What's the longest Britain could have held on to Hong Kong?

If the Communists (PRC) control North China and the Nationalists (RoC) the South, Hong Kong will be turned over to the RoC (with whom, unlike in OTL, the UK will not break diplomatic relations in 1950) on schedule in 1997. (Yes, all of it--in the real world you can't separate the New Territories from the rest of Hong Kong.) Hong Kong will be as indefensible against a regime that controls half of China as against one that controls all of it.

By that point one in 1997, in that ATL one would hope the ROC would have turned their ship around, even if it starts off as a mega-Singapore at first. In that case HK either has nothing to worry about, or has SAR status (as per OTL), or becomes a special municipality (i.e. the same status IOTL as Taipei, Kaohsiung, and the most recent ones promoted from county status). Of course, to get the democratization ball rolling to a similar level as Taiwan's OTL would probably require a major scandal that means that the central government would have to do something to avoid embarrassment and the loss of face that would result.
 
War between the Soviet Union and China, featuring heavy use of chemical and nuclear weapons. Put the PRC in a position where it's in no place to complain about Hong Kong.
 
The 99 year lease needs to be agreed as a perpetual lease at the 2nd Peking Convension. Even then the PRC are going to use the "unequal treaties" and "decolonisation" sticks.

Beyond that it's big butterflies, like either WW not happening and so forth. The best bet for the British would be a divided China between Nationalists and Communists, and Britain striking a deal with one side or the other (likely the Nationalists) for support in exchange for recognition.

The Nationalists will eventually take it over, anyway, as India did with Goa.
 
As long as some government controls a large part of southern China, Hong Kong will always be forced to join that government, doesn't matter what's legal, what isn't, what Hong Kong wants and what it doesn't. And if you guys hate the PRC so much that you're willing to dream about the Soviets destroying, why not just make a world in which it never comes to existence? Why does there have to be genocidal or colonial fantasies for this?
 
I have to agree that even if there is the adjoining stable government not worried about immediate invasion on other fronts is limited to Guangdong there is going to be substantial pressure to reclaim Hong Kong/Macau. If the former is a very (far moreso than either the pre-'90s KMT or CPC-at-any-point-ever) non-authoritarian setup and the latter has had full democratic self-governance for at least a generation or two by the time the lease is up than maybe, maybe, periodic referenda that do not go their way would be respected (although there will be lots of cashed dumped into the 'Return To China' campaign chests).

Beyond that? Yeah, short of an Eternal Warlord Period or Mainland China ending up a 4th World Failed State (same thing) I'm not really seeing it. Even if Guangdong/Pearl River Estuary ends up a de-jure British/Commonwealth outpost as a whole a merger is going to be part of the Dominion-Status Talks.
 
A post of mine from a couple of months ago:

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No matter what its formal status, the PRC can have it whenever it wants.

From the 1887 Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking: "China confirms, in its entirety, the second Article of the Protocol of Lisbon, relating to the perpetual occupation and government of Macao by Portugal." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Portuguese_Treaty_of_Peking A recognized perpetual right of the UK to all of Hong Kong would be about as valuable.

I'm Portuguese and I know that China only took Macau after it had twice rejected Portuguese offers to take it back. Portugal offered Macau to China in the 60s, in exchange for the end of Chinese support for rebel groups in Portuguese Africa, especially UNITA in Angola, but China rejected the offer. After the Carnation Revolution, Portugal once again offered Macau to China, this time with no strings attached, but China rejected the offer.
 
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I'm Portuguese and I know that China only took Macau after it had twice rejected Portuguese offers to take it back. Portugal offered Macau to China in the 60s, in exchange for the end of Chinese support for rebel groups in Portuguese Africa, especially UNITA in Angola, but China rejected the offer. After the Carnation Revolution, Portugal once again offered Macau to China, this time with no strings attached, but China rejected the offer.

The fact remains that China could have had Macau back whenever she wanted it. For a long time she didn't want it because the lifeblood of Macau was gambling, and the PRC would have been embarrassed to allow casinos on her territory--yet to crack down on gambling and organized crime in Macau would have been financially ruinous ("killing the goose that laid the golden egg"). Once you got a PRC government wiling to tolerate very un-Communist behavior in its "special administrative regions" the PRC would find some way to incorporate both Hong Kong and Macau, regardless of their legal status and regardless of whether the UK and Portugal wanted to part with them.
 
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