Here, let me wiki that for you (lmwtfy): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
>I've likened Hong Kong to Singapore.
I love how people pull out Singapore (hey, why doesn't Hong Kong become an independent "authoritarian democracy", like Singapore?) at this point, but the analogy is spurious. The historical and geopolitical situations of these two cities are night and day.
I mean, lmwtfy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Singapore
Here's the relevant timeline:
1959: Singapore achieved full self-government as a British colony.
1963: In defiance of massive skepticism, Singapore merged with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the federal constitutional monarchy of Malaysia.
1963-65: Massive protests rocked Singapore because of disaffection with the racialist affirmative action policy of the federal government in Kuala Lumpur.
1965: To avoid further unrest, the federal government of Malaysia decided to expel Singapore from the federation.
For your analogy to work, you'd have to substitute "Malaysia" in the above for "China", since Hong Kong depends on China for its food and water, as Singapore does. But the result of that substitution looks nothing like the actual history of Hong Kong.
Your analogy also breaks down for the following reasons:
- Malaysia does not have an official irredentist position regarding Singapore. The official irredentist position of the PRC is well-known when it comes to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
- Many Malaysian politicians at the time, including the then ruling party UMNO, were skeptical of Singapore's entry into Malaysia, and were quite relieved to be rid of Singapore. In contrast, the PRC's position is that Hong Kong is an integral part of its territory, come what may.
- Malaysia does not have any troops garrisoned in Singapore. There are PLA troops garrisoned in Hong Kong.
>Spain and Catalonia both use the Euro. Catalonia has its own judicial system, but I believe they both are set to the EU in terms of bigger picture things.
The EU, as a community of sovereign nations, is wary of being seen as supporting separatism within its member nations. This is one of the reasons why it let Spain do what it did to Catalonia.
>HK [...]
These are superficial differences. Power is power, as some have said. No matter how much you and others would like to liken Hong Kong to Singapore, the fact remains that they face vastly different geopolitical realities.