On Christmas Day 1941 the Japanese captured Hong Kong, and Britain lost control of its Chinese colony for almost four years. The Japanese occupation was a turning point in the slow historical process by which the British were to be expelled from the colony and from four centuries of influence in East Asia. In this powerfully researched narrative, Philip Snow for the first time unravels the dramatic story of the occupation from the viewpoint of all the key players—the Hong Kong Chinese, the British, the Japanese, and the mainland Chinese—and reinterprets the subsequent evolution of Hong Kong in the light of this half-buried episode.

Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources across continents and across languages, Snow reveals what really happened: the widespread desertion of the British by Chinese personnel during the invasion; the acquiescence of the Asian upper class in the Japanese takeover; the vicious cruelty of the Japanese conquerors towards the Chinese masses; and the post-war British decision to draw a veil over the occupation's murkier aspects. Now, with Hong Kong returned to the Chinese and its future closely tied to the commercial influence of Japan: the colony's wartime nemesis may hold the key to its survival in the twenty-first century.