The Hong Kong handover

Hong Kong · 1997 · Politics

At midnight on 30 June 1997 Britain transferred sovereignty over Hong Kong to China after 156 years of colonial rule. Under the principle of 'one country, two systems' the city was promised a high degree of autonomy for 50 years.

What happened

Britain took Hong Kong Island in 1842 after the First Opium War, added Kowloon in 1860, and in 1898 leased the much larger New Territories for 99 years. As that lease's 1997 expiry approached, Margaret Thatcher's government negotiated with Deng Xiaoping's China, and in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration Britain agreed to return the whole territory.

China promised that under the formula 'one country, two systems', Hong Kong would keep its capitalist economy, legal system and freedoms for 50 years. Nervousness, especially after the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, led hundreds of thousands of residents to emigrate or secure foreign passports in the years before the handover.

At midnight on 30 June 1997, in a ceremony at the new convention centre attended by Prince Charles and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, the Union Jack was lowered and the flag of the People's Republic raised. The last governor, Chris Patten, sailed away on the royal yacht Britannia in heavy rain. In later decades the scope of Hong Kong's autonomy became the subject of mass protests and a sweeping national security law in 2020.

Around the same time

• South Africa's first free election, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1994
• The fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany, 1989 to 1990
• The Egyptian revolution, Cairo, Egypt, 2011
• Apollo 11 launches to the Moon, Cape Canaveral, USA, 1969

Earlier: South Africa's first free election, 1994 · Later: The Egyptian revolution, 2011

Further reading

Encyclopedia article: Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong (en.wikipedia.org)