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In the years since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, China's leaders have based their rule of the world's largest country on a single powerful idea: help people get rich, and they'll respect your authority. By and large, this formula has been a success. China's growing prosperity has won it an essentially docile populace and escalating prominence as a world power. Until recently, this strategy has also proved effective in underwriting Beijing's preferred interpretation of "one country, two systems," the nebulous concept that governs the mainland's relations with Hong Kong and Macau, and that it hopes some day to apply to Taiwan. As the Chinese leadership sees it, self-governance in the offshore enclaves is just fine so long as it doesn't interfere with governance by Beijing. But the past few months have seen the people the mainland refers to fondly as its Taiwan and Hong Kong "compatriots" nipping at the hand that feeds them. Suddenly, Beijing's winning formula for stability is beginning to wobble.

While Taiwan's feisty voters look increasingly likely to use their presidential election to contest the notion of "one country," a growing chorus of voices in Hong Kong has begun to demand more political autonomy in the name of "two systems." The mainland has come to expect and prepare for periodic flare-ups from Taiwan, but repeated episodes of political unruliness in Hong Kong have caught Beijing off guard. The tactics it's using to keep the former British colony in check only seem to strengthen support for its opponents. Last summer, when the Hong Kong government tried to introduce a draconian antisubversion law, half a million people took to the streets. In an attempt to quell the dissent, Beijing allowed the law to be shelved. But many Hong Kongers responded by demanding the direct election of their Chief Executive—currently chosen by a narrow, pro-Beijing electoral college—by 2007, the earliest date allowed by the territory's constitution.

Unpracticed in the art of persuasion that democratically elected leaders must cultivate, China's officials in charge of Hong Kong affairs have reverted to a fist-brandishing style of leadership intended to frighten people out of demanding too much too soon. Last month, mainland newspapers in the territory attacked leaders of Hong Kong's Democratic Party as "unpatriotic" and issued thinly veiled threats that the central government would dissolve Hong Kong's legislature if—as seems likely—supporters of democracy win control in September's elections. Last week, the rhetoric grew sharper as pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong referred to opposition leaders as "clowns" and "dreamers." And a China-backed newspaper in Hong Kong compared Democratic Party stalwart Martin Lee to a World War II collaborator for traveling to Washington to brief senior U.S. officials on the state of democracy in Hong Kong.

But that hard-line approach could backfire. "The majority of Hong Kong people are neither pro-Beijing nor pro-Democratic Party," says Wu Guoguang, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "But when the central government uses this kind of rhetoric, it sends the message that Beijing not only wants Hong Kong to be part of China but a part of a China that hasn't changed much since the Cultural Revolution." Hong Kong's democrats believe that China's tactics will help not only them but also pro-independence forces in Taiwan, who carefully monitor whether "two systems" is working in Hong Kong. "China's leaders always do things that achieve the opposite effect of what they desire," says legislator Emily Lau. "If they carry on, they may actually get Chen Shui-bian re-elected in Taiwan, and get the democrats in Hong Kong a lot more votes in September."

China's President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have styled themselves as political moderates. Although greater intervention in Hong Kong politics would damage that reputation, they have room to play good cop, holding out the promise of gradual reforms if the territory drops demands for direct elections. If Chen is re-elected in Taiwan, however, Beijing might come down even harder on Hong Kong. "Because the Taiwan situation makes China's leaders nervous," says Joseph Cheng, a professor of political science at Hong Kong's City University, "there will be very little room for tolerance or magnanimity toward Hong Kong's political reforms." For now, Beijing seems undecided about how to proceed. But if it continues to misread Hong Kong as it has Taiwan, China may become one country with two large headaches.

• Susan Jakes | Beijing
• Beijing is shouting down the city's nascent democracy movement, but its bluster may backfire