What explains the vastly different attitudes of Hong Kong people and their mainland Chinese counterparts towards the United Kingdom?

The first and easiest answer is, of course, Western freedom and democracy as allegedly practised – or at least taught – in colonial Hong Kong, as opposed to Chinese communist propaganda on the mainland.

That is the most oft-cited claim, at least in Western media and public discourse, so I will not repeat it here. You can easily look up such arguments. Perhaps you have made them yourself.

Rather, I would argue that the vastly different, even opposing, attitudes of these two socially and historically distinct but ethnically similar populations – in Hong Kong and mainland China – ultimately stem from different facets of Western or British colonialism and imperialism. Put simply, these facets were experienced differently over the past two centuries on either side of the border. I will also distinguish between the two isms below.