A ‘golden goose’ loses its luster: Why Beijing is willing to risk Hong Kong

In 1984, when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed to return Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, ending 156 years of British rule, architects of the accord assured residents that communist leaders in Beijing would find it in their best interest to preserve the colony’s freedoms.

Were Hong Kong’s new overseers to encroach on the city’s legal system, freewheeling financial markets or unfettered press, it was often argued, they would risk “killing the golden goose”—whose...