Recently The Economist had a commentary "Rocking boats, shaking mountains" which indicated that China had been entrapped into an embarrassed situation that " to bewilderment in China, neither Hong Kong nor Taiwan seems to want to follow its scripts.", and either place seems to ignore enticements or threats from China, no matter it's a carrot or a big stick.

I think China now still has some scruples; maybe she still bides her time.  But one thing that the Economist said may be right: "the best way to win hearts and minds in Hong Kong and Taiwan is not to bribe, browbeat and bully, but to make China itself look a more attractive sovereign power."  You may ask how to be "a more attractive sovereign power?  To those wretched Hong Kongers and Taiwaneses, I guess what China should do first is to oppress their former colonial masters: UK and Japan, by any means, political, military, and commercial.  Let those subjects' illusive dreams vanish, and let their forlorn hopes shatter, completely.