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Article: Hearts and Minds in Hong Kong’s New Territories: Agriculture and Vegetable Marketing in a Cold War Borderland, circa 1946-1967

TitleHearts and Minds in Hong Kong’s New Territories: Agriculture and Vegetable Marketing in a Cold War Borderland, circa 1946-1967
Authors
KeywordsAgriculture
Cold War
Communism
Decolonization
Sino-Hong Kong Relations
Issue Date2-Jun-2023
PublisherCambridge University Press
Citation
Modern Asian Studies, 2023, p. 1-28 How to Cite?
Abstract

Using declassified colonial and British records in Hong Kong and London, as well as memoirs of former leftists and newspapers, this article explores the strategies the Hong Kong colonial government employed in a propaganda campaign to garner political support of the rural population in the New Territories, a porous land frontier during the Cold War. It also analyses the varying political orientations of migrant farmers, who often had received economic benefits from both the colonial government and the leftist organizations. This article reveals that the colonial government established the Vegetable Marketing Organization (VMO), a state-owned enterprise, to first nationalize the vegetable wholesale market in the immediate post-war period, and subsequently used it to combat increasing political influence and anti-government activities of the communist-controlled Society of Plantations. Despite the improvement of the livelihood of immigrant farmers, the VMO Scheme failed to out-compete the Society economically, which was ultimately eliminated by draconian measures. Through studying the agrarian politics and economic contestations in Hong Kong’s rural area, this article provides a lens on how the Cold War was played out at a village level in East Asia.


Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/331382
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 1.0
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.443
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorNg, Michael-
dc.contributor.authorMok, Florence-
dc.contributor.authorWong, John-
dc.contributor.authorWu, Wallace -
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-21T06:55:14Z-
dc.date.available2023-09-21T06:55:14Z-
dc.date.issued2023-06-02-
dc.identifier.citationModern Asian Studies, 2023, p. 1-28-
dc.identifier.issn0026-749X-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/331382-
dc.description.abstract<p>Using declassified colonial and British records in Hong Kong and London, as well as memoirs of former leftists and newspapers, this article explores the strategies the Hong Kong colonial government employed in a propaganda campaign to garner political support of the rural population in the New Territories, a porous land frontier during the Cold War. It also analyses the varying political orientations of migrant farmers, who often had received economic benefits from both the colonial government and the leftist organizations. This article reveals that the colonial government established the Vegetable Marketing Organization (VMO), a state-owned enterprise, to first nationalize the vegetable wholesale market in the immediate post-war period, and subsequently used it to combat increasing political influence and anti-government activities of the communist-controlled Society of Plantations. Despite the improvement of the livelihood of immigrant farmers, the VMO Scheme failed to out-compete the Society economically, which was ultimately eliminated by draconian measures. Through studying the agrarian politics and economic contestations in Hong Kong’s rural area, this article provides a lens on how the Cold War was played out at a village level in East Asia.<br></p>-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherCambridge University Press-
dc.relation.ispartofModern Asian Studies-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectAgriculture-
dc.subjectCold War-
dc.subjectCommunism-
dc.subjectDecolonization-
dc.subjectSino-Hong Kong Relations-
dc.titleHearts and Minds in Hong Kong’s New Territories: Agriculture and Vegetable Marketing in a Cold War Borderland, circa 1946-1967-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.doi10.1017/S0026749X22000610-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85162172466-
dc.identifier.spage1-
dc.identifier.epage28-
dc.identifier.eissn1469-8099-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:001012050900001-
dc.identifier.issnl0026-749X-

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