Abstract
The question of the future of Hong Kong had remained an outstanding question in the relations between People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom during the second part of the 20th C. The territory became a British colony in 1898 with a lease of 99 years in the wake of the opium wars between both empires in 1842 and 1860. Under British sovereignty, the city developed into a major financial and economic capital of world capitalism; at the opposite of mainland China which became communist after the revolution of 1949. This contrary evolution has shaped the antagonism between both territories and it does question the legitimacy of the British handover of power in Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.
The answer to this issue lies partly in the study of the bargaining positions, namely the different economic, political and symbolic stakes and interests of both protagonists in the 1982-1984 bilateral negotiations over the fate of Hong-Kong. Then in the next half of this essay one's may interpret the evolution of Chinese and British talk strategies' and the extent to which it influenced British handover from Hong Kong.
