China could just quietly have waited out the entire transition period and HK would have been "theirs" automatically. China would have looked "strong".
Instead they went for all these little changes way too early creating a lot of global attention, protests and such, breaking promises and looking "weak".
I still don't get why they went the second route? Wanting to demonstrate "we just don't care" like the heavy handed Russia sometimes does? Do they think it worked whatever it was?