Hong Kong

Three pieces

Hong Kong Island was ceded by China to Britain in 1842; the southern tip of the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island followed in 1860. The New Territories, the mainland to the north and some 230 islands, more than 90% of the area, were only leased, for 99 years from 1898 to 1997.^[2]

The harbour, whose Chinese name means “fragrant harbour”, and the China trade, particularly in opium, made the colony. After the Second World War refugees from China’s civil war brought capital and labour, and Hong Kong grew into a manufacturing and then a financial centre.^[2][5]

The lease runs out

Only the New Territories’ lease expired in 1997, but China held that all of Hong Kong was Chinese and that the old treaties were unequal. Formal talks began after the British prime minister visited Beijing in September 1982, and the Chinese-British joint declaration of 19 December 1984 returned the whole territory to China from 1 July 1997.^[5]

Its constitution, the Basic Law, set out “one country, two systems”: Hong Kong keeps its capitalist economy and wide autonomy, except in foreign affairs and defence, and its laws, derived from Britain’s, remain. “The previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.”^[6][4]

A border inside China

Shenzhen lies immediately to the north, across a border that still works much like an international one.^[2] Hong Kong is a separate customs territory and joins trade bodies as “Hong Kong, China”; it issues its own passports to its permanent residents; and people from other parts of China must apply for approval to enter.^[3][7][8] Its currency is the Hong Kong dollar, which it issues itself.^[3]

Autonomy tested

The Basic Law promises that the chief executive and the legislature will eventually be elected by universal suffrage, but that has not happened.^[6] In 2019 a bill allowing extradition to mainland China set off months of protests that turned violent; the bill was withdrawn, but the protesters’ other demands, including universal suffrage, went unmet.^[5]

On 30 June 2020 a national security law drawn up in Beijing, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature, came into force. It criminalised secession, subversion and other acts and let mainland security agencies operate in Hong Kong; critics, Britannica notes, said it effectively ended “one country, two systems”.^[5] A new election law in 2021 enlarged the Legislative Council to 90 seats, of which only 20 are directly elected.^[2]

“The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.”^[4]