The British Empire and the Early Cold War: A Comparison of Hong Kong and Cyprus

This thesis seeks to re‐define the Cold War as first and foremost a conflict of imperialisms and to identify how it was fought on the ground. It does so by identifying and comparing British policies in two geostrategic colonies, Hong Kong (1938‐1952) and Cyprus (1941‐1955), where there operated two of what policymakers considered to be the British Empire’s most critical communist threats: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL). The thesis examines the motivations and actions of British colonial policymakers, as they attempted to recover Britain’s great power status and imperial prestige, against the challenges of international anti‐colonialism, colonial nationalisms, and, above all, the seemingly coordinated efforts of colonial, national, and transnational communist movements to undermine the British Empire. This British revisionist study argues that British imperialism (as well as that of the Soviet Union) started, defined the nature of, and was transformed in response to the Cold War.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of East Anglia

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Sutton, Christopher

Language dc:language

en