Common Contracts
1 similar null contracts
HONG KONG AND CHINA:March 2nd, 2021
In 1984, Britain and China negotiated an agreement that resulted in Hong Kong’s reunification 1 with China over one hundred years after it was surrendered to Britain2 following the Opium War.3 The Sino-British Joint Declaration stipulated that although China would exercise territorial sovereignty over Hong Kong, Hong Kong would still maintain a high degree of autonomy until the year 2047. This meant that Hong Kong would have independent executive, legislative, and judicial powers while maintaining its capitalist system and way of life.4 However, these promises—despite codification in the Basic Law 5 , which is a quasi-Constitution—do not escape the inherent contradiction in “one country, two systems”: the aspirations for “Western-style” liberal democracy, like universal suffrage and an independent
