[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.