[2] In 1949, with the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, many American missionaries began to depart China for Hong Kong; they were formally expelled in the mid-1950s.
At the same time, though, American missionaries in Hong Kong began to play an important role in implementing US policy there, participating directly in the distribution of aid and the recommendation and processing of refugees seeking to immigrate to the United States.
In addition, ships of the United States Navy formerly made from 60 to 80 port visits each years, although China ended this in 2019 after the American government passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law.
[6] In recent years, there has also been an increase in Chinese Americans coming to Hong Kong as exchange students or to work for a short time, or even to settle permanently.
[7] The trend of increasing Chinese American migration to Hong Kong has been especially notable in the entertainment industry, the earliest and most famous exemplar of the trend being Bruce Lee; in later years, actors such as Daniel Wu and singers such as Coco Lee, facing the perception of entertainment executives that Asians could not appeal to American audiences, went to Hong Kong in an effort to improve their career prospects.