Later, the "Old Empire" began with the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, which was the first permanent colony successfully established in Virginia (the early name of North America). 1609, a second colony was unintentionally established in Bermuda (expansion of Virginia). Due to the loss of American colonies in 1776, Bermuda became the oldest surviving colony in Britain (1707, when England and Scotland formed the Kingdom of Great Britain, Britain was called Britain).
The British Empire rose in the19th century and reached its peak in the1920s. Britain owns more than a quarter of the world's land, including populous parts of Asia and Africa, and many of its colonies were established for commercial or strategic reasons.
/kloc-At the end of 0/9 century, a large number of colonial expatriates established autonomous countries (including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) and achieved independence in all fields except politics, military affairs and trade. These autonomous expatriates formed Canada (1867) and the Commonwealth of Australia (190 1). Two or more autonomous overseas territories became autonomous territories in the1920s.
After the Westminster Abbey Act was passed, these sovereign territories gained complete independence. In order to reflect this situation, the empire was renamed "Commonwealth" and changed to Commonwealth in 1949. Britain gained independence in most territories of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean; Part of the territory became a federal territory, and the British monarch remained the head of the territory. Other territories have become republics, but Queen Elizabeth II is still the head of state.
Southern rhodesia in Africa (now Zimbabwe) and British Honduras in Central America (now Belize) became independent after 1980 and 198 1 respectively, leaving Hong Kong as the largest territory. At that time, the population of Hong Kong exceeded 5 million. Unlike other colonies, the Hong Kong colony has two agreements:
1. The treaty of nanking and the Beijing Treaty ceded Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula to Britain respectively.
The land south of Shenzhen River (called New Territories) 1898 was leased to Britain for 99 years.
With the arrival of 1997, Britain and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The statement pointed out that the British government will hand over the whole of Hong Kong to the China government on 1 July, 19971day, making Hong Kong a "Special Administrative Region" of China. Under the principle of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong will continue to implement the capitalist system.
The reason why the British government returned the whole of Hong Kong (including Hong Kong Island and Kowloon) is that Hong Kong is geographically close to Guangdong Province, and it is objectively impossible to maintain its functional operation without importing necessary materials from Guangdong. At the same time, in the Sino-British negotiations, China leaders took a tough stance and refused to recognize the unequal treaties of the Qing Dynasty (namely, the treaty of nanking-Beijing Treaty), demanding not only the recovery of the New Territories, but also the recovery of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon as ceded territories in the treaty.
After the return of Hong Kong, most of the remaining British overseas territories are sparsely populated islands-the only one with a large area is the British Antarctic Territory, which is uninhabited. There are many reasons why British overseas territories have not achieved complete independence, including:
1, locals do not support independence;
With such a small population, it is difficult to become a sovereign and independent country.
3. Relying on British economic assistance;
4, no settled population, only for scientific research or military purposes;
5. Lack of political or economic reasons or excuses for fighting for independence.
In 2002, the British Parliament passed the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, which renamed the British Dependent Territories as British Overseas Territories, and re-granted full British citizenship to the residents of British Overseas Territories (except those connected with the British base in Cyprus).