ABSTRACT
Hong Kong, a British crown colony and free port since 1842, was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. This marked the advent of the transitional period between the ‘one country, two systems’ political formula that guarantees the protection of Hong Kong’s capitalist system and lifestyle for 50 years before China’s ‘socialist system and policies shall be practiced in Hong Kong’ (Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, Article 5).
