Throwaway because I don’t want to be brigaded.
It appears Britain only tried to give them democracy when they knew the writing was on the wall. That seems disingenuous to suggest it was China that blocked them.
While technically true, if Britain truly wanted to help the Hong King people, they would have offered citizenship and let them immigrate, like Portugal did for Macau.
Instead, the British tried to stop Portugal from doing so, because they didn’t want to offer the people of Hong Kong citizenship.