It was an unusual remark coming from someone who in the 1980s as a civil servant under the British helped set up some of Hong Kong’s first democratic institutions — elections for local councils. She then went to Stanford University and took a seminar on democracy taught by two prominent scholars on the subject, Seymour Martin Lipset and Larry Diamond.  And after her resignation in 2003 she went to Stanford again, that time to study under Mr. Diamond for a master’s degree. Her thesis was on how to build democracy in Hong Kong.  “She came here very burned and kind of wanting to withdraw and contemplate, and kind of recovered some political creativity and energy,” Mr. Diamond said in an interview. “And as a result of her thinking, began to develop what she thought was some kind of middle way or independent path that could navigate this difficult contradiction between hopes for greater popular sovereignty in Hong Kong and a pace and level of reform that Beijing could be comfortable with.”  Hong Kong belongs to China and operates under a policy of “one country, two systems.”  In her master’s thesis, Ms. Ip argued for a stronger political party system in Hong Kong and a chief executive, much like in the United States, who was also a party leader, giving him or her more authority. She viewed democracy as more of a tool than anything — a mechanism to help Hong Kong’s leader govern more effectively. She concluded in the thesis that “if this opportunity is seized to good effect, the spinoffs for the future democratization of China are immeasurable.”  Now, though, she makes it clear that democracy has to be more than something nice to have in principle — it has to deliver. “While I fully support and understand the normative justifications for a democratic system, having seen Hong Kong’s democratic transformation, the big question in my mind is in what way more democracy added value,” Ms. Ip said in the interview.  After returning to Hong Kong she quickly set out to enter the public arena again, this time in the Legislative Council. In 2007, she stood for election, facing her onetime boss, Anson Chan, the former chief secretary of Hong Kong. Mrs. Chan, who won, said in an interview that a desire to keep Ms. Ip out of the Legislative Council helped her decide to run.  “Quite frankly, with her background, with her beliefs and with her character, I thought it would be sending to the community of Hong Kong quite a wrong message about democracy,” Mrs. Chan said in an interview. “I also knew, particularly with the entire Communist machinery behind her, the only person who stands a chance of defeating her is me. So that’s why I decided to run.”  For nine days, waves of pro-democracy protests engulfed Hong Kong, swelling at times to tens of thousands of people and raising tensions with Beijing.  Mrs. Chan said she did not think that Ms. Ip really believed in democracy, saying, “a leopard doesn’t change its spots.”  Ms. Ip ran again in 2008, successfully, and has been in the legislature since.  Ms. Ip studied the works of the 16th-century English poet Philip Sidney at the University of Glasgow. Soon after she was recruited in London to serve in Hong Kong’s colonial-era civil service. She speaks of the British colonial administrators with admiration — unusual because Chinese officials often view those who rose through the ranks of the British system with suspicion. “My British bosses, they actually governed Hong Kong in accordance with Confucian values,” she said, noting that she received commendations from several colonial governors.  “Is Hong Kong Chinese or is Hong Kong Western?” she asked. “It is in our interest to be both.”  It is her affection for Chinese culture, and passion for order and authority, that may draw her toward Beijing. Her website features a picture of former Prime Minister Zhu Rongji giving her a thumbs up during a meeting in Brussels in 2001, when she was Hong Kong’s top security official. And, like other pro-Beijing officials and lawmakers here, she acknowledges Beijing’s authority. She rattled off the names of senior officials she had just met in Beijing, where she had taken a delegation of business executives, quoting several of them in Mandarin.  “The reality in Hong Kong, naturally, is we are part of China,” she said. “You can’t really go against Beijing.”  A version of this article appears in print on October 4, 2014, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Search of Democracy Within China’s Embrace. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Regina Ip’s intellectual struggle in many ways mirrors Hong Kong’s, and she says her aim is to build an effective democratic system palatable to Beijing.