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Comment by tw1010 | Hacker News Reader

Part of me wonders if it's at all possible if the protestors represent only a vocal minority of opinions in Hong Kong. I mean, maybe busy families around HK would prefer to stay as part of china. I'm certainly not informed enough to know if that's the case or not. If a small vocal minority in SF wanted to make the city an independent nation, wouldn't you want the US government to step in to stop anything radical from happening?

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Estimates of the number of protesters from non prc sources are around 1-2 million. For reference the HK population is 7.4 million. This in an incredibly large fraction of the population. Moreover, these are just the people who felt it so important that they were willing to risk their own safety by physically taking to the streets. Support for the protests among the population is likely much higher. In fact i think these protests are notable because of the agreement among hk citizens.

> wouldn't you want the US government to step in with tanks and so fourth to stop anything radical from happening?

No. I'd want a referendum.

Scotland had a referendum on becoming independent. They chose to stay in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_ref...

Britain had a referendum on leaving the EU. They chose to leave the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit

So why not simplify everything and allow Hong Kong to hold a Chexit referendum? Let the people of Hong Kong decide what they want for themselves.

Chexit would never happen. We mainly want the status quo, preferably with universal suffrage so that we can have a say in which policies are tabled and so that our leaders are accountable to us rather than the central government.

The status quo won't get you what you want. One country, two systems was always going to end in 2047.

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