[spacehunt]

I'll illustrate with an example.

Under the British, while it was true that the governor and many government officials were Brits, a surprising number of them were able to speak fluent Cantonese. They actually took the effort to understand the local culture. You can find many such clips on Youtube.

Nowadays, under Chinese rule, Hong Kongers often get told off by mainland Chinese officials for not speaking Mandarin, and hence Hong Kongers are unpatriotic and seditious. Schools must be forced to switch to teach in Mandarin, and so on.

[chrischen]

If Trump started learning the local dialect (English), that doesn’t suddenly make him legitimately represent all English speakers.

And actually the last of the British governors tried to increase democracy. While the PRC blocked it because it was in their interest to do so, the HK people didn’t exactly fight for it or make it easy.

I can stand behind a Democracy movement, but find it harder to palate a political power grab.

[spacehunt]

> the HK people didn’t exactly fight for it

People tend not to demand a democratic system until they are dissatisfied with the governance.

> or make it easy

I still don't see how you've come to this conclusion.

> I can stand behind a Democracy movement, but find it harder to palate a political power grab.

Any democracy movement is by definition a political power grab.

[chrischen]

A large part of the gay rights movement come from supporters of human rights, not just people trying to protect their self interests.

The problem is there are a lot of third parties in play in HK and if I'm going to support Democracy I want to be sure that's what I'm supporting. If it's poor governance, I want to be sure I'm supporting good governance. If it's poor housing policy, I want to support good housing policy movements. I don't want to be a pawn in a proxy political war between Eastern powers and Western powers while my own democratic rights are being eroded by the US senate.