The Chinese were obviously always opposed to British imperalism and it was a major victory to finally get HK back, including in HK, and even acknowledged in Taiwan. There is a large body of quite nationalistic and anti-European/British films in HK cinema from British times.
However, this does not mean that there is no domestic politics with pro and anti communist party, but daily life hasn't changed in HK except from the larger influx of "mainlanders".
The narrative on HK in the West is simplistic and, frankly a little racist. European imperialism and colonialism has long been rejected except somehow for the so great thing it did in HK, conveniently forgetting that the British never had any democracy in HK and acquired HK by pretty nasty means.
And you're conviently forgetting that the British wanted to have full democracy in Hong Kong as they had in places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand but couldn't for fear of upsetting the balance with China.
It was the same thing with British Overseas passports. Britain wanted to issue full passports to Hong Kong citiezens but couldn't because China was heavily against it and so a compromise was sort.
Britain wouldn't make Hong Kong a full democracy and China would stick to one country two systems. That worked well until one side broke its promise.
Some do, some don't. I was there recently, most of natives who I spoke to didn't really care that much, and the people who cared, was basically 50/50 between agreeing to more Chinese control vs against. Still, I'm a foreigner, so I'm likely not getting the full picture, people don't exactly go around flagging they're opposing China's crackdown, so YMMV.
Well, the article is literally about what happens when you're a leader of such movement, not if you're a random person on the street talking with other random people.
People are generally not super closed nor open about it, although some individuals were more closed about it. Most seemed honest when asked about it, but again, YMMV.
If nothing else is crystal clear since the rise of the Internet and the difficulty in censoring happenings it's that the the will of the people is utterly irrelevant in the face of organized assaults by armed thugs, wherever they may be. Most of their efforts in peace time are dedicated to putting in place barriers to movement and access to supply chain logistics by intentionally making them fragile so when push comes to shove the people can't actually push back.
That's quite a defeatist analysis but I agree that online and offline organising is made increasingly harder by mass surveillance and censorship. That's also why I wish China was more interventionist abroad and would be willing to provide(more) support to international liberation movements.
