Decolonisation in the age of globalisation

In the 1980s, Britain actively engaged with China in order to promote globalisation and manage Hong Kong’s decolonisation. Influenced by neoliberalism, Margaret Thatcher saw Britain as a global trading nation, which was well placed to serve China’s reform. During the negotiations over Hong Kong’s future, British diplomats aimed to educate the Chinese in free-market capitalism. Nevertheless, Deng Xiaoping held an alternative vision of globalisation, one that privileged sovereignty and socialism o