With only 30 days and nights to pass before China enfolds Hong Kong in its mid-summer embrace of proudly-restored sovereignty, the two are tumbling towards a final provocation before the congratulatory fireworks can begin.
Tens of thousands are expected to rally at the now-traditional June 4 remembrance ceremony on Wednesday, filling Victoria Park with candles in memory of hundreds of students, workers and bystanders killed in a massacre Beijing still refuses to acknowledge.
Among them will be Han Dongfang - 33-year-old mainland exile, former political prisoner, labour rights champion and thorn in Beijing's side.
Mr Han, stranded in Hong Kong since Chinese authorities shut him out four years ago, stands apart from the handful of dissidents clamouring for last-minute asylum overseas. He is staying put.
It is eight years since the People's Liberation Army rolled its tanks and troops into Tiananmen Square, opening fire to crush students and workers campaigning for an end to official corruption and the birth of political reform of the Communist Party. As the anniversary approaches, and culturally-trained People's Liberation Army troops settle into Mid-Levels apartments and Central barracks, democracy and human rights proponents in Hong Kong wonder what the future holds for themselves under Chinese sovereignty.
Tomorrow, Amnesty International will release a document which claims at least 300 of the 900 people arrested and jailed for helping to swell the pro-democracy wave are still in prisons across China. Although many of their sentences appear to be for crimes of violence, researchers say terms such as 'robbery' are applied to the act of picking up bullets from the ground in the silent aftermath of the killings.
Calling on Beijing to launch an 'impartial and public enquiry' into the massacre, Amnesty will also release details of prisoner Li Hai. Li, initially detained for taking part in mainland commemorations of the first Tiananmen anniversary, in June 1990, was sentenced to nine years' jail last December for 'prying into state secrets', the organisation reports.