All-round Support

After the War of Resistance broke out in China in 1937, Hong Kong, with its unique political and geographical position, soon became a major channel for the transportation of overseas supplies to the Mainland: three quarters of the relief supplies and ammunition that arrived from abroad at that time were transported to the Mainland through the city. Under pressure from Japan, the British government banned the export from Hong Kong of military supplies such as ammunition and fuel in July 1939, but in the ten months that followed more than 400 vehicles and aircraft together with countless relief supplies were nevertheless transported directly from Hong Kong to the Mainland – evidence that Hong Kong was an important supply line for China’s War of Resistance and made an immeasurable contribution to the campaign against Japan.

At the same time, Hong Kong played an important role as a base camp for raising funds and disseminating publicity outside China during the war. Liao Chengzhi set up the Eighth Route Army Hong Kong Office in January 1938 to receive funds and supplies donated to the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army by overseas Chinese and to send them on to the Mainland. The office also used Hong Kong as a platform for publishing news and articles and reprinting commentaries from newspapers such as The New China Daily (Xinhua Ribao), and it founded the Newsletter for Overseas Chinese (Huaqiao Tongxun) for overseas Chinese, which not only reported on the heroic deeds of Chinese soldiers and civilians who were resisting the Japanese, but also exposed Japan’s brutal invasion of China in order to raise the awareness of the international community and garner its support.