The specifics:

Elections: Elections are to be held next spring to choose a new legislature. All candidates must be Hong Kong residents, but their eligibility and the voting arrangements will be determined by a Provisional Legislature chosen by a committee approved in Beijing. The legislature has already set about rolling back some of the civil liberties, including a bill of rights, inserted into Hong Kong law after the Tiananmen Square protests were crushed.

According to the Joint Declaration, the chief executive is to be chosen "by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People's Government." The same committee that selected the Provisional Legislature also selected the new chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, and Tung has shown a taste for a kind of law and order that many find repressive.

Civil liberties: The Joint Declaration provides for such individual rights as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to form labor unions and strike. It also guarantees freedom of travel, correspondence and religious belief.

Private property, ownership of businesses and international investment are also protected, as is freedom of the press. However, many Hong Kong newspapers are owned by pro-China publishers, and some editors admit they are already downplaying stories that might anger Beijing.

Tung, meanwhile, has announced plans to curb demonstrations and other "excesses" he believes threaten social order. While he has backed down somewhat recently, he still wants the police to approve or disapprove demonstrations on the grounds of "national security." The predominant question of the handover, given China's authoritarian bent, is whether such "reforms" might lead to the steady erosion of individual rights.

Law: Hong Kong's laws, which are grounded in British common law, are to remain "basically unchanged" except to conform with Hong Kong's Basic Law, or as defined in the constitution for the Special Administrative Region. How well British legal concepts translate into China's legal system is problematic, however. They may not translate well at all.

An independent judiciary with a Court of Final Appeal is also promised, but China's National People's Congress could overrule it in cases of "acts of state," a vague term that seems to beg creative interpretation.

The death penalty was abolished in Hong Kong in 1993. China still has it, and uses it liberally. Whether it will be restored in Hong Kong remains to be seen.