HELLO CHINA

UNDERSTAND CHINA · MODERN HISTORY

Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s modern history cannot be reduced to a rise “from fishing village to global city”. Britain occupied Hong Kong Island during the Opium War, then acquired ceded and leased territories by treaty and built a colonial government. Local residents, migrants, workers and merchants made the port city within an unequal political order. Military occupation by invading Japanese forces from 1941 to 1945 brought hunger, coerced military-currency exchange and population expulsion. China resumed the exercise of sovereignty in 1997, opening a new period under “one country, two systems”.

City timeline

  • 1841—1842 · Occupation and cession of Hong Kong Island — British forces occupied Hong Kong Island during the Opium War, and the Treaty of Nanjing compelled its cession to Britain.
  • 1843—1941 · Colonial port and labour society — Government by governor, appointed legislation, policing and land rules developed alongside entrepôt trade, migration and labour movements.
  • 1860、1898 · Territorial expansion — Southern Kowloon was ceded, while the New Territories and nearby islands were subjected to a coerced ninety-nine-year lease, forming the territorial frame of present-day Hong Kong.
  • 1941—1945 · Occupation by invading Japanese forces and resistance in Hong Kong — Military rule, food controls, military notes, population expulsion and internment imposed by invading Japanese forces and their occupation authorities brought profound suffering, while resistance forces including the Hong Kong–Kowloon Independent Brigade organised guerrilla action, intelligence and rescue.
  • 1945—1984 · Restored colonial rule and industrial city — Returning residents and new migrants drove manufacturing, public housing and new towns, while social pressure produced gradual changes in colonial government.
  • 1984—1997 · Joint Declaration and transition — Sino-British negotiations set the 1997 resumption of sovereignty and began a legal, administrative and social transition.
  • 1997—present · Hong Kong Special Administrative Region — Under “one country, two systems”, Hong Kong retained its separate customs territory, common-law system and international-city roles while undergoing new regional integration and social debate.

Begin with these places

  • Tai Kwun: former Central Police Station, Magistracy and Victoria Prison — Read how policing, justice and imprisonment carried colonial government into daily life.
  • Hong Kong Museum of the War of Resistance and Coastal Defence — Connect the 1941 battle, Japanese occupation, the Hong Kong–Kowloon Independent Brigade and how civilians lived under occupation and amid wartime resistance to the wider war in South China.
  • Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and Golden Bauhinia Square — Use the 1997 handover site to look back at cession, lease and the institutional turn to “one country, two systems”.