In the Peanuts cartoon, Lucy promises Charlie Brown that she'll hold a football on the ground for him to kick. Instead, she yanks it away at the last minute -- sending him sprawling. The next time she makes the same promise, he trusts her -- with the same result. Some people see China's promise to maintain Hong Kong's freedoms in the same light.

Beijing has a history of yanking away such promises. Those who trusted Beijing in the past have ended up not sprawled on the ground, but spending years in exile in the countryside -- or worse. For example, Chinese who obeyed the official request in 1956 to criticize the Communist Party in the "Hundred Flowers" campaign were later persecuted.

Such massive political campaigns to root out "enemies" are a thing of the past. Chinese today have social and economic freedoms unheard of during the rigid years of Mao Tse-tung's reign. Even limits on journalism and religion have eased somewhat -- but are still very restrictive by the standards of Hong Kong or the West.

And the 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square was a vivid reminder that political freedom is still limited.

In the weeks before the handover, Hong Kong's property market and stock market were booming. But confidence in the political future was not as strong.