[supercanuck]

Sure it is. One represents free speech in response to market participants making decisions.

The other is an authoritarian government shutting down business ties based on one employee opinion.

How do people not see the difference in this? On twitter, people are to speak whatever they want and can choose to buy whatever they want.

In China. Not so much.

[SpicyLemonZest]

If the NBA were big in Spain, and the guy had said "Fight for Freedom, Stand with Catalonia", I expect he would have had to apologize too. The government is more involved in China, because the government is more involved with everything in China, but there are few countries in the world where people don't get mad at foreigners wading into touchy political issues.

[44595throw]

Or if he had tweeted

"Fight for Freedom, Stand with Palestine"

I wonder what the reaction would have been?

[cannadhopefu]

> government is more involved with everything in China

There lies in the difference. In Spain, it would be the people demanding it. In China, its the authoritative government that is not only demanding but also threatening.

Its not quite apples to apples.

[bhy]

How do you know that? How many Chinese people have you talked with?

[cannadhopefu1]

I don't need to talk to Chinese people to know that China is an authoritative government and that Tencent was ordered to stop streaming Rocket games by the government.

[supercanuck]

Because it is not democratically elected.

[bhy]

That's not logical. Democratic or not is an unrelated issue. The people can still be patriot on this matter.

[cannadhopefu1]

Democratic means the government is voted by the people and represents the people. Authoritative means its not.

People can be patriotic on this matter, but it still doesn't represent all the people.

[rumanator]

> How do you know that? How many Chinese people have you talked with?

Do the Hong Hong people count?

How about Tibetan people? Or the sadly famous Uyghur?

And does Taiwan has a say as well?

[mytailorisrich]

You obviously do not know China and this issue.

Hongkong's takeover by the British has been a humiliation for China and the Chinese people, which has been provoking strong feelings on their part since well before the Communist Party was even founded.

That China must get Hongkong back is a highly consensual opinion among the Chinese. This was a policy of the Communist Party because that really is something that every Chinese strongly wanted.

There are elements of wanting independence for Hongkong in the current protests and of foreign interference (whether it is true or not, this is how it looks). This is an absolute red flag for Chinese. In fact if TVs were showing everything we are shown in the West the government would have to act more strongly against the protesters by popular demand.

The Chinese government may not be democratic but that does not mean that it can ignore public opinion or that its policies never align with what the people want.

Campaigning for democracy was always going to be a uphill struggle in Hongkong, but these violent protests (which can be qualified of 'riots') have been highly counterproductive.

[env123]

The 2047 Hong Kong fiasco, the Irish backstop, the US left-right divide, blame it all on the British Empire

[throwaway1997]

The crisis in Hong Kong is not a separatist movement, unlike Catalonia.