Hongkongers in the British Armed Forces, 1860-1997

Author: Dr Kwong Chi-man, Associate Professor of the Department of History

ISBN: 978-019-28-4574-0

Hong Kong has been caught between empires ever since the First Opium War (1839-1842). As a result, the study of Hong Kong’s history has been subjected to the influence of the empires that controlled or laid claim to it. The historical experience of Hongkongers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is unique, with Hong Kong as a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, an international trading hub, and a geopolitically crucial British colony until 1997. In recent decades, historians have produced works on different aspects of the history of Hong Kong, but one particular group has remained obscure: the more than 30,000 Hong Kong men and women who served in the British armed forces from the Opium Wars to the end of British rule.

This is the first systematic study of the experience of Hong Kong servicemen in the British armed forces during the colonial period. It puts the Hong Kong servicemen in the contexts of the history of Hong Kong, the history of overseas Chinese, the history of the British Empire, and the military history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It details the agency of Hongkongers, who were often portrayed as victims or beneficiaries during the two world wars and the Cold War, and it highlights the relevance of Hong Kong in the modern history of East Asia. The author also looks at how the intertwined issues of class and race played out among these servicemen, who came from a variety of ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds.