China’s national and Hong Kong regional flags decorate a public housing building before the city’s 25th anniversary of delivery.
Anthony Kwan / Getty Images AsiaPac / Getty Images
By Xueying Chang, CNN
Updated at 14.48 GMT (2248 HKT) on July 1, 2022
China’s national and Hong Kong regional flags decorate a public housing building before the city’s 25th anniversary of delivery.
Anthony Kwan / Getty Images AsiaPac / Getty Images
In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sat at a long table with Chinese Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang in Beijing. They signed large red-bound documents with black pens and shook hands. The crowd behind them applauded.
Nearly 13 years later, at midnight on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong’s colonial flag with the Union Jack was lowered for the last time, marking the city’s transfer of British to Chinese rule and its new status. as a “special administrative region.” “under a framework known as” one country, two systems “.
Over the next 25 years, the “Pearl of the Orient” faced two financial crises, the SARS epidemic, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the political upheaval that culminated in a national security law that has transformed the social and political landscape of the city. – ask questions about whether a promise of 50 years of limited autonomy would be kept.
Halfway through the 2047 deadline, we look back at the roots of the former British colony and where it is headed next.