Hongkong

The HongKong Region Lies on the Eastern side of the Pearl River Estuary, facing Macau across the river, bordering on the South China Sea and bounded by 3 Special Economic Zone on the north. Its railway distance is 140

Kilometers to the city center of Guangzhou in GuangDong Province. (HongKong, Guangzhou, and Macau will ultimately form a very vital triangle in the Pearl River Delta making this region one of the strongest is the world economically.)

3) The New Territory, covers an area of nearly 1,000 square kilometers between the Boundary Street on the South & the Shenzhen River to the North, making up about 91% of the total area of Hong Kong today. It was leased to Britain according to a .special treaty (The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong of 1898.) for 99 years. So that this year 1997 is the end of the treaty. The following is the historic background of the event which added more humiliation to the Chinese nation. Near the end of the 19th century, the western powers and Japan scrambled for their spheres of influence in China one after another. Russia leased the Port of Dalian in the Northeast, Germany leased Qingdao City and some other places in Shangdong Province, while France leased the then Guangzhou Wan (Now Zhenjiang City) in the west part of Guangdong Province. Under such circumstances, The British did not lag behind, so just two and a half years after Japan occupied Taiwan as the result of the defeat of Qing Empire in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The British lost no time in seizing a large piece of land and a large number of islands around Hong Kong which made up what Hong Kong is today. At a discussion in the Parliament on whether to take this voracious imperialistic action or not, a minister warned "if we miss this chance to de so, it will be too late. Because China will become strong in half a century.: What he predicted at the end of last century became true exactly half a century after that. In 1949, the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) was founded.