My reason for hope is that we want to preserve Hong Kong the way it is for as long as possible, because the rest of mainland China looks very different. The rest of mainland China operates within the great firewall. We speak of repression in Hong Kong; it is nothing like the style and extent of the repression in mainland China. As long as Hong Kong stays different—and I mean as liberal as it is now—I think it will offer a beacon of hope as well as an example to the rest of mainland China.
In fact, when Sun Yat-sen first proposed the idea of the republic, he came up with the idea when he was in Hong Kong because he saw that the ways in which Hong Kong operated were very different from the rest of mainland China.
I also think that we should take a longer-term view of history. No regime will last forever. The more repressive it is, the more long-lasting it will—