How would a French Hong Kong/Macau affect the modern PRC?

Strategos' Risk · Oct 1, 2014

I've asked about Guangzhouwan before: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=302715

Guangzhouwan (also spelled Quang- or Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, Kwangchowan or Kwang-Chou-Wan), meaning "Guangzhou Bay", was a small enclave on the southern coast of China ceded by Qing China to France as a leased territory and administered as an outlier of French Indochina.[1] The territory did not experience the rapid growth in population that other parts of coastal China experienced, rising from 189,000 in 1911[2] to just 209,000 in 1935.[3] Industries included shipping and coal mining.

Japan occupied the territory in February 1943. The French briefly took it back in 1945 before returning it to China in 1946,[4] at which point its original name of Zhanjiang was restored. The capital of the territory was Fort-Bayard, also known in Cantonese as Tsamkong. It was later romanized in pinyin as Zhanjiang by the Chinese government in 1958.[

So suppose for whatever reason, the Nationalists allow the French to keep the port city, extending the lease to be longer. The French thus end up keeping the place until the late 20th/early 21st century. The place gets hyperdeveloped, like the many other powerhouse economies of Asia. Life pretty much goes on the same as history in the rest of China. Low butterflies zone. At the end of the lease the French hand over their (probably lesser) equivalent of HK.

So how would having to deal with not two but three formerly-European administered cities affect the PRC? Given French colonial policy, how would this city develop? What would a French-influenced Chinese culture look like?

I'm usually not a big fan of low butterfly zone threads, but I figure one of the best ways to get dialogue is to juxtapose an AH idea with current events. (How would Saddam react to the Arab Spring? As if the circumstances that led to the Arab Spring even play out in the same way lmao)

Oh awesome, another thread on this: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=28292

LSCatilina · Oct 1, 2014

The problem is that the enclave was far too much rivaled by closer and richer Indochina

The harbour was poorly invested on, poorly inhabited and was concieved at best as a potential military base.

If for some reason it survived as a french enclave past 1945, the question of its strategical relevance would be there (a bit like Bizerte base IOTL) in the 50/60's (critically with the french nuclear program), critically in face of the PRC claims (if French India holdings were gaven back to India, I don't see why less relevants point as such wouldn't be)

In the 90's, it would look like an improved french Guantanamo, rather than a city-state.

Strategos' Risk · Oct 1, 2014

Guangzhouwan is 500 square miles, bigger than Hong Kong and over 10x greater than Gitmo. It would take a dystopia to have an overgrown prison base of that size. Speaking of which, why wouldn't the French keep the place to have bases? Certainly (as in the previous thread) it's quite likely they wouldn't invest in the place as much as the British did with Hong Kong, but why wouldn't they hold on to a strategic fallback position right near fractious Indochina? It's much easier to control Fort-Bayard. Unless there were diplomatic pressures from Mao (and the other thread argues that there wouldn't be), why not hold both Indochina and Guangzhouwan?

I think for the purposes of this scenario (imagining how China would deal with modern day issues in HK) I'd adopt the conclusions from the aforementioned previous thread:

Hendryk said:
I agree with this hypothesis. The place would likely have remained a backwater until 1949, but at that point would have seen its population swell with those mainland refugees who couldn't make it to Hong Kong, which would have gone some way towards jump-starting its economy. Then a second wave of refugees would have come from Vietnam in 1954, mostly members of the Chinese community; and a third wave, this time ethnic Vietnamese fleeing the war and the Communist advance, would have arrived in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1978 and 1997, the place would probably have served as a jumping board for illegal Chinese migrants on their way to France.

So, while it wouldn't have been a major trading place such as Hong Kong, it would have been a respectable city in its own right, looking by 2006 like a Shenzhen prime.

benedict XVII said:
I would look at a mix between Monaco and the French West Indies to get an idea as to how France might manage the enclave: low taxes, secondary financial center, cute archictecture, somewhat laidback but with style, a certain dose of corruption, quite a bit of interethnic mingling, etc. People who want to do business would go to Hong-Kong, people who want to gamble and f*** hookers would go to Macao, and people who want to enjoy a good life would go Kwang-Chou-Wang.

It becomes a convenient place for French and anti-communist Vietnamese elites to flee to, grows manufacturing economy that transitions to service industries in the '90s, and ends up looking like a more lax, lackadaisical Franco-Viet-Chinese version of HK. With former military bases...

LSCatilina · Oct 1, 2014

Strategos' Risk said:
Guangzhouwan is 500 square miles, bigger than Hong Kong and over 10x greater than Gitmo.

And yet, it didn't prevented it to not being economically interesting.

It would take a dystopia to have an overgrown prison base of that size.

Guantanamo's role, at least before 1959, can't be limited to "prison base". I was more referring to the military role, if it helps.

Speaking of which, why wouldn't the French keep the place to have bases?

Because on this regard, Indochina was more interesting and provided more easy provisioning. If Indochina is lost (as it would be likely), there wouldn't be any strategical reason to hold on Guangzhouwan anyway.

but why wouldn't they hold on to a strategic fallback position right near fractious Indochina?

Because it didn't had the infrastructure for to begin with. And investing on it, critically after 1945 is quite out of question in the light of ressources avaibles (as in, rebuilding metropolitan infrastructures).

I think for the purposes of this scenario (imagining how China would deal with modern day issues in HK) I'd adopt the conclusions from the aforementioned previous thread:

The problem being to holding it up to 1949. WW2 prooved that a concerted attack couldn't be hold, and France would have definitely too much issues in Indochina then in Africa to really care about a backwater and strategically insignificant point, without real political justification (again, if the far more develloped French India was send back to India, holding on a chinese point doesn't make a great political sense)

If you want to hold it as a French point, you'd need at least a late 20's PoD, a different decolonisation and maybe no WW2 to begin with.

Strategos' Risk · Oct 2, 2014

I'm just not sure why it would be so difficult for them to hold on to one minor territory. Sure it'd be low on the priority, but assuming if Mao doesn't press them for it, I'd think the French wouldn't mind keeping it. I thought French India was given back because India was forming as a country and revanchism was a bigger deal there (as opposed to HK and Macau not getting pressured to be returned to China). Seems like Bizerte was also a point of convention.

A pre-WWII POD would work too if the French tried more seriously to build it as a rival to Hong Kong.

LeX · Oct 2, 2014

How interesting. I'll have to keep this in mind for my TL.

LSCatilina · Oct 2, 2014

Strategos' Risk said:
I'm just not sure why it would be so difficult for them to hold on to one minor territory.

It's less about difficulty than interest. It served barely any strategical purpose for France, you didn't have ressources for investing on it past 1945, and safe to piss on RoC or PRC only to say "you won't have it, nanananah", there is simply no reason to keep it. (Or actually, to reconquer it, because since 1945, you had a nationalist control of the territory)

Sure it'd be low on the priority, but assuming if Mao doesn't press them for it, I'd think the French wouldn't mind keeping it.

Even RoC made pressure on this regard, with the benefit to have actually a presence there and administrating it (with the technical agreement of GPRF).

Eventually it comes down to there : was it worth to have a diplomatic conflict (if not more) about a backwater point without strategical value (safe some potential) when in the same time you have to deal with a general issue on the much more worthile Indochina?
Critically when China could actually give a hand to Vietnamese?

I thought French India was given back because India was forming as a country

And a China, that had to deal with foreign occupation before, and with a strong national feeling isn't going to be a bit "revanchist"?

Seems like Bizerte was also a point of convention.

Not really. It's comparable to the base

A pre-WWII POD would work too if the French tried more seriously to build it as a rival to Hong Kong.

Frankly, the investements may have been seriously too huge compared to forseeable results for making it wortwhile. The countryside wasn't wealthy enough (even trough trade) to cover expanses in material or communications.

If France had more interests on the region than just Indochina, as in more focus on China proper (and it would ask for a more stable China), it may have been doable.

Strategos' Risk · Oct 2, 2014

Why was Portugal able to hold on to Macau for so long?

LSCatilina · Oct 2, 2014

Strategos' Risk said:
Why was Portugal able to hold on to Macau for so long?

I would say, among other things, because :
- It was more important economically speaking for Portugal.
- UK would have supported them to not set a bad precedent regarding Hong Kong in face of Chinese pressure
- Portugese administration and presence wasn't ruled out by Japanese domination.

To be compared with
- Not being important either economically or strategically for France.
- France already gave its approoval in late 43/early 44, making an international support jeopardized.
- Being already controled by China in 45

Viriato · Oct 2, 2014

LSCatilina said:
I would say, among other things, because :
- It was more important economically speaking for Portugal.
- UK would have supported them to not set a bad precedent regarding Hong Kong in face of Chinese pressure
- Portugese administration and presence wasn't ruled out by Japanese domination.

To be compared with
- Not being important either economically or strategically for France.
- France already gave its approoval in late 43/early 44, making an international support jeopardized.
- Being already controled by China in 45

Macau's economic importance was largely gone once the treaty ports were opened by 1842, also the lack of a deep water harbour made Macau unable to compete with Hong Kong. It was for that reason that gambling was legalized in the territory in 1850.

Macau was also responsible for the Portuguese islands in the Indies until 1896. The administration in Portuguese Timor was so cash strapped that in 1852 the local governor José Joaquim Lopes Lima sold the islands of Flores, Alor, Adonara, Pantar and Solor to the Dutch for 200,000 florins without authorization from Macau or Lisbon. He was later dismissed and fled to Batavia where he died.

Psychologically speaking, Macau (and Goa) were important to the Portuguese governments as they were relics of a grander past (the 16th century) when Portuguese power was at its height. In that sense it was valuable. Also, the Portuguese government had offered to give Macau back to the Chinese, but for the pre-1979 government of China it proved a valuable stream of hard currency for the cash short People's Republic. Presumably if the French held onto Kwangchowan, the People's Republic wouldn't accept it back until they began negotiating with Britain on the return of Hong Kong.

Salazar had attempted to hand Macau over in 1967 due to riots in December 1966. In late 1974, the post-coup government attempted to hand it over as they wished to get rid of all colonies, but were rebuffed by the PRC. This led to the Portuguese reluctantly administering Macau until they came to a formal agreement in 1987.