It doesn't surprise me. The Chinese government isn't dumb enough to say "we want to abolish the rule of law in HK", instead they say "we want to stop rapists and murderers from escaping justice".
Honestly in most places in the world, that kind of appeal to emotion is an effective way to dismantle the rule of law. It is only because the people of Hong Kong are both highly educated and distrustful of Beijing that it doesn't work on them.
And of course they’re doing in a way that’s also reasonable. The HK law isn’t about political crimes... it just happens to be an extremely slippery slope and of course China wants that incremental movement towards total control.
Honestly in most places in the world, that kind of appeal to emotion is an effective way to dismantle the rule of law. It is only because the people of Hong Kong are both highly educated and distrustful of Beijing that it doesn't work on them.