On the eve of the Olympics, Beijing was preparing to welcome the world to a more open China. Foreign journalists would be allowed to travel freely and interview whoever they wanted. But the Chinese state’s focus on security would quickly intensify. The riots in Tibet and Xinjiang in 2008 and 2009, respectively, increased the Communist Party’s concerns about threats from the periphery, so, by 2011, China was spending more money on internal security than on national defence.

Sino-American ties were ticking along. US president George W. Bush had stopped referring to China as a “strategic competitor”. As a result of the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, the US, accepting China’s position that it faced an existential threat in Xinjiang, recognised the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group. China was pleased.

US president Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, which the Chinese leadership saw as a clear effort to contain China, had not yet been articulated. Americans were still optimistic that China would become a “responsible stakeholder”, and that China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation would turn the country into a democratic capitalist system.

Hong Kong-mainland relations were upbeat. In 2007, chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen convinced the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to grant Hong Kong “universal suffrage” for the chief executive election in 2017. The only sticking point was how the candidates would be selected.

As we know, the decision of the NPC Standing Committee on August 31, 2014 – that a China-friendly nomination committee would pick the candidates for the chief executive election, blocking any pan-democrat from competing – would trigger Hong Kong’s worst political crisis since the 1967 riots.

However, in 2018, Xi’s constitutional revision ended presidential term limits, suggesting that he intends to be “leader for life.” Xi’s decision to extend his rule probably reflects his refusal to allow Hu Chunhua, a Hu Jintao protégé, and the leading contender to replace Xi, to come to power in 2022. Xi wants to groom his own successor who will remain loyal to his “Chinese dream” even after he leaves public office. Still, by de-institutionalising a succession process that had worked well, Xi runs the risk of resurrecting elite conflict within China’s political system.

Today, much discussion focuses on China’s economic problems. Too much money is going to state-owned enterprises compared to the private sector. As half the funds used in 2008 to stimulate China’s economy after the global financial crisis came from local government coffers, the solution to that crisis generated today’s local debt crisis.

With a slowing economy, jobs are harder to find. China’s demographic bombshell – too many old people and not enough young workers – may have begun to drag on the country’s ascendancy. Also, an ageing population will force the state to allocate more funds to health care and a more comprehensive retirement programme.

US-China ties are at a nadir as a rising China challenges a US that refuses to cede global dominance. Decades of “engagement” have turned into a steady stream of “disengagement”. Whether we call it a trade or a tech war, the gloves have come off in this strategic rivalry. Is there a way out?

Hard to say, as the US is demanding that China abandon a developmental strategy, which heretofore has worked quite well, and transform into the country that America hoped China would become when it supported its accession to the WTO. Still, one must hope that US pressures will combine with renewed liberal voices within China to reinvigorate the country’s reform programme.

Finally, it is now unlikely that Hong Kong will ever become an electoral democracy. That opportunity may have come and gone. Moreover, with so many young Hongkongers preferring greater autonomy, if not independence, after 2047, Beijing has decided that Hong Kong’s threat to China’s national security will take precedence over Hongkongers’ right to protest, and going forward, large-scale civil disobedience will not be allowed.

Politics may trump economics, with confrontations between the central government and supporters of a more democratic Hong Kong continuing to generate social unrest. And, Hongkongers’ fears of what economic integration means for the city’s political freedoms may hold back their embrace of the opportunities that could emerge under the new Greater Bay Area strategy. Either way, Hong Kong may be in even more difficulty when the next Year of the Pig rolls around in 2031.