Plus, back when the Sino-British Joint Declaration was negotiated (1984) there was already this heady optimism in the air that democracy was inevitable (as expr

Plus, back when the Sino-British Joint Declaration was negotiated (1984) there was already this heady optimism in the air that democracy was inevitable (as expressed in Francis Fukuyama's 1992 The End of History and the Last Man), and the thinking was that by the time HK would lose its autonomy and become just another Chinese city (2047), China would be a wonderful democracy. Oh well.