ABSTRACT
This chapter explores crucial transitions of Hong Kong from the 1930s through the 1960s, as it grew from an entrepot to a global producer through the crucible of international wars. The Japanese captured Nanjing in December 1937, massacring tens of thousands of civilians there. In October 1938, the Japanese took Guangzhou, forcing massive waves of refugees into Hong Kong. Postwar development of Hong Kong as a production center is inseparable from the story of refugees. The spread of war across China into Hong Kong had produced rapid oscillations in population. Hong Kong Chinese found a new "partner", Governor Mark Young, who increased Chinese presence in the Executive Council and government service, and instituted an income tax to create a new financial independence for the colony. Social and political discontent in the 1960s led to a series of colonial reforms, ranging from further training for police to civil service reform to adoption of Cantonese as an official government language in 1974.
