Britain, China and Hong Kong

Abstract

Abstract The paper deals with the status of Hong Kong or, more specifically, how a peaceful settlement can be reached although oceans of political and ideological differences exist between the parties involved. The basic reasons for the settlement were that China never enforced its legal rights and that Great Britain and China agreed that they both had to give and take. All parties involved had objective reasons not to burn bridges since they had vested interests in a solution which would be satisfactory or acceptable to the other parties as well. Economically, China, at least in the short run, had an interest to preserve the status of Hong Kong, particularly after the opening up of the Chinese economy in an effort to modernize. Politically, a failure to reach an agreement would have created international tensions, globally and regionally, with unforeseeable consequences. Such a conflict would have had detrimental effects on other conflicts to be discussed, such as Korea and Taiwan.