Hong Kong's streets have been racked by unrest in recent weeks as an unprecedented number of protesters marched to demand the Government withdraw a controversial extradition bill.

Key points: Relations between the mainland and Hong Kong had been cordial before the handover

Relations between the mainland and Hong Kong had been cordial before the handover Today Hongkongers are more likely to view themselves as separate from China

Today Hongkongers are more likely to view themselves as separate from China Many are critical about China's Hong Kong policies such as prioritising Mandarin over Cantonese

But what began as protests against the Hong Kong Government's plans to allow extraditions to mainland China, among other judications, has since snowballed into a broader political fight about the territory's guaranteed autonomy.

Last week, an annual survey of more than 1,000 Hongkongers found their "pride" in being a part of China plunged to a record low since Britain handed over the territory in 1997.

The survey, which has tracked public sentiment over the past 22 years, found those who were proud of becoming a Chinese citizen plummeted from more than 38 per cent last year to just under 27 per cent this year.

Tensions boiled over most recently in Hong Kong's Parliament this week after protesters broke into the Legislative Council, scrawled graffiti on its walls and unfurled the British Hong Kong's flag on the speaker's seat.

But relations between the territory and the mainland have not always been sour.

The Great Escape and 'Yellow Bird'

Hong Kong operated an open border with mainland China before 1950. ( University of Wisconsin: Milwaukee Library Digital Collections, Harrison Forman Collection )

Historically Hongkongers' concerns have been anti-Communist — not anti-Chinese — and throughout the 20th century there were many instances of cross-border solidarity.

Before 1950, Chinese people were free to move between the mainland and Hong Kong without a visa.

Around 800,000 mainlanders arrived in Hong Kong in 1949 after Communist Party took power. A year later, Hong Kong's population skyrocketed to 2 million.

In the decades after Communist rule solidified, waves of Chinese people found safety in Hong Kong after they fled over sea and land — a period known as the Great Escape — in turn fuelling the city's economic rise.

Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Hongkongers helped hundreds of Chinese activists flee and eventually find asylum overseas in an organised action known as the "Yellow Bird".

That massacre stoked fears among Hongkongers about Beijing's forthcoming rule.

Thatcher did not believe Hong Kong wanted democracy

But history shows that Hong Kong's political elite viewed China's rule with cautious optimism during the years of negotiations that led to Britain's handover of the territory in 1997.

The mainland guaranteed British law, capitalism and other freedoms would endure for another 50 years within a "one country, two systems" framework, but over the past decade, many Hongkongers feel that Beijing has betrayed its promises under the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration — the document that paved the way for the handover.

"It should be remembered that [former Chinese paramount leader] Deng Xiaoping's reforms promised a measure of opening up and a certain relaxation of press freedoms," Professor John Keane, a professor of politics at the University of Sydney, told the ABC.

"From the point of view of elites in Hong Kong — as there was no popular input on the handover — it was plausible that Beijing might honour the rule of law, press freedoms, and the civil freedoms of Hong Kong.

"Well it's turned out differently."

The joint declaration made no explicit mention of democracy and on the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover, China said the document was not binding and "no longer had any practical significance".

At the time of Britain's negotiations with China over the future of Hong Kong during the 1980s, Professor Keane explained that former prime minister Margaret Thatcher — along with British negotiators — worked from the assumption that Hongkongers "would not be interested in democracy".

Instead, he said the British assumption was that Hongkongers would be "interested in money".

'Neutering' Hong Kong, economically and politically

Hong Kong's neighbouring city of Shenzen has usurped Hong Kong to become one of China's economic powerhouses. ( Wikimedia Commons: Simbaxu )

Hong Kong was once indispensable to China's rise, as the territory's GDP was equivalent to 18 per cent of China's total GDP in 1997.

By 2018, Hong Kong's GDP share fell to 2.6 per cent of China's.

Professor Lui Tai-lok, sociologist and vice president of Education University of Hong Kong, told the Taiwanese publication United Daily News that Hong Kong's political elite failed to anticipate the sheer scale and speed of China's economic reforms that would come to outshine Hong Kong.

"Back then, 'one country, two systems' was made to solve the problem between socialism and capitalism but Hong Kong didn't expect the fast development in the mainland," Professor Lui said.

But from Beijing's perspective, Professor Keane said, the spoils of handover were obvious.

"Hong Kong offered a zone of territory which had a pretty well developed system of rule of law, relatively incorrupt business and banking institutions, and would be a kind of free trade platform from which China's new economic reforms could be launched globally."

In the years since Hong Kong was returned to China, Professor Keane said that the territory has experienced a "quiet, slow motion siege" from Beijing.

He said China's large investment in high-tech manufacturing hubs, such as the city of Shenzhen, was a clear example of Beijing's attempt to "neuter" Hong Kong's input in the country's political economy.

Shenzhen's annual GDP surpassed Hong Kong's for the first time in 2018.

"When you put all of that together, a picture develops of Hong Kong as a concession: A territory which is just a part of a wider mosaic of power," Professor Keane said.

Hong Kong-Australians lack trust in China

Some Hongkongers feel that they have lost out since the territory was transferred to Beijing's rule. ( ABC News: Brant Cumming )

In the wake of recent events, Annabella Chan, a Hong Kong-born nurse who now lives in Australia, told the ABC that she has gradually "come to the idea that China is not trustworthy".

This is a sentiment shared by Billy Mo, a Hong Kong-born Australian, whose perspective on Beijing has soured despite moving back to Hong Kong after the handover.

He told the ABC that in recent years "many can't live with the Chinese way of managing Hong Kong", which he said results from a mixture of concrete policies such as prioritising Mandarin over Cantonese, along with generalised envy regarding the economic power of mainlanders.

Ultimately, he said that China's dominance has sealed Hong Kong's fate.



"Hong Kong [is] more and more relying on China," he said.