I disagree.
Hong Kong and its financial system is apparently useful for the Chinese as it is, otherwise it would not exist. As if Beijing needs to wait until 2047 because it says so on a piece of paper ( the same piece of paper also promises democracy). If you concur that they can do whatever they like with Hong Kong, and it's hard to deny that surely, then the only possible conclusion is that the current agreement is beneficial to them. The notion the HKD e.g. is just tolerated by China does not make sense in my opinion.
And why would it matter to us if Cantonese as a language survives? I also would argue changing a local language has been indeed done multiple times in history, look at English in the Commonwealth ( Australia debatable :-), Spanish in Latin America and French in Northern Africa, just as an example. Additionally, mandarin is only dominant in China because many other local languages and dialects have been made redundant over the past, e.g. Hakka.
Last edited by Sam Ting Wong; 25th October 2023 at 09:47.