Britain's last governor of Hong Kong receives the Union Jack flag after it is lowered for the last time AFP
At midnight on July 1, 1997, 156 years of British control of Hong Kong was ended with the peaceful transfer of power to China. This event had been in the making ever since 1984 when Britain first agreed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. This agreement and the establishment of Hong Kong as a special administration region of China came with a wave of uncertainty about whether China would respect the promise to maintain Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years. China’s president at the time, Jiang Zemin, proudly announced that this was, “a festival for the Chinese nation and a victory for the universal cause of peace and justice”. Immediately following this, Hong Kong’s elected legislature was abolished, and Beijing appointed law makers took their place.
Martin Lee, the leader of the pro-democracy forces of the newly dismantled legislature, made his last public speech on the future of Hong Kong’s democracy. He expressed that without a democratically constituted government there was no guarantee of the people’s freedoms. He voiced his concerns about China being unable to support a democratic system and the steps that China had already taken to dismantle the “modest democracy” that Hong Kong had fought so hard for.
Basic Law is Hong Kong’s constitution, which safeguards their capitalist system and their way of life. It grants Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and protects rights like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion. The Sino-British Joint Declaration agreed that Basic Law and Hong Kong’s capitalist system would be maintained for 50 years. Under this agreement, China maintained the power to interpret Basic Law and intervene in Hong Kong’s political sphere if certain conditions were met. However, immediate change swept through Hong Kong and increasingly China’s grip on Hong Kong politics grew stronger. With the transfer of power came the introduction of Beijing appointed legislature and executive chief. This stripped Hong Kong of the recently growing bureaucratic systems of voting for their representatives. One of the first acts of this newly appointed government was to roll back many of the freedoms that are granted in Basic Law by applying certain restrictions.
On top of the Beijing appointed legislature and executive, China gave the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress exercisable power over the Hong Kong political system. This group of Beijing appointed officials were granted the powers to appoint the executive, all senior public servants, and control the initial formation of the legislature that followed the handover. Within the first stretch of China’s control over Hong Kong in 1997, the region immediately felt the effects of a communist system’s rule. Hong Kong quickly said goodbye to many of the growing democratic aspects of their government and quickly watched the effects of democratic Britain fade.
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