Overview

Hong Kong was a key battlefield in Asia's cultural cold war. After 1948-1949, an influx of filmmakers, writers, and intellectuals from mainland China transformed British Hong Kong into a hub for mass entertainment and popular publications. While there was no organized movement for independence, largely because of its location directly next to Mao's China, Hong Kong was central in the cultural contest between Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the United States. Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War discusses how China, Taiwan, and the U.S. fought to mobilize Hong Kong cinema and print media to sway ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and across the world. Central to this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. This period was the

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9780190073763

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Reviews

"During the Cold War Hong Kong served as contested space for the hearts and minds of its residents and the Chinese diaspora beyond. Hong Kong stood at the intersection of intense competition among Cold War powers in East and Southeast Asia. Laid on top of Hong Kong's colonial and traditional culture were the propaganda and ideological wars of the triumphal Communists, the defeated but not out Nationalists, and a fearful USA, at war with itself, spooked by McCarthyism. Professor Fu Po-Shek's excellent and timely new book traces the culture wars in film and the print media in Hong Kong from 1952 to the late 1970s. The book is essential reading for scholars and students of the Cold War, and more general readers interested in the backstory of Hong Kong cinema in its heyday. * John Burns, author of Government Capacity and Hong Kong Civil Service * An exceptionally powerful book combining the author's erudition and thorough research with wide appeal, Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War provides a highly informative and inspirational account of British Hong Kong's function as a nerve center of the contest for hegemony in the region. The culture wars in film and the print media that Professor Po-Shek Fu brought to his analysis have added a very important perspective to the studies of related topics at a critical juncture when global conflicts were localized. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how the cultural Cold War in Asia should be reconceptualized. * Yiu-Wai Chu, Author of Found in Transition: Hong Kong Studies in the Age of China and Professor of Hong Kong Studies, University of Hong Kong * Po-Shek Fu, one of the foremost scholars of Chinese-language cinema, has written an engrossing book that deepens immeasurably our understanding of how the cultural Cold War was waged in Asia. Impeccably researched, it paints a vivid picture of ""cinematic warfare"" between Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the US as it played out in the film studios and theaters of Hong Kong. The history he uncovers reads like an espionage thriller, replete with undercover agents, opportunistic entrepreneurs, émigré intellectuals, glamorous stars who switch ideological sides, and ""gray"" propaganda camouflaged as entertainment. Essential reading for scholars of the Cold War and fans of Hong Kong cinema alike. * Christina Klein, Author of Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema *"

During the Cold War Hong Kong served as contested space for the hearts and minds of its residents and the Chinese diaspora beyond. Hong Kong stood at the intersection of intense competition among Cold War powers in East and Southeast Asia. Laid on top of Hong Kong's colonial and traditional culture were the propaganda and ideological wars of the triumphal Communists, the defeated but not out Nationalists, and a fearful USA, at war with itself, spooked by McCarthyism. Professor Fu Po-Shek's excellent and timely new book traces the culture wars in film and the print media in Hong Kong from 1952 to the late 1970s. The book is essential reading for scholars and students of the Cold War, and more general readers interested in the backstory of Hong Kong cinema in its heyday. * John Burns, author of Government Capacity and Hong Kong Civil Service *

Author Information

Po-Shek Fu is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work focuses on US-China cultural relations, Chinese-language cinemas, and war and culture interactions. He is the author of China Forever: Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema and Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas, and co-editor of The Cold War and Asian Cinemas.

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