This article draws parallels between recent Sino-American trade disputes and the course of the United States' economic involvement in Hong Kong during the 1950s. The twists and turns of a Cold War policy that first prevented, then promoted, and finally controlled Hong Kong domestic exports is traced through visits by Vice President Nixon and the designer Russell Wright. American influence on Hong Kong industrialists, traders, and designers is also followed up to reveal how policies were translated into products. It is suggested that the American reaction against Hong Kong imports during the late 1950s—the outcries over “Red” profits, “sweated labor,” and “imitation”—foreshadowed more recent fears of Asian economic hegemony, human rights abuse, and intellectual property violations. The article concludes that America's management of Hong Kong's export industries through flexible production and diversified design suggests a way through current disputes, following consumer demand for less standardized, more individualized designs.
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References
1.
1. Governor Grantham encouraged Sir Robert Scott, ambassador to the United States, to use this phrase “to correct misapprehensions about Hong Kong” during his 1953 American lecture tour. See Alexander Grantham, Via Ports (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 1965), p. 165.
2.
2. “Hong Kong is of strategic importance because it is the only remaining beachhead in friendly hands on the mainland of China and because it forms a useful point of contact with anti-communist elements in Communist China. Its retention has strong psychological effect on Asian opinion.” Department of State, United States Foreign Relations, 1952-54, 12:700.
3.
3. Britain recognized the new regime in Feb. 1950. Truman had decided America would not “provide military support to the British for the defense of Hong Kong in the event of a Communist military attack.” Memorandum to Joint Chiefs of Staff, 21/10/49, quoted in Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 July 1978, p. 29.
4.
4. Although Article XII of the 1948 Economic Cooperation Agreement between the United States of America and the United Kingdom (Marshall Plan) specified that “this Agreement shall, on the part of the Government of the United Kingdom, extend to... Hong Kong,” Britain had excluded the colony from direct economic aid since 1945 and offered no assistance to the several million refugees throughout the 1950s. By contrast, the United States gave US$3 million in direct aid, together with US$6 million in food. While this did not amount to a Far East Marshall Plan, it was perceived as such in Hong Kong, at least by the pro-Communist press. Wen wei pao's editorial of 10 May 1950 concerning the economic-political conference held in Tokyo on 17-22 Apr. stated, “American Imperialism is attempting to build up an Asian economic block, or in other words, to implement an Asian Marshall Plan.”
5.
5. U.S. Export Licensing Policy declared, “No exports are allowed for stockpiling, important industrial expansion or other questionable security risk.” Department of the Treasury, Foreign Assets Control Regulations (NSC 122/1 Document 6).
6.
6. The “dying city” remark is quoted, without reference, in G. B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 316. Cf. telegram from the consul general at Hong Kong to the Department of State, U.S. Nat. Arch. 611.46G/6-2252, 22 June 1952: “[Governor Grantham] said top secret info available to him, and which he presumed was available to me, confirmed gravity Far East situation Jan 51, and made evacuation only prudent course.”
7.
7. Sir Elie Kadoorie to U.S. Consulate General, U.S. Nat. Arch. RG84/46g box 21, 19 May 1952, complaining that a requirement for 1 percent shrinkage on U.S. army uniforms was impossible. Hong Kong's General Chamber of Commerce, in Some Notes on Hong Kong Industries and the Effects of the American Trade Controls (Nov. 1953), concluded that by imposing such conditions, by rejecting comprehensive certification, and by Washington's delays in resolving cases, “the impression, of course, is given that American official policy is to drive trade away from Hong Kong.” Hong Kong Public Records Office CR7/6D83/51S III.
8.
8. U.S. Consulate General, Report on the Hong Kong Rattan Industry, prepared by Everett F. Drumright. U.S. Nat. Arch. 8 46G.341/12-2055, Dec. 1955.
9.
9. Since the embargo, 95 percent of materials—including rattan, straw, willow—were sourced in Java, the remainder in Malaya, Burma, North Borneo, and the Philippines, and 95 percent were exported, 95 percent to the United States. Szczepanic estimated the value of exports to be no less than HK$10 million per annum. Edward Szczepanik, The Economic Growth of Hong Kong (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 98.
10.
10. From an interview with Chan Kam Fai, 15 Apr. 1987.
11.
11. Ibid., p. 7.
12.
12. U.S. Consulate General, Survey of Plastics Industry, prepared by Everett Drumright, 17 Dec. 1956. The report was as much concerned with exporting plastics to Hong Kong as reexporting the finished articles.
13.
13. U.S. Consulate General, List of Hong Kong Producers Eligible for Comprehensive Certificates of Origin, prepared by Everett Drumright, U.S. Nat. Arch. RG84.4.46G.11, 1955. Such information would have been passed directly to Russel Wright via officials of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA).
14.
14. From interview with Wan Sze Yau, a descendant of the family, 1988.
15.
15. You On catalogue (1954). “The United States constituted the largest market for the [Hong Kong] wood-carving trade. It gave them, as a group, a virtual monopoly of the largest market for Chinese carved-wood products. It was this relatively enormous market which governed the entire Hong Kong based development of Chinese made carved-wood furniture, and even led to the introduction of the industry to Taiwan some time later, where carved teakwood furniture had never been produced indigenously to any large extent.”Eugene Cooper, The Wood-Carvers of Hong Kong (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 12-13.
16.
16. For example, the “bureau-bookcase” illustrated by Carl L. Crossman, The China Trade: Paintings, Furnishings and Exotic Curiosities (Woodbridge, UK: Antique Collectors' Club, 1991), p. 223.
17.
17. Acheson to McConaughy, 4 Aug. 1952, Foreign Service Posts, U.S. Nat. Arch. RG58.46G.19).
18.
18. Six hundred items from silk to electrical machinery could now be imported through the Economic Section of the U.S. Consulate. South China Morning Post, 8 Dec. 1953.
19.
19. McConaughy to Robinson, “Proposed Amendment of NSC-152/2 to Include US Economic Defense Toward Hong Kong,” U.S. Nat. Arch. 411.46G 31/11-453, 4 Nov. 1953. This document has not been declassified.
20.
20. Draft briefing paper for Adlai Stevenson, 30 Jan. 1953.
21.
21. Speech to Chinese Manufacturers' Union, Nov. 1953, reproduced in Hong Kong Directory of the Washington State Third International Trade Fair, 1954 (Hong Kong: Beatrice Church, 1954).
22.
22. Eisenhower's speech of 19 May 1957, in which this principle was set against Congress's demand for comprehensive protection for domestic industry.
23.
23. By this time, the U.S. Consulate General was the largest in the world, in part because all mainland consulates moved here after 1949, in part because the building coordinated American interests in the Far East and Southeast Asia and accordingly was bulging with representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency. On 22 Oct. 1954, Labour member of Parliament Harold Wilson pressed for an inquiry into the size of the U.S. mission, threatening to freeze U.S. assets amid allegations—from George Marden of Wheelock Marden—that Americans were spying on British businessmen. An article in Life, 2 Sept. 1954, on Hong Kong with Marden as principal was rewritten after U.S. government pressure.
24.
Four Seas was a United States Information Service-controlled Hong Kong journal.
25.
25. Grantham, Via Ports, p. 117.
26.
26. Minutes of the National Security Council meeting reproduced in Department of State, United States Foreign Relations, 1952-54, 14:347-349.
27.
27. Cf. Arthur Pulos, The American Design Adventure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), p. 236. Pulos in a private conversation in 1990 spoke of his reservations concerning ICA projects, suggesting Wright may have been a little politically naive.
28.
28. Wright's Far East mission concerned “Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.” Documentation of the trip includes the ICA files (U.S. Nat. Arch. RG469 1954-61) and Wright's report to Washington of his trip (20 Dec. 1956). Additional papers of Russel Wright Associates are collected in the George Arents Research Collection, Syracuse University, but do not include certain private papers (some dealing with Hong Kong), 500 slides and six 16mm films in the possession of his daughter who kindly granted access to Hong Kong papers. The visit was also extensively reported in Industrial Design, which was published at about the same time as Wright's article in the New York Times, 24 June 1956, publicizing the Asian products section of the First International Housewares Exposition at the New York Coliseum (25-29 June 1956) and another article, “Goldmine in South East Asia,”Interiors, 116:94-101 (Aug. 1956). The few studies on Wright as a designer such as the catalogue Russel Wright: American Designer (New York: Gallery Association of New York State, 1983) and Jerry Streicher, “The Consultant Designer in American Industry” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1963), say little about the Far East trip.
29.
29. Cover of Industrial Design (Aug. 1956).
30.
30. Abstract of Wright's report on his Far East trip, prepared by ICA officials, p. 58.
31.
31. Ibid., n. 47.
32.
32. Ibid., n. 76. Wright did not hold a simplistic belief in progress. Reflecting on his experiences in Hong Kong and other Southeast Asian countries, he wrote of what we now know as modern Asia: “The Far East is not a glamorous, Never-Never Land, nor is it the mystic miracle painted for us in Technicolor or Kodachrome by those two Gargantuas of the escapist business—Hollywood and Tourism. The Far East is made up of millions of human beings who have had a glimpse of or who have heard about a better life, and are reaching hungrily for it, and struggling against crushing odds accumulated through centuries. Was the old, traditional culture and standard of living better than the desired, 20th century one? It is futile to conjecture because you cannot stem the tide.”New York Times, 24 June 1956.
33.
33. Interview with Cheung Yat Man, 8 May 1987. In 1959, Cheung was the first Chinese to be awarded the design of Hong Kong postage stamps, and in 1962, he designed a set commemorating the centenary of the Hong Kong Post Office. In the same year, he organized a gathering of some hundred commercial artists in Hong Kong to set professional terms and fees. This first attempt to form an association of Hong Kong designers failed when many of the leading figures decided that “as artists, they should not be limited.”
34.
34. Bureau of Foreign Commerce to U.S. Consulate General, U.S. Nat. Arch. RG59 411.46G 4/159, 30 Jan. 1957.
35.
35. U.S. Nat. Arch. RG59 411.46G 41/4-3057.
36.
36. 13-27 Apr. 1957 at the New York Coliseum.
37.
37. It was not until 1963 that two Hong Kong designs were reregistered in the United States; the figure was barely higher—seven—a decade later.
38.
38. Michael D. Pendleton, “Discouraging Local Innovation and Design Expertise in Hong Kong—Colonial Intellectual Property Law,” in Design and Development in South and Southeast Asia, ed. R. Ghose (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Center of Asian Studies, 1990), p. 371.
39.
39. Statistics reproduced in Patents, Trade Marks and Designs, 81st Report of the Comptroller-General (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 12 May 1964), app. D.
40.
40. Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Trade Statistics, quoted in Fred York-Sung Yao, “United States Market for Hong Kong Artificial Flowers” (MBA diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1962), p. 9, and apps. B, C.
41.
41. A brief account of the copyright controversy is given in Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Annual Report (Hong Kong: Federation of Hong Kong Industries, 1961), pp. 14-16. Further details are quoted from confidential minutes of Federation General Committee and Plastic Flowers Subcommittee meetings of 1961, courtesy of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries.
42.
42. T. W. Wong, “Fighting for the Survival of the Plastic Flower Industry,”Hong Kong Industrial News (Oct. 1987).
43.
43. The president of Natural Ferns, Samuel Berger, complained, “We have been hurt by the policy of the big plastics mills in America who have set one price—a world market price of US$0.325 a pound. In Hong Kong the raw material can be bought for US$0.21 a pound.” In 1960, Berger announced his plan to build a plastics factory in the territory, given the favorable local price of raw materials. Eastern World (Oct. 1960).
44.
44. The American consulate was invited to extend the consular invoice service to certify that the flowers exported were being manufactured in Hong Kong and imported into the United States prior to the date of copyright. Hong Kong Federation of Industries, General Committee Minutes, “Report of the Plastic Flowers Committee” (Paper GC 72, no. 158, June 1961).
45.
45. Fung Hon Chu, in a report to the General Committee of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, General Committee Minutes, “Report of the Plastic Flowers Committee” (Paper GC 72, no. 194, 21 July 1961).
46.
46. Such growth was in large part, if not entirely, tied to a relaxation of the U.S.-imposed Comprehensive Certificates of Origin scheme, which in turn followed an easing of the embargo against Communist China. Hong Kong Public Record Office, “Trade Relations with USA,” CR5905/57.
47.
47. Propaganda such as R.C.L. Deverell's People's China: Sweat-shop Arsenal (1954) may have inadvertently prompted attacks on Hong Kong's sweatshops. These quotations, however, are taken from reported divorce proceedings, the same year, of Susan Hayward, whose claim for custody of her children was contested by her former husband on the grounds that she took her children to Hong Kong when it “was not a safe place for children.”
48.
48. Eisenhower's speech delivered 4 Apr. 1959.
49.
49. Department of State, memorandum, meeting between W. Culbertson, H. J. Shen, and Ralph Clough, U.S. Nat. Arch. 846G.341/21-158, 21 Jan. 1958.
50.
50. Minutes of the 8th Meeting of the Working Party of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (Hong Kong: Federation of Hong Kong Industries, 20 Nov. 1959).
51.
51. Cf. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 285 and chaps. 9-11.
