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( Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China)
 A Special Administrative Region (SAR) is a highly autonomous and largely self-governing [1] subnational entity of the People's Republic of China. Each SAR has a gubernatorial chief executive as head of the region and head of government. Each region's government, however, is not fully independent, in as much as foreign policy and military defense are retained as the province of the nation and its central government. The People's Republic of China, at present, has two Special Administrative Regions, Hong Kong and Macau, and they should not be confused with Special Economic Zones, which are regions fully under the administration of the Central People's Government. Article 31 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China authorizes the National People's Congress to create Special Administrative Regions. Two Special Administrative Regions Hong Kong and Macau (created in 1997 and 1999 respectively) each have a Basic Law which provides the region with a high degree of autonomy, a separate political system and a capitalist economy under the principle of "one country, two systems", which was proposed by Deng Xiaoping. Both are pragmatic concessions to the fact that each was a formerly treaty territory under long-term leases or cession, in practice de facto they were colonies left over from the era of European Imperialism and so were administered under western colonial laws by their respective European powers during the lease period. When Britain and Portugal's long lease-hold neared expiration, fear arose among the local citizens toward Communist Law due to incidents such as Tiananmen Square protest and Cultural Revolution [2]; consequently locals were reluctant to abandon western laws. After rounds of negotiations, Chinese officials agreed to allow most of the local laws to remain in place after the transfer of the sovereignty of the territories.
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