Hong Kong of the North

You've likely never heard of it, but in 1898 the British occupied a small island in north China. We ask the simple question: whatever happened to the colony of 'Way High'?

While the British ensign is undoubtedly familiar, you’d be hard-pressed to guess why there are a pair of Mandarin ducks on this flag, and where on earth it might be. Given the headline, you’ve probably deduced it has to be somewhere in China, and if you’ve read the subheading then the answer will be clear. But what and where is Weihaiwei?

In sum, Weihaiwei was a British territory in northern China that had every potential to become the Hong Kong of the north, but never did. On 24 May 1898, the British Crown took over some 750 square kilometers of Chinese territory on the Shandong Peninsula, with the strange proviso that they be allowed to stay for just as long as the Russians remained in Port Arthur. Despite its English-sounding name, the latter was a hugely strategic point of land on the Liaodong Peninsula, which guarded the entrance by sea to Peking. To counter this threat, the British demanded the Qing Dynasty give them their own base on the opposite side of the sea. Today Port Arthur is known as Dalian.

Aptly meaning ‘powerful sea guard’, Weihaiwei was to be a major Royal Navy fortress, indeed it had been the base for the Qing Empire’s Beiyang Fleet until their decisive defeat a few years earlier by Japanese forces. However it quickly became apparent that potential development was limited, and so civilian leaders instead set about turning it into a summer retreat for tired colonials serving at treaty ports throughout China. The island of Liu Kung-Tao (now called Liugong Dao) became a minor port of call for the Royal Navy’s China fleet, which also had bases in Hong Kong (Tamar) and Singapore.

In 1904 the dueling empires of Russia and Japan, which each had designs on northern China, begun a major conflict that lasted for two years. After a stunning victory, the Japanese took hold of all Russian possessions in China, including Port Arthur, which they promptly renamed Ryojun. Despite the departure of the Russians, the British - wary of this new threat from the Empire of Japan - demanded and were granted an extension of the lease of Weihaiwai, now for as long as the Japanese remained in Port Arthur/Ryojun. Just two years earlier, one of the two most important British officials in the short history of Weihaiwai was appointed, namely Sir James Stewart Lockhart.

A talented technocrat, Lockhart had gone to Hong Kong in 1878 as a Colonial Service cadet, after a failed application to become an Indian civil servant. He then joined the Hong Kong Government four years later, and rapidly rose through the ranks to become Colonial Secretary by the time he was just 37, during which time he had also founded the Hong Kong Football Club (of which I was once a member). Indeed, he was reported to have a decent level of Cantonese, and had the official Chinese name: 駱克 (Lok Hak), though what the Scot would have made of his name adorning one of Hong Kong’s most infamous red light districts - Wanchai’s Lockhart Road - would be amusing to know.

In 1902, Lockhart was appointed Commissioner of Weihaiwei, a title that was almost a governor but not quite, and reflected the temporary nature of the territory. He was to remain in post until 1921, and during his two decades in charge did much to promote and develop it as a holiday destination for British expats, including building a sports ground, vacation homes, official residences, a hospital, post office, and all the usual infrastructure needed by a self-sustaining outpost of the British Empire. British expats living in the various treaty ports, from Foochow (Fuzhou) to Hankow (now in Wuhan), flocked here for the fresh air and some quiet time by the seaside, while Royal Navy sailors on shore leave enjoyed the charms of the place they nicknamed ‘ Way High’.

Just seven years into Lockhart’s reign, the Hong Kong Governor Sir Frederick Lugard (who also has a city road named after him, but in the far more salubrious surroundings of The Peak) proposed returning Weihaiwei to Chinese rule in exchange for changing the 99 year lease on Hong Kong’s New Territories to permanent British rule, but the proposal was ignored. (Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutter’s Island had already been granted to Britain in perpetuity earlier). If Lugard’s idea had been adopted, it may have meant the Hong Kong handover never happened in 1997. Of course, it may also have made no difference, such are the vagaries of ‘what if’ history.

Lockhart was succeeded as Commissioner by noted Sinologist Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (after whom the street in Hong Kong is not named), who had initially served as a Weihaiwei District Officer, before in 1919 he was appointed as tutor to the last emperor, Puyi. Despite the fact Puyi had been deposed in 1912, he still resided in the Forbidden City, where Johnston was one of only two foreigners allowed to live within the inner sanctum, the other being the Peking-born American missionary’s daughter Isabel Ingram, who similarly tutored Puyi’s wife Wanrong, the last Empress of China.

Having lost his position after the imperial couple were expelled from the palace in 1924, Johnston became the second civilian Commissioner of Weihaiwei in 1927. His enlightened rule, where he blended Chinese Confucian values with Colonial law and sensibilities, was a success, but only lasted three years until the territory was handed back to China on 1 October 1930. However, British rule was to last 10 more years, with the island of Liu Kung-Tao leased as a Royal Navy base until the sun finally set on the territory when the Japanese invaded on 1 October 1940. After the Sino-Japanese war ended, the Chinese civil war erupted, until finally, in 1949, the Communists took over. What could have become the Hong Kong of northern China faded back into obscurity.