THE HONG KONG PROTESTS

The nature and causes of Hong Kong protests are closely connected to the fact that Hong Kong is a ‘one
country, two systems’ state. It all starts in 1841, when United Kingdom occupied the Hong Kong area during
the Anglo- Chinese War or so-called the Opium War. The tensions leading to this war between the United
Kingdom and China began in the late 80s, when the Qing dynasty, at that moment ruling China, was trying
to suppress the foreign trader United Kingdom from importing Opium from India as a medicinal ingredient
into China that lead to widespread addiction. The Opium War originally was declared in 1839 on September
4th when the Battle of Kowloon took place. The Anglo- Chinese War ended in August 29 th of 1842 with the
signing the Treaty of Nanjing (also called Nanking) and other treaties. By signing the Treaty of Nanjing,
China had agreed to give away the island of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom’s ownership in perpetuity. In
1898 Britain and China signed the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory which leased Hong
Kong and the new territories- Kowloon Peninsula and others that United Kingdom had gained control of for
99 years, after the term China would regain its lands. But on the 1 st of October 1949, due to grown support
for communism during World War II and other undemocratic policies combined that made the country
vulnerable, China became a communist state as the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong stated the
creation of the People’s Republic of China. Shortly after communists came into government, over 100 000
refugees found shelter in Hong Kong as it became home to international and multicultural community. Few
years before the expiration of the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, in 1984 the Sino-
British Joint Declaration was signed, agreeing that China would accept giving Hong Kong some social and
political autonomy for 50 years. So, after 1997, when the term expired, Hong Kong became China’s Special
Administrative Region. The Special Administrative Region has control over the social and economic
systems, except foreign relations and defense matters. It does not have its own Constitution, but it has a set
of laws gathered in the Basic Law, which came into effect in 1997. It includes 9 chapters: general principles,
relationship with the central government, political structure, external affairs and other. Chapter ‘Fundamental
rights and duties’ include the freedom of speech, freedom of the press and of publication, freedom of
demonstration, of communication, of movement, of religious belief, and of marriage as well as freedom to
form and to join trade unions and to organize strikes. It needs to be stressed out, that China does not have a
lot of these freedoms: it censors all media, suppresses Christians and Muslims as well as discriminates sexual
orientation and gender identity even though the state decriminalized homosexuality in 1997. For instance,
global social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and others are
officially banned. China has also officially banned biggest news media portals like New York Times and
BBC, as well as productivity tools- Gmail, Dropbox, Google Apps and the list goes on. People’s Republic of
China does not respect people’s privacy by keeping them under mass surveillance and control via internet
connections and intelligence technologies. So, there is a huge contrast between the Special Administrative
Region- Hong Kong, which emphasizes democratic values, and the rest of China’s communistic mainland.
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