I don't think you understand just how ridiculous your sentence is.

Hong Kong IS China. It was carved away from China by the British and occupied for a long time. Reunification has always been the goal.

During the British occupation, they treated the Chinese like shit - right up until the point where Thatcher realized they would not be able to extend their occupation past 1999 no matter what they tried. So you know what the British did? They started a propaganda campaign to define Hong Kongers as a new identity and got a bunch of comprador Chinese people to take huge paychecks and powerful positions to lead independent movements that looked eerily similar to running a liberal democracy opposed to China.

That's why when the protects happened the protestors were mostly young people who were being goaded on by local politicians. The grandparents in Hong Kong actually told their grandkids to stop protesting because they knew what the game was.

Hong Kong was finally returned to China and China did something that no other country has done in this situation, they created a policy framework of one country two systems. Hong Kong got to govern itself using systems that the British had put in place and this would allow life in Hong Kong to continue without major disruption while the process of reunification happened organically over time. The only place where that could not occur is national security. Hong Kong would not be expected to defend itself against enemies foreign and domestic, and it wouldn't be expected to run its own counter intelligence programs. That means that the existing Chinese national security framework would replace the British national security framework in Hong Kong and would do so on a much faster timeline than any other governance.

This is ultimately what the protests were about - a Chinese national security law that the Chinese state used as part of counterintelligence specifically against the types of infiltration that the Brits and Americans are fond of. This had the result of making certain comprador politicians ineligible for public office and that sparked the protests.

Now that the compradors are out of office you know what's happening in Hong Kong? Organic reintegration of Hong Kong into the primary governance framework of China. Why? Because the Brits aren't there creating financial incentives for sedition and the Chinese system is incredibly effective at improving quality of life.

This idea that Hong Kong doesn't have autonomy is silly. They absolutely have the legal right to continue the process of choosing how their system evolves. And it turns out that when you remove British influence, a community of mostly Han Chinese with friends, family, and colleagues all across China are going to slowly drift towards the governance model that is most effective at creating the best life for everyone. Whole process democracy ensures Hong Kong maintains a level of autonomy that benefits them, and one country two systems allows Hong Kong to decide how long it wants to hold on to the systems the British put in place.

Literally nothing about this process is negative except the things that are historically contiguous with the traumatic separation and dominance of Hong Kong by the Brits.

Uh, HK protests weren’t that peaceful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactics_and_methods_surrounding_the_2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_protests

The true lesson is that a protests won’t amount to much if you expect elites to step down on their own.

LOL. Peaceful. The protestors were throwing Molotovs at the police for weeks and the police showed more restraint that anything in the US, UK, or Canada.