Actually the result of the Opium Trade. Great Britain produced opium in its colony in India, and then shipped it to China for sale. Although China resisted, Britain was militarily superior.
Imagine what the cocaine trade from Colombia to the US would be like if it were run by a militarily superior power.
Not many people know the shameful history of the opium wars. As a teenager - my Dad was posted to Hong Kong - and it was there I learned about how Hong Kong came into being:
Here at The Western World (shades of Steely Dan), people liked silk - and were willing to pay exorbitant sums for it. Good thing, because China would only take gold and silver and would't buy squat from the West (Deja Vu all over again). Britain (and the US) said "Well, this won't do, we're exhausting our national treasuries" - and their marketing guys got together to figger out how to generate demand for something..ANYTHING...that they could hock to the Chinese.
Opium was the answer - and the Brits had plenty of it in India. Plus, when they drove into 5th and MLK boulevard with the stuff, they could outgun the local cops with 102-gun ships of the line.
The local governor declared a WOD, and one thing led to another - and it turned into a real shooting war, albeit the shooting came primarily from the side with the guns - and the left-over boxers usually danced to avoid the bullets, until a bullet took them out anyway...so much for magic.
The local Brit Admiral was in charge of postwar negotiations to exact Britain's and the West's tribute. It was then that trade was forcibly instigated - thru trade missions in Shanghai and other port cities - but the big enchilada was Hong Kong - in the visionary view of the Admiral, who saw Hong Kong harbor as one of the premier deep-water ports in Asia.
Hong Kong was thus ceded to the Brits as a BCC - British Crown Colony - and the Admiral hurried back to England with the good news. He was summarily sacked by the Queen - who was royally PO'ed that all that war expense had gotten them exactly 29.4 square miles of barren rock (Hong Kong Island), 2-odd square miles of the mainland (Kowloon), and the humiliating requirement to lease the 377 square miles of greater Hong Kong (New Territories) that the Admiral had wanted.
However, it turned out to be one of the most lucrative deals the Brits ever made, for them and China. History sometimes works in frikked-up ways.
A good job of history telling. One hopes for a Sputnik 2 here as well.