Hong Kong Handover 1997: British Rule Ends after 156 Years

The Hong Kong handover took place at midnight on 30 June 1997, when the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. Under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, the former colony became a Special Administrative Region promised a high degree of autonomy under the formula “one country, two systems”. The ceremony closed more than a century and a half of British rule and is often seen as the symbolic end of the British Empire in Asia.

How Britain acquired Hong Kong

British forces occupied Hong Kong Island in January 1841 during the First Opium War, and the Treaty of Nanking ceded it to Britain “in perpetuity” in 1842. After the Second Opium War, the Convention of Peking of 1860 added the Kowloon peninsula. These two areas were British territory outright.

The third and largest part came later. In 1898 the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory leased the New Territories, a large area north of Kowloon with more than 200 islands, to Britain for 99 years. That lease would expire on 30 June 1997. Over the twentieth century Hong Kong grew from a trading port into one of the world’s great financial centres, with a population of about 6.5 million by the 1990s.

Negotiating the return

As the end of the lease approached, banks and investors began to worry about mortgages and contracts running past 1997. In September 1982 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Beijing, fresh from victory in the Falklands War, and met the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. Britain first hoped to keep administering Hong Kong, but Deng insisted that China would recover sovereignty over the entire territory, including the parts ceded by the nineteenth-century treaties, which China had never recognised.

After two years of difficult talks, the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in Beijing on 19 December 1984 by Thatcher and the Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang. China promised that Hong Kong would keep its capitalist system, common-law courts, freedoms of speech, press and assembly, and its own currency and customs for 50 years after 1997. Defence and foreign affairs would pass to Beijing.

These promises were written into the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, which the National People’s Congress adopted on 4 April 1990. It also set the gradual development of the legislature and the method of choosing the Chief Executive, with universal suffrage named as an ultimate aim.

Fears, emigration and the Patten reforms

The suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in June 1989 caused deep alarm in Hong Kong, where around a million people marched in support of the students. Tens of thousands of residents emigrated, mostly to Canada, Australia and the United States, in the years before 1997. Britain created a scheme giving full British citizenship to up to 50,000 households, while most Hong Kong people held only British National (Overseas) status, which did not give the right to live in the UK.

Chris Patten, appointed governor in 1992, introduced reforms that widened the electorate for the 1995 Legislative Council elections. Beijing condemned the changes as a breach of earlier understandings, refused to let the elected legislature continue past 1997 and set up a Provisional Legislative Council of its own, which sat first in Shenzhen.

The handover ceremony

The main ceremony was held in the newly built extension of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on the Wan Chai waterfront. Earlier that evening, in heavy rain, the British held a farewell ceremony at the naval base, where Charles, Prince of Wales, read a message from Queen Elizabeth II.

Shortly before midnight on 30 June, the Union Flag and the flag of colonial Hong Kong were lowered, and at midnight the flags of the People’s Republic and the new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region were raised. Speeches were given by Prince Charles and by China’s President Jiang Zemin. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Premier Li Peng also attended, along with some 4,000 guests.

Patten and the Prince of Wales then left on the royal yacht Britannia. Early on 1 July, units of the People’s Liberation Army crossed the border to take over the British garrison’s barracks, and the shipping magnate Tung Chee-hwa was sworn in as the first Chief Executive. Celebrations were held across China, and a gilded statue of the bauhinia flower, the region’s emblem and a gift from the central government, was unveiled outside the convention centre.

After 1997

The first years after the handover were dominated by economics. The Asian financial crisis broke out within days and hit Hong Kong’s property and stock markets hard, followed by the SARS epidemic of 2003. Courts, newspapers and the civil service largely continued to work as before, and the territory remained a separate customs area with its own currency.

Hong Kong also kept many outward signs of separate status. It continued to issue its own passports, to use the Hong Kong dollar, pegged to the US dollar since 1983, and to take part in international bodies such as the World Trade Organization under the name “Hong Kong, China”. The border with mainland China remained a controlled frontier, and the territory kept its own immigration rules.

Political tensions grew over time. In 2003 a proposed national security law under Article 23 of the Basic Law drew a march estimated at hundreds of thousands and was withdrawn. Disputes over the pace of democratic reform led to the 2014 occupation protests known as the Umbrella Movement and to mass protests in 2019 that began over an extradition bill. In 2020 China’s legislature imposed a National Security Law on Hong Kong, and electoral rules were changed in 2021. Supporters of these measures say they restored stability, while critics, including the British government, say they breached the commitments of the Joint Declaration. Britain opened a new route to residence and citizenship for British National (Overseas) status holders in 2021.

Key people

Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader, devised “one country, two systems”, originally with Taiwan in mind, and set the firm line that sovereignty over Hong Kong was not negotiable. He died in February 1997, a few months before the handover he had hoped to see. Margaret Thatcher negotiated and signed the Joint Declaration, accepting that Britain could not hold the territory after the lease expired.

Chris Patten, the last governor, was a senior Conservative politician rather than a career diplomat, and his democratic reforms made him popular with many residents but deeply unpopular in Beijing. Tung Chee-hwa, a shipping businessman chosen by a Beijing-appointed selection committee, became the first Chief Executive and served until 2005. On the British side, the diplomats Sir Percy Cradock and Sir Richard Evans had played a central part in the long negotiations of the 1980s.

Timeline

• 1841, 26 January: British forces occupy Hong Kong Island.
• 1898, 9 June: The New Territories are leased to Britain for 99 years.
• 1982, September: Margaret Thatcher meets Deng Xiaoping in Beijing.
• 1984, 19 December: The Sino-British Joint Declaration is signed.
• 1990, 4 April: The Basic Law is adopted by the National People’s Congress.
• 1992, July: Chris Patten becomes the last governor.
• 1997, 30 June to 1 July: Sovereignty passes to China at midnight.
• 2047: The 50-year period of guaranteed arrangements under the Joint Declaration ends.

Why it matters

The handover was a rare peaceful, negotiated transfer of a wealthy city between two very different political systems. It closed the era of colonial rule that began with the Opium Wars, and the experiment of “one country, two systems” remains a closely watched test of how far autonomy and different freedoms can survive within a single state.