Canton–Hong Kong strike
성항 파업
The general strike and boycott of Britain in Hong Kong and Guangzhou from June 1925 to October 1926, in response to the May Thirtieth Movement. Begun by Communist-affiliated unions, it was run by a Strikers' Delegates Congress and a strike committee under Su Zhaozheng that blockaded Hong Kong. Hundreds of thousands left the colony for Guangdong and its trade fell by half. It gave the Nationalist Government in Guangzhou a base of armed workers, but the Kuomintang negotiated its end with Britain before the Northern Expedition.
In depth
The strike began in Hong Kong on 19 June 1925. The workers demanded freedom of assembly, association, speech and strike, repeal of laws discriminating against Chinese residents, universal suffrage, an eight-hour day and a minimum wage, and a 40 per cent rent cut. When British and French troops fired on more than 100,000 marchers on Shaji Road opposite the Shamian concession on 23 June, killing over fifty (the Shakee massacre), the strike widened into a boycott of Britain. From August the strikers barred only British ships from Hong Kong, letting other shipping pass, while pickets on the border and in the ports stopped British goods from being smuggled in.
The Strikers' Delegates Congress of 800 delegates from the striking unions met every other day, passed some 300 resolutions and published the magazine Workers' Road. Its elected strike committee, chaired by Su Zhaozheng, even ran a court to settle disputes. By the end of July some 250,000 people had left Hong Kong, and the colonial government needed a trade loan of three million pounds to prevent economic collapse. More than eighty unions were formed during the strike.
The strike was both a strength and a burden for the Guangzhou government. Its armed pickets were a mass base, but its finances, dependent on foreign trade, were squeezed. In the Zhongshan Warship incident of March 1926 Chiang surrounded the strike committee and detained left-wing leaders, and the Kuomintang right called for an end to the strike. As Chiang pressed for a settlement to free his supply lines for the Northern Expedition, talks with Britain began in September, and the strike ended in October with few of its demands met.