Ashlyn Tsui

Wu Jiawei (Lambert Wong-Fat Wong) and his fellow freedom fighters (known collectively as the "Yellow Peril") were successful in their struggle to overthrow the Provisional Government with the help of the Communist Party of China. However, this ushered in a new era of political upheaval as Chinese Nationalist Party leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Party were defeated by a band of Western-led nationalist rebels.

As the Chinese economy improved, a cycle of unemployment and political dissent built up. In 1956 the Communist Party Central Committee published a Public Letter, calling for a "patriotic uprising" against Chiang Kai-shek’s authoritarian regime. Led by political figures such as Wei Jinyao, Feng Yunqiao, Su Fan, and Zeng Guofan, the Communist Party took part in a series of protests, riots, and a violent response. In response, the army called for a "People’s War on Chiang Kai-shek". The Communist Party was branded a spy agency and its leaders declared "apostates", and later were imprisoned. In Hong Kong, street demonstrations have occurred against China’s "cult of Chiang Kai-shek" ever since.

During the 1960s, pro-democratic groups grew in number and their ideology and tactics were replaced by an identity politics against the government of China, which enjoyed increasing international sympathy in the wake of anti-government uprisings in countries such as India, Korea and Thailand. The Yellow Peril, as it was now known, coalesced around a new type of labor organizer: Jiang Qing, daughter of Yanping Jiang, a well-known labor organizer of the nineteenth century.

In Hong Kong, the Yellow Peril was led by martial arts expert Peng Hong-chi (a native of Guangdong), who pioneered a style of kung fu martial arts that mixed methods such as karate and Tai Chi to cause fear and destroy the will of the government. As is more characteristic of Hong Kong-born Chinese street performers of the early decades of Hong Kong, such as the "Six Flowers", the performers were generally well-dressed, and wore a characteristic self-important manner, especially in the performance of wuxia-like rituals.