[pjc50]

There are really only two possible endings. One is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 , and the other is Taiwan.

Either China consolidates control over HK and it loses critical political freedoms, ceasing being a democracy even in the slight way that it already is; or, somehow, incredibly, the protestors win and HK gets to retain its quasi-independence while China claims to be sovereign but lacks practical ground control.

(I suppose a third ending is somehow they return to the status quo ante of nominal control with little practical interference, but that was never entirely stable from the British withdrawal onwards. Getting back there would require everyone forgetting the whole thing, disabling injuries and all.)

[Simon_says]

Without guns it's hard to see how Hong Kong ends up free as Taiwan is. Like, seriously, what sequence of events gets us from here to there?

Think about this next time governments talk about taking away your guns and anti-tank mines for the public's own protection.

[culturestate]

As an American who has lived in Hong Kong for many years, I can comfortably say that if every Hong Kong citizen were armed with an AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of ammo they still wouldn't be able to hold off the PLA for any meaningful length of time.

An armed populace is not now nor will it ever again be the answer to this or any other geopolitical debate involving an advanced, militarily powerful national adversary.

[marcusverus]

A small segment of well-armed and determined citizens can still win a war of attrition against any foe. See Afghanistan.

[kart23]

This is just straight up not true. It's all about the attackers aversion to force and end goal. Americans did not want to raze the country, they wanted to take out a small subset of the population which was hard to identify and find, and create a well functioning democracy in its place. In china, if they dont care about killing civilians or about what the land will look like after the war, they can certainly eliminate the uprising very easily. Simply bomb the crap out of the city, invade and shoot anything that moves. An army wins everytime, especially China's.

[pjc50]

> anti-tank mines for the public's own protection

Seriously can we not? Mines are such a horrendous lingering danger to the public that most militaries restrict them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty