Earnestly and steadfastly pushing for full democracy drives the Overton window in the direction of freedom, transparency, and accountability and puts the forces of darkness on the defensive.
Instead of taking the sock-puppeting of HK as a given and being able to appear benevolent by tossing a few crusts of bread to the chosen pitiful worthies of the day, they have to constantly, publicly explain and justify why being sock-puppeted by a bunch of bloodstained gangsters isn't so bad ... or send in the tanks and non-Canto-speaking soldiers to massacre everyone. The latter is unlikely in the short term, so we get gestures like Christine Loh as an environmental official (though she seems to approve of the 'artificial beach' so that may be a wash), slightly more generous fruit money for seniors, etc.
If you just campaigned completely apolitically for environmental improvements and more fruit money while civil rights were eroded around you, you might end up committed to a mental hospital indefinitely or floating in the harbor or as a "suicide" and the government wouldn't even have handed out any sweeteners or tried to address any "quality of life" issues.
Sorry but you have been hoodwinked by the British.
Sir Percy Cradock, UK Foreign Policy Adviser, 1984-1992: "Unfortunately over the last four years we have given them the impression that they can have not only jam today but jam tomorrow, they could have improved democracy now and also improved democracy after 1997. That was never a possibility, and when they've come to realise it, as they have now, they are naturally feeling bitter and disillusioned. What we should have done at the beginning was to speak frankly to them and tell them what the situation was. Instead of that they have been given false unrealistic expectations and they are naturally feeling very let down"
Do you actually understand that passage?
Cradock is not condemning HKers as unfit for democracy and lauding the glorious leadership of the CCP. He's only lamenting the fact that HKers were given a taste of democracy before having it snatched away by the crooks up north.
If you were starving and dressed in rags and someone offered to take you out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week and buy you new clothing, would you angrily wave them off because you knew that the local pimp/mafioso would eventually come around and steal your new clothes and any leftovers you had saved from your meals?
The sort of moves you're describing are completely different. The US DOJ is part of the executive branch, which is headed by the President. It is completely separate from the other two parts of the US federal government: the legislative branch (Congress) and judicial branch (e.g.). For what happened in HK to have been analogous to something that has happened in the USA, the US President would have had to terrorize a US Supreme Court justice into retirement and replaced him with someone more malleable.
That hasn't happened.
It's you who did not understand. He was lamenting the fact that the Hong Kong people were being hoodwinked into believing they were to be given democracy. It was only the 11th hour that the British wanted an honourable way out that they decided to have democracy. It was either hell or high water. There was no way that the British would have offered it if they maintained control of Hong Kong.
Just read Percy Craddock's memoirs