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Hello, welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

This is where we ask one big question about one big story every weekday.

I'm Matthew Price.

Today, have Hong Kong's young people held back China's superpower?

Now Hong Kong people are to run Hong Kong.

That is the promise and that is the unshakable destiny. There's a clock that started ticking down in Hong Kong two decades ago. The clock was set at 50.

There's a clock that started ticking down in Hong Kong two decades ago. The clock was set at 50 years so no one paid

it very much attention at all, but they're watching it now. That clock helps explain why

nearly 2 million people have been on the streets in Hong Kong.

They're taking on a superpower.

Here's how that clock started.

Britain seized Hong Kong in 1841.

China wanted it back and they got it back after years of negotiations

a century and a half later in 1997.

The bands played, Hong Kong was handed back by Britain. But there was a deal.

For 50 years China would have to guarantee not to interfere in the legal system, the political process, the economic

system.

Hong Kong would be part of China, one country, but it would operate a second system different from Chinese communist rule.

As a nine-year-old you don't really follow politics but we all knew it was a big deal

and personally I realized because a lot of my primary school friends started emigrating,

they were going to Canada or elsewhere because their parents didn't trust the Chinese government.

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