Hong Kong's Watershed: The 1967 Riots

05: The Sha Tau Kok incident and bomb attacks

5 The Sha Tau Kok incident and bomb attacks The disturbances took a dramatic twist on July 8 when a border conflict erupted in Sha Tau Kok, a New Territories village bordering Shenzhen, taking the tension to an unprecedented level. According to the account by the Hong Kong government, hundreds of demonstrators began to gather in Sha Tau Kok (it lies half in China and half in the New Territories) at 9:30 a.m., July 8. A machine-gun mounted on the roof of a shop on the Chinese side of Chung Ying Street, through which the border runs. “At about 11 a.m., the crowd converged on the Sha Tau Kok police post in British territory about 50 yards from the border and a group of 300–400, apparently controlled and well-organised, surrounded the police post and threw home-made bombs over the perimeter fence. When the police attempted to disperse the crowd by firing baton shells and tear gas, automatic fire was opened on the post. At this time a riot company on its way up to support the post was fired upon by rifles and the machine gun,” Acting Governor Michael Gass wrote in a report to the Commonwealth Office.1 At 11:40 a.m., the government ordered one battalion of Gurkhas forward to the main police station 2,000 yards southwest of Sha Tau Kok. They began to arrive around 1 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., a group of 50 to 100-strong People’s Liberation Army soldiers were seen moving along the border some three miles to the east of Sha Tau Kok and another group was seen moving into Sha Tau Kok at 2:30 p.m. But none of these groups were seen in the immediate area of the border. There were renewed attacks on the police post shortly after 2:30 p.m., including the employment of a heavy machine gun from the Chinese territory. Fire bombs and home-made bombs were also used in the attack. Five policemen, including two Pakistanis and three Chinese, were shot dead and another eleven were wounded.2 It was the first armed conflict on the border since Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842. Hong Kong Evening News, a pro-Beijing newspaper, reported on the evening of July 8 that militia crossed the border to give assistance to the villagers from the Chinese territory of Sha Tau Kok and fired on the police. The Hong Kong Cheung_05_ch05.indd 71 19/04/2011 3:59 PM 72 Hong Kong’s Watershed government cited the report in its call for London to lodge a protest to Beijing about the incident. Donald Hopson, the British chargé d’affaires, lodged a “strong protest” against the incursion into Hong Kong territory by armed demonstrators to the Chinese Foreign Ministry at 10 a.m. on July 9. Before Hopson presented his protest, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Luo Guibo began reading a note about the incident. The note placed full responsibility on the Hong Kong police and accused them of opening fire first. The shooting killed one civilian and wounded eight. “Chinese frontier guards then opened fire to protect the masses,” the note read.3 The Chinese government demanded that the British government make a public apology for the “armed provocation” and immediately punished the “culprits”. The People’s Daily carried a report on the Sha Tau Kok incident on July 9 under the headline, “The blood debt incurred by British imperialism in slaughtering seven of our compatriots must be repaid”. “On July 8, people on our side of Sha Tau Kok and Chinese inhabitants of the ‘New Territories’ held a rally on our side to voice support for our patriotic countrymen in Hong Kong in their just struggle against brutal persecution by the British authorities in Hong Kong. When the Chinese inhabitants were returning to the ‘New Territories’ after the demonstration, fully armed policemen and ‘riot police’ of the British authorities in Hong Kong flagrantly carried out a premeditated sanguinary suppression of them, throwing tear bombs and opening fire at them, and at the same time fired at our side. The Chinese frontier guards at once fired warning shots against such atrocities and provocations by the British side. But in total disregard of the warnings from our side the policemen and riot police of the British authorities in Hong Kong continued to fire at the demonstrators, killing one and wounding eight of them. Our...