What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story traces the history of Hong Kong, the island and territory a mile off the Chinese coast. It begins with Lord Napier's failed attempt in the late 1830s to win an audience at Canton, and the opium dispute that followed. Britain takes the island under the treaty, and later the Kowloon territories are added. The story then turns to Hong Kong as a British port and its growing tensions with Japan, the refugees who crowd into the colony, and the preparations for defence. It ends with the question of the colony's future and the opposing claims of Britain and China over it.
Hong Kong, Canton and the Pearl River, China, 1830s to the 1940s
Characters: Lord Napier, Mr. Holt, Mr. Warwick, Chen, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Irene Ward, Chiang Kai-shek
Listen for: The account of Hong Kong's history from the opium dispute through the Japanese occupation to the debate over its future.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.