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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Hong Kong
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British crown colony (until 1997) on the south coast of China, consisting of the island of Hong Kong (with some smaller islands) and a large area on the adjacent mainland. The island was mainly a haunt of pirates until British vessels, engaged in the opium trade, began harbouring there in the 1820s. It was occupied by Britain in the first *Opium War, and was ceded by China in 1842 in the treaty of Nanking; in 1860 the second Opium War similarly yielded the small mainland peninsula of Kowloon.
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In 1898 the much larger New Territories were leased for 99 years. Preparing for the end of this lease, the British and Chinese governments negotiated in 1984 an agreement that Hong Kong would become a special administrative zone in China with its currency and legal system preserved for 50 years. Accordingly Hong Kong, one of the world's most intensively active centres of capitalism, was delivered in 1997 into the control of the only surviving great power dedicated to Communism.
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