Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [9]
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THE 1997 QUESTION
Few people gave much thought to Hong Kong’s future until 1979, when the governor of Hong Kong, Murray MacLehose, raised the issue with Deng Xiaoping on his first official visit to Beijing. Britain was legally bound to hand back only the New Territories – not Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, which had been ceded to it forever. However, the fact that nearly half of Hong Kong’s population lived in the New Territories by that time made it an untenable division.
It was Deng Xiaoping who decided that the time was ripe to recover Hong Kong, forcing the British to the negotiating table. The inevitable conclusion laid to rest the political jitters and commercial concerns that had in 1983 seen the Hong Kong dollar collapse – and subsequently be pegged to the US dollar. But there was considerable resentment that the fate of 5.5 million people had been decided without their input and that Whitehall had not provided Hong Kong people with full British passports and the right of abode in the UK.
Despite soothing words from the Chinese, British and Hong Kong governments, over the next 13 years the population of Hong Kong suffered considerable anxiety at the possible political and economic consequences of the handover. In the anxious years leading up to the handover, tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens emigrated to Canada, the US, Australia, the UK and New Zealand.
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ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS
Under the agreement signed by China and Britain in December 1984, which is enshrined in a document known as The Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong, the ‘British-administered territory’ of Hong Kong would disappear and be reborn as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. This meant the Hong Kong SAR would be permitted to continue with its current capitalist system, while across the border China’s version of socialism would continue. The Chinese catchphrase for this was ‘One Country, Two Systems’.
In 1988 the details of this rather unorthodox system of government were spelled out in The Basic Law for Hong Kong, the SAR’s future constitution. The Basic Law, ratified by the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing in 1990, preserved Hong Kong’s English common-law judicial system and guaranteed the right of property and ownership. It also included the right to strike and the rights of assembly, free speech, association, travel and movement, and religious belief. The SAR would enjoy a high degree of autonomy with the exception of foreign affairs and matters of defence.
As guarantees of individual freedoms and respect for human rights are written into China’s own constitution, few Hong Kong Chinese held much faith in the Basic Law. Although Hong Kong under the British had never been more than a benignly ruled oligarchy, Whitehall had nevertheless promised to introduce democratic reforms prior to the handover. But it soon became apparent that British and Chinese definitions of democracy differed considerably. Beijing made it abundantly clear that it would not allow Hong Kong to establish its own democratically elected government. The chief executive was to be chosen by a Beijing-appointed panel of delegates; the people of Hong Kong would elect some Legislative Council (LegCo) members.
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TIANANMEN & ITS AFTERMATH
The concern of many Hong Kong people over their future turned to out-and-out fear on 4 June 1989, when Chinese troops massacred pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The events horrified Hong Kong people, many of whom had donated funds and goods to the demonstrators. As the Chinese authorities spread out to hunt down activists, an underground smuggling operation, code-named Yellow Bird, was set up in Hong Kong to spirit them to safety