welcome to hong kong the island city of
china packed with seven million people
at
unbelievable density but if you dear
tourist start from victoria harbor and
head toward the mainland you'll find
that while hong kong is china she
doesn't act like it to cross the bridge
your passport must be checked and
stamped and checked and stamped not
because your suspicious foreigner
mainland chinese can't just roll across
either but rather because hong kong has
her own immigration policy and hong kong
isn't the only isolated island there's
nearby macau with her own passport
checking bridge and a ferry between them
which also checks passports travel from
hong kong to macau to the mainland and
back and you'll end up with three stamps
and that goes for everyone
hong kong ease can't just live in macau
and makinis can't live in hong kong and
they both can't just live on the
mainland
yet it's all china and inconvenient
travel isn't the only specialty of these
sister
islands they also have separate
governments and political parties
separate police separate money postal
system schools and
languages hong kong even has her own
olympic team which competed in the 2008
beijing olympics which doesn't make any
kind of sense
the only thing these sister islands
don't have that other countries do
are one their own armies though that
isn't entirely unique with modern
countries and
two formal diplomatic relations though
even this is unclear as both are members
of international trade organizations and
other countries have embassies in hong
kong and macau sure china won't let them
be called embassies those are only for
mighty beijing
they're called consulates even if
they're bigger than beijing's embassies
all this makes hong kong and macau as
mentioned in a previous video the most
country-like countries that
aren't countries so why are they china
china says so
it's called one china two systems though
fast counters in the audience will see
it should be called one china
three systems also there's china's
special economic zones where capitalism
runs free making it more like one china
four systems and if china got her way it
might be one china five systems but we
can't talk about everything so back to
china hong kong and macau oh my
china ended up having these two
essentially city states as always
because empire portugal showed up in
asia in the 1500s and didn't exactly
make friends china and portugal
skirmished
until portugal used bigger pile of money
diplomacy to bribe a local chinese
official into turning over the islands
of macau as a trading port she could use
later britannia found china and
discovered that she had many lovely
things like silks and porcelain and
precious precious tea that britannia
craved in return
china wanted from britannia to be left
alone and britannia nobody agreed to
respect china's independence and
sovereign oops
opium wars nothing generates demand like
addiction which britannia was happy to
supply
and her bigger gun diplomacy secured
hong kong as a base through which the
drugs must flow
later in a world where telegraphs and
light bulbs were newfangled elise gave
control of hong kong to britannia for 99
years or
quote as good as forever kicking the
transfer problem down the generations to
be dealt with by the unimaginably
futuristic society of the 1990s
thus these cities grew up under the
influence of their emperific parents
hong kong had english common law and
lived in britannia's org chart as one of
her many crown colonies and macau had
portuguese civil law
and the parental effect is still seen
today visit hong kong and she is clearly
britannia's daughter what with her love
of business and international finance
and lasers and english-accented language
and near identical transport system
macau had a more troubled adolescence as
her bigger sister stole the spotlight
with her trading skills but macau
eventually grew up to be the gambling
capital of the world she's las vegas
times
10 with a mixture of both portugal and
china but empires come when empires go
and the 90s eventually arrived meaning
britannia's lease
expired portugal claimed the treaty gave
her control of macau forever but china
disagreed and the un was in a no
empire's no longer moved and frankly had
portugal complained too much china could
have used her own bigger army diplomacy
at this point to resolve the situation
so the transfer was going to happen but
the world was nervous about china what
with the lingering communism and all so
the deal was the empire's daughters
would go but they had to remain
basically independent to which china
agreed as long as everyone else agreed
to call them china
the situation was a bit like if the u.s
had to give alaska back to russia and
russia
super promised to leave alaska
self-governing you couldn't blame the
locals for being nervous
but unlike what you'd expect in this
case china has mostly left the little
sister islands alone so
everything is dandy however the handover
came with its own version of the as good
as forever clause
china didn't agree to leave hong kong
and macau alone for
all time only 50 years again passing
political problems to a future
generation
hopefully one that's actually
unimaginably futuristic this time
anyway assuming such provincial concerns
as these are not rendered irrelevant by
the singularity what happens in the
2040s will hong kong and macau remain
tiny city states or will they lose their
independence and be
absorbed only china knows and china does
not say
[Music]
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