Hong Kong's Watershed: The 1967 Riots

Introduction

Introduction The 1967 riots: A watershed in the postwar history of Hong Kong After the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works sacked about 650 workers in April 1967 for refusing to accept new work regulations, few would have expected it to have repercussions that are still felt today. In those days when Hong Kong was described by some Western media as a colonial “sweatshop”, sacking workers was routine as factory workers had virtually no protection for their basic labour rights and dismissals by employers without compensations were an everyday fact of life. Factory workers in the colony were expected to toil more than 12 hours a day without taking leave. However, the April 1967 sacking of the workers was the immediate trigger for Hong Kong’s worst political violence that would claim 51 lives and prompt a huge social shake-up. On May 6, 21 people were arrested when a group of sacked workers tried to prevent goods from being transported out of the factory. Leftist unions staged protests over the arrests and demanded the release of the arrested workers. Lau Chin-shek, a mainland-born worker who became a prominent unionist from the 1970s onwards and a Hong Kong legislator from 1991 to 2008, recalled that he was thrilled when he read about the workers’ fight for their legitimate rights in the newspaper. “I thought that the workers in San Po Kong voiced our discontent and grievances,” he said. Lau, who was working in a factory in Kwai Chung after fleeing from mainland China in 1963, said that he was exploited by the factory owner and was paid a daily wage lower than what his local colleagues received. He was disgusted with the suppression of workers by the riot police on May 6, 1967 and was one of those who showed sympathy towards the workers in the labour dispute. Liu Yat-yuen, then president of Sun Luen Film Company, also sympathized with the workers in the labour dispute. When the leftist camp launched the struggle campaign against the Hong Kong government, the veteran leader of the leftist film industry believed that it was nothing more than a struggle through nonviolent means like propaganda. Both he and Lau regretted that the anti-British campaign subsequently resorted to violent means. Cheung_00_introd.indd 1 19/04/2011 2:35 PM 2 The Hong Kong government was also puzzled as to why the labour dispute escalated into bloody disturbances. Jack Cater, then deputy colonial secretary and special assistant to the governor, revealed in an interview in 1999 that there was a tacit understanding between the colonial administration and the leftist camp on conditional tolerance of the protests. He said that he had met some leaders of the leftist camp before the demonstrations and was assured that the demonstrators would leave Government House after their protest and would not cause any trouble. At the beginning, the government was tolerant of the protest and exercised restraint towards the leftists. But Cater was upset that after a few days, the leftist camp began to “stir up troubles” and the protests became violent disturbances. He said it was unfortunate that the demonstration turned into riots. Although he insisted that the action taken by the Hong Kong government during the upheaval was necessary for maintaining order in the city, he admitted that there were some individual cases of abuse of power by the police. It appeared that the escalation of a labour dispute into a full-scale anti-British campaign also caught the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai off guard. During the early stage of the anti-British protests, Zhou, who had adopted a pragmatic approach towards Hong Kong since 1949, repeatedly reminded mainland officials responsible for Hong Kong affairs of the need to exercise restraint in the struggle against the British authorities. He dismissed the idea of copying the practices of the Red Guards, which went on rampage in the mainland, to Hong Kong and ruled out the possibility of a military invasion of Hong Kong. He had reservations about the ultra-leftist actions staged by the leftist leaders in Hong Kong who were less amenable to control from Beijing as the central leadership was paralysed by internal power struggle. However, it was politically impossible for him to publicly stop the struggle in Hong Kong during the height of the Cultural Revolution. The Communist Party leadership’s lack of consensus on how to handle the situation in Hong Kong also helped fuel the escalation of the anti-British...