HONG KONG — In Canada, it is the Québécois. In Spain, the Catalans. In Britain, the Scots.

Now, China must deal with its own version of a democratically elected indigenous movement, elevated to positions of political power on Sunday in the only place in the authoritarian country where that is possible: Hong Kong.

Six young people — none older than 40 — were elected to Hong Kong’s legislature on platforms that called for the city’s 7.3 million people to decide their own fate, a generation after Britain and China decided it for them by negotiating the handover of the onetime British colony to Chinese rule.

These new legislators stand apart from more established and moderate pro-democracy lawmakers who for decades have tried to work with Beijing while pushing for expanded direct elections. Their success speaks to the cost in public opinion that Beijing has suffered for its steadfast refusal to compromise on popular demands for greater participation in the selection of Hong Kong’s leader next year.

Outside Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities can deal with independence-minded minorities with an iron fist, suppressing movements in Tibet and in the western region of Xinjiang, for example, that are pushing for more autonomy from Beijing. But in Hong Kong, political freedoms are protected until 2047 by a mini-constitution that China agreed to honor to regain sovereignty over the city in 1997.