> They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

I don't think it's ever been correct to say the HK government was elected. It had some elected elements, but they were never in the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Ko....

IIRC, one of the five protest demands was for a fully elected government.

The FCs are elected, but by people in the function it sounds like. That's an election, a weird one, but still an election. I'm sure Beijing was pulling the strings but it's not like they were directly appointed.

> That's an election, a weird one, but still an election. I'm sure Beijing was pulling the strings but it's not like they were directly appointed.

IIRC, they're structured so Bejing's allies would control those seats, with few exceptions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_(constituency)). I think most of the "voters" are representatives of industry associations and the like.

> They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly.

HK government was never elected. Beijing was always pulling strings from behind

But its also not nothing, otherwise they wouldn't be so sensitive on the subject.

"If the situation was hopeless, their propaganda would be unnecessary"

Over 1 million marched against the 2nd Gulf war in London and it was pointless. Anyone who was paying attention knew the wmd evidence was most likely fabricated. It's the same all over the world.

> They were protesting the elected HK government, not Beijing directly

This wasn't case in later stages of the protest, or even early stages. The protestors were gambling against Beijing in the first place, since they clearly didn't trust the local governance nor its ability to meet their demands. And it kinda made it obvious for the latter stage of the protest, that the attack was focus on CCP directly.

Not to discount China's horrible authoritarianism in Hong Kong or elsewhere, but the tank man photo is a selective propaganda edit. Watch the whole video (as captured by CNN):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU