[yeukhon]

They were released because the mainland government was forced to explain why the owners were arrested (but a lot of people believe they were kidnapped). In particular, one of the owners is a British citizen.

While pro-mainland argued that the owners were arrested lawfully, the truth is not.

> It was widely believed that the booksellers were detained in mainland China, and in February 2016 Guangdong provincial authorities confirmed that all five had been taken into custody in relation to an old traffic case involving Gui Minhai.

How could all five be detained in relation to an old traffic case? Most importantly, there was no evidence of these owners leaving HK, so how did they end up in China? All five of them? Plotting against mainland? Why would a traffic case warrant this kind of arrest? Let's face it, if this was a local traffic incident in U.S., there would be no manhunt at this scale.

[tensitors]

So are you saying that Xi's predecessors would have handled the situation in a more "liberal manner?"