The sinomarxist mono-party is kind of doing their powerplay here.
The interesting thing is that the "two systems, one state" claim was revealed to have been a lie. I can kind of understand the position of China too, mind you - after all there was a war against the UK empire and they forced ceding territory (e. g. Hong Kong). But that still does not nullify the local's people preferences, and Beijing simply bulldozered through by force here. That's the total antithesis to freedom. Xi will focus on Taiwan next - that is also clear. It is in the "DNA" of the sinomarxistic philosophy (though one can wonder how much marxism with chinese focus is still left; it's kind of capitalistic led by a dictatorship. Oddly enough the USA is also transitioning to this by the tech-bros oligarchs.)
We kind of see that freedoms are being eroded. I don't know if that was always the case, or whether it just happens now more rapidly so; or is reported more often, but in the late 1990s I would say we had more freedoms, globally, than right now. Somehow the trend is going towards less freedom. Putin invading Ukraine, occupying land and killing people there is also highly similar to the pretext of the second world war, with the invasion of the Sudetenland by Germany, and then the Gleiwitz lie to sell the invasion of Poland. I think the only real difference here is that more countries have nukes. And smaller countries are kind of put in a dilemma now, since they can not offset bigger countries without nukes.
1Country2Systems is still in place, just the version that was always meant to be, not the lie western propaganda sold.
HK failed their half of 2System by not implementing national security law on their accord after 20 years of failures and it became obvious they were never going to do it out of own volition. Frankly if local preferences is to be under national security umbrella and be free to commit treason their preferences should be completely nullified because that's unserious position. Hence PRC, after UNREASONABLE patience had shove it down their throats under 1C mandate (1C supercedes 2S) - HK only ever had "high" degree of autonomy, not full autonomy. It was always in Beijing's prerogative to force HK to eat their vegetables, it just took 20 years of HK incompetence before Beijing ran of patience. AKA the 1C2S muh HK has full autonomy under Sino British declaration tier of retarded western propaganda fed to useful idiots was a lie and got dispelled.
>But that still does not nullify the local's people preferences,
One reason why Lai's fate has only limited impact is because it doesn't resonate that strongly with working people for whom Hong Kong isn't an example of upward prosperity. His rags to riches 'boomer optimism' appeals more to the Western audience than to someone who has lived in the stagnation of Hong Kong of the last few decades, where ambitious tech talent now migrates to the mainland.
Likewise on the mainland the youth is significantly less interested in emulating the West or old Hong Kong which to them is not a symbol of dynamism.