China invades Hong Kong in the 90s

Usagi

Gone Fishin'
As the title says, what if Sino-British Negotiations failed and China decided to invade Hong Kong, creating a similar scenario to the Falklands Crisis.
 
As the title says, what if Sino-British Negotiations failed and China decided to invade Hong Kong, creating a similar scenario to the Falklands Crisis.

Based on what I have read on this very forum, the UK was never planning to dishonour its treaty obligations to hand back the colony, they were just threatening to withhold extra, non-treaty lands that the Chinese also wanted, if China didn't give into their demands.

If that's true, and China was guaranteed to get HK back anayway, it seems to me they'd be taking a pretty big risk for relatively paltry payback, were they to invade Hong Kong.

(Someone more knowledgable than I am about the treaty and the negotiations can augment or correct my recolletion here.)
 
Under what timeframe and circumstances? If China goes in after July 1997, they're perfectly justified in every aspect of international law to take back the New Territories, and then let Kowloon and Hong Kong shrivel on the vine.
 
Margaret is going to pull off a miracle here. Even the conflict with the Argentinians could have gone the other way, had the junta not done everything in their power to throw the fight. No such luck holding off the PLA when there's no sea to limit PLA reinforcements, but three entire oceans that limit British ones.
 
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