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Notes -
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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