Grounded at Kai Tak

Chinese Aircraft Impounded in Hong Kong, 1949–1952

One for the specialists here – Malcolm Merry’s Grounded at Kai Tak – and well done to the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and Hong Kong University Press for publishing it….

Set against the backdrop of regional and international post–Second World War tensions, Grounded at Kai Tak is the most comprehensive account of the complex legal struggle for ownership of seventy-one airplanes belonging to the two main Chinese airlines, which were stranded at Kai Tak airfield in Hong Kong at the end of the Chinese Civil War. The resulting contest for possession of them took place in the courts and among politicians and diplomats on three continents. In the process, the struggle became entangled with the anti-communist policies of the United States in the emerging Cold War, British hopes for the restoration of her pre-war commercial position in China, disagreements between nations about recognition of the new government in Peking, and the delicate balance that the colonial government of Hong Kong had to keep to preserve the colony’s interests. Merry tells the tale of this legal saga by weaving together archival documents and news reports of the day, revealing the international alignments that emerged from the aftermath of the wars and the colorful cast of actors that influenced the outcome of the dispute.