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The Hong Kong handover ceremony started on the rain-soaked night of 30 June 1997, after a banquet for 4,000 dignitaries.Chris Patten, the twenty eighth and ultimate British governor of Hong Kong, addressed the group. “No dependent territory has been left extra affluent,” Patten declared, “none with such a wealthy texture and material of civil society – professions, church buildings, newspapers, charities.”
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He ended his speech by stating: “Now Hong Kong persons are to run Hong Kong. That’s the promise and that’s the unshakeable future.” Prince Charles learn a farewell speech. Simply earlier than midnight, God Save the Queen performed out a ultimate time. The Union Jack was lowered; the Chinese language flag and the brand new Hong Kong banner had been raised.
Lower than an hour later, the royal yacht Britannia slipped its moorings, carrying Prince Charles and Patten out of Victoria Harbour. Patten cried.
Why had Hong Kong turn into so affluent?
When the British first occupied it within the 1840s, Hong Kong was a barren, almost uninhabited rock with a superb pure harbour. (Hong Kong means “aromatic harbour”.) Throughout 156 years as a British colony (interrupted by Japanese wartime occupation) it turned a mercantile hub, internet hosting the nice British buying and selling homes.
Communist victory in 1949 meant that it misplaced the Chinese language commerce, however gained virtually two million refugees and exploited different buying and selling and monetary alternatives in southeast Asia’s rising financial system. It turned “Asia’s world metropolis”, flourishing as a result of it provided secure authorities, the rule of regulation, low taxes, and little pink tape.
It additionally had a free press; but it surely was by no means a democracy. It was dominated by the governor, suggested by a Legislative Council made up of UK officers, retailers and distinguished residents. By 1997, it had a inhabitants of 6.5 million, a per-capita earnings greater than the UK’s, and accounted for the equal of 18% of China’s GDP.
Why did Britain return it?
As a result of a lease expired. China ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain in 1842 on the Treaty of Nanking, after defeat within the First Opium Conflict; and Kowloon, the peninsula reverse Hong Kong, after the Second Opium Conflict, 18 years later.
In 1898, Britain additionally leased the New Territories – the mainland space past Kowloon – for 99 years. Britain pressured the ailing Qing dynasty into the deal, and paid nothing.
Claude MacDonald, the British negotiator, selected 99 years as a result of he thought it “pretty much as good as endlessly”. As the tip approached, Britain proposed retaining Hong Kong and renewing the New Territories lease; or getting ready it for independence. However China’s leaders weren’t having it. They disavowed the “unequal treaties” made in the course of the “century of humiliation”.
In 1984, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, underneath which Britain would withdraw from all Hong Kong in 1997, was signed.
What had been the phrases of the deal?
China agreed to manipulate Hong Kong underneath the precept of “one nation, two programs”, pledging a “excessive diploma of autonomy” and civic freedoms for no less than 50 years. Hong Kong turned a “Particular Administrative Area” of China, with its personal authorized system, political events, and rights together with freedom of meeting and free speech.
These rights had been enshrined in a mini-constitution, town’s “Primary Legislation”. Beijing’s function was to be restricted to defence and international affairs. Residents could be allowed to elect about half the Legislative Council, and the “final goal” was to elect the territory’s chief “by common suffrage” (although no deadline was given). It was a singular political experiment: may a metropolis with political freedoms survive contained in the world’s strongest authoritarian state?
How did the experiment play out?
In some ways, Hong Kong continued to flourish. Its inhabitants climbed to 7.4 million; property costs boomed; it remained a centre of worldwide commerce and finance. However it modified profoundly, if slowly.
Many Hongkongers emigrated; greater than 1,000,000 mainland Chinese language arrived. Communist Celebration members had been established in positions of affect all through town.
Political energy was slowly monopolised by Beijing loyalists. Beginning quickly after the millennium, however accelerating after Xi Jinping turned president in 2013, Chinese language management was tightened. In 2014, China’s Nationwide Individuals’s Congress dominated that candidates for the election of Hong Kong’s chief government (who leads its Legislative Council) needed to come from a Beijing-approved shortlist.
How did Hongkongers reply?
With protests. There have been enormous protests in 2003 towards an (unsuccessful) proposal for an anti-subversion regulation. The 2014 ruling sparked the so-called Umbrella Motion: pro-democracy demonstrators utilizing umbrellas to defend themselves from police pepper spray occupied elements of town for 79 days.
In 2019, a invoice that will have allowed suspects to be extradited to mainland China led to a few of Hong Kong’s largest protests ever. Tons of of hundreds of individuals stood up towards a brutal police response for months. It was ended by the arrival of Covid-19, and Beijing’s imposition of a brand new nationwide safety regulation, which permits anybody suspected of terrorism, international interference or seditious actions to be arrested.
What has its impression been?
Tons of of individuals have been arrested underneath the nationwide safety regulation, most of them pro-democracy activists. The free press has been muzzled: pro-democracy newspapers similar to Apple Each day (whose writer Jimmy Lai has been jailed) have been compelled to shut.
Protests have all however disappeared from the streets; faculties use textbooks that state the province was by no means a British colony. The brand new chief government (the only real authorised candidate) is John Lee, a former police chief who oversaw the crackdown on the Umbrella Motion. In lots of respects, Hong Kong is a Chinese language metropolis like another.
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