They could have done quite a lot to piss of the Chinese while still honoring the treaty. The lease was only for the New Territories, but they gave all of HK back. Or they could have tried to give it to the government in Taiwan.

Whether that would have protected the people of Hong Kong is another matter. I think at the time people were still optimistic about the direction China was taking and they might have thought China would be a democracy by 2047.

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lazide 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

If you think the UK gov’t was in any position to piss China off then (or now!) without it costing them and anyone else involved far more than it’s worth, I don’t know what to say.

It’s honestly amazing that China didn’t apply more ‘direct’ pressure to get HK bad sooner. There is nothing the UK likely would have done about it. Bad for business I guess? Macau transferred over around the same time.

The Qing dynasty ‘remnants’ in Taiwan would have just been steamrolled if they’d gone anywhere near it. And not like there was any real cultural reason why HK’ers would accept them anyway, or that the Qing were well loved. CCP steamrolled them in mainland China like they did because they were, by all accounts, terrible.

Sometimes, life just sucks.

	▲	CorrectHorseBat 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		>If you think the UK gov’t was in any position to piss China off then (or now!) without it costing them and anyone else involved far more than it’s worth, I don’t know what to say. Oh no, I definitely don't think that. >It’s honestly amazing that China didn’t apply more ‘direct’ pressure to get HK bad sooner. There is nothing the UK likely would have done about it. Bad for business I guess? Macau transferred over around the same time. The 80-90's were a bit too early to take such a risk I think, now they wouldn't take such a deal. The British likely got the best deal they could get. >The Qing dynasty ‘remnants’ in Taiwan would have just been steamrolled if they’d gone anywhere near it. And not like there was any real cultural reason why HK’ers would accept them anyway, or that the Qing were well loved. CCP steamrolled them in mainland China like they did because they were, by all accounts, terrible. The Republic of China government is no more (or less) a Qing dynasty remnant than the CCP is. They were indeed terrible, but that's a long time a go, most people involved are dead by now and the country has changed a lot. The CCP on the other hand is going back to the Mao era. The civil war took two decades, in which the Kuomintang nearly defeated the Communists and had to fight off the Japanese while the Communists got bankrolled by the Soviets. I'd hardly call that steamrolled.

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renewiltord 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Taiwan would have refused since this would have instantly precipitated war with the mainland.