Tom Colton
domesticated humans?!
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
Part 2 of the Tom Colton Goes to China and Gets Inspired to ask WI series
Guangdong Province has the dubious honour of bordering both Special Administrative Regions of China, namely Macau and Hong Kong, but it's not like those two are the only island ports in the region.
Of the various others in this stretch of the Southern Chinese coast such as Swatow and Sanshui, the one which I wish to bring specific attention to is the one I stayed at last week, namely the city of Yangjiang.
It's right on the western bit there, with Macau being located right next to Zhuhai and Hong Kong, of course, labelled as Xianggang. As you can see, not unlike Hong Kong, Yangjiang's Jiangcheng district (see below, pink) comprises both a mainland municipality, and an island.
Hailing Island (pink bit, island) is approximately 106 square kilometres in size (which makes it about thrice the size of Macau and slightly bigger than Hong Kong Island) and has a pretty decent bay which supports a crapton of fishing vessels on its southwestern coast (the bit in the brackets on the map on the right) and a very pretty beach. It also houses the Maritime Silk Route Museum, which contains a shipwreck I' m interested in for my PhD but that's another matter entirely.
Given that the Dutch tried multiple times to take Macau from the Portuguese and failed (with the most memorable attempt being in 1622 during the Dutch-Portuguese War), what's stopping them from turning around trying to grab/settle Hailing? If that's unfeasible, what would it take post-Opium Wars to get Hailing to become a third European enclave as permanent as those of Macau and Hong Kong? What implications would this have on the rest of the Century of Humiliation-era Chinese politics?
Guangdong Province has the dubious honour of bordering both Special Administrative Regions of China, namely Macau and Hong Kong, but it's not like those two are the only island ports in the region.
Of the various others in this stretch of the Southern Chinese coast such as Swatow and Sanshui, the one which I wish to bring specific attention to is the one I stayed at last week, namely the city of Yangjiang.
It's right on the western bit there, with Macau being located right next to Zhuhai and Hong Kong, of course, labelled as Xianggang. As you can see, not unlike Hong Kong, Yangjiang's Jiangcheng district (see below, pink) comprises both a mainland municipality, and an island.
Hailing Island (pink bit, island) is approximately 106 square kilometres in size (which makes it about thrice the size of Macau and slightly bigger than Hong Kong Island) and has a pretty decent bay which supports a crapton of fishing vessels on its southwestern coast (the bit in the brackets on the map on the right) and a very pretty beach. It also houses the Maritime Silk Route Museum, which contains a shipwreck I' m interested in for my PhD but that's another matter entirely.
Given that the Dutch tried multiple times to take Macau from the Portuguese and failed (with the most memorable attempt being in 1622 during the Dutch-Portuguese War), what's stopping them from turning around trying to grab/settle Hailing? If that's unfeasible, what would it take post-Opium Wars to get Hailing to become a third European enclave as permanent as those of Macau and Hong Kong? What implications would this have on the rest of the Century of Humiliation-era Chinese politics?