But HKers aren't even asking for full independence. They want to retain the democracy and freedom they've had so far.
And the parallels with Soviet Union's collapse is debatable. At that point Soviet Union was on the brink of economic disaster, while China is at the height of their military and economic power.
China wanted HK to be special and successful, to use it as a showcase for the 'one country two systems' model. Now China just want to not lose HK. Huge change in thinking.
You miss out the last part, the British governor would actually listen to the people.
HK had almost 95% of what defines as democracy, freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, right to life and minority rights. It is only missing some part of voting.
> In 1946, shortly after the war, critical voices were raised against colonialism. Governor Sir Mark Young proposed a 48-member Municipal Council with significant competence to govern, one-third elected by non-Chinese, one third by Chinese institutions and one-third by Chinese individuals, known as the "Young Plan", believing that, "to counter the Chinese government's determination to recover Hong Kong, it was necessary to give local inhabitants a greater stake in the territory by widening the political franchise to include them."[9] The reform failed because of much resistance from expatriate companies, a new conservative and mistrustful governor, and London's fears of Hong Kong becoming a political battleground between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Now China has certainly been cooking the hell out of the books but given the other sides of transactions with the outside world we have an idea of the of the real as quite large.
PRC has total control over mainland China. There is 0 risk of fragmentation.
HK is a separate entity in every sense, so is Taiwan.
USSR collapsed because its economic and political system crumbled from the inside, enabling Poland et. al. to get out from under their thumb, which is what they always wanted to do.
If China had economic turmoil, mainland would stay intact in one way or another.
If the CCP were to collapse, it'd be from the inside. Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan always wanted independence. It's difficult enough to unify a small group so just imagine with 1.4 billion people.
Taiwan is independent.
Control in China is tenuous on some level - if the CCP fails, it might be total chaos.
Tibet however, doesn't have any power. They are aboriginals crushed under the weight of Han Imperialism. I mean, if China was in economic turmoil for a decade, and Han leadership was weak, or had the self awareness to allow for some autonomy, and there was 'world pressure on them' - possibly Tibet could make a break.
But it's not like Poland under USSR.
Just like every ruler of China in history, whoever gets 'some control' will want 'all of it' and mainland would probably be easy to unite, due to historical facts.
So barring serious collapse and revolution, it looks like HK is just PRC and that's that, and Taiwan will probably remain independent so long as US and EU exist in any material form.
But who can predict the future.
Secondly, if we are looking at history, why would we look at USSR instead of the history of China? There is never a regime change until a civil war broke out, and there is always blood involved.
History repeats itself. Just 30 years ago the Soviet Union was dissolved. If you study this dissolution process, you see that demonstrations and the ambition to sovereignty was nothing new in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, but in comparison to the 50s, 60s and 70s, Gorbachev did not use military force to prevent countries from splitting off.
If China lets HK go independent, there is a chance of a chain reaction: Guangdong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia.. just to name a few. This would mean to total collapse of the PRC.
But in comparison to the USSR, China's economy is highly intertwined with the global economy.
I would even go that far and say that a successful HK independence movement could have the chance to lead to a total collapse of the global economy on a scale that makes this Corona recession look like a Kindergarden.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE HK, I lived and worked there. I have also lived and worked in Mainland China. It is sad to see that HK will likely become just a random Chinese city and lose its uniqueness. I just wished that there would be a mutual process of this unification and China would move slower towards it, while HK would accept that the China of 2047 will look different from China today.