> Or are you seeking Hong Kong's independence, and a nullification of the treaty that was agreed to? > Because if you agree that the territory belongs to China

> Or are you seeking Hong Kong's independence, and a nullification of the treaty that was agreed to? > Because if you agree that the territory belongs to China, then we're just unhappy about it coming sooner than expected, right? By not living out the terms of the treaty until 2047, it is _China_ that is already nullifying the treaty. The whole point of the treaty was that changes to the basic law would not occur until at earliest 2047 so being "unhappy about it coming sooner than expected" is the same as being "unhappy that China is breaking the treaty". To me it is crazy to expect Hong Kongers not to be protesting such duplicitous actions by China. > It eventually would revert to China and have all the infringement of rights, which are now just being experienced sooner. As arcticbull pointed out ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23992800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23992800 ), it is absolutely _not_ a foregone conclusion that they would lose their current rights in 2047. The CCP might not even be able to hold out in its current form until then (ignoring currently trade and military tensions in the area, China's aging workforce is basically a population bomb). If Hong Kongers' want to stay quasi-independent, holding to the terms of the treaty is actually quite crucial. My suspicion is that the CCP sees exactly the same thing and hence why they have chosen to break the terms of the treaty to avoid having Hong Kong causing them trouble if they were to enter rough times in the future.