, Fort Bayard, 218.39 ‘Guo Shouhua’, Baidu baike: https://baike.baidu.com/item/郭寿华 (accessed 14 Feb. 2021).40 ‘Zhanjiang shouren shizhang Guo Shouhua yu chuqi jianshe’.41 Roques to d’Argenlieu, ANOM 2HCI 220.42 “Liste des personnels embarquees a bord du “Guardian” and ‘Liste des passagers non europeens embarques a bord du “Guardian”’, ANOM, 2 HCI 2020; Vannière, Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, colonie clandestine, 553; Matot, Fort Bayard, 216.43 Max Berman, ‘Report on Kwangchowan (Tsamkong), Liuchow, and a road journey through Kwangsi province October 30th to Nov. 21st 1946’, 22 Nov. 1946, 3, TNA, WO 252/850; Extract of letter from Mr. Cleopatre, director of the Banque d’indochine in Zhanjiang and chargé of French interests, 31 Oct. 1946, ANOM, 3 HCI 150; director of the federal police and sûreté to d’Argenlieu, 25 Nov. 1946, ANOM, 3 HCI 87.44 Berman to staff officer (intelligence), Hong Kong, 22 Nov. 1946, TNA, WO 252/850.45 Pieragastini, ‘State and Smuggling in Modern China’, 119-20; Berman, ‘Report’, 22 Nov. 1946, 3, TNA, WO 252/850.46 Thousands of Nationalist troops dispatched to oversee the Japanese surrender stayed in North Vietnam from August 1945 to March 1946. Estimates of the precise figures vary from between 50,000 and 100,000 (Peter M. Worthing, Occupation and Revolution: China and the Vietnamese August Revolution of 1945 [Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2001], 58) to as high as 200,000 (Yang, ‘Postwar Sino-French Negotiations’, 219).47 E.g. Tsang, Hong Kong; Louis, ‘Hong Kong’; Kent Fedorowich, ‘Decolonization Deferred? The Re-establishment of Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1942–45’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28/3 (2000), 25–50.48 Tsang, Hong Kong, 36-7.49 Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 130; Fedorowich, ‘Decolonization Deferred?’, 26.50 Shian Li, ‘The Extraterritoriality Negotiations of 1943 and the New Territories’, Modern Asian Studies, 30/3 (1996), 632-40; Zhaodong Wang, ‘Reviewing the 1943 Sino-British Treaty Negotiations: The United States’ Role in Ending British Imperialism in China’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 49/5 (2021), 981–2.51 Tsang, Hong Kong, 39-40; Fedorowich, ‘Decolonization Deferred?’, 28-9.52 Helena F. S. Lopes, Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 231–2.53 Felicia Yap, ‘A “New Angle of Vision”: British Imperial Reappraisal of Hong Kong during the Second World War’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 42/1 (2014), 86-113; Hong Kong Public Records Office, Book 940.53 SOM 1945, Some Records of the Plans Made During the War Against Japan by British Residents in Macao.54 Tsang, Hong Kong, 41, Fedorowich, ‘Decolonization Deferred?’, 40.55 Tsang, Modern History, 131; Fedorowich, ‘Decolonization Deferred?’, 26.56 Li, ‘The Extraterritoriality Negotiations of 1943’, 645; Andrew Whitfield, Hong Kong, Empire and the Anglo-American Alliance at War, 1941-1945 (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2001), 115; Fedorowich, ‘Decolonization Deferred?’, 38; Lanxin Xiang, Recasting the Imperial Far East: Britain and America in China, 1945-1950 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 22.57 António José Telo, Portugal na Segunda Guerra (1941-1945), vol. II (Lisbon: Veja, 1991), 212; Carlos Teixeira da Motta, O Caso de Timor na II Guerra Mundial: Documentos Britânicos (Lisbon: Instituto Diplomático, 1997), 160; Gunn, ‘Wartime Macau in the Wider Diplomatic Sphere’, 48.58 Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints: The Memoirs of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke (Hong Kong: Sino-American Publishing Company, 1975), 99; Ronald Taylor, The Arthur May Story: Hong Kong 1941-1945 (Middletown: CreateSpace, 2015), 91-5; Brian Edgar, ‘Myths, Messages and Manoeuvres: Franklin Gimson in August 1945’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, 58 (2018), 7-29.59 Tsang, Modern History, 133-4; Louis, ‘Hong Kong’, 1063.60 Tsang, Modern History, 135; Louis, ‘Hong Kong’, 1055.61 ‘President Chiang’s Address to Joint Session of Supreme National Defense Council and C.E.C. [KMT Central Executive Committee]’, 27 Aug. 1945, ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 3441; Tsang, Modern History, 151.62 Tsang, Hong Kong, 53.63 Note from the French naval attaché in Shanghai, 26 June [1946], ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 3441.64 Xiang, Recasting the Imperial Far East, 68.65 Tsang, Hong Kong, 62.66 ‘Britain will return H.K.’, Malaya Tribune, 15 May 1946, ANOM 3 HCI 188.67 ‘Situation politique au Kouangtong et a Canton’, sent with despatch from the consulate in Guangzhou to Jacques Meyrier, ambassador to China, 31 Jan. 1946, 7, ANOM, 3 HCI 150; ‘Situation politique a Canton et au Kouangtong pendant le mois de juin 1946’, sent with despatch from the consulate in Guangzhou to Meyrier, 20 July 1946, 1, ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 3441; Tsang, Hong Kong, 62.68 Discussed in detail in Zhaodong Wang, Sino-British Negotiations and the Search for a Post-War Settlement, 1942-1949: Treaties, Hong Kong, and Tibet (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 108-17.69 Central News Agency, ‘10,000 Students Demonstrate against “Pingshan Airfield” and “Carcopino” Cases’, 25 Jan. 1946, TNA, CO 537/3339; Paul Viaud, French consul in Guangzhou, to Meyrier, 22 Jan 1948, and Meyrier to Émile Bollaert, high commissioner in Indochina, 17 and 19 Jan. 1948, ANOM, 1 HCI 150; José Calvet de Magalhães, consul in Guangzhou, to José Caeiro da Mata, minister of foreign affairs, 26 Jan. 1948, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.70 Mark Young to Arthur Creech Jones, secretary of state for the colonies, 17 Apr. 1947, TNA, FO 371/63388; Louis, 'Hong Kong', 1059, 1069.71 N. L. Mayle, Colonial Office to G. V. Kitson, Foreign Office, 24 May 1947, TNA, FO 371/6388.72 ‘Pressure upon Hongkong’, Times, 2 June 1948, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.73 Diana Lary, ‘The Guangxi Clique and Hong Kong: Sanctuary in a Dangerous World’, in Lee Pui-tak, ed., Colonial Hong Kong and Modern China: Interaction and Reintegration (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), 155-67.74 ‘Hong Kong Exiles Combat Nanking’, New York Times, 4 Apr. 1948, 17.75 Young to Jones, 20 Mar. 1947, TNA, FO 371/63388.76 High Commission of France in Indochina, External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, Indochina Base, intelligence bulletin, 27 Jan. 1948, 12, ANOM, 2 HCI 151; Alexander Grantham, governor of Hong Kong, to Jones, 11 Aug. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.77 Record of talk between Heathcote-Smith, political adviser, and Li Jishen, 5 Aug. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.78 On the latter see Peter E. Hamilton, Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021).79 Ralph Stevenson, British ambassador to China, to Young, 8 May 1947, TNA, FO 371/63388 and CO 537/2197.80 Georges Bidault, minister of foreign affairs, to Bollaert, 9 Jan. 1948, ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 2652.81 From Hong Kong Officer Administering the Government to Jones, 21 May 1947, TNA, FO 371/63388 and CO 537/2197.82 Li Jishen to Colonial Secretary, 12 Jan. 1948; ‘Draft Resolutions (Action Program), of China Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee’, sent by Grantham to the British ambassador in Nanjing, 16 Feb. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.83 Aide memoire by the Chinese embassy in London, 21 July 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722; Stevenson to FO, 25 Nov. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.84 P.W. Scarlett, FO, to Mayle, 12 Mar. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.85 High Commission in Indochina, External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, 4-5, 12.86 Lin Hsiao-ting and Wu Su-feng, ‘America’s China Policy Revisited: Regionalism, Regional Leaders, and Regionalized Aid (1947-49)’, The Chinese Historical Review, 19/2 (2012), 107-27.87 Extract of savingrams from Grantham to Jones, 13 Mar. and 2 Apr. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.88 Grantham to Jones, 31 Dec. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.89 FO China Department record of interview with Bishop Ronald Hall, 6 July 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.90 On Hong Kong see James T. H. Tang, ‘World War to Cold War: Hong Kong’s Future and Anglo-Chinese Interactions, 1941-55’ in Ming K. Chan, ed., Precarious Balance: Hong Kong Between China and Britain 1842-1992 (London: Routledge, 1994), 109.91 Helena F. S. Lopes, ‘Ghosts of War: China’s Relations with Portugal in the Post-war Period, 1945-49’, Historical Research, 94/265 (2021), 601-28; Wu Su-feng, ‘Shenzhang zhengyi? Zhanhou yindu taoni Aomen hanjian (1945-1948)’, Guoshiguan xueshu jikan 1 (2001), 128–60.92 Zhang Fakui, Zhang Fakui koushu lishi: Zizhuan Guomindang lujun zong siling huiyilu (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 2012 [2013 repr.]), 322.93 British consulate in Macau to embassy in Chongqing, 5 Jan. 1946, TNA, CO 537/3339.94 Harcourt to Jack Lawson, secretary of state for war, 15 Nov. 1945, TNA, CO 537/3339.95 ‘Macao, General Political Developments In’, 23 May 1947, TNA, CO 537/3339.96 Guoshiguan, Xingzheng yuan, 01400000186A, ZhongPu qianding pingdeng xinyue an.97 Portuguese minister in Tokyo to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 11 Feb. 1946, AHD, 2P, A47, M151; Meyrier [to Ministry of Foreign Affairs], 11 Feb. 1946, ANOM, AFFPOL 2652.98 Pereira, Accommodating Diversity, 33.99 ‘Future of Macau’, South China Morning Post (SCMP), 12 Apr. 1947, 1; ‘Macao’s Return Asked’, SCMP, 21 Apr. 1947,10; ‘Chinese Want Macao Back’, Sunday Tribune, 1 June 1947, 5; typed information ‘B/ Macao’, undated, ANOM, 3 HCI 41.100 ‘Rendition of Macau’, SCMP, 28 June 1947, 1.101 Ibid.; ‘Return of Macao’, SCMP, 22 May 1947, 1.102 João de Barros Ferreira da Fonseca, minister to China, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 20 Apr. 1948, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.103 See files in TNA, FO 371/75789.104 ‘Position of Macao in relation to the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance’ minutes, Mar. 1949, TNA, FO 371/75789.105 Hong Kong O.A.G. to Jones, 3 Oct. 1949, TNA, FO 371/75790.106 Caroline Guterres to W. P. Montgomery, UK trade commissioner to Hong Kong, 16 May 1949, TNA, FO 371/75789.107 ‘Situation politique au Kouangtong et a Canton’, sent with despatch from the consulate in Guangzhou to Meyrier, 31 Jan. 1946, 5, ANOM, 3 HCI 150.108 Focusing on British officials in Hong Kong, Louis has argued for the importance of individuals in the historical process (see Louis, ‘Hong Kong’, 1057-8) and that approach is also illuminating when considering Nationalist figures.109 ‘China’s Position’, SCMP, 22 Feb 1946, 1, 8; ‘Mr Sun Foo in Macao’, SCMP, 25 Feb 1946, 4.110 ‘Dr Sun Fo here’, SCMP, 14 Aug. 1947, 1; ‘Dr Sun Honoured’, SCMP, 22 Aug. 1947, 12.111 ‘Dr Sun Speaks’, SCMP, 15 Aug. 1947, 12. The Young Plan for constitutional reform in Hong Kong was then being debated.112 ‘O Vice-Presidente da Republica da China, Sr. Dr. Sun Fó, em Macau’, Notícias de Macau, 25 Aug. 1947, 8.113 ‘Return of Macao’, SCMP, 27 Aug. 1947, 1; ‘Ordem Sensacional de Chiang Kai Shek’, Notícias de Macau, 27 Aug. 1947, 1; Fonseca to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4 Sept. 1947, AHD, 2P, A47, M151; Fonseca to Caeiro da Mata, 29 Jan. 1949, AHD, 2P, A48, M211.114 Lin and Wu, ‘America’s China Policy Revisited’, 111.115 Eduardo Brazão, consul in Hong Kong, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 25 July 1947, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.116 French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Note ‘Resumé des évenements politics en Extrême-Orient et dans le Pacifique’, Nov. 1947, 5, ANOM, 1 AFFPOL 2652.117 Magalhães to Caeiro da Mata, 28 Nov. 1947, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.118 Ibid.119 Wu, ‘Song Ziwen yu “jianshe xin Guangdong”’’, 135-48.120 Lin and Wu, ‘America’s China Policy Revisited’, 111.121 Ibid., 112-4.122 Royal Institute of International Affairs, ‘Hong Kong and Shanghai’, 8, 9 Mar. 1947, TNA, FO 371/63388.123 Thai, China’s War on Smuggling, 237-8. One report observed that the Macau market had ‘absorbed more gold during the 6 months [from] September 1947 to March 1948 than any other market in the world’ (Research Department, FO, ‘Macau. The Territory and Population’, 23 Aug. 1948, 6, TNA, CO 537/3339).124 Aide memoire by the Chinese embassy in London, 21 July 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722; Wu, ‘Song Ziwen yu “jianshe xin Guangdong”’, 150.125 Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History Archives, Waijiaobu, 11-10-06-01-41, Zhongguo Aomen jian jingji guanwu xieding; Pereira, Accommodating Diversity, 36; Thai, China’s War on Smuggling, 239.126 José Calvet de Magalhães, Macau e a China no Após Guerra (Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente, 1992), 46-7; Pereira, Accommodating Diversity, 35; Albano Rodrigues de Oliveira, governor of Macau, to Teófilo Duarte, minister of the colonies, 5 Jan. 1949, ANTT, AOS, UL-10A3.127 Thai, China’s War on Smuggling, 239.128 Wu, ‘Song Ziwen yu “jianshe xin Guangdong”’, 152.129 Aide memoire by the Chinese embassy in London, 21 July 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.130 ‘Situation generale en Chine au 31 decembre 1947’, 19, note sent by lieutenant-coronel Guillermaz, the military, naval and air attaché of the French embassy in China to the national defence general staff, 1 Jan. 1948, ANOM, 2 HCI 151.131 High Commission in Indochina, External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, 6-7; Viaud to Bollaert, 20 Mar. 1948, and other files on military cooperation, ANOM, 3 HCI 83.132 Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Ministry of Colonies, 23 Jan. 1948, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.133 Magalhães to Caeiro da Mata, 20 Oct. 1947, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.134 Grantham to Jones, 16 Dec. 1947, TNA, CO 537/2197; Grantham to Mayle, 5 Apr. 1948 and Grantham to Jones, 26 Apr. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.135 Louis, ‘Hong Kong’, 1070.136 Grantham to Jones, 16 Dec. 1947, TNA, CO 537/2197; Wang Sze-zee, ‘T.V. Soong Visits Hongkong’, China Weekly Review, 20 Dec. 1947, 89; extract of secret savingram from Hong Kong to Jones, 7 July 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722.137 Record of talk between Heathcote-Smith and Li Jishen, 5 Aug. 1948, TNA CO 537/3722.138 General Staff-Second Bureau, Saigon, ‘Note d’information – Situation en Chine du Sud’, 7 Apr. 1948, 1, ANOM, 2 HCI 151.139 Extract from Hong Kong secret savingram, 22 Dec. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722; Brazão to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 18 Dec. 1948, AHD, 2P, A47, M151.140 See files in TNA, CO 537/4818.141 ‘Volunteers for Vietnam’, SCMP, 15 Dec. 1949, 16.142 Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, ‘Humanitarian Assistance and Propaganda War: Repatriation and Relief of the Nationalist Refugees in Hong Kong’s Rennie’s Mill Camp, 1950-1955’, Journal of Chinese Overseas, 10/2 (2014), 165-96; on Macau see ‘Note’ by A. Brugere, French vice-consul in Hong Kong, sent by Jobez to Robert Schuman, minister of foreign affairs, 25 Nov. 1949; Captain Echinard, adjunct naval attaché of the French embassy in China, to High Commission in Indochina, 29 Nov. 1949, ANOM, 3 HCI 41.143 Grantham to Jones, 28 Jan. 1949, TNA, CO 537/4818.144 Extract from secret savingram from Grantham to Jones, 14 May 1949, TNA, CO 537/4818.145 Montgomery to under-secretary, Commercial Relations & Exports Department, Board of Trade, London, 11 Aug. 1949, TNA, FO 371/75790.146 Loh, Underground Front, 58; Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 27-8; Jason M. Kelly, Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China’s Capitalist Ascent (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), 23.147 Ibid. Its operations in Hong Kong were analogous and connected to Guangzhouwan (Guo Yuhua, ‘Zhonggong nanlü dangzuzhi zai Guangzhouwan de geming gongzuo [1937-1945], Xue lilun, 10 [2017], 182-4).148 Loh, Underground Front, 60-3.149 Tsang, Modern History, 139; Gordon Y.M. Chan, ‘Hong Kong and Communist Guerrilla Resistance in South China, 1937-1945’, Twentieth-Century China, 29/1 (2003), 39-63; Loh, Underground Front, 64-5.150 Kelly, Market Maoists, chapter 1.151 Iok Lan Fu Barreto, ed., Macau during the Sino-Japanese War (Macao: Cultural Institute and Museum of Macao, 2002), 146-50.152 Ibid., 160-1; Chan, ‘Hong Kong and Communist Guerrilla Resistance’, 47.153 Deng Kaisong, Lu Xiaomin and Yang Renfei, Aomen shihua (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011), 293; Wu Zhiliang, Segredos da Sobrevivência – História Política de Macau (Macau: Associação de Educação de Adultos de Macau, 1999), 304.154 H. Rabbetts, consul in Macau, report ‘Some Facts about the Actual Political Situation in the Chung San District’, 7 Nov. 1947, 2-3, TNA, CO 537/3720.155 Record of talk between Heathcote-Smith, political adviser, and Li Jishen, 5 Aug. 1948, TNA, CO 537/3722; Xiang, Recasting the Imperial Far East, 101; Tsang, Hong Kong, 69-71; Tsang, Modern History, 153; Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 39; Loh, Underground Front, 73; Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 26-7; Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 52-6.156 Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War, 27; Tang, ‘World War to Cold War’, 116; Loh, Underground Front, 70; Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 37-38; He Bixiao, ‘Qingbao, renyuan he wuzi de shuniu: 1930 zhi 1940 niandai Xianggang yu Zhongguo gongchan geming’, Ershiyi shiji shuangyuekan, 169 (2018), 61-76; Pui-tak Lee, ‘Dealings with CCP and KMT in British Hong Kong: The Shanghai Bankers, 1948-1951, Translocal Chinese: East Asian Perspectives, 11/1 (2017), 125-49.157 Arnold Tam (for Qiao Mu [Qiao Guanhua]) to Edward I. Wynne-Jones, postmaster general, Hong Kong, 27 Feb. 1947. TNA, FO 371/63388.158 Chu, Chinese Communists and Hong Kong Capitalists, 38; Loh, Underground Front, 72.159 Loh, Underground Front, 71.160 Rabbetts report, 7 Nov. 1947, 2-3, TNA, CO 537/3720.161 Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 53-4.162 Ibid., 85-6.163 Barreto, Macau during the Sino-Japanese War, 160-4; Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 84-5.164 Tang, ‘World War to Cold War’, 116; Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 85. On some of their interactions see ‘Chinese Communist Activity, Macao’, 14 Dec. 1950, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp82-00457r006500560002-4 (accessed 24 May 2023).165 ‘Communist Organizations in Macao’, 23 Feb. 1950, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP82-00457R004300490005-0 (accessed 2 May 2020).166 ‘Efforts of Chinese Communists to Eliminate Kuomintang Influence in Macao’, 6 June 1950, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp82-00457r005000420005-9 (accessed 24 May 2023); ‘Communist Instructions and Activities in Macau’, 13 Sept. 1950, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp82-00457r005800260003-1 (accessed 24 May 2023).167 Jobez to Schuman, 28 Apr. 1950, ANOM, 3 HCI 41.168 Tsang, Hong Kong, 79; Tsang, Modern History, 154; Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 59-60; Kelly, Market Maoists, 81-6.169 E.g. Tsang, Hong Kong, 77; Fernandes, Macau na Política Externa Chinesa, 57; Louis, ‘Hong Kong’, 1082-3.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust [ECF-2020-514].Notes on contributorsHelena F. S. LopesHelena F. S. Lopes is Lecturer in Modern Asian History at Cardiff University. She was previously a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).