Vietnam War tourists: US Naval visits to Hong Kong and British-American-Chinese relations, 1965–1968

Abstract

At the height of the Vietnam War, Communist China repeatedly lodged diplomatic protests with the British government about US naval visits to Hong Kong. Believing that the Chinese protests were nothing but propaganda and were as much about the Sino-Soviet split as about Sino-American and Sino-British relations per se, British officials decided that the visits of US servicemen for rest and recreation should continue, albeit within the framework of new Anglo-American guidelines. By examining the British handling of the question of US naval visits, this article reveals the interactions of the four Cold War powers concerned as well as a broader global phenomenon in the mid-1960s – the growth of anti-Americanism. The case of Hong Kong suggests that the ‘Vietnam War tourists’, who were well disciplined and economically valuable, were not ‘ugly Americans’ but ‘beautiful imperialists’.