Hong Kong independence movement
| Hong Kong independence | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 香港獨立 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Hēunggóng duhklahp |
| Jyutping | Hoeng1 gong2 duk6 laap6 |
Hong Kong independence (Chinese: 香港獨立) is a movement that advocates Hong Kong becoming an independent sovereign state. Hong Kong is a special administrative region (SAR) which enjoys a high degree of autonomy under the People's Republic of China (PRC), guaranteed under Article 2 of Hong Kong Basic Law as ratified under the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Since the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the PRC in 1997, many Hongkongers are increasingly concerned about Beijing's growing encroachment on the territory's freedoms and the failure of the Hong Kong government to deliver "genuine democracy".
The current independence movement emerged after the 2014–15 Hong Kong electoral reform which deeply divided the territory, as it allowed Hongkongers to have universal suffrage, Beijing would have authority to screen the candidates to restrict the electoral method for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest-ranking official of the territory. It sparked the 79-day massive peaceful occupation protests which was dubbed as the "Umbrella Revolution". After the protests, there were numbers of the new political groups which advocate for independence or self-determination were established as they deemed the "One Country, Two Systems" principle has failed. According to a survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in July 2016, nearly 40% of Hongkongers aged 15 to 24 supported the territory becoming an independent entity, whereas 17.4% of the overall respondents supported independence, while 3.6% stated that they think it is "possible".
Hong Kong Island was first ceded as a crown colony to Britain from the Qing Empire in 1841 during the First Opium War. The other parts of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories were ceded permanently and leased for 99 years to Britain in 1860 Convention of Peking and 1898 Second Convention of Peking respectively. Although the Chinese government, governed by the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek initially intended to take back the territory, Britain resumed control of Hong Kong in 1945 after the Second World War, in which Hong Kong was occupied by Japan for three years and eight months. There were few advocates for decolonisation of Hong Kong from the British rule during the post-war period, notably Ma Man-fai and the Hong Kong Democratic Self-Government Party in the 1960s but the fruitless movement ceased to exist without substantial support.
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