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"Hong Kong is still China"

Mucho difference. No matter what you chose to believe.

What is the difference? Is Hong Kong not under Communist rule? I am genuinely interested, because I know someone (a liberal) who believes that China's "middle class" is expanding and that they actually have freedom. He based his statement on his experience doing business with people in Hong Kong.

Yes, 'technically' HK is under the PRC rule. However, it is governed more as an autonomous area than a true province of the PRC.
Much looser rules as to movement, taxes, business and commerce and travel with HK papers.
Immigration into HK is very strictly controlled and usually not allowed - unless you have big money.

Yes, Chinas' middle-class is expanding. But the comparison to HK is truly wrong. Different set of rules - different set of circumstances. There is a certain amount of what is considered "freedom" in the PRD - but only when one compares it to the tyrannical lock-down that existed a few years back. It still is not a "free" place, PRC, by any strecth of the term.
To say the business situation in China is equivalent to the same in HK is delusional. A condition which affects a lot of "Sinophile" round-eyes who come over here.