What's the longest Britain could have held on to Hong Kong?

[b0ned0me]

Another way of looking at this is that for the U.K. to somehow cling on to HK would have involved a level of national consequences much more profound than allowing at least middle-class Hong Kong residents to emigrate to the U.K.

And OTL there was absolutely no question ever of a couple million HK Chinese being allowed to settle in Britain, even today. So one is forced to draw the conclusion that no matter how much they flap their gums on the matter the British political establishment give zero fucks what happens to HK and have not cared for decades.

Even by the late thirties it was clearly understood that HK could not be defended against Japan, and the PRC is a much more formidable opponent than Japan was.

 

[Citycat]

You would need a POD in the early 20th century for the British to retain Hong Kong, as once China is a unified and strong nation, it would be very difficult for this to happen.

A perpetual Warlord Era where China is permanently divided and weakened would be a good start.

Not to mention, as the above poster writes, the British had little to no motivation to keep Hong Kong, once the rest of its Empire is gone. Why would they want to keep a small, vulnerable colony on the other side of the world?

 

[Kaze]

The longest they could hold it was the last day of the lease. Beyond that day, it will be like a truck running over a turtle.

 

[David T]

IIUC Taiwan held Chinas seat on the UNSC until something like 1971, so handing HK to Taiwan between 49 and 71 isn't too implausible, especially as Taiwan becomes more successful and democratic than PRC.

The UK no longer recognized the RoC after January 1950 when it became one of the very first non-Communist nations (a few days after India) to recognize the PRC-- in part precisely because it knew it held Hong Kong pretty much at the PRC's mercy.

If there were any chance at all of the UK giving Hong Kong back to the RoC it would have to be just after World War II. FDR did want the British to return Hong Kong to China. But the chances of this happening were very faint. Cordell Hull and others believed it would be unwise to pressure the UK on this issue; Hull remarked that Hong Kong had been British longer than Texas had been part of the US, and that the US was not likely to give Texas back to Mexico. https://books.google.com/books?id=x8b4an0T0twC&pg=PA138

 

[NiGHTS]

Not long enough to satisfy the fantasies of British Empire fanatics.

 

[Ingsoc]

The UK no longer recognized the RoC after January 1950 when it became one of the very first non-Communist nations (a few days after India) to recognize the PRC-- in part precisely because it knew it held Hong Kong pretty much at the PRC's mercy.

Any chance of the Attlee government asking for recognition of HK + New Territories in perpetuity in exchange?

 

[Dan1988]

Any chance of the Attlee government asking for recognition of HK + New Territories in perpetuity in exchange?

No, Attlee's Government would not be that stupid.

 

[Cryptic]

Who needs to send in the military? Transport in say ten thousand civilians–best of all women and children–next to the border, point them towards Hong Kong and tell them to start walking. The British have the choice of either accepting this incursion or ordering the troops on the ground to start machine gunning people en masse, neither of which are really viable options.

Though I agree that the UK would eventually reach a use of force level that was not viable, there is plenty of middle ground between acceptance and machine gunning en masse. The border had a pretty secure fence. For example:

- Increase fencing and add military level engineering obstacles enhanced by copious quantities of barbed wire strung both concentrina and "tangle foot".
- Illegal crossers are met with tear gas, rubber bullets, fire hoses, flash bangs etc. Boats with protest migrants are disabled via aggressive bumpings etc. Most fatalities are caused by crowd crushes / stampedes on the Chinese side or by quasi accidental drownings.
- Those who force their way are detained in detention camps under very uncomfortable conditions. They can, of course, opt to return to China at any time.

At the end of the day, a significant number of 'Hong Kongnese' did not want re-unification with China to coincide with uncontrollable mass migration from China proper and the imposition of the Chinese system. Chinese orchestrated border rushes would give a strong impression that both fears were imminent. My guess is that the British would blink first regarding the fuzzy line between uhmm...... "enhanced riot control measures" and paramilitary combat before many local Hong Kongnese would.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Later in her life Margret Thatcher lamented that one of her regrets was not being able to convince the Chinese to extend the British lease on Hong Kong.

Realistically could we have seen a world where Hong Kong was still under British possession? Would China have militarily invaded at some point had the British not agreed to the 1997 hand over or was that just bluster?

If Britain somehow overcomes its pacifism in the 1930's and turns on its recent former ally, Imperial Japan, to fight against the Imperial Japanese in China, on China's behalf then *maybe* the British might get enough good will (and be viewed as potential long-term allies and friends by the Chinese) to negotiate a lease extension if and when the Chinese and British are victorious.
That's a lot of 'if' involved though.

 

[V-J]

Every few months these threads rise up, and every few months the answer is the same.

 

[King-Emperor]

Was there a chance of the UK getting the New Territories in perpetuity when they signed that treaty with Qing China, similar to the deal that gave them the original territory? That seems like the easiest solution to me, so that the mainland never has legal justificatiom to demand Hong Kong.

In such a scenario, there would obviously still be pressure over Hong Kong due to decolonization, but perhaps a referedum would be held under UN oversight rather than Hong Kong just being handed back?

I have no idea the butterflies that would result from such an altercation of the treaty. It seems like an extremely minor POD, but who knows, maybe the UN wouldn't even exist today!

 

[David T]

No, Attlee's Government would not be that stupid.

And even if Attlee would propose this, the PRC would simply reject the offer. Sure, it wanted recognition by western governments, but that was hardy a priority for it, or something for which it would sacrifice what it saw as its essential interests. After all, it intervened massively in Korea in 1950 even though that set back recognition by additional western governments (and by the UN) for many years. It would not repudiate the chance of eventually recovering Hong Kong for the sake of quicker recognition by what the PRC regarded as just one imperialist power (and not even the most important one).

 

[Joshua Ben Ari]

Was there a chance of the UK getting the New Territories in perpetuity when they signed that treaty with Qing China, similar to the deal that gave them the original territory? That seems like the easiest solution to me, so that the mainland never has legal justificatiom to demand Hong Kong.

There's two possible PODs that I've seen. The first is to get Claude Maxwell MacDonald - the British diplomat and Minister in China - to pick a perpetual lease on the New Territories rather than a 99-year lease (he thought the 99-year lease was "as good as forever") at the Second Convention of Peking. The second is if Lord Lugard had been successful in getting interest in trading Weihaiwei to the Chinese government in exchange for a permanent cession of the New Territories to the British.

Either would have worked in creating a more secure British Hong Kong and allowed the British to not really worry about the the lease expiring, but the Chinese wouldn't have tolerated the "century of humiliation" caused by the unequal treaties.

 

[SiddFinch1]

Maybe with a non unified China post wwII?

 

[Pelranius]

Maybe with a non unified China post wwII?

You'd also need a divided Guangzhou, probably.

 

[Dan1988]

Maybe with a non unified China post wwII?

To get that requires the Qing dynasty to literally "pull a Meiji" and have Puyi be pretty chummy with the Showa Emperor, making Puyi worse than a war criminal but a literal hanjian. Then we could get somewhere, but that would raise as many problems as it solves and would probably destabilize Britain's hold on Xianggang.

 

[Pelranius]

China doesn't even need to send in the military to take Hong Kong.

Just declare an embargo on it, and Hong Kong becomes about as viable as New York City without the rest of America.

 

[David T]

Maybe with a non unified China post wwII?

If the Communists (PRC) control North China and the Nationalists (RoC) the South, Hong Kong will be turned over to the RoC (with whom, unlike in OTL, the UK will not break diplomatic relations in 1950) on schedule in 1997. (Yes, all of it--in the real world you can't separate the New Territories from the rest of Hong Kong.) Hong Kong will be as indefensible against a regime that controls half of China as against one that controls all of it.

 

[sendô]

The 99 year lease needs to be agreed as a perpetual lease at the 2nd Peking Convension. Even then the PRC are going to use the "unequal treaties" and "decolonisation" sticks.

Beyond that it's big butterflies, like either WW not happening and so forth. The best bet for the British would be a divided China between Nationalists and Communists, and Britain striking a deal with one side or the other (likely the Nationalists) for support in exchange for recognition.

 

[Dan1988]

If the Communists (PRC) control North China and the Nationalists (RoC) the South, Hong Kong will be turned over to the RoC (with whom, unlike in OTL, the UK will not break diplomatic relations in 1950) on schedule in 1997. (Yes, all of it--in the real world you can't separate the New Territories from the rest of Hong Kong.) Hong Kong will be as indefensible against a regime that controls half of China as against one that controls all of it.

By that point one in 1997, in that ATL one would hope the ROC would have turned their ship around, even if it starts off as a mega-Singapore at first. In that case HK either has nothing to worry about, or has SAR status (as per OTL), or becomes a special municipality (i.e. the same status IOTL as Taipei, Kaohsiung, and the most recent ones promoted from county status). Of course, to get the democratization ball rolling to a similar level as Taiwan's OTL would probably require a major scandal that means that the central government would have to do something to avoid embarrassment and the loss of face that would result.