Do Chicoms fear that the rest of China would want the same deal Hong Kong has?

Joel Gehrke:

Chinese communist officials are making major policy decisions and even public pronouncements that suggest unease about the potential for domestic political friction, China watchers say.

“I think he's worried about his own domestic political standing,” former Australian defense ministry adviser Patrick Buchan said of Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. “Furthermore, what he's worried about is any outbreak of a pro-democracy or anti-CCP sentiment, which further adds to fuel to his own domestic political [stress] in the party.”

That assessment came apropos of Xi’s decision to unveil national security legislation pertaining to Hong Kong that local dissidents and U.S. officials regard as a historic move to dominate the former British colony. The move could come at significant costs for China’s economy, but Chinese communist officials raised the specter of protests against the central government in Beijing when unveiling the decision.

“Using Hong Kong to infiltrate and sabotage the mainland touches on our bottom line,” National People’s Congress standing committee vice chairman Wang Chen said while outlining legislation that would extend the mainland government’s control over the territory. “It is absolutely not tolerable.”

Buchan, who is now a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, regards that as an unusual expression of trepidation about public opinion. It comes just weeks after a senior Chinese diplomat insisted that there are “inseparable ties” that bind the Chinese Communist Party to the hearts of the Chinese people. A senior British lawmaker believes that the party’s “internal reputation has been very severely damaged” by the regime’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Many people in China are already talking about issues arising from the deaths of many of their compatriots and fellow citizens that is undermining the trust they have in the CCP,” Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the United Kingdom’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said Friday in a televised interview. "So, no doubt, this exercise of power, this demonstration of force is really actually proof of weakness and internal fear.”

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China has actually benefited from its lack of control of Hong Kong, but fears that the rest of China wants freedom too.  They must not think they can survive real democracy.