Handover of Hong Kong

The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the People's Republic of China occurred at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule, dating back to the cession of Hong Kong Island in 1841 during the First Opium War.

Hong Kong was a colony within the British Empire from 1841, except during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945. Its territory expanded after the First Opium War with the addition of the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island in 1860 and the New Territories in 1898 under a 99-year lease. The 1984 Sino–British Joint Declaration set the terms of the 1997 handover, under which China pledged to uphold "one country, two systems" for 50 years. Hong Kong became China's first special administrative region, followed by Macau in 1999 under similar arrangements. With a population of about 6.5 million in 1997, Hong Kong made up 97 percent of the population of all the British Dependent Territories and was Britain's last major colony.

Its handover marked the end of British colonial prestige in the Asia-Pacific region where it had never recovered from the Second World War, which included events such as the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, the Fall of Hong Kong itself and the Fall of Singapore, as well as the subsequent Suez Crisis, the Malaya Emergency and Aden Emergency after the war. The transfer, which was marked by a handover ceremony attended by Charles III (then as Prince of Wales) and broadcast around the world, is often considered to mark the definitive end of the British Empire.

Influence from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led central government in Hong Kong expanded significantly during the 2020s, roughly two decades after the handover. The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests prompted the introduction of the 2020 Hong Kong national security law and the 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes. These measures drew criticism from the British government, which declared that China was in a "state of ongoing non-compliance" with the Joint Declaration. Hong Kong is now widely regarded as being under tight control of the Chinese government, with its autonomy largely symbolic.