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The Sino-British Joint Declaration, formally known as the Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong, was signed by Prime Ministers Zhao Ziyang of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom (UK) on behalf of their respective governments on 19 December 1984 in Beijing.〔Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, The Government of the HKSAR. ("The Joint Declaration" ) and following pages, 1 July 2007.〕 The Declaration entered into force with the exchange of instruments of ratification on 27 May 1985, and was registered by the PRC and UK governments at the United Nations on 12 June 1985. In the Joint Declaration, the PRC Government stated that it had decided to resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong (including Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories) with effect from 1 July 1997, and the UK Government declared that it would hand over Hong Kong to the PRC with effect from 1 July 1997. The PRC Government also declared its basic policies regarding Hong Kong in the document. In accordance with the "one country, two systems" principle agreed between the UK and the PRC, the socialist system of PRC would not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), and Hong Kong's previous capitalist system and its way of life would remain unchanged for a period of 50 years until 2047. The Joint Declaration provides that these basic policies should be stipulated in the Hong Kong Basic Law and that the socialist system and socialist policies shall not be practised in HKSAR. ==Background== The background of the Sino-British Joint Declaration was the pending expiration of the lease of the New Territories on 1 July 1997. The lease was negotiated between the UK and the Guangxu Emperor of China, and was for a period of 99 years starting from 1 July 1898 under the Second Convention of Peking. At the time of the lease signing, Hong Kong Island had already been ceded to the UK in perpetuity under the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 after the First Opium War, and the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula as well as the Stonecutters Island had also been ceded to the UK in perpetuity under the Convention of Beijing in 1860 after the Second Opium War. In the early 1980s the territory and its business community grew concerned about the future of Hong Kong. These concerns, regarding the status of property rights and contracts, were spurred by political uncertainty surrounding the scheduled reversion of the New Territories to the PRC.〔 In March 1979, the Governor of Hong Kong, Murray MacLehose, visited Peking. During this visit, informal talks about the future of Hong Kong began. Upon his return, MacLehose attempted to allay investors' worries about the scheduled reversion, but reiterated that the PRC asserted its intention to regain sovereignty over Hong Kong.〔 The first formal negotiations began with chairman Deng Xiaoping of the PRC during the visit of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, to China in September 1982. During the following discussions, where the Governor of Hong Kong took part in every round of formal talks as a member of the British delegation, it became clear that the continuation of British administration after 1997 would not be acceptable to China in any form. The Chinese Government has consistently taken the view that the whole of Hong Kong should be Chinese territory, due to what they perceived as the inequality of historical treaties. As a result, the two sides discussed possible measures besides continued British administration, and came up with the concept of Hong Kong as a Special Administration Region of the PRC. In April 1984, the two sides concluded the initial discussion of these matters, and arranged that Hong Kong would retain a high degree of autonomy under Chinese sovereignty with the preservation of the maintained lifestyle in Hong Kong.〔 By 18 September 1984, both sides had approved the English and Chinese texts of the documents and the associated Exchange of Memoranda. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sino-British Joint Declaration」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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