• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

WI: A successful Young Plan

Bonniecanuck

DIEF WILL BE THE CHIEF AGAIN
Location
Formerly Hong Kong, currently London
Pronouns
she/her + they/them
Sir Mark Aitchison Young, wartime Governor of Hong Kong, did not last long in the office. Taking over just two months before the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, he spent four years enduring severe mistreatment as POW, only resuming his duties in May 1946 after some time recuperating in Britain while Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt led a provisional military administration in his stead, before retiring after just over a year in July 1947.

However, Young and his successor Sir Geoffry Northcote were progressive administrators for their time, and Young put forward a series of sweeping reforms envisioning universal suffrage, which included the ethnic Chinese populations of the territory, for a 30-member "Municipal Council" to complement the existing 15-member Legislative Council, in addition to two indirectly-elected Unofficial Legislators on the LegCo. However, his moves were met with stiff opposition from many of the existing elites and legislators, which included D.F. Landsdale, the Chairman of Jardine Matheson & Co. (and future RBS President), many of whom believed that granting the franchise to the Chinese would cause the territory to be drawn into the politics of the Chinese Civil War and the rise of the Communists. Other legislators, like Lo Man-kam (a mixed-race lawyer), opposed the proposal on the grounds that the proposal would open new cans of worms with regards to issues like racially equitable and representative divisions, gerrymandering, and such. In the end, various amendments to the proposal, including limiting the franchise to British nationals only, failed, and the proposal was scuppered by Young's successor Sir Alexander Grantham by 1952.

The entire debate process of the Young Plan was a very convoluted one, despite the general agreement that the colony's government needed and deserved to have serious reform. But is it possible that part of the inability to proceed was the absence of Sir Mark? Grantham was conservative and had experienced the communist-led strikes in 1922 and 1935 as a member of the cadet corps, which coloured his views of the Chinese populace and their rights to self-government - notably, he believed the local Chinese communities cared little about social welfare. Him stopping the plan after gradually disengaging the Governor's office from it was probably to be expected.

So let's say Young's health is in a rather better state, and he finds the will to stay in the office as long as the plan is still being discussed. Can it still get passed, either in its original form as put forward by Young, or with the watered-down amendments and proposals as put forward by the likes of Landsdale or Lo? And if it does, how do their predictions pan out? Does Hong Kong get more closely drawn towards Mainland affairs? Keeping in mind, the Chinese Civil War is still very much ongoing, and as the Communists encroach on the south after their successful campaigns of late 1948-early 1949, political reform might be the last thing on people's minds.

In short: can the Young Plan succeed, can it survive the entrenched opposition of the conservatives, and if it can, what happens to Hong Kong down the line?
 
Have the Civil War turn into stalemate, like Jin-Southern Song without the CPC bearing down directly on HK maybe the atmosphere would be looser?
 
Have the Civil War turn into stalemate, like Jin-Southern Song without the CPC bearing down directly on HK maybe the atmosphere would be looser?

It seems like a place to go. Maybe there are some alterations to the movement of Young and other high-profile POWs, leading to some material ending up in different places, which ends up coming to KMT hands after the war as opposed to the CCP, and leads to the butterflies flapping to make differences more visible by 1946-47, such as a KMT in a slightly better position, and Young's health problems being less severe so he can start getting back to business a little earlier and for longer. Or is that calling for a bit too much of a stretch?
 
That works but my idea was to have the KMT retreat south of Manchuria before the PLA could encircle the best units of the NRA. Forcing a longer march south that stops around the Yangtze.
 
That works but my idea was to have the KMT retreat south of Manchuria before the PLA could encircle the best units of the NRA. Forcing a longer march south that stops around the Yangtze.

Well, I think a slightly more cautious Chiang with a little less material in PLA hands could go some way to saving the bulk of KMT forces and preventing the CCP surge south, so integrating those scenarios works. The fear of the CCP's impending invasion of Hong Kong, after all, was a huge factor in the end of the reforms.
 
Last edited:
Took a break due to this thing we call life, but I've been musing on this scenario a fair bit more.

Let's assume the aforementioned conditions where the KMT stops the CCP from pointing guns across the Sham Chuen river are met. Some form of suffrage and enfranchisement is given. Now, how does the leadership and makeup of political life get affected? The Young Plan itself and the proposed amendments/alternatives had different objectives despite the overall consensus on a need for political reform. Their implementation and results would be incredibly different, and drastically affect the outlook of the territory in the years to come.

Also, I'm fairly sure the change in the timeline will have an effect on the leadership, particularly with regards to Young's succession, assuming he retires in the early 50s upon seeing his plans come to fruition. First, was there precedent at all at this time for appointing commoners to colonial governorships? I know the governor was always appointed by the Queen at the advice of the Foreign Secretary, so I'm considering a possibility that a longer-lived Labour government might appoint a reformer like Arthur Creech Jones in order to oversee and push social in addition to political reform. Even so, as Britain decolonises, there's still going to be a very distinct ideal of making something progressive out of Hong Kong, if not decolonising and departing from it outright.

And even then, there's absolutely no guarantee that there won't be instability. There's still a large number of dispossessed peoples originating from the Mainland, quite a number of whom might not have a home to go back to. Many people still live in shantytowns, and a huge turning point in a form similar to the 1953 Shek Kip Mei fire is probably around the corner. The trade unions still lean quite far-left, their ideological extremism bolstered by the agents the CCP inserted into them after the war, which is setting up for a showdown like the 1967 communist riots. Will the interests of the impoverished and the radicals get addressed? Even the conservative Grantham was devastated by the 1953 fire, and it was under his administration that the public housing programme was initiated.

Whatever happens, the formative years of modern, post-war Hong Kong are going to take a very different turn. It's probably just a matter of exactly what turns it takes as a result.
 
Back
Top