The Study Of Social Conflict In Hong Kong Before And After 1949

Hong Kong has a special status in the modern history of China.To a certain extent,Hong Kong history is also a microcosm of Chinese modern history.How to deal with the internal problems of Hong Kong society is an important criterion for the external evaluation of British Hong Kong government's governance ability.It can also reflect the complexity of Hong Kong's political ecology.The social conflicts in Hong Kong,that is,the Hong Kong people's resistance to the British Hong Kong government and the strategies and methods adopted by the British Hong Kong government,are also topics that cannot be evaded for studying the socio-political ecology of Hong Kong.When the Second World War came to a close,the bipolar structure led by the United States and the Soviet Union gradually came into being,and China was in the midst of the great turbulence of the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.The wave of conflicts in the Hong Kong society around 1949 was precisely because of this complex international and domestic context.Affected by the situation of China's civil war,the pronounced social conflicts in Hong Kong have become more acute.After the Second World War,Britain re-ruled Hong Kong.After Hong Kong took three years and eight months of Japanese occupation,the society was dead.First,the public infrastructure such as housing is severely damaged and the economy is paralyzed.Second,Hong Kong has a shortage of goods and the population of Hong Kong has been greatly reduced.According to statistics after the war,there were only 600,000 people in Hong Kong.The whole of Hong Kong has been devastated and unprepared.However,history also gives Hong Kong opportunities for development.After the war,Hong Kong quickly regained its status as a free port and the economy gradually became on track.The "Federal Preferential Tax" treatment has greatly stimulated the enthusiasm for industrial and commercial investment;the outbreak of the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party prompted capital from Shanghai and other places to flow into Hong Kong.With the rapid recovery and rapid development of the post-war Hong Kong economy,the social conflicts in Hong Kong have become increasingly acute.The broad masses of people did not share the dividends brought about by economic development.Workers'wages were generally low,their lives were in dire straits,and the contradictions between labor and capital were serious.In addition,the sudden increase in the post-war Hong Kong population has brought a lot of labor to Hong Kong and has also brought about many problems of law and order.In addition to the massive influx of people into Hong Kong,which has brought with it a series of social problems,the Cold War situation and the Kuomintang and Communist Party activities in Hong Kong have also affected the British Hong Kong authorities' governance of Hong Kong society more or less.In 1947,there was a turning point in the civil war situation in China.The People's Liberation Army began to shift from strategic defense to counterattack.After the three major battles,the KMT's defeat was set.Some officials of the British government did not expect this situation to happen.They did not understand the party's attitudes and policies.After careful consideration,the British authorities decided to maintain a "foothold" in China and adhere to the colonial policy on Hong Kong.In this situation,the British Hong Kong authorities have adopted a series of measures to formulate a Hong Kong defense plan,strengthen Hong Kong's defense force and tighten internal controls.The British Hong Kong government's attitude towards the development of the patriotic leftists has also turned from silence to suppression.In this context,the British Hong Kong government took a series of actions:closed the Dade Academy founded by the Communist Party and the Democratic League;continuously dismissed many labor schools and triggered a wave of labor schools;May,1949,the "Society Registration Regulations"was promulgated to strengthen the control of Hong Kong social organizations,review the political attributes of societies,and at the same time expanded the garrison force.On January 30th,1950,British Hong Kong government was struck by friction with the tram trade unions and unfortunately became a bloody murder on Russell Street.In 1952,British Hong Kong government rejected Yuesui Condolences from entering Hong Kong,causing public dissatisfaction.On the other hand,some cadres and people of the Chinese Communist Party's forces in Hong Kong around 1949 have misunderstood the Central Government's Hong Kong policy based on the fact that the revolution is about to triumph and the simple patriotic feelings.They are engaged in high-profile social activities in Hong Kong and challenge British colonial rule,inciting British Hong Kong government to suppress by force.The violence of the colonial rule of the British Hong Kong government should be condemned and criticized.However,the patriotic leftist forces also have some areas for review in their operational strategies.It can be said that the social contradictions and multi-party political forces at this stage symbiotically interweaved the Hong Kong society before and after 1949.Around the year 1949,the international and domestic patterns were surging.During this period,the representative social conflicts that broke out in Hong Kong included the closure of the Patriotic School by the British Hong Kong Government,the Russell Street incident and Kowloon riot.Of these three incidents,the patriotic school trend was triggered by the contradictions between the British Hong Kong government and parents on the closure of the Tat Tak Institute,the Fisheries Schools and Labor Schools.The Russell Street incident was caused by labor disputes.The Kowloon riot incident was caused by the conflict between the British Hong Kong government's and fire victims about disaster relief arrangements.The deep background was the establishment of the new regime and the revolutionary movement was booming.The Communist Party of China in Hong Kong actively participated in the affairs concerning Hong Kong.In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China,some of the Communist Party's cadres and people in Hong Kong's affairs frequently intervened in the affairs of Hong Kong.This kind of behavior is a kind of governance pressure on the British Hong Kong government and a catalyst for national sentiment rising for the people in the Mainland and Hong Kong.Before and after 1949,a series of bloody clashes between the government and the public broke out in Hong Kong society.Among them,the "Russell Street Incident" and "Kowloon riot" are typical examples of this series of social conflicts.It can be seen that the closure of the Patriotic School Incident,the Russell Street Incident,and the Kowloon riot constituted the basic clue to study the social conflicts in Hong Kong around 1949.In terms of the structure of the article,the author took the above incidents as the main narrative analysis.Exploring the details of the above historical events will help us to explore the characteristics of the times in this period of social conflicts in Hong Kong.