Hong Kong was and is unique among British colonial territories. The great majority of them won or were given their independence in the second half of the last century and are now members of the United Nations. A handful hang on as dependent territories, too small, too poor or too distrustful of powerful neighbours to be viable as independent states. Independence was never an option for Hong Kong; it was always clear that its future lay with China. But when, how and under what conditions was the territory to be returned to the embrace of the mainland?
These and related questions were the subject of more than two years of negotiations, resulting in the signature of the â??Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kongâ? towards the end of 1984. The date of the handover â?? 1 July 1997 â?? was incorporated in that agreement. It was chosen because it was the date when the 99-year lease on the New Territories, the greater part of Hong Kong, was in any case due to expire. The intervening period, nearly 13 years, was taken up with further negotiations, in a special Sino-British group to settle the detailed implementation of the Joint Declaration, and lengthy deliberations between Chinese officials and representatives of Hong Kong people to determine how the provisions of the Joint Declaration were to be incorporated into Chinese Law.
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