Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a city and administrative region in southern China. In the fallout from the first Opium War in 1842, the island of Hong Kong was ceded to the British empire who was later granted the ‘New Territories’ in the north on a ninety-nine year lease in 1898. Upon the expiration of this lease, the entire territory was returned to China with a degree of autonomy guaranteed for fifty years under the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. However, since the 1997 handover, this autonomy has been eroded faster than predicted, a process that has only quickened since the widespread protests of 2019. Although support for independence is low (20% in 2020), public support for a more democratic political system and for greater autonomy from China remains high.