WI: Britain grants Hong Kong independence in 1996, to avoid it going to China in 1997

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Pangur

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Would China respect this, or would they immediately invade the Republic of Hong Kong?
As I understand i the treaty applied to the new territories rather than HK itself That being true this new Republic of Hong Kong would consist of what? island of HK or the whole lot?
 
UK would violate treaty which promised Hong Kong going back to China. It would piss China greatly and it would invade Hong Kong. And hardly anyone cares. At least world will forgot whole thing by 9/11 when there is some other issues.
 
Hong Kong's water and electricity depended upon the New Territories; without them the city would die.
And the New Territories were leased.
Even if we assume that for some reason the international community recognises the independence of Hong Kong (they won't), China has every legal right to occupy the New Territories. Even if they don't declare that the UK has violated the lease by giving it to rebels and occupy them immediately (they will,) as soon as they take the land in 1997 Hong Kong has to surrender.

There will be no basic law. There will be no 'one country, two systems.' There will be a crackdown, and it will be awful.
 
I made a wikibox on this quite recently. Basically, you'd need Britain to have a really good reason for not giving HK back to China - maybe the Gang of Four take over after Mao, or a military junta in the 80s or 90s. Then you have to justify the UK not just keeping it for themselves - perhaps a referendum or pressure from the USA. From thereon, an independent Hong Kong would probably be hugely dependent (at first) on British and American backing to hold out against China, otherwise it just goes the way of Goa or Tibet in the early days. However, I'd say its very possible that given time, the city being such a vital lynchpin in the international economy will ultimately end up commercial suicide to take Hong Kong.
In terms of the New Territories, yeah they're technically leased but they will be probably legally attached to the new Republic anyways and if British and American forces are there en masse in the late 90s, the PLA can't do much about it. It was pretty terrible in the 90s even IOTL, but if China has gone down the drain to the extent that Britain wants to tear up the Joint Declaration, its armed forces will probably take the phrase 'paper tiger' to a whole new level. Again though, if HK is left out in the cold on independence then they really are finished.
 
Big, mighty China invading a tiny city state would not look good.
The world watched on as they ran over their own people with tanks back in 89, I think the world would watch again as they brutally annex another territory that the West has little intention of defending in the first place.

Perhaps it would go down in history as another "Munich moment"...
 
Well, the Alaska lease was ignored by America when the Bolsheviks took over, I don't see why Britain couldn't do the same. After all this is not the China they made the treaty with. There is no Qing Dynasty anymore.

To protect it there would need to be a substantial British deterrent force. In the event of the war the British plan would be to deny a quick victory to China, which would be disastrous diplomatically for the PRC. Perhaps a UN demilitarized zone could be requested as well.
 
Big, mighty China invading a tiny city state would not look good.
Tibet

They would live with it.

As pointed out in other threads, the UK was toothless, and would/could do nothing about it except whine in the UN, that would be blocked by the Chinese Veto
 
The UK breaking a treaty would elicit far more condemnation.
Nah, UK wouldn't get flack for ditching a treaty against an authoritarian state that already on a lot of people's shit list anyways. What the UK would get a lot of flack for would be the way they half assed their attempt to do the "morally correct" thing (i.e. attempting to protect the little democracies except unlike the Falklands they don't want to ignite a war over it).

I mean, the only way the UK could potentially keep Hong Kong was to go to war, and let the nukes fly, and that'll kick this thread right over to ASB and me getting kicked for a week for promoting mass murder.
 
The result would be an immediate PRC invasion of the territory, and judging by the fact the response to Tiananmen Square was effectively nothing, this wouldn't be any different. What it would almost certainly result in though is the collapse of Hong Kong's economy as it's pepple would know what was coming and would run like hell with whatever they could.

The only way you could get an independent Hong Kong is to have the British and the Americans have a very good reason to militarily defend it. And I have no idea what could create that environment.
 
And I have no idea what could create that environment.
A unicorn: a PRC that's militarily strong (both in number of nukes as well as force projection capabilities, which implies a strong economy and high tech sector), hardcore communist, far too willing to export the world revolution, and not willing to play by the standard rulebook of international diplomacy.

If you'll notice that a lot of those variables are mutually exclusive.
 
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