It's not like this is a recent change in policy as Hong Kong has become more insignificant in the scheme of things. China has been systemically fiddling with HK

It's not like this is a recent change in policy as Hong Kong has become more insignificant in the scheme of things. China has been systemically fiddling with HK since 1997, despite lodged international agreement and "one country, two systems". The extradition was merely the last of many straws. One of the earliest protests I remember was around 2,000 (Edit: it was actually 2003) and tied in with the universal suffrage electing the Chief Executive that was in the handover agreement, written into Basic Law, and remains an issue for today's protests. It's one of the protest's "five points". Edit: There was an earlier demo in 2,002 over civil rights stemming from the subversion law, which spawned the yearly marches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches