Hong Kong is part of China. But administered separately from the rest of the People’s Republic of China, the territory respects civil liberties while hosting the world’s freest economy.
Demonstrators are pressing Beijing to make good on its promise of democratic rule and free elections. But the PRC will not, indeed, cannot, give residents of Hong Kong what it refuses to give the rest of its citizens. The city’s future depends on finding a compromise that preserves Hong Kong’s freedom and peace.
The British colony grew out of imperial China’s weakness. London seized Hong Kong Island, then the Kowloon Peninsula, and later “leased” the New Territories. In 1997 the latter’s 99-year term ran out. At which point Beijing was legally entitled to take back the New Territories.
Dividing Hong Kong would have been a practical nightmare. And Beijing might not have continued to honor territorial cessions forced more than a century before. So in 1984 London agreed to the full territory’s return.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/promoting-democracy-hong-kong-combining-prudence-idealism
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