The Attitudes of Great Britain, China and Hong Kong to the Handing Over of Hong Kong in June 1997

These effective strategies helped Hong Kong overcome the financial crisis. All these facts fully demonstrated that China is a responsible big country. After the Asia financial crisis, the importance of China's economy has been brought into focus; China's neighboring countries have begun to recognize the influence of the Renminbi.

Hong Kong was taken controlled by the British government because of the following treaty the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the Treaty of Beijing in 1860 and the convention for the extension of Hong Kong Territory in 1898. The colonization of Hong Kong started from the Opium War that the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon had been ceded to UK in perpetuity. Because of the failure in the Second Opium War, both sides signed a treaty that the New Territories was leased 99 years by Chinese Empire to the British for 99 years. (1) Later, the Chinese government took initiative to discuss the Handover of Hong Kong with Britain government from 1982. The sovereignty of Hong Kong provoked the conflicts between China and Britain. They argued that whether the China government should take back Hong Kong or not. After negotiation, British’s Margaret Thatcher signed the formal treaty, Joint Declaration, the sovereignty of Hong Kong would transfer from British to the China on the 1st July, 1997. Under the ‘one country, two systems’, the Chinese government guaranteed that Hong Kong people would not only run as the capitalist system and its autonomy to run its own affair, but also enjoy its rule of law and high degrees of freedoms at least 50 years. ( from chris patten, p.20) However, the promise of the Chinese government looked shaky as the China crushed pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tianmen Square with tanks and automatic weapons. Many people didn’t trust the system of ‘One Country, Two

This convention granted the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain (along with the New Territories and 235 islands) for a further 99 years from July 1, 1898."

“I believe that the only plausible explanation for the different rates of growth is socialism in Britain, free enterprise and free markets in Hong Kong. Has anybody got a better explanation? I’d be grateful for any suggestions.” Milton Friedman asks us this in his 1998 essay: The Hong Kong Experiment. Milton Friedman was part and founder of a school of economic thinkers called the Chicago School. This group believed strongly in the power of Capitalism, and although there are many definitions for this form of economic policy, Friedman and this paper us the following definition: “the organization of the bulk of economic activity through private enterprise operating in a free market”. Friedman in the aforementioned essay attempts to show us the benefits which a capitalist nation has over a socialist one. He uses, specifically, the case studies of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Israel. Through these examples he postulates that it was Hong Kong’s capitalist policies which allowed it to succeed economically. There is no debating that Hong Kong is something of an economic miracle. The island began as small rock covered with a few fishing villages, and ended up being a world economic power. Friedman, however, makes the error of oversimplifying the situation of Hong Kong in the thesis of his essay. Hong Kong, by its very nature, does not exist in isolation. It is greatly affected by world politics, long history, and its own geography. We must understand Hong Kong’s success as a

Shaped by the British and western idea of democracy, Hong Kong is continually conflicted with China because of their different political systems. Facing the truth that non-democratic China also experienced a rapid growth in economy, it 's hard to tell which side has both moral and practical advantages. However, besides the political discord, both China and Hong Kong are facing the

The population of Hong Kong is one that is split by a fairly large age gap. This age gap is accentuated by those who grew up under British rule and those who were born in the age past that, where China took over the region as a ‘Special Administrative Region.’[Davis, 3/29/15, p.209] This social dynamic has, in recent times, created a strange barrier and string of protests over Democracy in the country. These issues are accentuated by the extreme population density of the region, with over seven million people living in an area nearly three times as small as Rhode Island.

At that time, Honk Kong and Macao as western colonies, peoples’ views on politics were not controlled by Manchuria Empire. Dr. Sun used to

Finally Britain had realized that it had been taking the wrong approach to negotiating with China. With the advice from Prime Minister Lee in hand and some firsthand experience of what to expect from China Britain formulated a new diplomatic strategy for dealing with China. Britain now understood that if they pushed directly against the Chinese then they would be seen as Colonial bullies. They had learned that Hong Kong was not just a political or economic matter to China but that it was a matter of repairing their national pride. They also now understood the intricacies of Chinese bureaucracy and how to navigate it. British Foreign Secretary Howe came up with a metaphor that summed up Britain’s new strategy. Hoped that it would “diminish[ed] as much as possible the atmosphere of confrontation” and would “cultivate relations with Chinese leaders.” "Hong Kong was like a Ming vase - an object of priceless value." He highlighted that the two sides were engaged in

Beijing’s One China version, stating that Taiwan is part of the PRC, has never been accepted by foreign states. While foreign governments recognize the PRC as the legal government of China, they almost uniformly disagree with the PRC’s territorial claim over Taiwan. That is why, in their respective the US and the UK simply “acknowledge,” Canada “takes note of,” and Japan “understands and respects” the PRC’s position that Taiwan is part of China.11 These carefully chosen terms, used instead of the word, “recognize,” as well as negotiations history, directly refute the RPC’s claim of an “international consensus” that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. These foreign countries’ positions also imply that the ROC’s loss of recognition does not extinguish its statehood (Hsieh, P., 2009).

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become more integrated and willing to cooperate within the global political and economic systems than ever in its history. However, there is growing apprehension in the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. in regards to the consequences of rising in economic and military power in China. Descriptions about Chinese diplomacy in the policy and scholarly are less positive lately concerning China’s obedience to regional and international rules. There was little debate in the U.S. and elsewhere in regards to whether China was or was not part “the international community.” Scholars and experts in the early 1990s have contended

Mao Zedong, the former communist leader of China, enforced changes from 1966 to 1976 where he called on the Chinese youth to purge the current leaders and the educated, “elites”, claiming that they were taking China into a wrong direction. In 1965, Mao Zedong began to fear that China would follow Russia’s path in adopting softer versions of communism after Stalin’s death. With this in mind, it was Mao’s goal to reaffirm the Communist Party in China, provide China’s youth with revolutionary experience, make educational, healthcare and cultural systems less elitist, and replace his designated successors with leaders who had a common mindset as him. This may seem like good intentions, yet when the Cultural Revolution broke out, it poorly affected the country. As a result, millions of people were punished, humiliated, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Some may ponder that the Cultural Revolution gravely impacted all of China, yet others argue that it did not have a great affect on Hong Kong. At the time, Hong Kong was under the reign of Great Britain, so it may have been hard for inner China to impose their rules on them. Great Britain had dominion over this city from 1841 to 1997 when the lease claiming British power over some of China’s land expired. The Cultural Revolution affected Hong Kong tremendously; mistakenly some may argue that the revolution did not influence them due to the city’s greater impact from Britain and their overall exclusion from China.

Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region of the People 's Republic of China, is an economically, politically and culturally unique city in Pacific Asia. As one of the world’s leading international financial centres, Hong Kong is prosperous and very densely populated. However, even a modern, highly developed megacity like Hong Kong has its major downfalls; the largest civil movement in the history of Hong Kong broke out in its business centre, Central, approximately a year ago. On September 28th, 2014, a group of Hong Kong students organized by "Occupy Central with Love and Peace” organization (OCLP) (Barber, Elizabeth) started the movement called "Occupy Central" (OC) (Barber, Elizabeth) with the hope to bring democracy to Hong

The common assumption throughout the selected sources was to describe the intensification of the conflict between Hong Kong And Public Republic Of China through contextual data. (Baehr 2001; Wai-Chung Ho, 2000; Wai Chung 2006) In the first place, it is important to have knowledge of the origin of the political conflict between Hong Kong and Public Republic of China before examining its relation to the hot flash of local politic song. Baehr (2001) depicts “The retrocession of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997” was marked a major consequences for both domestic and Chinese politics. The focal point is that “One country, two systems” has become the constitutional principle to Hong Kong, and remain unchanged for 50 years. Not surprisingly, social problems arise due to the hardship in assuring everyone to share a common value within the society, which is the matter of “identity”. To further examine this idea, Baehr highlights that

Hong Kong’s model of a gradual integration with China appears to be the less fiscally-disruptive path to reunification as opposed to the speedy, unilateral model of the Germans. A slow unification would mean maintaining separate currencies and restricting the flow of migrants from the North until the socioeconomic gap significantly narrows. This may potentially mean erecting a zone of economic separation.

From an international relations perspective, the Taiwan Strait, one of the most likely conflict zones in the Asia-Pacific region, has been dubbed the “Balkan Peninsula of the East.” The status of Taiwan has been one of the most intricate issues in international relations arena for the past decades. The Taiwan question is essentially an extension of the “two Chinas” problem, which creates a dilemma for accommodating the existence of Taiwan under the vague concept of the one-China policy (Hsieh, P., 2009). The Taiwan issue has been regarded as the most sensitive question between China and the United States. Although China-U.S. relations have made significant progress, the Taiwan issue concerns Chinese and American decision makers for many years.