No diminishing of British, Allied wartime roles, Hong Kong museum officials say amid revamp
City leader John Lee unveils new plaque for Hong Kong’s coastal defence museum under a patriotic education initiative
The role of British and Allied forces in Hong Kong’s fight against Japanese aggression in the second world war has not been downplayed at a museum despite its renaming under a patriotic education initiative, officials have said.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Tuesday unveiled a new plaque of the Hong Kong Museum for the War of Resistance and Coastal Defence, highlighting the addition of the history of the second world war to the venue.
A temporary exhibition organised in conjunction with mainland Chinese museums also opened on the same day to focus on the activities and artefacts of the local branch of the East River Column, comprising Communist guerillas who hailed from Guangdong during the war.
Museum officials said new additions to the venue after the renaming included a plaque to commemorate the 115 East River column members who perished in the war, but contents of the galleries remained largely unchanged since it reopened in November 2022.
“We have not removed any materials from the exhibition, instead we have included more information about the coastal defence history of the Guangdong area in the Ming and Qing dynasties,” said Terence Cheung Yui-fai, director of the Hong Kong History Museum.
“The contribution of the [East River] column is very significant, so we dedicated a very large part of our exhibition ... on this theme. At the same time, we haven’t downgraded other soldiers who contributed to the defence of Hong Kong during wartime.”