Seventy-five years ago, hundreds of Chinese mariners were rounded up and deported from Britain after they risked their lives helping the Allies’ World War II effort. Now, the British parliament is being urged to formally apologise for what has been called one of the “most nakedly racist incidents ever instigated by the British government”. Liverpool MP Kim Johnson, who grew.
Chinese seamen at a hostel in Liverpool in May 1942. Photograph: Bert Hardy/Getty Images
Letters
Fri 28 May 2021 11.15 EDT
Last modified on Fri 28 May 2021 11.38 EDT
We congratulate Dan Hancox, and the family campaigners who helped him, for bringing into the open at last the story of the Chinese seamen secretly rounded up and forcibly deported from Liverpool as soon as their services were no longer required for the war effort (The secret deportations: how Britain betrayed the Chinese men who served the country in the war, 25 May). Nothing can compensate for the suffering inflicted on them, and on the wives and children from whom they were so cruelly separated with neither explanation nor farewell.
Threatened by the pandemic, Britain’s Chinatowns have a rich, but often forgotten, history May 5, 2021
On a crisp morning in February, I headed to London’s Chinatown. It was the first day of Chinese New Year, and festive lanterns had been strung up to mark the occasion. Beneath the red and green arched gate at the entrance on Gerrard Street, a red banner announced
Kung Hei Fat Choy (a New Year greeting) in golden lettering. I remembered walking here with my mother a few years earlier. The streets were bursting with people and chatter. We went into one heaving restaurant after another looking for a table, before resorting to an upmarket option we thought we’d ruled out. But this morning few pedestrians lined the streets and the odd open restaurants were only selling takeaway. One sign of life was a bakery emitting warm smells of bread and char siu barbecue. “It’s been like this for a long time,” the woman behind the till told me…