chankljp
Donor
It is widely acknowledged by many that militarily speaking, during World War 2 Hong Kong was literally indefensible from an attack coming from the north by the Japanese, due to a number of factors including the city’s massive population, and limited access to fresh water and food in the event of a siege, the lack of strategic depth, etc.
Adding the fact that the city have very little value in terms of to the war effort as a besieged city, I have seen many people suggesting that Commonwealth forces that fought in the battle for the city should have been deployed to Malaya instead, where they might have made actually made a difference. And that Hong Kong should have either be defended by the Volunteers Regiment to put up token resistance, or outright be declared an undefended open city.
What I want to hear everyone’s thought on is that, assuming that the War on the Pacific went largely the same as OTL (As I am taking a guess that an additional Commonwealth Infantry Division will not make that much of a difference), what kind of impact would this decision have on the long-term future of Hong Kong once the war is over?
In an ATL in which Hong Kong was militarily abandoned by the British, will the British be able to keep possession of the city post-war? Considering that in OTL, Roosevelt did suggest that the sovereignty of Hong Kong be returned to the ROC, and was only prevented from doing so by Churchill (who wanted to maintain British influence in the Far East) and Stalin (who wanted a weak and divided China). Would Churchill be negotiating from a position of weakness after a move that some might see as ‘weak’?
Alternatively, if the British did take back the city in 1945 after Japan’s surrender, would they be facing a much more resentful population, one that feels their colonial master as having abandoned them to three years and eight months of brutal occupation? (A lot of the hardship that the population suffered such as the forced deportation of over a million of the city’s inhabitants, will likely still have taken place regardless of if the city had resisted or not). Come 20 years later when the 1967 Leftist riots take place, would the rioters have gotten more public support because of the perceived abandonment and betrayal?
Adding the fact that the city have very little value in terms of to the war effort as a besieged city, I have seen many people suggesting that Commonwealth forces that fought in the battle for the city should have been deployed to Malaya instead, where they might have made actually made a difference. And that Hong Kong should have either be defended by the Volunteers Regiment to put up token resistance, or outright be declared an undefended open city.
What I want to hear everyone’s thought on is that, assuming that the War on the Pacific went largely the same as OTL (As I am taking a guess that an additional Commonwealth Infantry Division will not make that much of a difference), what kind of impact would this decision have on the long-term future of Hong Kong once the war is over?
In an ATL in which Hong Kong was militarily abandoned by the British, will the British be able to keep possession of the city post-war? Considering that in OTL, Roosevelt did suggest that the sovereignty of Hong Kong be returned to the ROC, and was only prevented from doing so by Churchill (who wanted to maintain British influence in the Far East) and Stalin (who wanted a weak and divided China). Would Churchill be negotiating from a position of weakness after a move that some might see as ‘weak’?
Alternatively, if the British did take back the city in 1945 after Japan’s surrender, would they be facing a much more resentful population, one that feels their colonial master as having abandoned them to three years and eight months of brutal occupation? (A lot of the hardship that the population suffered such as the forced deportation of over a million of the city’s inhabitants, will likely still have taken place regardless of if the city had resisted or not). Come 20 years later when the 1967 Leftist riots take place, would the rioters have gotten more public support because of the perceived abandonment and betrayal?
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