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3 The Garden Road incident on May 22, 1967 Starting from May 19, demonstrators from the leftist camp besieged the Government House for several days under the watchful eyes of the policemen deployed outside the colonial mansion. In the first few days, the demonstrators managed to maintain reasonably good order. Their actions were largely confined to sticking “big-character posters” and reciting phrases from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung outside the gate of the Government House. By and large, the government exercised restraint in the first few days of the protests. Jack Cater, then deputy colonial secretary and personal assistant to the governor, revealed that there was a tacit understanding between the colonial administration and the leftist camp on conditional tolerance of the protests. In an interview with the author in 1999, Cater said that he had met some leaders of the leftist camp before the demonstrations took place. “We had been assured that they would go down the hill quietly without causing any trouble.” Cater said the administration would allow the demonstrators to stage the protests outside the Government House so long as they proceeded in an orderly and peaceful manner. “We saw it a sensible thing to allow people from the communist side to march up to the Government House and go down peacefully. If that was what they wanted to do, we would accept that. Governor David Trench thought it was a good idea,” he said. He said he discussed with left-wing leaders and was told by the local communist leadership, “allow us to do this and we promise there will be no trouble”. “I said if that’s the sort of things you want to do, it’s okay. Do it in an orderly manner. But we won’t allow you to hit, kill or throw stones on the streets,” Cater said. Liang Shangyuan, deputy director of the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency, said it was difficult to judge whether such an understanding existed. “However, against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution, it was impossible to implement such a consensus even if it was reached by the two sides.” Siu Tze, deputy manager of Joint Publishing Company during the riots, joined the protests outside the Government House two or three times. “In our first and Cheung_03_ch03.indd 43 19/04/2011 2:36 PM 44 Hong Kong’s Watershed second protests, the colonial government made no attempt to stop us. It was as if we were entering no man’s land,” he recalled. Siu was arrested when he led 20 company staff on a march to the Government House on May 22. He was jailed for 14 months for disturbing public order, claiming that he was beaten by police with batons. Wu Tai-chow, president of the Hong Kong Evening News, was apprehensive about the mounting tensions outside the colonial mansion. “I disagreed with the leftist camp’s move to besiege the Government House which was after all the symbol of British rule in Hong Kong,” he said. “The leftist camp kept on mobilizing workers and students to charge at the Government House for several days consecutively. It would result in serious casualties if the colonial government took actions to suppress the protests.” Wu told Kam Yiu-yu, then chief editor of Wen Wei Po, about what he saw while driving past the Government House. “Riot policemen and plainclothes officers had been stationed in the groves on the hillside along Garden Road while there was reinforcement of policemen on both sides next to the front gate of the Government House,” Wu said. “I told Kam, ‘I think David Trench is about to take actions. He has tolerated for several days and it seems his patience has been exhausted. I hope you would consider stopping such massive protests. We have won victory because the British have not dared to take actions in the past few days. Shouldn’t you consider a tactical retreat?You should halt the protests outside the Government House unless you intend to overthrow the British rule. But there is no need to organize such protests if you really wanted to topple the colonial government,” Wu said. Kam shared the pro-Beijing ally’s anxieties and pledged to convey his views to senior officials of the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency. Kam relayed Wu’s views to Xinhua director Liang Weilin and his deputy Qi Feng (祈烽) during a meeting held at the Xinhua headquarters in Wan Chai. But...

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