Hong Kong remembers 20 years since the handover from Britain to China this weekend. Here is what you need to know.
What is happening?
It was a ceremony tinged with sadness and nostalgia, torrential rain adding to the gloom for the British delegation. And then on July 1, 1997, Prince Charles and Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, sailed away from the city on the royal yacht Britannia, ending more than 150 years of British rule in the territory and – some say – bringing down the curtain on the British Empire
It was a highly symbolic night for Britain that The Prince of Wales painfully endured (he later labeled the Chinese delegation “appalling old waxworks”), while Mr Patten struggled with his emotions.
But in China, rain symbolises good fortune, and the return of Hong Kong is remembered as a key moment in the country’s emergence as an Asian powerhouse.
Beijing is to mark the 20…