 The flags of the Hong Kong SAR (left) and China (right) being raised during the Hong Kong handover ceremony | |
| Date | 1 July 1997 |
|---|---|
| Time | 00:00 (HKT, UTC+08:00) |
| Location | Hong Kong |
| Participants |  China United Kingdom |
| Handover of Hong Kong | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 香港回歸 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 香港回归 | ||||||||
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| Formal name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 香港主權移交 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 香港主权移交 | ||||||||
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The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China was at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony, which began in 1841.
Hong Kong was established as a special administrative region of China (SAR) for 27 years, maintaining its own economic and governing systems from those of mainland China during this time, although influence from the central government in Beijing increased after the passing of the Hong Kong national security law in 2020.[1]
Hong Kong had been a colony of the British Empire since 1841, except for four years of Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945. After the First Opium War, its territory was expanded in 1860 with the addition of Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island, and in 1898, when Britain obtained a 99-year lease for the New Territories. The date of the handover in 1997 marked the end of this lease. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration had set the conditions under which Hong Kong was to be transferred, with China agreeing to maintain existing structures of government and economy under a principle of "one country, two systems" for a period of 50 years. Hong Kong became China's first special administrative region; it was followed by Macau after its transfer from Portugal in 1999 under similar arrangements.
With a 1997 population of about 6.5 million, Hong Kong constituted 97 percent of the total population of all British Dependent Territories at the time and was one of the United Kingdom's last significant colonial territories. Its handover marked the end of British colonial prestige in the Asia-Pacific region where it had never recovered from the Second World War, which included events such as the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse and the Fall of Singapore, as well as the subsequent Suez Crisis after the war. The transfer, which was marked by a handover ceremony attended by Charles, Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) and broadcast around the world, is often considered to mark the definitive end of the British Empire.
- ^ Davidson, Helen (30 June 2021). "'They can't speak freely': Hong Kong a year after the national security law". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 August 2021.