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“”Don’t get me wrong - Hong Kong had no real chance militarily against China and it would have been a futile gesture. I’m not blaming them for not committing suicide.”

Ok, but I don’t think it is an explanation for the question.

That’s not why Ukraine gets the coverage and obsession whereas Hong Kong is ignored.

And there was a lot of street fighting among youth and police. It was not meant to kill anyone though on either side.

Firebombs and Molotov cocktails, barricades. Meant to show their resistance and to delay police from getting to demonstrations.

[Ok, but I don’t think it is an explanation for the question.

That’s not why Ukraine gets the coverage and obsession whereas Hong Kong is ignored.

And there was a lot of street fighting among youth and police. It was not meant to kill anyone though on either side.

Firebombs and Molotov cocktails, barricades. Meant to show their resistance and to delay police from getting to demonstrations.]

If Hongkongers had resisted with armed force, and missiles and artillery shells were raining down on the city, I expect we’d see a serious popular reaction in the West, much as in Ukraine. The problem is that demonstrations by tiny numbers of people in the streets, combined with little more than contrary opinions from the vast majority of the populace suggest that discontent isn’t anywhere like that in Ukraine.

Ultimately, if you want foreign support, you need to risk your lives in large numbers, and be able to pose, in manpower and material terms, some likelihood of at least keeping your cause alive. Ukraine fits that classification. Hong Kong doesn’t. And if Taiwan continues along its present course, and doesn’t put tens of thousands of Chinese troops in the ground if they attempt to cross the Formosa Strait, the nation will be treated more or less the same way as Hong Kong.

If the Taiwanese are prepared to fight, we will probably back them with weaponry and non-military supplies. That will likely also involve sinking Chinese shipping and shooting down Chinese aircraft if they mount a blockade or declare an exclusion zone covering the island and its waters. But if Taiwan falls to a Chinese invasion in short order, the way Kiev was supposed to be occupied in 3 days, I doubt the cavalry is going to show up for a war the Taiwanese aren’t willing to fight themselves.