ABSTRACT
The potential for civil unrest, which had so occupied the minds of the Governor and top officials through the early 1950s, was translated into reality in 1956, when riots exploded in Kowloon and Tsuen Wan. A People's Republic of China flag, hoisted in the dormitory on 1 October, was removed by a non-communist worker. Pro-communist workers complained to the management, the flag was replaced and the worker apologised. During the civil war in China, the Nationalists had recruited thousands of troops from the 14K to ‘bolster public opinion behind the Nationalist cause and to prevent or reduce communist infiltration into the Armed Forces and civil administration’. However, it is clear that the government was by 1956 already aware of the potential for civil unrest amongst the refugee communities, and of the salience of political anniversaries as rallying points for trouble. The Far East was a key battleground in the post-war battle against Communism.
