1/ Cancellation of 2020 @SHAFRConference was disappointing but necessary. At the encouragement of organizers, panelists are making their abstracts and presentations available online. Here is a (long) thread on my paper "Vice City: Hong Kong in the Anglo-American War on Drugs." 
2/ My paper explores the local consequences of a global campaign. HK was ceded to UK in 1842 after the First Opium War and became an entrepôt for Chinese trade. By 1970s it remained a UK colony but transformed itself into a tourism center and a major exporter.
3/ At the same time, HK emerged as a major global narcotics traffic hub. Closure of Turkish pipeline ("the French Connection") left Southeast Asia as new supplier for world market. Opium from the "Golden Triangle" were shipped on Thai trawlers and processed in HK laboratories.
4/ Alfred McCoy’s seminal study named HK "heir to the heroin traffic" and highlighted the role of the Chiu Chau 潮州 diaspora in HK, Thailand, and S. Vietnam who once controlled opium trafficking in pre-1949 Shanghai and now dominated heroin trafficking.
5/ HK attracted more US opprobrium as Pres. Nixon launched the "War on Drugs." Greater US government and public attention added urgency to combating "public enemy number one" both domestically and internationally.
6/ Congress held hearings spotlighting HK’s role in global heroin traffic and UK’s permissiveness. Rep. Lewis Wolff’s (D-NY) led a delegation to HK in 1973 and warned US should "get tough" with countries involved by levying sanctions.
7/ Wolff walked back his threat, but UK officials were concerned that negative US and global opinion could further damage relations. UK officials also saw advantages to piggybacking on US interdiction and stemming the flow of SEA heroin into the UK.
8/ Meanwhile, HK colonial govt came under increasing pressure. It weathered labor and Cultural Revolution-inspired unrest in late 1960s but grappled with rising crime and festering corruption that undermined its rule in 1970s. HK’s notoriety only further tarnished its prestige.
9/ After some negotiations, the three governments agreed to cooperate directly rather than meeting on ad hoc basis at international conferences. As a colony, HK was not represented at international conferences but requested—and got—a seat at this table.
10/ From 1973-75, officials from Bureau for Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (soon to be DEA) met annually with officials from UK Home Office and HK Narcotics Bureau. This working group was modeled after US-Canada-France group that closed the Turkish pipeline.
11/ Cooperation took on many forms. In SEA, UK and HK officials worked with DEA officials to crackdown on Thai trawler traffic. In HK, the govt passed more draconian laws, while police and Narcotics Bureau stepped up interdiction and made many raids and arrests.
12/ As this article by the US Consul exemplifies, US officials by late 1970s were more likely to praise UK and HK officials for their cooperation—even as HK remained a hub in the global narcotics traffic.
13/ In HK, the crackdown coincided with the Fight Crime Campaign 撲滅罪行. While its efficacy was questionable and enforcement fell on petty dealers, it was applauded by a HK public weary of crime and disorder. This 1973 supportive commentary on the campaign is fairly typical.
14/ US criticism also helped unite HK public opinion—Chinese and English, right and left. For ex. the South China Morning Post (SCMP) denounced Rep. Wolff’s threat of sanctions as "an arrogant, irresponsible and unwarranted attempt to intimidate and denigrate" HK.
15/ The Chinese newspaper Ming Pao echoed SCMP and went a step further by blaming American demand and permissiveness for heroin trade. It also called for harsher laws and even capital punishment both in HK and US for traffickers.
16/ More research needs to be done but the biggest beneficiary of crackdown on trafficking appears not to be the US or HK. Instead it was the UK—who won plaudits from a critical ally, used US assistance to fight its own drug war, and reasserted authority over an important colony.
17/ The US-UK campaign might serve as another example of what Lorenz Lüthi calls “the tail wagging the dog”—smaller allies appropriating superpower aims for their own agendas. @AileenTTeague also illustrates this dynamic in the US-Mexico drug war. doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhz…
18/ Another finding: US historians have studied how "law and order" rhetoric presaged conservative turn in 1970s. HK public reception to drug war suggests this was not an exclusively US phenomenon but broader reaction to social and economic changes unleashed by the global 1960s.
19/ Again, more work to come, but I hope this paper could enrich existing historical research on the intersection of global narcotics trafficking, interdiction campaigns, and Cold War politics. Any suggestions on readings or sources would be very welcomed.
20/ Finally, I want to thank my fellow panelists @MeredithOyen @DubstepInDPRK @taomo_zhou @MitchellLerner for organizing what would have been a great panel! /END
