Liberalism in Hong Kong as the Chinese Language Movement, the anti-corruption movement, defend the Diaoyu Islands movement and so on, in which many of the student leaders became the backbones of the contemporary pro-democracy movement. In the early years of the 1980s, Hong Kong politics was dominated by the issue of the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997. Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of the Chinese Communist government insisted Chinese sovereignty of Hong Kong, while the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher insisted the legality of the Treaty of Nanking. Some Hong Kong liberal intellectuals see it as an opportunity to change the colonial status
Handover of Hong Kong leftists' aim was to leave the UK without effective control, or "to Macau us". The conflict that arose at that point of the negotiations ended the possibility of further negotiation. During the reception of former British Prime Minister Edward Heath during his sixth visit to the PRC, Deng Xiaoping commented quite clearly on the impossibility of exchanging sovereignty for administration, declaring an ultimatum: the British government must modify or give up its position or the PRC will announce its resolution of the issue of Hong Kong sovereignty unilaterally. In 1983, Typhoon Ellen ravaged Hong Kong, causing great amounts of damage