Using Hong Kong as a springboard: China’s indirect exports via Hong Kong in the 1950s

Although Hong Kong’s entrepôt role in China’s foreign trade has long received scholarly attention, there is a relative paucity of studies on China’s indirect exports via Hong Kong in the Mao era (1949–1976). Using data from Chinese and Hong Kong trade statistics, this study estimates China’s indirect exports via Hong Kong in the 1950s and calculates their share in China’s export trade. The principal findings are threefold. First, their value, destination, and commodity composition changed markedly. Second, their share in China’s export trade declined during the decade, but the speed and extent of the decline varied by destination. In particular, their share in China’s exports to the non-Communist world initially increased from 1950 to 1952 and subsequently decreased. Third, their share in China’s exports to the non-Communist world was slightly higher in the 1950s than in the 1980s. These findings support recent historical studies indicating that Hong Kong played an essential role in selling Chinese goods to non-Communist countries during the early Mao era. Fundamentally, this study modifies the widely held view that Hong Kong’s entrepôt role in China’s foreign trade was much less important in the Mao era than in the post-1978 reform era.