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The Hong Kong protestors succeeded in scuttling the proposed extradition law, at least for the foreseeable future. We still do not know if the central government pushed Carrie Lam to move forward with the legislation or if she did it on her own initiative, but clearly it is convenient for the Party center to have people think she did it on her own. Regardless, the rebuke of the mainland and its political system by millions of Hong Kongers could not be clearer, and the damage to Xi and the Party’s reunification project that is core to the Great Rejuvenation is real.

We should expect retribution for those who may be blamed as part of the small group of black hands doing the bidding of hostile foreign forces, and for Party work in Hong Kong to intensify and patriotic education to increase in…