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1960s in Hong Kong continued with the development and expansion of manufacturing that began in the previous decade. The economic progress made in the period would categorise Hong Kong as one of Four Asian Tigers along with Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Economically, this era is considered a major stepping stone for Hong Kong. It is considered the first turning point for Hong Kong's economy. The per capita GDP was still relatively low in 1960, approximately being the same as Peru, South Africa and Greece in the same decade. By comparison, Argentina had two times and Venezuela had three times the GDP of Hong Kong. [1] The living standard was rising steadily, but low wages continued. The number of registered factories increased from 3,000 in 1950s to 10,000 in 1960s. Registered foreign companies increased from 300 to 500. There were demands for labour in every sector of the economy.
Politically, however, this era is marked by the political chaos in mainland China.
Hong Kong's population in the 1960s is estimated at 3 million. [2] Half of the population was under the age of 25 and the group became Hong Kong's baby boom generation. The surge of refugees continued to come in from China.
The past generations of Chinese families were deeply rooted in family affairs. The long hours in the factories would break apart that traditional structure when most people spend far more time working in factories than at home. But people lived under a strong willingness to bear sufferings. This was slightly compensated by their close relationship within the community, and cheerful talks in their spare times. Work places mainly served as educational hubs or the "second home". Women also joined the work force in larger numbers, becoming working daughters or working mothers. [3]
The government pursued an ambitious public education programme, creating over 300,000 new primary school places between 1954 and 1961. By 1966, 99.8% of school-age children were attending primary school, though the primary schools were not free. [4]
From 6 to 15 December 1969, the first Hong Kong Festival was launched after 7 months of preparation work with HKD $4 million of funding. It originated after the 1967 riots in hopes that people unleash their energy toward a better cause instead of communists' riots. The number of participants reached more than 500,000 including foreign tourists.
The 1960s cinema films were still rooted in a Chinese tradition, though Hong Kong would have one of their first pop culture teen idols, Connie Chan Po-chu. The arrival of broadcast television would become the first format brewed in Hong Kong to be marketed toward the people of Hong Kong directly. TVB station was founded in 1967 and made the first free-over-the-air broadcast. [5]
The first disturbance in the 1960s was the Hong Kong 1966 riots over the rising fares of the Star Ferry. A petition was created with 20,000 signatures in protest against any increases in transportation costs. The result led to the arrest of 1,800 people, but the end came swiftly.
Other riots include the Hong Kong 1967 riots which began when internal conflict within the Communist party in China resulted in the Cultural Revolution. Pro-communist leftists in Hong Kong challenged British rule. Demonstrations were held, the red guards would take shape in Hong Kong carrying Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong in their left hands shouting communist slogans. The People's Daily in Beijing ran editorials supporting the leftist struggle. Rumors spread that China was preparing to take over the colony. Political tension soared. The riots only came to an end in December 1967 when Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the leftist groups in Hong Kong to stop. After the riot, the government made an effort to clean up any existing communist networks. The radio host Lam Bun was also murdered.
In 1963 and 1967, serious droughts affected Hong Kong. Water supply was unable to support the needs of the rapid population growth. The government introduced a water restriction policy. There were periods when water supply was restricted to 4 hours per 4 days. People had to save water for 4 days of usage. Water shortages, however, were mainly created by the politics (see resource section).
The severe drought year in 1963 has been attributed to air circulation changes resulting from the March-May eruption of the Agung volcano on the Indonesian island of Bali. [6]
In 1960, Typhoon Mary affected Hong Kong, causing 45 deaths and 127 injuries. It also destroyed about 10,000 homes.
In 1962, Typhoon Wanda affected Hong Kong, causing 130 deaths. 72,000 people left homeless. It was one of the most disastrous typhoons to ever affect Hong Kong.
The construction business would also continue to increase along with the demand of highways, buildings, tunnels, and reservoirs. In 1962, the director of public works questioned where to go after the development of Kwai Chung and Tsuen Wan. The construction expansion went west to Tuen Mun and north to Sha Tin. The first post-World War II documentation to provide detailed information about the territory came in 1969 in a guide titled the "Colony Outline Plan". It was the first paperwork to outline strategies to house a million people with low-cost public housing, along with defining tight regulations and guidelines on how to construct among the high density population. [7]
While many companies were beginning to diversify in the products it manufactures, the entire success of the Hong Kong colony rested on the textile industry. An estimated 625,000 residents were supported directly or indirectly by this one industry. The government was depending on its Shanghai entrepreneurs and the industry collectively ran in 3 shifts around the clock. It was from this point that the cheap low-grade products became high-quality products with the "Made in Hong Kong" label. [7] By 1968, small factories employing fewer than 100 workers accounted for 42 percent of Hong Kong's domestic exports to the UK, amounting to HKD $1.2 billion. [4]
From 1960 to 1965, the executive council tried to revamp the medical system to provide some form of low cost health care directly or indirectly to large sections of the population. Staff at the medical and health departments were outlining proposals to estimate demands for the next 15 years. The Hong Kong Flu of 1968 would infect 15% of the population. [8]
During the beginning of the Vietnam War, the U.S. made Hong Kong a frequent stop for resting troops in the Asian region. It was considered one of the neutral zones not affected by the communists despite all the political riots taking place.
The main source of water in Hong Kong was China. A contract was signed in 1964 when Hong Kong purchased 15,000 gallons of water a day drawn from China's East river. [9] When political turmoil came to Hong Kong, China turned off the supply periodically and caused water shortages. Rationing was imposed by the government.
Macau is a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. It was leased to Portugal in 1557 as a trading post in exchange for a symbolic annual rent of 500 tael. Despite remaining under Chinese sovereignty and authority, the Portuguese came to consider and administer Macau as a de facto colony. Following the signing of the Treaty of Nanking between China and Britain in 1842, and the signing of treaties between China and foreign powers during the 1860s, establishing the benefit of "the most favoured nation" for them, the Portuguese attempted to conclude a similar treaty in 1862, but the Chinese refused, owing to a misunderstanding over the sovereignty of Macau. In 1887 the Portuguese finally managed to secure an agreement from China that Macau was Portuguese territory. In 1999 it was handed over to China. Macau was the last extant European territory in continental Asia.
Jasper Tsang Yok-sing is a Hong Kong politician. He is the founding member of the largest pro-Beijing party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) from 1992 to 2003 and the 2nd President of the Legislative Council from 2008 to 2016.
Hong Kong (1800s–1930s) oversaw the founding of the new crown colony of Hong Kong under the British Empire. After the First Opium War, the territory was ceded by the Qing Empire to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland through Treaty of Nanjing (1842) and Convention of Peking (1860) in perpetuity, with additional land was leased to the British under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory (1898), Hong Kong became one of the first parts of East Asia to undergo industrialisation.
The region of Hong Kong has been inhabited since the Old Stone Age, later becoming part of the Chinese Empire with its loose incorporation into the Qin dynasty. Starting out as a farming fishing village and salt production site, it became an important free port and eventually a major international financial center.
The 1967 Hong Kong riots were large-scale anti-government riots that occurred in Hong Kong during British colonial rule. Beginning as a minor labour dispute, the demonstrations eventually escalated into protests against the colonial government. The protests were partially inspired by successful anti-colonial demonstrations in Portuguese Macau which had occurred a few months prior.
Lam Bun was a radio commentator at Commercial Radio Hong Kong who was fiercely critical of leftists. He was assassinated during the 1967 Hong Kong riots, becoming an icon of freedom of speech in Hong Kong.
The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. His surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce fighting against the Japanese forces that invaded the territory. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until Japan surrendered at the end of the Second World War. The length of the period later became a metonym of the occupation.
Hong Kong in the 1970s underwent many changes that shaped its future, led for most of the decade by its longest-serving and reform-minded Governor, Murray MacLehose. Economically, it reinvented itself from a manufacturing base into a financial centre.
The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China was at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony, which began in 1841. Hong Kong was established as a special administrative region of China (SAR) for 50 years, maintaining its own economic and governing systems from those of mainland China during this time, although influence from the central government in Beijing increased after the passing of the Hong Kong national security law in 2020.
The 1950s in Hong Kong began against the chaotic backdrop of the resumption of British sovereignty after the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong ended in 1945, and the renewal of the Nationalist-Communist Civil War in mainland China. It prompted a large influx of refugees from the mainland, causing a huge population surge: from 1945 to 1951, the population grew from 600,000 to 2.1 million. The government struggled to accommodate these immigrants. Unrest in China also prompted businesses to relocate their assets and capital from Shanghai to Hong Kong. Together with the cheap labour of the immigrants, the seeds of Hong Kong's economic miracle in the second half of the 20th century were sown.
1980s in Hong Kong marks a period when the territory was known for its wealth and trademark lifestyle. Still a crown colony of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong would be recognised internationally for its politics, entertainment and skyrocketing real estate prices. It would also go on to be the subject of intense negotiations between Britain and China, which would be resolved in the Sino-British Joint Declaration
The 1966 Hong Kong riots, also known as the 1966 Star Ferry riots, were a series of disturbances that took place over four nights on the streets of Kowloon, Hong Kong in the spring of 1966. The riots started as peaceful demonstrations against the British colonial government's decision to increase the fare of Star Ferry foot-passenger harbour crossing by 25 percent.
Brook Antony Bernacchi was a lawyer and politician in Hong Kong. He was the long-time chairman of the Reform Club of Hong Kong, the then quasi-opposition party in the colony and the longest serving elected officeholder in Hong Kong history, sitting on the Urban Council of Hong Kong, from 1952 to 1981, 1983 to 1986 and 1989 to 1995. He was well known for his efforts of pushing direct elections and political reform in Hong Kong.
Tung Wah Hospital is a Charitable hospital in Hong Kong under the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. Located above Possession Point, at 12 Po Yan Street in Sheung Wan, it is the first hospital established in Colonial Hong Kong for the general public in the 1870s.
The 12-3 incident was a series of political demonstrations and riots against Portuguese colonial rule in Macau which occurred on December 3, 1966. The incident, inspired by the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China, occurred as a direct response to a violent police crackdown by colonial authorities against local Chinese protesters demonstrating against corruption and colonialism in Macau.
The pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp, pro-government camp or pro-China camp is a political alignment in Hong Kong which generally supports the policies of the Beijing central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) towards Hong Kong. The term "pro-establishment camp" is regularly in use to label the broader segment of the Hong Kong political arena which has the closer relationship with the establishment, namely the governments of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). It is labeled the "Patriotic Front" by pro-Beijing media and "loyalists" by the rival pro-democracy camp.
Hong Kong was a colony of the British Empire and later a dependent territory of the United Kingdom from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841, during the First Opium War between the British and the Qing dynasty. The Qing had wanted to enforce its prohibition of opium importation within the dynasty that was being exported mostly from British India and was causing widespread addiction among the populace.
Socialism in Hong Kong is a political trend taking root from Marxism and Leninism which was imported to Hong Kong in the early 1920s. Socialist trends have taken various forms, including Marxism–Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, democratic socialism and liberal socialism, with the Marxist–Leninists being the most dominant faction due to the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in the mainland. The "traditional leftists" became the largest force representing the pro-Beijing camp in the post-war decades, which had an uneasy relationship with the colonial authorities. As the Chinese Communist Party adopted capitalist economic reforms from 1978 onwards and the pro-Beijing faction became increasingly conservative, the socialist agenda has been slowly taken up by the liberal-dominated pro-democratic camp.
The pro-Republic of China camp, or the pro-Kuomintang camp (親國民黨派), is a political alignment in Hong Kong. It generally pledges allegiance to the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan and the Kuomintang.
Anarchism in Hong Kong emerged as part of the Chinese anarchist movement, when many anarchists sought refuge from the Qing Empire in the territory. It grew alongside the Chinese revolutionary movement, before the territory again became a safe haven for anarchists, following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. Since then anarchists have formed a part of the Hong Kong opposition movement, first to British colonial rule and then to the rising authoritarianism of the Government of Hong Kong.
