Why didn the UK establish Hong Kong as a Crown Colony indefinitely in 1898?
It was only the new territories that were on the lease, and it is very possible that Britain could have kept Hong Kong (the idea that China would attempt to take it by force is ridiculous) but it was inpractical to only hand back some of the island, and it has always been Labour’s policy to accept decolonisation. It was in fact the new Labour government elected in 1945 that allowed India to become independent. Churchill and the Tories had vowed that Britain would keep hold of the Empire. If Labour had been in power in 1982 they porbaly would have let Argentina keep the Falklands.
