Is she in China or overseas? WeChat has different censorship policies for domestic vs foreign accounts, and silent blocking sometimes occurs when foreign accounts communicate with domestic accounts about sensitive topics [1]. It's also not encrypted, and it appears messages are automatically getting forwarded to the local (Chinese) police for investigation [2].

[1] We (can’t) Chat “709 Crackdown” Discussions Blocked on Weibo and WeChat: https://citizenlab.ca/2017/04/we-cant-chat-709-crackdown-dis...

[2] Over 300 million Chinese private messages were left exposed online: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/4/18250474/chinese-messages-...

Fair enough. This was with an account that was registered within China, but the traffic is physically originating from the USA.

https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20191202/BILLS-116s178-...

With all this laser focus on HK / Xinjiang / Tibet something is bound to come up. If they cut the losses by giving independence, maybe leaders would avoid ICC-esque indictments from all this mess.

Maybe it'd be worth allowing anonymous mandatory polling on policies, that way it's not capitulating to external influences and getting a handle of what people are thinking.

But then maybe it's just better to monitor wechat and QQ. But since people feel their stuffs being read, they'll tone down the rhetoric and "behave good" and feign ignorance. A meaningful way of gauging public opinion is now tainted, so much for that. Now there will pockets of people silently stirring in contempt. The usual suspects and instigators won't be the ones to worry about. It's just too much to handle.

And besides all the while we're daydreaming scenarios China can remain unified, people would feel very strained and be suffering. Where do we draw the line between people's feelings and stubborn pride trying to force far flung regions into submission? Maybe it's best to reframe things into what makes society happiest, easiest to manage, and invent a leadership and organizational structure based on those premises. That'd be the most Chinese thing to do.

If China ever has a prolonged economic downturn and stricter sanctions, what happens then? What moves are left?

I get the impression that the video is from the mainland, not Hong Kong. The device he's strapped in looks like a "tiger chair":

https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/tiger-chair-sick-torture-...

Edit: I was looking for a better version of this video on youtube. I couldn't find one, but I did find this English Agence France-Presse story that answers the question of why they'd release a video like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PgCUap1Vg

The benefit of releasing a video is the fear it provokes.

Not saying this is the case here, but obviously if you calculate outrage cannot grow substantially greater than it already is, might as well try provoking some fear.

Of course it might very well be false, this is just my idea as to why someone might release it if real.