[rsync]

"If the police seize control of the university, they can monitor / filter all traffic. The whole city can go dark."

I don't think that is true at all - at least not for the last 15 years.

Almost everyone co-located in HK is in a totally different physical location than the University (such as iAdvantage or HKCOLO, near LOHAS Park) and have independent connections outbound to the world.

We, for instance, are physically located inside HKCOLO and have a direct connection to he.net in Fremont, CA. If you traceroute rsync.net in Hong Kong, you typically don't leave he.net.

I'm not sure how seizure (or even shutdown) of the University would affect infrastructure at iAdvantage or HKCOLO or Dyxian, etc.