Remember Snowden moved to Hong Kong to get his story out.
If Snowden was in HK with Chinese state intelligence (or more likely, details about party leadership scandals), he would not have been able to leave the country unscathed.
Are you serious or just trolling? The US has intervened more than any other country over the last decade. As we speak unmanned US drones are killing and dismembering innocent people.
> And despite a bunch of nasty undemocratic stuff happening in the US, there were a lot of underhanded things going on in recent political events in HK.
That's why I said on par with US and Europe. HK is not Switzerland, but not the undemocratic hell some are making it to be.
The internet makes China out to be this place where everyone is just always working, have almost no rights anymore, constantly surveiled so they can't have fun or enjoyment, just NPC's making womens underwear for 2 cents an hour.
I think it's just projection from the failures of their own country to be honest.
Also the fact that you seem to equate shopping with freedom strikes me as very American :-)