Expiration Date on China’s Promises Stokes Unease in Hong Kong Housing
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A playground on the grounds of an apartment complex in Hong Kong. With housing prices soaring, many in the city struggle even to afford a long-term mortgage. CreditDale De La Rey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — To buy a tiny but coveted apartment in the vertiginous towers of South Horizons, a middle-class housing development overlooking the South China Sea in the world’s most expensive real estate market, would cost a family about a million United States dollars.
These modest homes on Ap Lei Chau, Cantonese for Duck Tongue Island, are a reason that a seemingly far-off date — July 1, 2047 — is in fact pressingly close in Hong Kong. Under the Sino-British Joint Declaration governing the British colony’s return to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, Chinaagreed that Hong Kong would retain a high degree of autonomy, and its capitalist financial and legal system, for 50 years…
Expiration Date on China’s Promises Stokes Unease in Hong Kong Housing
