It was the greatest Chinese takeaway in history, but the handover was not meant to happen, ever.
The treaty of Nanking in 1842 ceded Hong Kong to the British. Their big ships and military might meant China had little choice at the end of the first opium war. It was given to them in perpetuity.
Food and water, in abundance in Kowloon and New Territories across the harbor, were in short supply on Hong Kong island, the barren rock. It was this, the New Territories, that in 1898 the British pledged to give back in 1997. They didn't think they would ever have to give it back. The 99-year lease was a convenient agreement.
"Why do we have to give it back?" former British premier Margaret Thatcher asked in 1984 in post-Falklands triumphalist mode. The impracticality of keeping it with Kowloon in Chinese hands was impressed upon her by civil servants.
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