The polity of Hong Kong has a special place in underlining the geopolitical inflections of the new authoritarian protectionism. Hong Kong's youthful, militant democratic movement found support from the most hardline parts of the new, radical right Republican Party. Ted Cruz, a figure from the party's ultra-conservative wing, whose second place to Trump in the 2016 primary contest underlined just how far the party had moved to the right, has even been subject to targeted sanctions from the Chinese government due to his role in pushing a combative line on human rights abuses in Congress. Yet, his support for the democratic process did not extend to the domestic politics of the United States. When Congress was hastily reconvened after the mob insurrection, to precede with certifying the result, Cruz maintained his opposition. He continued to back Trump's malicious attack on the peaceful transfer of power. It seemed Hong Kongers had his support because they were fighting China and communism, rather than out of a general commitment to the institutions of liberal and democratic government.

Hong Kong pushed itself into the centre of Sino-American relations due to the extraordinary scale of its struggle for democratic rights over the last decade. This has represented the most serious challenge to communist rule since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Hong Kongers stepped up their fight for democracy at a moment when the Chinese state was moving in the opposite direction: towards a much more centralized and authoritarian system. Xi Jinping assumed the position of party General Secretary in November 2012, becoming Chinese president in March the following year. Today he has become the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping. His reforms, which began with an anticorruption drive, over time morphed into the creation of a highly personalized dictatorship.

Xi's rule has dramatically altered the relationship between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. In less than a decade a number of students, academics and civil society activists have gone from the fringes to the centre of Hong Kong's public debate.