Hong Kong presents a test case of China’s willingness to adapt Western liberal values of individual freedom and the rule of law in a corner of China, as the Western model of governance, along with its common law system and capitalist economic system, has been permitted to operate side by side with the Chinese socialist system within the framework of Chinese sovereignty and the PRC political and legal system. The formation and implementation of the policy of ‘one country, two systems’ (OCTS) entail Chinese lawmakers’ selective integration of international and Western rules of governance into the Hong Kong and China context to serve the interests of PRC’s party regime. This article explores PRC’s approaches to the governance of Hong Kong in light of the party regime’s political and economic goals and how the Western concept of rule of law and autonomy are perceived and substantiated in terms of the communist ideology. The author argues that the intrinsic value of OCTS lies in seeking complementarity and coexistence between the Western liberal norms of governance and Chinese communist ideology, and this intrinsic value should be upheld and remain in full force to serve as a normative consensus between China and the West.