In the days before the sun finally set on the British Empire in Hong Kong, Beijing aimed to capitalize on the moment by using it to underscore the evils of colonialism. At a rally in Guangdong prov­ince, for example, the government burnt a thousand pounds of heroin and methamphetamine, in memory of the Qing Dynasty official who set off the war that led to Britain’s acquisition of the island when he destroyed more than 2 million pounds of British opium.

Yet however real the sins of colonialism, the ordinary people of Hong Kong appreciated it had also bequeathed them something precious. Just before he died, newspaperman Tsang Ki-fan put it this way: “This is the only Chinese society that, for a brief span of 100 years, lived through an ideal never realized at any time in the history of Chinese societies — a time when no man had to live in fear of the midnight knock on the door.”

These words come back to me as Mark Simon, an American expat working in Hong Kong, calls to report that authorities had raided his apartment and seized a computer from his 10-year-old daughter. The same day, the same police raided the homes of his boss, media owner Jimmy Lai, and a local legislator, Lee Cheuk-yan.

The knock has come.

These men are targets for the high crime of believing that Hong Kong ought to be a society of, by and for the people. They have supported this democratic principle with financial contributions, with public advocacy and with moral courage.

For this columnist there is also a personal connection. My family counts the Simons and the Lais among our closest and most faithful friends.

The move against these men speaks to the shabby ethos Beijing is imposing on Hong Kong. The raiding authority was the Independent Commission Against Corruption, or ICAC. So even if the three men are never arrested and don’t go to jail, the authorities have achieved their aim: to smear them, and to intimidate anyone who might be thinking of following their example.

The irony is that, in so doing, the move has more likely brought home to local people the corruption of hitherto respected institutions, from the ICAC and the High Court that approved these raids to the Executive Council that let it happen.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Back when Margaret Thatcher’s government signed Hong Kong over, the basic promise was that China would get Hong Kong but Hong Kong would get democracy.

The idea was not implausible, given the remarkable openings in China.

Then again, events since remind us that the essence of communism has never been Marxist economics: It’s power and control and the lie.

That’s what’s going on now in Hong Kong. For there are two things Beijing can’t abide.

One is any public figure who speaks the truth. China can’t abide this because it knows that when its officials are set against men and women of integrity, they suffer greatly by comparison.

That’s why the hard men in Beijing and their toadies in Hong Kong so fear Joseph Cardinal Zen. Their mendacity and grubbiness only highlight the cardinal’s honesty and fortitude.

Free Chinese people are also a threat. Such men and women threaten China’s whole way of thinking. You see it in the contingent of bodyguards its officials surround themselves with when they go out among the Hong Kong people, looking as comfortable as mafia dons at an FBI picnic.

Thus does the rule of law give way to rule of the goon. Indeed, watching Beijing run Hong Kong calls to mind the Evelyn Waugh crack about “a Sèvres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee.”

Sadly, all this comes without a whimper from the business community that has profited most from the rule of law that Britain brought to the barren rock.

They keep their silence because there is scarcely a one of them whose wealth doesn’t depend on factories in China or trade with China. So whereas in the days of the Cultural Revolution the Red Guards directed their fury at capitalist roaders, today Beijing looks to them as partners.

In the meantime, a generation of Hong Kong people born after the Tiananmen massacre has now grown up. This generation has traveled the world and attended its finest universities, only to come home to hear China telling them that its idea of elections is one where Beijing picks all the candidates.

The mass demonstrations the Hong Kong people have turned out for — most recently on July 1 — attest to their desire for something better. The raids on Mark Simon, Jimmy Lai and Lee Cheuk-yan are designed to make them think twice.

The irony is that, by constantly opting for the brutish and ham-fisted where a light touch would do, Beijing has only guaranteed the political agitation and dislike for the motherland it aims to suppress.