Question: Why Hong Kong prospered and not Saigon?

Hi everyone,

It's more of a question really, why did Hong Kong and Shangai prosper immensely under English rule whereas Saigon and Fort Bayard did rather poorly under French rule?

What were the main differences and how could it have been changed? Is it just because Hong Kong had a better access to China or is it administrative/colonial policy?
 
What were the main differences and how could it have been changed? Is it just because Hong Kong had a better access to China or is it administrative/colonial policy?
Both, I'd say. Hong Kong had its dominance clearly established and supported trough a coherent policy from London; when there were no real plans for Kouang-Tchéou-Wan that didn't benefited from favourable position to begin with.

Kouang-Tchéou-Wan/Guǎngzhōuwān was too backwater (including demographically) compared to Hong Kong (that boomed earlier than french territory creation and attracted the trade), and didn't attracted investment that went in Indochina instead.

Eventually, the economic ambitions were quickly shut down at the profit of a more strategical one : controlling north-western South China sea, and Indochinese coast against piracy and eventually chinese troubles. Even that didn't worked that well, as the harbour became unfit for the new navies in the 20's (and investment too important compared to a secondary priority to be made quickly)

As for Saigon...Sure it wasn't Shangaï or Singapore (that beneficied from an extremly advantagous position), but it wasn't exactly poor either. Before the WWII, it was an important regional trade point, and the sixth french empire harbour, representating an important part of Indochina revenues.
 
So basically the French came too late to the game and got the chair with the spring that goes through it?
 
I got to say I love the history of Indochine, it has adventurer, pirates, crazy soldiers, drug trade... It's basically every Wild West movie pumped up on amphetamines
 

RousseauX

Donor
Hi everyone,

It's more of a question really, why did Hong Kong and Shangai prosper immensely under English rule whereas Saigon and Fort Bayard did rather poorly under French rule?

What were the main differences and how could it have been changed? Is it just because Hong Kong had a better access to China or is it administrative/colonial policy?

My impression was always that Hong Kong did not prosper until the post-war era, like as in not until the 50s-60s.
 
My impression was always that Hong Kong did not prosper until the post-war era, like as in not until the 50s-60s.

Define 'prosper'. It was a huge hub of commercial activity from the time it was founded. Lots of millionaires, many British, of course, but I believe also Chinese and Eurasian.

Were the poor working Chinese well off? No, but they probably had better prospects than their equivalents in mainland China.
 
Hi everyone,

It's more of a question really, why did Hong Kong and Shangai prosper immensely under English rule whereas Saigon and Fort Bayard did rather poorly under French rule?

What were the main differences and how could it have been changed? Is it just because Hong Kong had a better access to China or is it administrative/colonial policy?

Well Hong Kong and Shanghai definitely had a head-start over Fort-Bayard (like 40 years, at least)... and in any case Fort-Bayard's lease, like most of the 1890s leases, was more for military reasons than commercial ones as Europeans + Japanese tried to outmaneuver each other for real estate from which to 'indirectly' control China.

Fort Bayard was a base from which France could claim exclusive rights of investment/capital over the Chinese southwest. Of course the Chinese southwest wasn't exactly the most prosperous bit of China so that's another reason why it didn't take off.

In any case, geographically Hong Kong and Shanghai are at the head of important commercial rivers that link the cities up to the Chinese hinterland, which was not the case for almost all the other concessions.

As for administrative policy... I'm not sure about French colonial policy, but the British strategy in early Hong Kong was basically a small, white civil service making all the 'big decisions' and passing responsibility for local Chinese affairs to Chinese elites. That was basically the way the colony was governed until the 1970s.
 
Yeah, I was listening to a podcast about the colonial policy in Hong Kong, live and let live as long as the money flows basically. Very interesting. From the French colonial policy I just have Hubert Lyautey's vision which is extremely negative (but the guy was kinda traumatised by the administration and had some kind of fetish for England).

Could have Jean Dupuis and various explorers attempts at establishing trading posts inland led to anything?
 

Neirdak

Banned
Hong Kong and Macau are close to Pearl River, while Fort-Bayard (Kouang-Tchéou-Wan) was logistically isolated and the region was already lowly populated when the French chose this area. It was undeveloped economically. I can't understand why they chose this hellish and isolated place to build a colony.

Following the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, Zhanjiang developed new importance. In 1955 a rail link was built to Litang in Guangxi province, where it joined the Hunan-Guangxi Railway. Had the French built an actual railway to Lei Tchou (at least) and to the north, perhaps it could have boomed.

A good idea could have been to link the territory to Indochina with railways (Hanoi-Kouang Tchéou Wan) and later to Guangzhou and Kunming.

In addition to the territory acquired, France was given the right to connect the bay by railway with the city and harbour situated on the west side of the peninsula; however, when they attempted to take possession of the land to build the railway, forces of the provincial government offered armed resistance. As a result, France demanded and obtained exclusive mining rights in the three adjoining prefectures.

Look at those maps

Colonial :
- http://www.indochine-souvenir.com/cartes/fortbayard.jpg
- http://belleindochine.free.fr/images/Plan/1909/KouangTcheouWang.JPG

Modern map
- http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/tpc/txu-pclmaps-oclc-22834566_j-11b.jpg

Economic situation of Fort-Bayard (in french)
- http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/geo_0003-4010_1925_num_34_187_8102

Seriously, they should have chosen Hainan Island or a town on it ...
 
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I can't understand why they chose this hellish and isolated place to build a colony.

Mostly for geostrategical matters, as it allowed to keep both an eye on Indochina and french influence zone in China. (That and "all cool kids are doing it" attitude, as a prestige matter)
What wasn't taken in account, was the fact you eventually needed huge investement to make the harbour fit XXth standards on navy.

Now, with a PoD during the Sino-French war, with France having an upper-er hand (meaning no defeats in China and no Tokin Affair), Pescadores were a proposed possibility to set up a french territory for (trying to) rival Hong Kong.
 
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Mostly for geostrategical matters, as it allowed to keep both an eye on Indochina and french influence zone in China. (That and "all cool kids are doing it" attitude, as a prestige matter)
What wasn't taken in account, was the fact you eventually needed huge investement to make the harbour fit XXth standards on navy.
Yeah, that's what I gathered, Fort Bayard was where it was because it was close to the prized Indochine, a few years after the pacification of Tonkin (pacification, what a funny word), notably against the remnants of the Black Flags (I have the beginning of an article about it but the whole article is like 50€, but it's 100 pages long, I'll keep it for next month :D but I can give the link to people interested)

Going elsewhere would have meant spreading scarse milutary resources. Plus wasn't Fort Bayard kind of a free trade zone to sell opium more easily? I remember something in the like


EDIT: Here's the article (EN) http://gradworks.umi.com/33/28/3328389.html
 
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