The Cityscapes of Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore During the Cold War

This volume presents a comparative analysis of three key cities-Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei-during the Cold War. Strategically positioned within international trade networks, these cities also served as critical nodes for both regional conflicts and cooperation. The comparison primarily focuses on their urban landscapes, drawing on the memories embedded in their collective memoryscapes, the imagery presented in their filmscapes, and the perceptions of their inhabitants, as reflected in fiction and films that portrayed urban life and the experiences of ordinary people. The Cityscapes of Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore during the Cold War explores both the shared characteristics of these cities as frontiers in the bipolar global system (divided between Communism and the Free World) and their distinctive features as unique spaces shaped by their own meanings and opportunities.

Tze-ki Hon is Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Geneseo. His research interests include the philosophy of the Book of Changes, 20th century Chinese socio-political changes, New Confucianism in contemporary China, and Cold War Hong Kong. Ying-kit Chan is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore. His books include Southeast Asia in China: Historical Entanglements and Contemporary Engagements (2023), Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia (2021), and Alternative Representations of the Past: The Politics of History in Modern China (2020).

Introduction: The Cold War through the Lens of Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore, Tze-ki Hon & Ying-kit Chan, Part 1: Taipei, 1. Building a Transnational Anticommunist Network: The Operation and Implications of the USIS Presence in Taipei, Pei-yin Lin, 2. The Cityscape and Mindscape in Pai Hsien-yung's Taipei People, Hsiao-Hui Chang, 3. The 'Frontier' Behind the Curtain: Contextualizing Eileen Chang's A Return to the Frontier, Chia-chi Chao, 4. The City through the Lens: Cold War Taipei in Bai Jingrui's Films, 1960-1980, Mei-Hsuan Chiang, 5. Islamic Enclaves in Taipei and Transnational Entanglements during the Cold War, Janice Hyeju Jeong, Part 2: Hong Kong, 6. The Heart of 'Berlin of the East': Victoria Park, Queen's College and Causeway Bay in Cold War Hong Kong, Brian Tsui & Joseph Gregory Yu, 7. Pro-Communist Mandarin Cinema in Cold War Hong Kong, Po-Shek Fu, QIN Yameng, Man-Fung Yip, 8. A Model Market Town on the Cold War Frontier: Luen Wo Market in the New Territories, 1947-1979, Anthony H. F. Li, 9. The Future Takes Wings: Kai Tak Airport and the Repositioning of Hong Kong, 1958-1978, Tze-ki Hon, Part 3: Singapore, 10. Cityscape and Memoryscape: The Cold War and Monuments of Commemoration in Singapore, Kevin Blackburn, 11. Reading Multi-Culturalism on Screen: Cold War Politics and the Shaw Brothers Film Networks in Singapore and Malaya, Soo Ei Yap, 12. Urban Planning as Cold War Battleground: How the PAP Built a Nation-State by Defeating the Barisan Sosialis, Yan Bo, 13. Changi Airport and the Making of 'Non-Aligned' Singapore: Neoliberalism and Neutrality during the Cold War, Ying-kit Chan.