[free_rms]

The UK running HK in the first place was stealing from China. They originally got it as part of the peace settlement from the Opium Wars, then signed the 99-year lease later when the Qing empire was in terminal decline and unable to resist.

[skissane]

If UK had not switched recognition from ROC to PRC, they could have returned it to ROC instead.

UK could have demanded a lease renewal from PRC as the price for switching recognition. Instead they just got some “alliance” against the Soviets and it is questionable what that actually delivered.

[UIZealot]

> Instead they just got some “alliance” against the Soviets and it is questionable what that actually delivered.

China doesn't like to take credit for that, but personally I believe its alliance with the West was instrumental in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[free_rms]

If you're gonna go pro-colonialist might makes right, that's your prerogative, but then you're just gonna have to eat it on the fact that the PRC had a lot more might nearby.

[skissane]

I don’t see how handing HK over to ROC would have been “pro-colonialist”.

[free_rms]

Presuming to control HKs fate after taking it in the freaking opium wars is.

Giving HK back to China is an act of decolonization. Putting them under Taiwan and loading up the island with US weapons would not be.

[throwaway1997]

Do you think we are happier now that we have been "handed back to the motherland" or is China happy? Why does the opinion and desires of Hong Kong citizens not mater in your mind?

[free_rms]

In my mind, that's an internal Chinese matter.

I don't want to devalue your experience, but Anglo powers have a terrible record of "colonialism for their own good", "we'll be greeted as liberators", etc.

[skissane]

Is Taiwan’s democracy “pro-colonialism” too?

PRC is itself a colonialist power. See all the Uighurs in concentration camps.