Red Star Ascending,Flagging Union Jack: Soviet Views on the Handover of Hong Kong

On 22 September 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher met the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in Beijing, where they discussed the future of Hong Kong. The meeting did not go well. Deng made it clear that, with or without British cooperation, China would resume full sovereignty and administration over the tiny colony when the lease on Hong Kong expired on 30 June 1997. This article is based on two recently released documents from the Russian Foreign Ministry Archive (AVP RF) and reveals the hitherto unknown Soviet attitude toward these talks and the handover itself. Soviet leaders were very concerned that the Chinese should not consider Soviet control over vast territories in the Far East as based on unequal, hence illegitimate, nineteenth century treaties, as they did British control over Hong Kong. If those Russian treaties were unequal, then Soviet rule would be in grave danger. The Soviets sought to distinguish their treaties from the British ones. Seeking normal relations, the Chinese agreed not to challenge this interpretation.