That's really interesting; thanks for sharing.

But based on what you say, that sounds exactly like the narrative of authoritarianism vs. democracy. You have a bunch of elites with no responsibility that are tremendously disliked in power. In a democracy, they'd (theoretically) fear losing an election to a populist. Heck, even if they were regular despots, they'd be at least marginally afraid of revolution. But the elites in Hong Kong are installed by China; they have no fear of even a revolution.