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DSR 11C
Convention of Peking (1860) respectively. The latter were
leased for a period of 99 years under the Convention of Peking
(1898). There is thus a clear (though unstated) understanding
that whether or not Britain acquired 'sovereign rights' in the
"
New Territories, sovereignty would be resumed by China on ex-
piry of the Lease.
This was implicit in the Order in Council
of 20 October 1898 which declared the New Territories to be
'part and parcel of Her Majesty's Colony of Hong Kong' 'for the
term described' in the Convention of June 1898.
A simple
declaration on sovereignty affecting the New Territories should
thus not present serious legal difficulties if they could be
treated in isolation. However, administratively the Territory
of Hong Kong constitutes a single unit and, in any case, the
Chinese (who maintain that all the Treaties were 'unequal' and
thus that all the areas in question are equally Chinese) would
require a declaration covering the whole Territory.
10. A declaration recognising residual Chinese sovereignty
over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon would imply an end to the
cession of the areas concerned under the Treaty of 1842 and the
Convention of 1860. Such a change could, of course, be made by
a new Treaty but the Chinese are unlikely to agree to that.
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