Hong Kong, one of the Asian Tigers, has been an East Asian miracle for its rise.
With a land area of only 1,114 square kilometres and a permanent population of more than 7 million, it is the world's third-largest financial centre.
The history of Hong Kong can be traced back to the pre-Qin period, when the entire Lingnan region was known as the land of "Southern Guangdong".
With the change of dynasties, Hong Kong also became part of the mainland territory.
But for nearly 2,000 years of history, Hong Kong has been obscure in the official history, because it is really too desolate, and even in the early 18th century, it gradually formed a decent market town, away from the quiet state of small fishing villages.
By the 19th century, Hong Kong stepped onto the stage of history, but this time point was a bit cruel.
In 1841, the British occupied Hong Kong Island and forced the Qing government to sign a series of unequal treaties.
Why would Britain take a fancy to Hong Kong, a narrow peninsula?
Because there is a natural deep-water port, it is convenient for merchant ships and warships to dock, and Hong Kong and Guangzhou are close to each other, saving the cost of inland transportation of British goods.
After the official opening of Hong Kong, the British government implemented the free port trade policy, so Hong Kong's entrepot trade developed rapidly and became the most important pillar industry.
From 1900 to 1928, with the exception of the First World War, Hong Kong's trade volume showed an overall upward trend.
By 1931, Hong Kong's export trade had exceeded HK$2 billion.
Directly driven by trade, Hong Kong has become more and more prosperous, with many shops and bustling people, so it is also known as the "city that never sleeps".
Ba Jin's description of Hong Kong's night scene is as follows:
"The sea is dark, the sky is dark, there are some stars in the sky, but most of them are not bright, only Hong Kong on the other side has become a gathering of ten thousand stars. 」
During the Japanese occupation, Hong Kong's economy was severely damaged and almost paralyzed, foreign trade was at a standstill, and only alternative businesses such as casinos and smoke houses were able to develop in a deformed manner.
After Japan's surrender, Britain regained Hong Kong due to the Nationalist government's compromise and concessions.
At this time, the European and American markets also gradually recovered, the volume of commodity import and export trade soared, and Hong Kong ushered in a golden trade period after the war, showing explosive growth, with an increase of 66% in 1949, 74% in 1950, and three times more in 1951 than in 1947.
But the good times didn't last long.
In 1951, the Korean War broke out and the United Nations imposed a "trade embargo" on China, which caused a critical impact on Hong Kong's entrepot trade, and the industrial structure, which was extremely dependent on entrepot trade, was also facing the crisis of collapse at any time.
In the face of a sudden crisis, Hong Kong people have carried forward the spirit of Lion Rock, courageously sought change, and adjusted the monolithic industrial structure.
How to adjust?
Hong Kong's land resources are insufficient, the development of agriculture lacks stamina, and the development of finance will be limited by the general environment, so after thinking about it, Hong Kong businessmen have set their sights on manufacturing.
Due to the turmoil of the war, more than one million people have flowed into Hong Kong from China, and at the same time, it has also brought a large amount of capital, equipment and professional talents, including the ship king Bao Yugang, the "fourth uncle" Lee Shau Kee, and the real estate magnate Kwok Tak-sheng.
The textile industry first blossomed in Hong Kong and became one of the pillar industries.
By 1953, there were more than 600,000 people engaged in the textile industry, accounting for almost a quarter of Hong Kong's population, with small and medium-sized garment factories and trading houses spread throughout Hong Kong, and half of Hong Kong's exports at that time were textiles and garments.
Facts have proved that Hong Kong's move to carry out industrial restructuring in the 50s was the right one.
Under the chain effect of the vigorous development of the textile and plastic industries, Hong Kong's real estate, construction and financial industries have also been driven up and are thriving.
The economic prosperity has further promoted the development of Hong Kong's entertainment industry.
Cantonese opera, movies and radio programmes were the most popular popular entertainment for Hong Kong people at that time.
Cantonese opera films emerge one after another, such as Kwan Tak-hing's "The Legend of Once Upon a Time" series, which was filmed nearly 60 times in the 50s.
In the 50s, Jin Yong had already written works such as "The Book of Swords and Enmity", "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "The Sword of Blue Blood", and also founded Ming Pao in 1959.
Others like Ni Kuang, Huang Zhan, Liang Yusheng, Yi Shu, etc. are not comparable.
The 60s of the last century can be said to be another turning point in Hong Kong's economy.
In 1960, Hong Kong's per capita GDP was only about US$400.
But by the end of 1969, Hong Kong's per capita GDP had risen to US$829, and the per capita GDP had grown by 13.6% throughout the 60s.
It is worth mentioning that since 1962, the mainland of the motherland has specially opened three freight express lines, on the one hand, to ensure that the fresh and frozen goods in the mainland are supplied to Hong Kong and Macao;
On the other hand, it also supplies cheap and high-quality industrial raw materials and semi-finished products to Hong Kong, so as to reduce Hong Kong's economic production costs and enhance its competitiveness in the international market.
With the diligence and dedication of Hong Kong people, Hong Kong has become one of the light industry manufacturing hubs in Asia.
Hong Kong, the financial industry that is now famous, has not really made great efforts, and is still in a stage of land development, with only dozens of stocks circulating in the entire trading market, and all of them are British-owned.
If an eagle wants to soar, it must first fold its wings.
With the outbreak of war in the Middle East, the pound has depreciated sharply, and Hong Kong's fledgling financial industry has been hit hard.
On February 6, 1965, due to excessive lending, Guangdong Trust Bank suffered a run on a large amount of bad debts, which affected a number of Chinese-funded banks, including Hang Seng Bank, Guangan Bank, Wing Lung Bank, etc.
On 10 February, the Guangdong Trust Bank collapsed, and the people suddenly lost confidence in the Chinese-funded banks, which directly turned into a financial turmoil and hit the Hong Kong stock market in a big way.
In 1965, the Hang Seng Index fell by a quarter, the first stock market crash Hong Kong experienced.
The biggest cost of the crash was that Hang Seng Bank, the largest Chinese-owned bank in Hong Kong, was completely reduced to a subsidiary of the British-owned HSBC.
Since 1965, Hong Kong's stock market has been up and down, interspersed with the swords and swords of Chinese and foreign capital, and it is best to describe Hong Kong during this period as "savage growth".
Due to the lack of a mechanism to restrain and punish officialdom, the problem of top-down corruption in Hong Kong is very serious.
For example, if there is a fire, the firefighter must first charge a "throat opening fee" before fighting the fire;
Before the ambulance takes the patient to the hospital, it will ask for "tea money";
When you get to the hospital, you have to stuff money into the doctor before someone comes to treat you.
It can be said that bribery has become a basic living expense for Hong Kong citizens.
The most serious problem of corruption is in the Force.
There is an old saying in Hong Kong that "a good boy is not bad", which comes from that era.
Although the leadership of the police force is basically British, due to language and cultural differences, foreigners cannot do without the help of Chinese police detectives, so although the status of Chinese detectives is not high, they have great real power.
Among them, the best are the four major Chinese detectives: Lu Le, Lan Gang, Han Sen and Yan Xiong.
The most famous of the four detectives is Lu Le.
Because the amount of embezzlement is as high as 500 million, he is also called "Inspector 500 million", and he is also the prototype of Andy Lau's "The Biography of Inspector Lei Luo of 500 million".
Lu Le was promoted to the position of chief inspector in 1958, becoming the first of the four inspectors.
Under the leadership of the four detectives, police officers collude with the underworld and are proficient in prostitution, gambling, and drug trafficking.
Ironically, newspapers often report that the Force has "solved many major crimes", but most of them are self-directed and self-staged façade projects.
The British government turns a blind eye to corruption, and does not care much about the social atmosphere in Hong Kong, nor does it care about how the people are doing, as long as there is no major chaos.
The Kowloon Walled City was born during this period.
Although it is often said to be a place of notoriety and evil, it is strange that as a community of more than 30,000 residents, the crime rate of the Kowloon Walled City was not much higher than that of the surrounding area until it was demolished in 1994.
If the Kowloon Walled City is seen as an ultra-condensed version of Hong Kong, then all the absurdity makes sense.
Chaos and orderliness were the main theme of Hong Kong in the 60s.
In the midst of the hustle and bustle, Hong Kong stepped into the 70s.
In March 1973, Hong Kong's first major stock market crash broke out, and the Hang Seng Index plummeted from 1,700 to 500 points.
Where have Hong Kong investors seen such a big scene, they are all panicked.
It was also the year that Hong Kong's business situation experienced a serious recession, strikes were staged in various places, and the people's dissatisfaction with British rule was growing day by day.
The exposure of the Godber case has ignited public indignation.
On June 8, 1973, the British Chief Superintendent Godber successfully escaped back to the UK with a huge amount of money.
The news soon spread throughout Hong Kong, and the common people, who had long been fed up with corruption, were furious and took to the streets to protest and "fight corruption and arrest Godber".
The new Governor of Hong Kong, Michael McRi-ho, knew that if nothing was done to divert the attention of the people, British rule in Hong Kong would be seriously threatened.
Against this backdrop, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was established in 1974.
In fact, when the Independent Commission Against Corruption was first established, the common people did not have a good impression of it.
One is that they feel that the Independent Commission Against Corruption, like the Anti-Corruption Department of the Force, is just changing the soup but not the medicine, and changing the way to get the people away.
On the other hand, the ICAC has arrested a large number of police officers, which has also made the police very unhappy.
Therefore, they demonstrated to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the British government in Hong Kong through passive strikes, demonstrations and protests, and inciting gangs to riot.
However, the people who suffer the most are still the people who survive in the cracks.
In October 1977, during a protest demonstration, a number of police officers stormed the ICAC headquarters and wreaked havoc, which was the most serious police clash in history.
Fearing a wider strike and riot in the Force, the British government had no choice but to enact a policy whereby all junior police officers, except for senior inspectors, would be granted amnesty and protected from arrest.
The turmoil has finally subsided.
Although many detectives took advantage of the chaos to escape, thanks to the efforts of the ICAC, the corruption problem that had plagued Hong Kong for more than 20 years was finally resolved, and the social atmosphere was reversed in time.
After the "anti-corruption storm", the British government in Hong Kong tried to improve people's livelihood and gradually implemented the "10-year housing plan" and "Home Ownership Scheme" promulgated earlier, building a large number of public housing to provide low-rent housing for middle- and lower-class residents, and improving people's living standards little by little.
While infrastructure construction is in full swing, land prices in Hong Kong have also begun to rise, and real estate has become a new business, supporting each other with the financial industry, driving Hong Kong's economic transformation.
Of course, relying on these alone is not enough, and don't forget that Hong Kong's greatest heritage is precisely the development of the motherland.
After the reform and opening up, the huge production capacity and market demand have formed a strong outlet, allowing Hong Kong to successfully complete the upgrading of the industry.
The British government in Hong Kong gave the green light to remove all policy barriers and use external impetus to directly build Hong Kong into a free port for finance and trade.
Eventually, Hong Kong became one of the four Asian tigers.
In the 90s, Hong Kong's total foreign trade value smoothly ranked among the world's top eight.
By 1994, Hong Kong's per capita GDP had soared to more than US$21,000.
This is a golden time of passion, Hong Kong people run, dance and dance, drink afternoon tea on time every day, travel abroad on holidays, everything seems to be normal, and there is no worry about what the future will be.
But from the Hong Kong films in the 90s, you can still see many traces of ideological output, which accurately poke at the uneasiness and anxiety of Hong Kong people about the return.
For example, Gao Zhisen's "Rich and Powerful" series reflects the tendencies of Hong Kong people.
One guest asked:
Uncle Dart replied categorically:
Everyone was stunned for a moment, everyone was very tacitly agreed and did not make a sound, and they all lowered their heads to eat.
The follow-up plot is that when Uncle Dart won more than 20 million lottery, the first decision to discuss with his family was to invest in immigration immediately.
This is a direct reflection of the fact that around '97, Hong Kong's immigration wave was very prevalent, a large number of elites were lost overseas, and the cold wind blowing towards Victoria Harbour was even more bleak.
Compared with the confusion and anxiety of the Hong Kong people in the "97 anxiety", the top level of the British government in Hong Kong seems to be full of grief.
At that time, the general mentality of the British was to take advantage of the last opportunity to make a fortune and leave, otherwise there would be no chance.
Therefore, the whole of Hong Kong is basically in a state of laissez-faire, and all government agencies are unsupervised, all of them are perfunctory and lazy, and they are really rotten, and even make small moves behind their backs, planting mines before leaving.
In 1992, after the last Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten took office, he couldn't wait to start political reform and decentralize all the power in his hands -
The executive power was delegated to the Chief Secretary for Administration, and the "Legislative Council" was separated from the Government, so that the powers of the Legislative Council and various government departments were expanded several times at once;
Evacuated the Political Department ahead of schedule, took away security intelligence resources, and did not do handover work with the mainland government, highlighting the "British gentleman's demeanor";
In the end, he sang all kinds of high-pitched songs and painted countless democratic pies for Hong Kong people.
The reality is that anyone with a discerning eye knows that before Patten took office, there was no so-called democracy in Hong Kong -
The Governor of Hong Kong, who was directly appointed by the British, was the Emperor of Hong Kong, and the leadership of the law enforcement and judicial organs was mostly British.
That's why there is a greater proportion of patriots among the middle-aged and elderly people in Hong Kong, because they have indeed experienced the darkness and corruption of the British era in Hong Kong, and history is like a mirror that distinguishes between right and wrong.
And the young people in Hong Kong in the new era, because they have not experienced the bad law and order era when they were robbed of their wallets when they went out and gangsters ran rampant with machetes, naturally remembered the beauty of the British government in Hong Kong, and under the packaging of layers of targeted propaganda, they became a tool to be used. As for what the truth is, it doesn't matter.
In this special era, Hong Kong has become a bridge of communication with the outside world and a transit place for finance and trade, but it has also missed a lot of opportunities, and the doers have been manipulated by public opinion and lost to the financial and real estate oligarchs, which is particularly regrettable every time it is said.
Now that an era is over, Hong Kong really needs a nirvana rebirth, otherwise Asia's ranking as a financial center will only get further and lower.
[Selected References]
1. Jane Morris: Hong Kong: The Final Chapter of the British Empire
2. Marco Gao: A Brief History of Hong Kong: From Colony to Hong Kong SAR
3. Xiang Shuai's Financial Jianghu: "Away Journey Autumn Hate - Minimalist Economic History of Hong Kong"
4. Chinese Studies: The Development of Hong Kong's Industry Before the War
5. Meng Minsheng: "The Other Side of Hong Kong"
6, Xixi: "My City"
7. Chinese Academy of Studies: "Hong Kong's Re-export Trade Before the War"
8. Jiang Xun: "Hong Kong: A City's Code"
9. Chen Guanzhong: "Our Generation of Hong Kong People"
10, Ye Lingfeng: "The Loss of Hong Kong"
11. Qu Hong: A Study on the Decolonization of Education in Hong Kong
12. Sang Donghua, "A Historical Review of Sino-British Negotiations on the Hong Kong Issue"
13. Chen Le: "Colonial Aggression Cannot Bring Prosperity to Hong Kong"