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Notes -
I don't think it was particularly likely to be a multi-decade plan secretly passed down. I think decades ago Chinese leadership wanted at least partial control of Hong Kong as a matter of national pride, but didn't think they could get away with total control. And then more recently they felt they could get away with total control, so they went ahead and enforced more control.
I think it's more like "they did some things they didn't think would cause a furore that did, and then they weren't sure they could maintain control without a full crackdown".
I'm definitely in agreement with you against @AshLael that what happened in Hong Kong does not scream "long-term plan". The "charm offensive" screamed "long-term plan" - you can actually see its effect on Taiwanese attitudes toward unification - and the Darth Vader stunt ruined that plan, so it doesn't make sense for the Darth Vader stunt with that timing to have been a long-term plan (the obvious long-term plan would have been to wait out the 50-year agreement and/or to wait until Taiwan also agreed to 1C2S and had been garrisoned with PLA troops). At the very least, if it was a long-term plan, then the CPC is either completely bananas (yes, yes, they're bad at understanding WEIRD mindset, but "if you break agreement X with person Y, person Z will be less likely to enter agreement X with you" is more general than that) or has a major case of left-hand/right-hand.
Xi in particular seems to have a preoccupation with projecting a certain kind of strength/dominance to the detriment of other concerns, causing him to derail long-term efforts by previous Chinese leaders to sell an image of China as a reasonable and conciliatory actor. I don't know if this got as specific as particular schemes so much as it was a high level strategy that was reflected in how the Chinese government approached various issues.
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