As incomes rise in China people will demand other things from the government than food, shelter and a comfortable middle class life. Hong Kong was ahead of the rest of China since they have been living pretty liberal under UK rule and were more prosperous. Whatever they do in Hong Kong now will not stop from things happening all over China at a given point.
The history of HK is essentially the rule of the central government (UK or China) and the local overlords (The few families and their lackeys the triads). HK's prosperity was largely the result of Cold War and I'm afraid that is gone forever (unless of course the world goes on that route again).
Maybe we both figure it's a way to get GDP up...