History: Britain Recalls Rueful Return of Hong Kong to China

June 30, 2007, is an unforgettable part of history for Britain as it is the 10th anniversary of the controversial handover of Hong Kong to China. For the British it was the loss of the most valuable of her few remaining vestiges of empire. For China it was the acquisition of a prize that gave her a bustling, thriving financial hub, a portal into the Western capitalist world, complete with its own stock exchange index, the Hang Seng. Negotiating the transfer proved to be one of the more painful episodes of Britain's withdrawal from her former colonial status. As the 99-year lease drew to an end, the two parties negotiated hard. The British eventually accepted Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping's "one country, View the rest of this article