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Comment by BrenBarn | Hacker News Reader

Can you elaborate on why you say that? What is it about US politics that has influenced your views on Lai and others like him?

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I have to emphasise that this is all my personal feeling and experience: I used to think these people and their actions actually mean something, and could lead to a different future. I was uncertain of this future, but willing to try.

Seeing recent US politics makes me reconsider: if this is democracy, or at least what it could very well turn out to be, is it really something I would want in my own country? I know my answer would be no.

Honestly, nowadays, if given the choice of "one person one vote" for the head of state tomorrow, I would strongly oppose such an idea and prefer the status quo.

Given such sentiment, I really don't care about these people and their campaigns anymore.

I mean, we went after Assange and Snowden who are in a gray area. Jimmy Lai actually went to top US officials and advocated military assistance to coup the government. No nation would ever go easy on that and it's scary to see all these comments on HN are mindlessly chanting without actually more research

Hong Kongers would very much like to choose their own leadership. I understand that you're arguing from a mainland Chinese perspective, but in so doing you're ignoring the people who ought to have the most to say.

I used to have your viewpoint, but after reading Lee Kuan Yew, and after several hours of cross referencing various interviews with the pro-rioters/hk democracy, and pro-engagement/neutral hongkongers, I conclude that most of the pro-rioters like Joshua Wong/Jimmy Lai at large fail to articulate anything of value other than "I want to turn the system upside-down" , while pro-engagement/neutral people know they want upward social mobility and more government involvement in fixing the housing and employment crisis.

Good for you. But I didn't refer to any specific pro-democracy figure. I am advocating for free and open elections where everyone, pro-mainland or localist, can choose the direction of the city.

America doesn't speak for Hong Kong and many people don't want America sticking its nose deep into their business especially through someone breaking the law by acting as a pseudo-foreign agent.

The irony is that Trump getting involved in pressuring for the release of Jimmy Lai just makes him look even more like an American asset.

That's the tragedy of Hong Kong. They never got the sympathy of the mainland.

And I cannot escape the feeling that a lot of Americans believe that a democratic China would be friends with the US...

Who exactly is "friends" with the US at the moment? Maybe Israel?

In Trumps world it mostly seems you are either an asset or a liability. They do no want a multipolar world.

Who brought up America?

> advocated military assistance to coup the government

Is there source evidence for this? I keep hearing various different things Jimmy supposedly advocated or asked for, but very little actual source.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Hong_Kong/comments/u8692j/jimmy_lai...

Sidenote: The riots went too out of control and one of em threw a brick which hit an old street cleaners head.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Hong_Kong/comments/dwmc76/rioters_t...

You claimed he urged top US officials to give military assistance to a coup. This video is just him pleading to the US public "They'll listen to you because you're as powerful as they are".

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