I lived five years in HK, leaving in 2022. It was over around 2019, when the protests hit. It is quite impressive how the Chinese government was able to single-handedly remove all character from one of the world's most vibrant, interesting cities, and turn it into another regular, boring, tightly-controlled Tier 1 Chinese mainland city within the space of a few months.
Hong Kong was always going to be over. It's just yet another relatively small Chinese city, dwarfed in importance by its nearby larger neighbor, Guangzhou. (You remember Guangzhou, we used to call it 'Canton' as in 'Cantonese' the dialect of Chinese they speak in Hong Kong.)
As one of a very few doorways to China by the West, Hong Kong once had some importance. But in today's world the West can reach China by hundreds of 'doorway cities' now. So what's so special about Hong Kong?
