Dealings with CCP and KMT in British Hong Kong: The Shanghai Bankers, 1948-1951

Abstract

The year 1949 was a great divide in modern Chinese history. How Shanghai bankers responded to it is an interesting question to address. For those bankers who chose to leave Shanghai and settle in British Hong Kong, can we suppose they were permanently separated from China or Taiwan? It is generally assumed that once the Shanghai bankers confined themselves to their new home in Hong Kong or moved on to other locations in the United States or elsewhere, they immediately severed all ties with either mainland China under the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) or Taiwan under the KMT (Kuomintang or Guomindang). Such an assumption leads to a mistaken argument that the departure of Chinese bankers from Shanghai cut short their involvements in China politics. Perhaps it is true that some emigrant bankers never returned, but others remained in touch with their home in China, whether because they were solicited by the agents who were sent to the colony by the CCP in China and the KMT in Taiwan, or, because they took the initiative in reaching across the borders to mainland China or Taiwan. From their sanctuary in Hong Kong, how did the bankers conduct cross-border relations after 1949? This paper will go beyond the general assumption that the Shanghai bankers turned to Hong Kong solely for the colony’s being a sanctuary during the political and economic turmoil of the 1940s. Instead, these bankers continued to engage in political confrontation to the CCP and the KMT after they fled Shanghai. This paper argues that once they were in the colony, they had to address several problems. These included, first, to choose their final destination in either Shanghai, Hong Kong or Taipei; second, whether to continue or quit their banking careers and thirdly, to find a solution in order to counteract the alignment with either the CCP or the KMT.