There was an agreement when Britain handed Hong Kong back to China that there would be one country, two systems - maintained for a period of fifty years. That was from 1997 so it's reaching the mid way point soon.
Hong Kong has no options and not even the protestors want to leave China -- they just want more rights, or in the broader context they don't want to lose anything they had before. However, they never had the right to vote under the British. Governors were appointed from London. Their bargaining power is greatly diminished now. I just read that in 1997 they were 16% of the country's GDP. Now it's 3%.
What they have and will lose: Hong Kong still competes in the Olympics under its own flag - they always have an ex pat there. It has its own currency. Most Chinese firms that want international credibility incorporate under Hong Kong law, which is based on British law. Up until a few years ago, the education system was still based on the A and O levels. There's still an English daily paper. They had a massive entertainment industry - being in some unique free world position in the Asian world that influenced Korean dramas, Jpop, Viet, Thai, etc. That's why Hollywood knows about Chow Yun Fat, etc. Hong Kong still drives on the British side of the road, but China drives on the opposite. They also speak a different dialect and write a different style of Chinese.
Slowly all these things are going to disappear. The health care system is flooded by people coming across the border - to take advantage of Western training or to have babies in Hong Kong so the kids have rights there. The education system, reformed but still decent, by parents from mainland China who send their children across borders every day for school. There is rampant corruption and counterfeiting in China so people from China go and buy everything; Louis Vuitton, milk powder, mobile phones, Viagra -- to the point shelves are bare. Since they travel across the border so often, they need places to stay so they drive up real estate and rental prices so ordinary people who live there can't afford it. Freedom of press is a dodgy term now - I read only one media outlet remains independent and its owner will likely face some kind of reprimand.
It is, or rather was, a very unique place. Seven million people living in the size of a New York borough.
I remember bumping into a blonde hair, blue eyed chap in Chinatown in Toronto and hearing him speak perfect Cantonese. I had to ask him how and it was because of his time spent in Hong Kong. The major television station (oops past tense) had an Indian actor who would look more out of place in Bollywood than on Hong Kong television screens - he too is fluent.
I don't think those things will happen anymore.
