Cultural Education as Containment of Communism: The Ambivalent Position of American NGOs in Hong Kong in the 1950s

Abstract

This article discusses the ambivalent role of U.S. non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in shaping Hong Kong's institutions of higher education in the 1950s. Cold War concerns about Communist expansion induced the NGOs to pursue ideological goals that were not part of their main mission, even as they continued policy directions that superseded and sometimes unintentionally counteracted Cold War thinking and strategies. Hong Kong, as a site important but marginal to both China and Britain, had strategic value in the Cold War and as such impelled many different forces to contest it. By examining how U.S. NGO educational work in Hong Kong both reinforced and destabilized Cold War ideology, one gains a clearer picture not only of Hong Kong's cultural significance in Cold War politics but also the ambiguity of Cold War intellectual paradigms of culture and education.

Going out under the shadow of Red China: the geopolitical origin of Hong Kong’s international status

“…the US Cold War foreign policy) gave Hong Kong the opportunity to accomplish this through becoming a member of the ADB. Indeed, at the onset of the Cold War, the broader geopolitical conflicts between the great powers brought the colonial government various forms of external assistance, especially from the US Government and its related agents, which mitigated the financial burden caused by massive refugee influx from the mainland to the colony (see also Chou, 2010; Mark, 2007; Oyen, 2014; Wong, 2002). Without the geopolitical-strategic value of Hong Kong, it seems unlikely the US Government would pour resources into the colony.…”

Global pedigree and national imperative: Hong Kong universities’ response to China’s grand strategies

“…We argue that this skepticism reveals the fundamental conflict between the internationally shaped and nationally oriented approaches. According to the internationally shaped approach, the international profile of Hong Kong (Duara 2016;Chan 2019) as well as that of its HE sector (Wong 2005;Chou 2010) is a by-product of geopolitics during the Cold War and colonial era as Hong Kong experienced dramatic transformations. This profile radiates cultural hybridity as well as political ambiguity.…”

“…Such a political-cultural frontier approach is important for our understanding of the establishment of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a major university in the territory. Specifically, the university was established through the merger of several colleges, which were founded by those exiled Confucianists and supported by the British colonial and the US governments for the purposes of defusing the tensions between the pro-Beijing and pro-Taipei camps and containing communist influence in Hong Kong and Asia (see Wong 2005;Chou 2010 for details). Duara (2016) points out that this observation about political and cultural ambiguity can also explain the situation in the early colonial era: (Hong Kong) was an important contact zone between imperialism and nationalism where national and developmental ideas could encounter colonial and free-trade principles to generate hybrid and new practices beholden to neither political ideology.…”

Colonial governance and state incorporation of Chinese language: the case of the first Chinese language movement in Hong Kong

“…Although Grantham mentioned the communist side of the story, in fact, the above-mentioned “post-secondary colleges” – later the founding constituent colleges of the Chinese University of Hong Kong – were in close relationship with the other side of the Cold War ideological camp, the Kuomintang regime and American non-governmental organisations (Wong, 2002: 226; see also, Chou, 2010). Despite their ideological difference, both Kuomintang and Communist promoted their own version of nationalism through educational means, including the provision of special preparatory classes, travel subsidies and scholarships to a youthful population who would like to pursue further education but unable to do so in the colony (Wong, 2002: 220–223).…”