Demonstranterna vädjar nu till Storbritannien och USA

The Sino–British Joint Declaration is an international treaty signed between the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on 19 December 1984 in Beijing. The Declaration stipulates the sovereign and administrative arrangement of then-British Hong Kong after 1 July 1997, when the lease of the New Territories was set to expire according to the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory. The Joint Declaration is currently in force, as reiterated by the G7 powers, but under grave challenges posed by violating actions by the People's Republic of China. The Declaration was signed by Premier Zhao Ziyang of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) on behalf of their respective governments. It entered into force with the exchange of instruments of ratification on 27 May 1985, and was registered by the PRC and UK governments at the United Nations on 12 June 1985. In the Joint Declaration, the PRC Government stated that it had decided to resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong (including the perpetual British territories of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and the leased New Territories) with effect from 1 July 1997, and the UK Government declared that it would hand over Hong Kong to the PRC with effect from 1 July 1997. The PRC Government also declared its basic policies regarding Hong Kong in the document. In accordance with the "one country, two systems" principle agreed between the UK and the PRC, the socialist system of PRC would not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), and Hong Kong's previous capitalist system and its way of life would remain unchanged for a period of 50 years until 2047. The Joint Declaration provides that these basic policies should be stipulated in the Hong Kong Basic Law and that the socialist system and socialist policies shall not be practised in HKSAR. The People's Republic of China has constantly violated treaty terms through covert intervention, infiltration tactics, and disinformation war. At the start of the Umbrella Revolution in 2014, a campaign against the perceived infringements in the HKSAR by mainland China, the British Foreign Office announced that Chinese officials now treat the Joint Declaration as "void".