This chapter focuses on the protracted and difficult Hong Kong talks during 1984. Britain’s negotiating objectives had shifted to securing the highest degree of autonomy for Hong Kong and continuity of its systems after 1997. The plenary sessions were supplemented by the intense meetings of the working group and the ad hoc group. While Britain had abandoned all claims to constitutional links with Hong Kong, the Chinese remained sensitive to any issues that had to do with sovereignty. This chapter details how the two delegations overcame their differences over the timetable of an agreement, the establishment of a joint group in Hong Kong during the transitional period, post-1997 constitutional arrangements, and so forth. Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe played a proactive role in injecting fresh momentum into the negotiations through visits to Beijing. So did Deng Xiaoping’s personal intervention and his concessions to Britain help to break the impasse over the outstanding issues. When she flew to Beijing to sign the Joint Declaration in December 1984, Thatcher was convinced that Hong Kong’s free-market capitalism – the essence, if not the ‘form’, of British rule – would be preserved and insulated from socialist China after 1997.