I think Beijing has realised that HK is rotten to the core, and that deep and fundamental changes need to happen. It cannot enact such changes in a meaningful way without the brainwashed masses of HK breaking down in hysterics. As the saying goes, you cannot save someone who does not want to be saved.
I think that privately, Beijing has concluded that 1C2S is a failure. The western MSM propaganda machine is too well established and entrenched for China to effectively counter.
The entire western ruling system is, after all, built upon the manipulation of information in order to gain votes and influence people. That is literally the only skill based selection criteria for entry into the western political classes, so it is any wonder they are better at it that Chinese politicians who earn their positions through actual good governance work?
Add to that the unrelentingly biased propaganda of the western MSM; dedicated subversion outfits like NED, and it would be an impossible task to change public sentiment.
China’s strategy is to let reality counteract western MSM brainwashing.
Beijing is content to leave them to enjoy the ‘freedoms’ they so covert until they realise the ugly reality of what happens when you drink the western MSM cool aid and actually do what they preach.
China underestimated the sheer paranoia-driven petty vindictive schadenfreude of the west, in that the west refuses to leave China alone to develop in peace even when China stayed out of western affairs.
No peaceful re-integration process could happen in an open and inclusive manner when there are external forces hell bent on preventing that.
The extra freedoms and checks and balances that HK enjoyed became the means and avenue through which western agents were able to brainwash a generation. That is the true behind the ‘mystery’ of why kids who were born after the handover long for a past colonial ‘golden age’ none of them have ever experienced.
China cannot repeat that mistake with Taiwan.
If 1C2S is useless for Taiwan, what purpose does it serve China?
This looks to me like China letting the rioters build its case for abolishing 1C2S altogether.
