Talk:Sino-British Joint Declaration

NPOV edits
Removed a phrase implying that Hong Kong's economy has collapsed after 1997. It's gone through a nasty recession, but collapse is an overstatement. Certainly the HK economy has not undergone the chaos that would have happened if there were no joint declaration.

-- Roadrunner

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NPOV'ized nature of the agreement. The PRC and the UK have always disagreed as to whether it is a binding international agreement or not.

-- Roadrunner

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Remove the following paragraph here:


 * The United Kingdom, most Western governments, and many of the legal experts both in the West and in Hong Kong have always taken the position that the Declaration was a binding international agreement. By contrast, the People's Republic of China and most legal experts in Mainland China have always taken the position that the Declaration is not a binding international agreement.  This dispute is significant as it impacts the constitutional theory under which the Basic Law of Hong Kong operates.

I cannot recall coming across any commentaries or statements from the PRC or Mainland legal experts which queried the binding nature of the JD. In fact, Chinese leaders regard the agreement as a victory which ended the colonial rule in Hong Kong. In Deng Xiaoping's word (regarding one country two systems), 我們說這個話是算數的. See e.g.

In any case the constitutional authority of the Basic Law is based upon the Chinese constitution (This has been recognized by the HK Court of Final Appeal). This is the legal position for all practical purposes regardless of the status of the JD.

-Hlaw 15:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

United Nations Involvement
The UN's involvement makes the Joint Declaration substanially different from any bilateral treaty.--Kaspiann 04:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * No it doesn't. Under Article 102 of the UN Charter, any international agreement has to be registered with the UN Secretariat in order to be effective under international law.


 * I moved this from the article since this contains some major inaccuracies in implying that treaties aren't normally registered with the United Nations.

Roadrunner 02:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC) -

United Nations Involvement
The Joint Declaration is unlike an agreement made within a state, and the involvement of the UN creates obligations that internationalise the status of Hong Kong. The Joint Declaration is, therefore, not a private agreement between the PRC and the UK, but an international one.

International treaties are concluded between states, not within a state, and are usually not required to be registered with the UN. However, the UN Secretary General could agree to be involved, if invited.

By registering the Joint Declaration with the UN, both the PRC and UK governments acknowledged the need for a neutral third party, and accepted said third party's possible participation by doing so. Otherwise, they could have simply made it a bilateral treaty, which they did not choose to.

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Chinese Characters Flood
Do we really need the title in Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters in the first few lines? They take up so much room and flood the beginning of the article with text unreadable to most people who would see this entry. - House of Cards 02:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * For the Chinese speakers it is easier to correlate this stuff with what they know. Besides there were two copies of this treaty, one in Chinese and one in English so the Chinese name of it is valid information. Leave it there thanks. CW 15:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This is exactly the problem about Hong Kong-related articles that I have been pointing out for many times. In Hong Kong, both English and Chinese are official languages. So, it makes sense for Chinese name for the subject matter to be included for a Hong Kong-related article. But when "Chinese" is added to the article, what are really added to the article is the Chinese name (and often the abbreviations) of the subject matter written in both Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters. Moreover, Cantonese Chinese is the most common "dialect" spoken in Hong Kong, while Mandarin Chinese is also used, and is the official language of the entire country. It turns out that the pronunciations in both Cantonese and Mandarin are added. But for each of them, several kinds of phonetic symbols (pronunciation guides) are usually added. Finally, the whole bunch of stuffs mentioned above are added to the first sentence of an article, thus creating the so-called "Chinese-character flood". The disadvantage is that the Chinese-language information separates the first sentence (the most important topic sentence) in every article. I have made some suggestions, such as to include only (at most) two kinds of phonetic symbols for Cantonese and Mandarin, or to use a table-like template to present the information aside. But some people always revert my edits, whenever I try to do that to the articles.  By the way, the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese name has not be added to the article yet. May someone add it some time. Thanks. - Alanmak 18:11, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Handover to ROC?
Was there never any discussion in the UK during or shortly before the handover negotiations about the possibility of handing over Hong Kong to the Republic of China on Taiwan instead of the PRC? LeoO3 13:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The Brits would not have given any serious thought to the scenario. The recognised government of China was / is the PRC and they hold the seat in the UN. Besides it was not in anyone's interest to hand Hong Kong to the Taiwanese because the mainlander would most likely just invade - forced to invade you can say due to "face" and internal politics. The Brits, the mainlanders and the Taiwanese all had (still have) substantial investments in the territory and they would all be losers. CW 14:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It is impossible. Taiwan is not a contury.-- Eno  TALK 05:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

We are a country, thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.224.251.86 (talk) 17:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The "arrogant bitch" comment
"According to some news reports, Deng Xiaoping at one time called Margaret Thatcher "an arrogant bitch" during the handover talks."

Can the author please provide the source? The word "bitch" has no direct translation in Chinese. CW 14:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The source was from a BBC documentary about Margaret Thatcher years in Britain made somewhere in 1997 or so. Although Chinese doesnt have the term "bitch", Deng probably used a similar derogatory female term about Thatcher. Also in various sources (especially in his biography), Deng was really angry at her during the meeting. hanchi 23 January 2006

Removal of wade-giles
The manual of style says that Wade-Giles is "generally unnecessary, except in cases of famous ancient Chinese personalities or literature", so I removed it. The Cantonese romanization should stay, though, since it's an HK-related article. cab 11:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Removed again. The infobox for the transcription is already enormous, please don't add long and unnecessary content unless you have a justification (e.g. a reliable source has used the Wade-Giles transcriptfor referring to the Declaration, or it is otherwise commonly known by the Wade-Giles transcription). Thank you. cab 10:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Wording of the 4th Content bullet
Given the current furore over the situation re: election of the HKSAR Chief Exec, is it the case the 4th bullet of the Content section could be read as incomplete or even misleading. The relevant text of this section in the full declaration text is as follows:

"..The chief executive will be appointed by the Central People's Government on the basis of the results of elections or consultations to be held locally.."

The current wiki text doesn't make reference to elections and implies (to me at least) that the Beijing Government will have total control of appointing the CE. The original text seems to paint the 'appointing' in a softer light, indicating (again, to me) that the appointment process is the formality on the back of a successful election process. Monkoii (talk) 12:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment: I think this article needs to consider how much of the original text is to be included. I am adding a section below to this effect, meanwhile, the summary of paragraph 3.4 of the Joint Declaration is currently a direct quote.The lons (talk) 17:55, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Unable to locate source of quote regarding the status of the parts of the declaration.
I'm unable to locate the source of the following quote: ''“The whole makes up a formal international agreement, legally binding in all its parts. An international agreement of this kind is the highest form of commitment between two sovereign states.”''

The link in the references section is dead: "http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~pchksar/JD/jd-full1.htm". The reference text of "Sino-British Joint Declaration, para. 19. Retrieved 8 August 2011" is confusing as the Join Declaration has numbered sections, but no section numbered 19.

I am unable to find the above quote within the text of the agreement, available at http://www.cmab.gov.hk/en/issues/jd2.htm

The lons (talk) 14:19, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The quote appears withing the following document: http://www.humanrights-china.org/focus/focus20011228142756.htm, which appears to be a white paper explaining the agreement, but there is no author or publication date listed at the site above.

Finally found a source: https://archive.org/details/draftagreementbe00hong The lons (talk) 12:23, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

How much source text to include?
A quick glance at the history of this article revealed that it once contained the full text of the Joint Declaration, which was subsequently removed. Thereafter, multiple edits have slowly added closely paraphrased versions of every section of paragraph 3. It seems that it would be preferable to have the original text rather than paraphrasing which merely rearranges a few words.

I would like to open a discussion on how much of the full text should be included in this article. It seems to me that most of paragraph 3 needs to be included.

The lons (talk) 18:03, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Sino-British Joint Declaration. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090414023353/http://www.hkjournal.org:80/archive/ching.html to http://www.hkjournal.org/archive/ching.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 10:35, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Events related to 2019 HK Fugitive Offenders Bill Protests
Removed a substantial tract of material that repeated allegations made in the media regarding involvement in criminal activities in Hong Kong. I believe that this is non-encyclopaedic material as it was not verifiable (no sources were given), it was biased (in that it did not report information in neutral terms) and that it was potentially slanderous towards the UK government.

I chose to delete rather than modify as I am not aware of any official source claiming that there was a material breach of the Joint Declaration in respect of these assaults. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paavo83 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Sino-British Joint Declaration Expiration Date - NPOV
Changing the Joint Declaration expiration date. Recently, a change was made suggesting that an expiration date for the Sino-British Joint Declaration was the 29th of May 2020. However, this appears to not be factual. The current Hong Kong website makes no mention that the the Sino-British Joint Declaration has expired. Please refer to the Hong Kong Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, here.

Instead the document sets terms in the declaration that are to last 50 years beyond July 1st, 1997. This date is June 30th, 2047. That would be the expiration date of some of the terms. That may not even mean an expiration to the treaty, but essentially, that many or all of the terms have expired. Unless there is a source within either the Mainland Chinese government or the SAR government of Hong Kong that disputes this, I'm going to remove the previous change that added an expiration date of May 20th 2020.

I suspect, though I don't know, that the expiration date was changed (added) to May 29th (and not some other day), that may reflect the timing of the US president announcing an end to Hong Kong's special trade status. While that is an important event, it doesn't appear to affect the expiration of the joint declaration. And even if one party decides that the Joint Declaration is over, it doesn't change what the original expiration date was, or original expiration date of any terms, it would be a change in what the expiration date is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarcBogonovich (talk • contribs) 09:43, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Status of the JD after 1997
The tenor of the article implies that equal weight be given to two conflicting ideas, one being that the JD is binding and the other being that it is not. This is understandable, since Wikipedia strives to be objective, but not representative of reality. It is very hard to find any politically independent commentary that agrees the treaty was not meant to be binding after 1997. Indeed, I have found none. By contrast, most legal commentary suggests that it is a binding treaty, which would imply that the Chinese government’s position is incorrect. I think the last paragraph of the introduction and also section 4 should be amended to reflect this. If the two conflicting ideas are given equal weight, it is rather as if we give equal weight to the idea that the earth is flat, and present the idea that it is round as just one of two alternatives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dena.walemy (talk • contribs) 13:56, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The lede quite clearly explains the point of debate, which is a different one than the one you mention. The question is whether the treaty holds any practical value, which the Chinese dispute. I don't find that position to be that extravagant, since the enforcement of international treaties basically relies on invoking exceptio non adimpleti contractus and the British don't seem to have any major obligations they can threaten to stop fulfilling. Therefore only political, and not legal, considerations are effectively relevant to the PRC. Doanri (talk) 14:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * No. The "lede" includes two sentences which I believe are misleading by themselves. The first is "Whether the Declaration has practical effect after the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong is disputed by China and the UK." Out of context, this implies that either country could be right.  The second such sentence is "China said it is a "historical document that no longer had any practical significance", but the UK says it is a "legally valid treaty to which it was committed to upholding"." Again, anyone reading this would come away with the notion that these views are of equal validity. But the wording of the JD makes clear that it applies to the fifty years after 1997. In your comment above you have effectively taken the Chinese side, or at least given China's view more logical credit than it deserves, by saying "The question is whether the treaty holds any practical value".  That isn't "the question" - that's just the way the Chinese side framed its response.  If the only valid question is whether or not China is going to abide by the treaty (i.e. whether it has "practical" value) then why have a treaty at all?  I therefore propose revising the two sentences in question to something that relates more to the substance of the treaty itself, and propose the following (which is consistent with the more detailed commentary in the article): "Starting in 2014, China has begun treating the Sino-British Joint Declaration not as a treaty but as a "historical document", while the UK has not changed its position, insisting that it is a legally valid treaty." The EU, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have supported the UK's position." I am not sure if we need citations to support this as this is just the lead-in and more detail is given in the article, but am happy to provide if requiredDena.walemy (talk) 18:11, 29 July 2020 (UTC)


 * The status of the JD as a treaty is already clearly stated everywhere including the lede. Furthermore, the quote you brought up really refers to 'practical significance' only, not the status of it as a treaty and whether it is binding. While editors may be tempted to exclude what they do not believe to be 'right', Wikipedia is not a forum for passing on personal interpretations. Its priority is reporting facts. Erasing the mere fact that there are relevant objections or contentions would be more akin to censorship than 'balancing'; otherwise we would have to revise or delete similar references to disputes from thousands of other articles that include controversial subjects. For example, the implementation of a National Security Law is entirely allowed for under both the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration; should we then erase all mentions of objections and criticisms? Even in the example of the flat Earth theory that you mentioned, this outdated idea itself is not erased altogether from the relevant articles. Its appeals and shortcomings, as evidenced by well-documented sources, are presented and put into persepctive along with more modern theories. Likewise, the article as-is already gives more weight to the validity of the JD as a treaty than alternative intepretations, contrary to your concerns. Lastly, I would like to caution that good faith should be assumed. Other editors could just as easily accuse you of taking the British side or dismiss your edits as merely the way the British government chooses to portray an issue. Discussions are welcome; insinuations not so much. WikiwiLimeli (talk) 04:09, 10 August 2020 (UTC)