HONG KONG — After a year in which democracy advocates in Hong Kong were jailed and ousted from public office, thousands of people marched through the streets of Hong Kong on New Year’s Day to warn China not to meddle further in the city’s affairs and undermine its autonomy.

Over the past year, Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has experienced what critics and pro-democracy activists describe as an intensifying assault on its autonomy by China’s Communist Party leaders.

This is despite Beijing’s promises to grant the city wide-ranging freedoms, including an independent judiciary, under a so-called one country, two systems framework.

Besides the controversial jailing of several prominent young activists for unlawful assembly over the 2014 Occupy pro-democracy protests, the authorities also ejected six pro-democracy lawmakers from the legislature for failing to take proper oaths of office.