So, your argument that it wasn't an abduction, is because he wasn't taken from Hong Kong, but from Chinese soil?
The claim upstream for which there's no evidence: > "people being shipped off in train cars reminiscent of pre-WWII photos that I have only learned about in school."
There's a difference between one person getting arrested and mass deportation. One should be able to criticize the former without falsely claiming that it's the latter.
Correct, he was detained on the mainland side of a boundary crossing.
This is correct and I appreciate that but even though he was on the chinese side of west kowloon hsr many would still consider it something of an abduction.
Even clarifying to people he hadn't made it across the border yet, it still feels different than if he was picked up in Shenzhen.
Cheng was not abducted to the mainland; he was arrested on the mainland side of the boundary crossing at the high-speed rail station in Kowloon, coming back from Shenzhen. The fact that there's a border crossing in downtown Hong Kong is its own issue, but his case can't be called an abduction (unlike the case of the booksellers a few years ago).
Anyway, please stop spreading falsehoods, there's enough of that going around.