Hong Kong History
Hong Kong came under British administration as a direct result of the Opium Wars of the last century. When peace terms were drawn up in 1841 at the Treaty of Nanking, the Emperor of China agreed that Britain should have an insular trading base, but the name of the island was left blank until ratification in the following year, by which time Hong Kong was already a thriving British-run harbour. The Kowloon peninsula was ceded under the Convention of Peking in 1860, and in 1898 the New Territories were leased from China for 99 years. The British controlled Hong Kong from then - apart from a 4-year period during World War II when the territory was occupied by the Japanese - until the territory was handed back to the Chinese in July 1997. The terms under which the reversion took place were settled at an agreement signed by the British and Chinese Governments in December 1984. As well as confirming the terms of previous agreements, the 1984 agreement contained guarantees on the subsequent future of Hong Kong, specifically that the territory would enjoy a high degree of autonomy, especially in the economic field where its existing system would be largely left intact. The slogan 'one country, two systems' was coined by the Chinese to describe the future regime and its relationship with mainland China. Only in the fields of foreign affairs and defence would the new Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong be subject to the diktat of Peking. The main point of contention in the period leading up to handover was political representation. Under the colonial regime, democratic representation had been kept to a minimum: executive powers were firmly retained by the Governor; only the Legislative Council ('LegCo'), of whom a small proportion were elected from a highly limited and carefully manufactured franchise, provided any semblance of democratic representation. The system has survived, more or less intact, since the departure of the British. The last colonial governor, the former British Conservative politician Chris Patten (now a European Commissioner), had a difficult, occasionally stormy relationship with the Chinese although the transition ultimately passed off smoothly in July 1997. Beijing selected the shipping tycoon Tung Chee Hwa to the new post of chief executive with powers analogous to those of the former Governor. A pro-Beijing political party created shortly before the handover, the Democratic Party for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), gained a majority of the seats in the first (and so far only) election held under Chinese rule in May 1998. The DAB's Rita Fan is now leader of the LegCo. The transition passed off quietly and smoothly for the first two years. However, Tung Chee Hwa has faced growing opposition to a range of executive politicies from both the LegCo (which comes up for re-election in September 2001) and the public.
Government: Hong Kong is now a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the Basic Law which is the governing instrument of the region, executive power is held by a Chief Executive, who is appointed by a 400-strong Selection Committee. The Chief Executive is answerable to the State Council of the PRC (see the China section for details of the State Council) and serves a five-year term. The Chief Executive appoints a 15-member Executive Council to assist in the administration of the Region. Hong Kong's legislature is the 60-member Legislative Council: 20 members are directly elected in geographical constituencies; 30 members are elected by 'functional constituencies' (mostly professional bodies and business interests) and the remaining ten by an Election Committee composed of 800 'representatives of the community'.
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