HONG KONG

The first treaty in 1842 gave the British control of Hong Kong Island while the second Treaty of 1868 this boundary up to the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island. The terms of the deal listed the land grants as a perpetual lease. This is to be contrasted with the Treaty of 1898, when the new territories and the surrounding islands were ceded to the British as a 99-year lease, meaning, unless further agreements were taken, the territory of Hong Kong was scheduled to be split up in the year 1997. For the time being, 1950’s Hong Kong would quickly rebound from its depressed state during the war years: the disruptions in mainland China drove many refugees with skills and capital to the British haven, while many firms from rich places like Shanghai relocated to avoid communist intervention. All of this meant that vast pools of cheap labour and investment poured into the territory. What had previously been an economy centered around trade now began to diversify. This was accelerated by cold war-era embargoes that greatly restricted the activity of merchants in the region.

In response industry and manufacturing exploded, starting with textiles and expanding to clothing, electronics, plastics and other labor-intensive exports. The colony became one of the pioneers of Eastern industrialization. Hong Kong’s economic miracle had begun as the economy of this colony transformed. So too did the people and the environment: by the mid 1950s the population reached 2.2 million and within a decade exceeded 3 million with even more immigrants pouring in every day. The area was quickly becoming one of the most densely populated in the world. The government attempted to deal with the overcrowding by launching ambitious land reclamation and public housing projects. New industrial towns were built to house immigrants, provide employment and aid industry. With little room to expand out Hong Kong began its ascent upwards: the skyline soon became filled with high-rises and skyscrapers some of which would completely engulf their historical foundations like the famous walled city in Kowloon. Elsewhere you’d see parks, cinemas, shopping centers and all kinds of hallmarks of a modern metropolis spring up. Schools were another major feature of the changing landscape, as new programs ensured that thousands were built throughout the 50s and 60s, which helped ensure that Hong Kong’s children continued to get a proper education in the British fashion once again. However a very dangerous to the British colony would be the rise of communism. This was of greatest concern in the 60s with the launching of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution: the socio-political Movement stated the goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging the remnants of capitalist and traditional elements.

From Chinese society across the country, millions were persecuted and hundreds of thousands were killed as clashes took place in factions of all walks of life. The student-led paramilitary group known as the Red Guards proved quite infectious and their ability to spread across the network of schools in China. The Cultural Revolution inevitably seeped into the Western colonies. In 1966 Portuguese Macau was brought to its knees by revolutionaries. Meanwhile Hong Kong was also dealing with growing tensions: these boiled over in 1967 with large-scale riots between pro communists and government forces. At the height of the violence, assassinations and waves of bombings spread across the city with over 8,000 devices diffused by British forces. Eventually, though the riots drew to a close as the violent protesters lost the sympathy of the people and the government finally announced it would reform. The unrest of the 60s coupled with the looming expiration of the territorial lease served as a catalyst for Hong Kong’s transformation in the last days of British rule.

The british crown realised that battle was underway for the heart and soul of the people, so if it were to maintain any influence in the region, steps had to be taken to ensure that a wedge was driven between the territory and the mainland; such that Hong Kongers found themselves aligned more with the free Western ideology. This would involve fostering Hong Kong’s self-identity and actually practicing what the supposedly democratic overlords preached: major initiatives took the form of massive social welfare programs. These included the announcement of governor Murray’s ten-year housing plan in 1973 whose objective was to provide accommodations for 1.8 million people. Many new public housing projects would be launched in the years to follow, legislation was also passed to require equal pay for equal work and injustice was further combated with reforms to the police and government which opened the doors to more local representation. A sense of regional community was further fostered by government hosted events like the “clean up Hong Kong campaign” and the “Hong Kong festival”. Furthermore, bureaucratic crime was tackled in 1974 with the founding of the Independent Commission Against Corruption. It would prove so successful that Hong Kong would eventually become one of the least corrupt society in the world. As a result of these measures, standards of living rose across the board. Adding to this upswing, Hong Kong’s economy boomed under the “non-interference policy“ introduced by the colonial government. The region’s economic worth peaked at 27 percent that of the entire People’s Republic of China. All this success certainly set Hong Kong apart as a “jewel of the East” and made people proud to call themselves Hong Kongers; thus the British had achieved their aims as they headed into the negotiations with China. In the mid-1980s British and Chinese delegations began to open serious discussions about the future of Hong Kong: the Chinese strongly held that all of Hong Kong be returned to them but recognized that much of the region’s value was owed to its current status quo; the British also realized that compromise was necessary as their permanently leased territories were inextricably linked to the rest of the region and that they could not realistically hope to hold on to them. By 1984 both sides came to an agreement that the whole of Hong Kong would pass into Chinese control if in return it would retain a high degree of autonomy and a preservation of its lifestyle. This sino-british joint declaration signed between premier Zhao Ziyang and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared that upon the expiration of the Hong Kong lease on July 1st 1997 the region would become a special administrative region for a period of 50 years until 2047. The joint declaration of 1997 also outlined China’s policies towards Hong Kong.

These policies were listed in the agreement with a final condition: that they serve as a basis for the constitutional document known as the “basic law” that would govern the special administrative region. Shortly thereafter the National People’s Congress of China issued a draft which would pass through a committee, which had representatives from Hong Kong’s government, business and industrial sectors, before being finalised in 1990. Thus the mechanisms were set for the handover of 1997. In the intervening years, there would be quite a bit of maneuvering amongst the government and business entities, in order to best secure their position in a post transfer world. For instance, in 1994 the British government pushed through electoral reforms to quicken the pace of democratization in the face of China’s efforts to stamp them out in the mainland; as was evidenced by the Tiananmen Square massacre. These constitutional changes aimed at broadening Hong Kong’s Democratic base, however they were taken by China as a violation of the previous joint declaration. Tensions would continue to rise until the deadline of June 1st 1997.