I like to use the "Psycho" analogy to depict the malicious intent of Donald Trump and Peter Navarro in the so-called trade war. Similarly, here I use the "burning village" analogy to give my "educated guess" of Hong Kong's fate.
In a remote village, some disgruntled villagers were running amok to set fire to houses in their demand to the Landlord to let them choose their own village chief.
The final outcome could be one of the following scenarios:
(a) The Landlord could have sent his firemen earlier to extinguish the fire. However, it would provoke a big outcry from the other landlords that the Landlord had broken his contract with the villagers not to send his men into the village within a specific time period.
(b) If those disgruntled villagers were dead sure of the Landlord’s resolve not to yield to coercion, they might help to extinguish the fire instead of committing arson. In this case, it was not too late to save the village. All's well that ends well.
(c) The Landlord might send his firemen to the village if he grew impatient with the nonsense, "Enough is enough! It’s time to teach those idiots a good lesson!" Then there would still be a big outcry from the other landlords over the breach of contract between the Landlord and the villagers. Moreover, many household items like mattresses, pillows, blankets, clothes, books, food, furniture, televisions, radios, electrical appliances, etc would be damaged by water from the firemen's hoses.
(d) Lastly, the Landlord might think: "If I try to appease the idiots in one village, the consequences would be disastrous because naïve people from the other villages may be tempted to follow suit. It seems okay if I simply do nothing and let the whole village reduce to ashes. As I am the landlord of a thousand villages, I can afford to sacrifice one village to teach those idiots an unforgettable lesson. In the end, it is they who will suffer from their stupid actions.
As stated in Galatians 6:7 of the New Testament:
'Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'
Those idiots will reap what they sow if they think they can intimidate me into accepting their demand.
If that is the basic nature of God's Justice, it is also the basic nature of my justice. It is certainly my best option at the moment. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
https://biblehub.com/galatians/6-7.htm