Wasn't there a conflict between Japan and Russia around that time?
Hmm....... It was a 100 year lease, and it was up in 2004......or sometime around 2004. That puts it at the turn of the 20th century. That puts it just a little later that the Russo-Japanese conflict (if i remember), and even then the territory would have to be under the control of a foreign power. Communist China would have never honored that lease, in my opinion.
It could be that China leased Hong Kong to the Brits to protect it from Japanese aggression. Japan was in an 'expansionist' mood around that time.
Was there a Sino-Japanese conflict around 1904-05?
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