In October 1949, with the liberation of Guangzhou by the Chinese People's Liberation Army, it was only a bridge away from Hong Kong. And at that time, there were only more than 10,000 British defenders in Hong Kong, and compared with the imposing Chinese People's Liberation Army, the strength of the British army was fundamentally vulnerable. Therefore, some wealthy businessmen in Hong Kong packed up their finesse early and planned to leave before the war reached Hong Kong.
In the face of such a situation, Alexander Grantham, who was the inspector of Hong Kong at the time, bluntly said that "if the Chinese People's Liberation Army wants to take Hong Kong, it will be easy for the Chinese People's Liberation Army to take Hong Kong, and it will not even need the army, but will directly cut off the mainland's material supply to Hong Kong, and cut off water and food for a month, and Hong Kong will be self-defeating." No one disagreed with Grantham's remarks. But when Lin Biao led the army to Luohu and prepared to take the gateway to Hong Kong in two days, he was stopped by Chairman Mao, which made China and the world feel puzzled. Obviously, the recovery of Hong Kong at this time is a safe matter, why did Chairman Mao choose to give up this great opportunity? This article will take you to understand the beginning and end of the matter, new friends remember to click to follow, not only to browse the previous articles, but also to receive the latest article sharing.
In 1841, after Britain opened the door to China through the Opium War, it forcibly occupied Hong Kong Island, which had been Chinese territory since the Qing Dynasty. Seeing that China's territory was being seized by others, the Qing government tried to recover it by force, but despite Guangxu's repeated edicts, it was never able to safeguard China's territorial integrity. In 1842, Britain forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, which turned the violently acquired island of Hong Kong into a "legalized cession." Later, Britain, who had a great appetite, borrowed the Second Opium War in 1860 to fight all the way to the city of Beijing, and signed the "Beijing Treaty" with the head of the Qing government, ceding the area south of Boundary Street on the Kowloon Peninsula again.
On June 9, 1898, the British again forced the Qing government to sign the "Special Clause on the Extension of the Hong Kong Boundary Site" (commonly known as the "New Territories Lease"), which included the sea area south of the Shenzhen River, north of Tsim Sha Tsui, east to Mirs Bay, west to Shenzhen Bay, south to Lamma Island, and more than 200 islands of all sizes. As the name suggests, the British government leased Hong Kong for 99 years with the Qing government from July 1, 1898. On December 27, Britain unilaterally agreed to include the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, and through the above few steps, Britain took possession of 1,092 square kilometers of China's territory and began its decades-long colonial rule over Hong Kong.
Opium war
On October 13, 1949, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) rushed to Guangzhou, and seeing the defeat of the Kuomintang army, Li Zongren, then the acting president of the Kuomintang, was forced to fly to Chongqing, and Guangzhou was liberated. At this time, Hong Kong is close at hand, and as long as the Chinese People's Liberation Army gives an order, liberating Hong Kong will be as easy as digging through a bag.
In this regard, the trembling British troops stationed in Hong Kong, although they knew that under the overwhelming offensive of the People's Liberation Army, there was no possibility of victory at all, they still gathered the strength of four brigades and prepared to make the final resistance. But everyone in Britain felt that the British army's move was a send-off. In particular, in April, the British Royal Navy's Far East Fleet, the warship Purple Quartz, had just been beaten away by the artillery fire of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, ending the British Empire's gunboat policy in China that had lasted for more than 100 years. British, who have seen the awesomeness of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, know very well that the Chinese Communist Party's chanting of "abolish all unequal treaties" is not a joke. So what about the treaty signed with the Qing government, it was just another unequal treaty, and it would be abolished.
But just when the British garrison thought death was coming, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which was about to march to liberate Hong Kong, stopped advancing. Subsequently, the Governor of Hong Kong, Alexander Graham, received a secret letter from the Chinese government. In the letter, the Chinese government said that if the British government wanted to maintain the status quo, it would have to agree to three conditions:
1. Hong Kong cannot be used as a military base against the People's Republic of China
2. Activities aimed at undermining the prestige of the People's Republic of China are not permitted
3. Persons of the People's Republic of China in Hong Kong must be protected
After seeing these three very simple requests, Grantham was overjoyed. I thought that Britain was going to leave Hong Kong in disgrace, but I didn't expect that without spending a single soldier, as long as these three requirements were completed, they could continue to stay in Hong Kong. Such a good thing is more surprising than pie in the sky. However, when the news reached the international community, some communist organizations did not understand Chairman Mao's decision, and some even issued statements denouncing the weakness of the Chinese government, which could have bombed the British with one shot and liberated Hong Kong, but "allowed the colonies to exist." Among them, the government of the Soviet Union also sent a telegram accusing the Communist Party of China, saying that it was absolutely absurd that it was encouraging other countries to make revolutions for independence and freedom, but that it kept the colonized Hong Kong and Macao and did not take them back. Not only abroad, but even the Communist Party of China and some democratic personages did not understand Chairman Mao's instruction.
Everyone can see that the liberation of Hong Kong is only one step away, why did Chairman Mao suddenly press the pause button? Did the Chair mean anything by doing so?
In fact, Chairman Mao himself said, "Hong Kong, the British do not have much military strength, we can occupy it." But for the current situation, when Chairman Mao made this decision, he actually made a prudent decision after taking one step and looking at three steps.
Even a long time ago, Chairman Mao had a plan for the question of whether Hong Kong would be liberated. In December 1946, when Chairman Mao was talking with several Western reporters, when a Western reporter asked Chairman Mao's plans for the Hong Kong issue, the chairman said that China was not in a hurry to take back Hong Kong, a small place, because China had a vast land and resources, and there were still many places that had not been managed well, and Hong Kong could solve the problem according to the method of consultation.
And when he met with Mikoyan in February 1949, Chairman Mao also mentioned his plans for Hong Kong. The chairman said that at present, China still has many territories that have not been liberated, and the problem of Chinese mainland is very easy to solve. However, Hong Kong is an island, and the issue is very complicated, so when dealing with these places, it is best to adopt a transitional way to resolve them peacefully, which will play a very good role in China's future economic and trade development.
Chairman Mao met with Mikoyan
Therefore, in the eyes of everyone, Chairman Mao's somewhat strange decision is actually a hidden ambition for the chairman's future development of New China. Moreover, at that time, China was in a period of international blockade, and if it confronted Britain under such circumstances, it would make China face an unbearable international conflict, which would be very unfavorable to China.
At that time, China had just been founded, and not many countries were willing to recognize our legal status. However, after Chairman Mao made this decision, on January 16, 1950, the British government, despite the obstruction of the United States, publicly announced that Britain recognized the People's Republic of China and that the Central People's Government was the legitimate government of China. So far, Britain has become the first Western country in the world to recognize the legitimate status of New China and is willing to negotiate with China, which also adds a way for China, which has just broken away from the war and urgently needs to develop its economy.
People all over the world say that Hong Kong's glory is due to Britain, but everyone knows that if it were not for the chairman's far-sighted decision, Hong Kong would not be where it is today. In 1950, Hong Kong was a port of only 600,000 people, and its economy was far less prosperous than that of Shanghai, known as the "Paris of the East", and Guangzhou. Therefore, the fact that Hong Kong can have such a rapid development today and at that time is inseparable from the continuous resources of the mainland and the foresight of the chairman.
Moreover, at that time, China was in the blockade and encirclement of the United States, and port cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Qingdao at that time were almost forced to cut off contact with the world under US sanctions, but Hong Kong at that time was spared because it was in the hands of the British. And if China suspends taking back Hong Kong, the British will resolutely resist the pressure of the United States, and better use Hong Kong, one of the world's largest free trade ports, to make money for themselves, plus China is a large country, so if the British can continue to lease Hong Kong, then for their own interests, the British will also manage this place well. The United States, which is trying to strangle the nascent China, will also hinder the existence of Britain and leave a gap in the blockade, and Hong Kong will become a window for China's foreign trade. At this time, all kinds of materials that China needs to import from abroad, as well as foreign exchange for the development of the mainland's economy, can be carried out under the cover of the British, so leaving Hong Kong in the hands of the British for the time being can prevent the possibility of Hong Kong becoming a dead port, and it is also a broad retreat left by Chairman Mao for the nascent China.
Not only that, but in the current international situation, the world is one, and if China is forced to isolate itself from the rest of the world because of the United States' encirclement and interception of China at the beginning of its start, this will be very unfavorable to China. Therefore, by retaining Hong Kong as a window, people from all over the world who are friendly with China can enter the country through here, and China can also learn about the situation of the world through Hong Kong.
What's more, China, which is in the monster house of the world, is not strong enough at this time, and it is still too immature compared to the Soviet Union, which can already compete with the United States. But at this time, China was a neighbor of the Soviet Union, and it was in the socialist camp, and it was dependent on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, which pursued "great powerism," was very optimistic about China's size, so it had a vague idea of cultivating China into a "dependent state" of the Soviet Union. At this point, China needs to hold off on taking back Hong Kong in order to leverage China's and the world's economic diplomacy to reduce China's dependence on the Soviet Union.
Therefore, after considering these kinds of matters, Chairman Mao decided to suspend the plan to liberate Hong Kong after several thoughts when the Chinese People's Liberation Army liberated the whole country.
In 1963, when the Somali prime minister visited China and talked about the issue of Hong Kong, Chairman Mao said meaningfully that at this time, there was not much military strength left by Britain, and it was only a matter of time before China wanted to take back Hong Kong. But Hong Kong's problem is a special situation, and Hong Kong is China's trade artery, and if we intervene in it now, it will have an impact on world trade and China's trade with the world. So this sentence is the chairman's explanation why Hong Kong was not taken back in one fell swoop.
In 1974, 81-year-old Chairman Mao met with British Prime Minister Heath in Changsha. During this period, the chairman told Heath that "there is only one problem left for China and the UK, and that is that we will reclaim Hong Kong in 1997". Heath immediately pledged in the name of Britain that by 1997, Britain would return Hong Kong intact. Hearing Heath's answer, the chairman continued: I think the same way, but Zhou Enlai and I will be gone by then.