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Tim Summers, Decolonisation in the age of globalisation: Britain, China, and Hong Kong, 1979–89, International Affairs, Volume 100, Issue 4, July 2024, Pages 1810–1811, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiae144
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In recent years, UK–China relations have become more fraught, while international interest in Hong Kong has grown. Given the prominence of Hong Kong in the history of relations between the two countries, and the ways that Hong Kong's status today derives from its history as a British colony, understanding the historical dynamics between Britain, China and Hong Kong can tell us much about how we arrived at contemporary politics. Chi-kwan Mark's latest diplomatic history builds on his previous accounts of relations between the UK and China with a particular focus on the role that Hong Kong has played. Like his earlier books, Decolonisation in the age of globalisation is based on careful and extensive reading of British archives, documents and memoirs published in Chinese, as well as extensive secondary literature. It offers an account of the relationship between Britain and China starting at the end of the 1970s, with a strong focus on the negotiations over the future of Hong Kong. These were most intense in the years from 1982 to 1984, when the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong was signed.