Um, at the time of the National Security Legislation (your reference [2]), we were not sending billions to Ukraine, because Russia hadn't started their open attack yet.
I wasn't suggesting the time periods are the same. The point is that we were willing to defend Ukraine against Russia, when it's the EU's problem, and refused to defend Hong Kong against China when it's a problem of our making.
The explanation in the news at the time was that Hong Kong was indefensible. For example almost all its water came from China. China could have taken it easily no matter how hard the UK tried to defend it.
