Hong Kong is leading the inexorable and fitful march of China towards democracy.
The insanity of a billion and a half people being run by private committees and the threat of force can not continue forever.
Freedom is not gifted by a state run from The Forbidden City. Freedom is the natural right of man.
Communism is near dead in China. The only thing remaining to the Communist Party is the use of force to control the masses.
I doubt that the Chinese government will use lethal force against it's own citizens demonstrating peacefully.
One country. One system. Democracy.