Hong Kong under National Security Law; Some Pro-Democracy disband political parties

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The CCP can't afford to have alternatives to their continued misrule be available, and I think they realized that they'd never have a better opportunity to go after democracy in Hong Kong than now. More worrisome in my opinion is the recent saber-rattling over Taiwan. Hopefully, it has been nothing more than a way to keep Taiwan from declaring Taiwanese independence from China as a reaction to the extinguishing of democracy in Hong Kong.

Anyway, I think the only way democracy is likely to come to the mainland this century is if the CCP starts being an actual democracy internally. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. Historically, democracy developing within an oligarchic autocracy has only happened in response to the oligarchy worrying about the autocrat colluding with a foreign power to ensure his continued hold on power in a manner detrimental to the interests of the oligarchs. (See for example, Britain in the 17th century.) There is no credible threat external to China and Xi hasn't been detrimental to the CCPs oligarchs as a whole, so even an optimistic view on the prospects for Chinese democracy will require waiting for what happens after Xi.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

After the July 1st protests plus a bunch of arrests the HK market is up 2.85%.  HK is now up almost 6% since 5/21 when the announcement came out about the new security laws.  Since end of May HK markets are up over 11% and have way outperformed Taipei, Tokyo and Soeul during the same period.   All things equal the view of investors is that the protests will peter out and the city will go its old goals of making money.

Problem is, with Hong Kong losing any shred of autonomy, there's little reason now to treat Hong Kong any differently than Shanghai when it comes to financial matters. I've avoided investing in Chinese and Russian companies not because of disdain for autocrats per se, but because I can't trust the reported financials.

Also, I see you cherry-picked your period for comparison.
YTD, Hong Kong is doing worse than not only the three markets you've mentioned but also Shanghai.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

jaichind,

While there will be those willing to overlook China's lack of transparency in financial matters because of its large market and the willingness of its current mandarins to destroy the environment in search of personal profit, most people won't because they either don't have the ability to pierce the opaqueness of its businesses or the willingness to collude in the destruction of China's environment. It's unfortunate that the leadership of today's PRC has largely learned the wrong lessons from the West's robber baron era. The lessons they've learned have mostly concerned how to be more rapacious.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This is leading to poor policy choices in my view and risk repeating mistakes in the 1930s under pressure from public opinion which led to conflict with Japan when a more rational policy could have avoided a costly war and set back Chinese economic development by decades.

The only way for China to have avoided that costly war would've been to accept Japanese hegemony. Wang Jingwei was hardly a role model.