There is a common misconception that Hong Kong was due to be returned by the UK in 1997, at the expiration of a 99-years lease term
There is a common misconception that Hong Kong was due to be returned by the UK in 1997, at the expiration of a 99-years lease term. In fact Hong Kong had been ceded to Britain in perpetuity by the Treaty of Nanking of 1842. You can check it out here in the London Gazette: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Lon...
ARTICLE III. It being obviously necessary and desirable that British subjects should have some port whereat they may careen and refit their ships when required, and keep stores for that purpose, His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c. the island of Hong-Kong, to be possessed in perpepetuity by Her Britannick Majesty, her heirs and successors, and to be governed by such laws and regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c. shall see fit to direct.
Hong Kong’s international status was no different from, say, the Channel Islands, another Crown possession, which had been ceded by the French Crown in the 1259 Treaty of Paris.
It was just the New Territories that had been leased back in 1898.
By ceding part of its territory Britain avoided confrontation with the Popular Republic of China. The PRC was entering a phase of capitalist growth and was expected to become a major consumer market (in fact it became the world’s main supplier of industrial manufactures whose competition wiped out industry in the UK and beyond). It was also in the process of leaving the Communist camp, a dramatic change in the balance of power of the Cold War.
Why ruin all these wondeful developments just because of a little peninsula and some islands?
Some have suggested that if the Chinese had not been placated they would have invaded Hong Kong. That’s a gross underestimation. They would never have taken overt military action, thus provoking the fury of the UK and the rest of the world. They fully well knew that that Britain is a nuclear power not to be messed with. Rather they would have recurred to subtler means: political warfare and infiltration tactics. Picture The Troubles. If Britain had decided to crack down on this subversive activity by sending troops, that would only have made them hostage. Picture the Aden Emergency
.
In the case of the Falklands, there wasn’t much to be lost by thrashing the Junta after the US gave the green light. Argentina wasn’t meaningful to Britain neither as a client market nor as a political partner. And it did help the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher get some much needed fresh air in the domestic arena.
(Notice that both countries, in their geo-political aims, were following a policy of mare clausum. It means that vulnerable continental powers covet the aim of liberating their territorial waters of any naval bases belonging to foreign powers.
Only one was in a much stronger position to do so, and pursued its aims with more intelligence and consistency) Federico Bruzone, BA History, MA Classics Candidate (U. of Buenos Aires)