HONG KONG: BACKGROUND BRIEF
Joint Declaration
15.4
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92% of Hong Kong's land area is held on a 99 year lease that will
expire on 1 July 1997, whereupon it will revert to Chinese
sovereignty. The remaining 8% could never be viable on its own. So
it has long been recognised that Hong Kong would be returned to
China in 1997. In 1982 when negotiations between Britain and china
began the fear was that China would simply reabsorb Hong Kong and
that Hong Kong's distinct way of life would come to an end. What
Britain achieved in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1987 was
agreement on very specific arrangements for Hong Kong's future for
at least 50 years after 1997, as a separate entity with its own way
of life intact.
Under the agreement Hong Kong will have its own government, comprising Hong Kong people, not people brought in from China; the socialist system and socialist policies will not be imposed on Hong Kong from China; Hong Kong's capitalist system and way of life will
continue, with all its human rights and freedoms, its laws and its legal system, its own freely convertible currency, its financial markets and its free port.
The Joint Declaration was welcomed in 1984 both in Hong Kong and internationally, as the best achievable basis for a secure future for Hong Kong. The people of Hong Kong continue to regard the Joint
Declaration as a good agreement. It remains the cornerstone of our
policy.
Joint Liaison Group
The main forum for the implementation of the Joint Declaration is the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group (JLG). Its terms of reference
are set out in Annex II of the Joint Declaration. JLG meets three
times a year alternating between Peking, London and Hong Kong. The next plenary meeting of the Joint Liaison Group, which was to have
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