TNAG-2038-FCO40-2902-Ministerial-visits-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-1991 — Page 39

HONG KONG BACKGROUND BRIEF

HONG KONG/CHINA: 1997

JOINT DECLARATION

1. 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 1984 was agreement on very specific arrangements for Hong Kong's future: for at least 50 years after 1997, Hong Kong is to remain as a separate entity with its own way of life. intact.

2. Under the Agreement, Hong Kong will have its own. Government, composed of 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 and all its human rights and freedoms, its law and its legal system, its own freely convertible currency, its financial markets and its free port will remain intact.

3. 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.

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