Thanks for letting me know a bit more about Lovell.

One point that many chinese don't know, and choose to ignore, and often get nationalistic about Hong Kong is this, Kowloon and HK Island was ceded "in perpetuity". It was only through the UK choosing not to maintain a "rump colony", as this was thought not to be economically viable and in the UK's best interests, hence the entire territory was handed back, even though Kowloon south of the boundary line (TST and other parts) and HK Island were actually in legal terms ceded "in perpetuity".

Of course, I think the brits at the time were smart enough to know that as the water and food was coming from the mainland, and that sharing the airport would be quite challenging it was better to pursue "one country, two systems" and have a fresh start with China, rather than bitter feuding and past reminders of the colonial era, or the so called "century of humiliation". As an aside, the portuguese wanted to round off 450 years of rule of Macau in 2007, but the Chinese insisted it must be returned by the end of the century. They also insisted and it got carried through that foreign born passport holders be allowed to serve in the Legco (presumably to allow portuguese or macanese people, to have some clout) something which did not happen in HK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_sovereignty_over_Macau

Have a good one,
CT