working arrangements of a Joint Liaison Group through which the two sides will continue
will continue to co-operate up to the year 2000;
Annex III which provides for the protection of existing land rights and for future land grants.
There is an associated Exchange of Memoranda on the status after 1997 of people who are now British Dependent Territories citizens.
The agreement is the result of two years of hard negotiation with the Chinese Government. Its crucial elements are:
The Joint Declaration and its three Annexes make up an international agreement, legally binding in all its parts.
Such
an agreement is the highest form of bilateral commitment between sovereign states;
The agreement deals in considerable detail with Chinese policies towards Hong Kong after 1997. It provides a framework in which the people of Hong Kong can work for a secure and prosperous future;
The policies set out
set out in the Joint Declaration and in the Annexes will be included in a Basic Law to be passed by the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, and will be maintained for 50 years after 1997.
The agreement provides for:
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Hong Kong to enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. Socialist policies applied in the Mainland will not be applied to the SAR.
The people of Hong Kong to continue to enjoy their existing rights and freedoms under Hong Kong law and for the continued application to Hong Kong of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic,