>Without establishing any ground rules

All right, ground rules. My arguments are evidence-based and I assume that you'd have read any evidence I've cited. Any arguments that you make that are contrary to the evidence I've presented will be interpreted as being made in an attempt to distort the evidence.

>what similarities are we talking?

That was my question: what similarities are there between HK and Singapore? I only see differences that are critically important to the question at hand.

> Former British colonies with bigger historical differences, isn't the final destination sovereignty?

Sure, and the decolonization process took place under the auspices of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization.

However, there's a huge twist to the story when it comes to HK, which made it unlike any former British colony.

After the ROC was expelled from the UN by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 in 1971, the PRC's UN representative, Huang Hua, wrote to that Special Committee in March 1972 to assert China's sovereign right over Hong Kong and Macau:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong

This was acceded to by the Special Committee in its 1972 report (Ref: A/8723/REV.1[VOL.I](SUPP)):

https://www.un.org/ga/search/viewm_doc.asp?symbol=A/8723/REV...

Specifically, if you read that document I linked to above, on p.64 of the document, para. 183 states:

>The Special Committee also continued its review of the list of Territories to which the Declaration is applicable. In the light of the close examination of related matters, the Committee agreed that it should recommend to the General Assembly the exclusion of Hong Kong and Macau and dependencies from the list [...]

The list referred to is this list of territories that are subject to the decolonization process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_Non-Sel...

This report was approved in para. 3 of UN General Assembly Resolution 2908, which passed 99-5 on 2 Nov 1972. You can read the text here:

https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/2908(XXVII)

The upshot of this is that, while the General Assembly believed that it voted in favor of the "Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples", it also voted for the removal of Hong Kong and Macau from the decolonization list by approving the Special Committee's report in para 3 of the resolution.

In short, UN General Assembly Resolution 2908 derecognized HK and Macau as territories to be decolonized, thereby recognizing China's assertion of its sovereign right over them.

>Those kind of play toward the concept of a proud city-state breaking apart of a larger, country that doesn't seem to grasp what the people are feeling.

That's a nice concept, but the proof of concept doesn't work.

Again, Singapore didn't "break away" from Malaysia. In fact, prior to the formation of Malaysia, the Singapore leadership had campaigned vigorously for Singapore to be incorporated into Malaysia.

Unfortunately, the political leadership in Malaysia was set on having its race-based affirmative action policy - which favored the race of the ruling Malay majority, by the way - and so it decided Singapore had to go.

Let me reiterate that: Malaysia made a unilateral decision, without consulting the people of Singapore, to evict Singapore from the federation. Singapore was kicked out. It didn't "break away".

Today is Malaysia's national day. I'd appreciate it if you could get your facts right before commenting on Malaysia going forward.

>What if HK were to decide "enough is enough", to move out, and live their own life?

They can't. They depend on China for their water and most of their food.

The same is true for Singapore: it depends on Malaysia for its water and most of its food.

The big difference is this: Malaysia is quite happy for Singapore to be independent; China sees HK as an inalienable part of itself.

>If we wanted to contrast HK <-> SG, I'd probably pick different things.

What, like this:

>For instance Singapore speaking Mandarin and being more diverse culturally/linguistically.

This is completely irrelevant to the issues at hand.

>It's really cool. Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore#/media/

I know.

>I just don't see it that way.

You're free to continue not seeing it this way, but inattention to detail can be costly (c.f. UN Resolution 2908).