Hong Kong has been my home for the past seven years. That's the longest I have ever lived in a country by a margin of three years. In August I would have been eligible for a permanent residence identity card, had I not been forced to move a week early due to personal circumstances. Which is why it really does pain me to say that Hong Kong's future has already been determined.

China has allowed the Hong Kong people some leeway with their protests in the past, even shelving plans to enforce the moral and national education curriculum, an pro-China propagandist education scheme. But they will only go so far. China has no intentions of letting Hong Kong out from under their direct control, even if it means a more direct application of force. Lau Nai-keung implied this when he stated that the People's Liberation Army would intervene if necessary. That was in July, before the protests had reached this level of intensity.

Besides all of that, Hong Kong's future has really been set since the handover. Come 2047, in accordance with the Joint Declaration, China is no longer obligated to maintain the things that give Hong Kong its autonomy, including its Special Administrative Region status, and all the legal and economic features that stop it from being just another Chinese city. While there is no guarantee that China will not let Hong Kong continue as it is, they have also never given any sign of what is to come after July 1st 2047, which is an ominous sign that what they have planned is not what we would like. I would not put it past CPC to simply dissolve all notions of the One Country, Two Systems policy and completely subsume Hong Kong into China.