Certainly there was plenty of fear in the run up to 1997, but after that most HK people seemed pleasantly surprised by how things went. Bar the 2003 protests I think the first decade went reasonably well. Even 5-10 years ago I think people were mostly willing to stick it out and had hope things would get better.
Materially, things such as escalating housing prices are certainly enough to create legitimate concerns for socioeconomic wellbeing, but placing that at the feet of the Chinese government as if they had the power to solve that is dubious at best.
The other major change in that period of time is the stark rise in anti-mainlander and localist sentiment, which interacted with the fruits of the HK education system and the way in which the HK populace are in turn raised to believe in their role in the world and their role in the region and their role relative to China.
All of that coalesced into an ideological and emotional dislike of all things China.
There isn't to say that there are some legitimate economic or living standard issues in HK -- which frankly, if the Chinese government had more power in HK perhaps they would have been able to solve in past years via initiatives like central govt directed housing projects -- but I think we would really be kidding ourselves if one of the biggest push factors for people in HK that want to leave is the emotional fear and loathing of China, the Chinese government, and frankly the Chinese people as well.
None of us forget that before Chinese internet users started calling the blackshirts "cockroaches" -- the predecessors of the blackshirts around 2014 started it first when they happily called mainland Chinese "locusts".
In Hong Kong it is not uncommon to be met with genuine derision or hostility and in some few cases, violence if you speak mandarin, such is the level of hostility. Of course, speaking cantonese in the mainland might earn you some novel stares or at most some regional poking humour depending on where you are, but nothing on the scale of the reverse.
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