"Hong Kong’s youth cannot understand why they have the freedom to run in student associations without any intervention from their teachers, but the people will not be able to elect Hong Kong’s next leader without Beijing’s intervention."

Another factor in the negative view of the Mainland and the Communist Party, in particular, by Hong Kong's younger generations can be traced to the make-up of the HK people themselves. A large percentage of them are direct decedents of people who fled the Mainland either to escape the Japanese or, an even larger number, who fled the chaos and violence of the Maoist era. Also, if the Mainland is such a wonderful place to live, why do a majority of China's wealthiest citizens leave and never return, settling in Hong Kong, the US, England, Canada, Australia, and other places that have both free markets, a high standard of living, and robust democratic institutions? They also chose to have their off spring educated in the West and many of them never return to China. I hardly think Apple Daily's ideology is the cause of the flight of the wealthy and privileged from China. I wonder how much of Ma's personal wealth from Alibaba is parked off shore in places that the PRC can never touch?