Waves of mass migrations from Hong Kong villagers exercised their right of abode in the United Kingdom and left for Europe. In 1967, a series of large-scale riots erupted in Hong Kong, causing social instability. These events led some of the richer Hong Kong residents to move abroad. Emigration took place to countries in Southeast Asia, South Africa or South American countries. This wave did not come to a rest until the mid-1970s. On the 19th of December 1984, the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom signed the "Sino-British Joint Declaration", validated the 1997 transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China. The declaration prompted
Young Plan (Hong Kong) 1980s during the Sino-British negotiations on Hong Kong's sovereignty. The demand and attempts for constitutional reform in Hong Kong had occurred from time to time, but it had been an intractable problem for the Colonial Government due to the overwhelmingly majority of the Chinese population. Until during the Second World War when Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation, the collapse of the British imperial power in East Asia in the face of Japanese onslaught and also the emergence of a demand form the Chinese Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-shek for the retrocession of Hong Kong during the war, forced the