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A comment on Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national security trial. Parent comment

Re:Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national s... by Herring on Monday December 15, 2025 @03:18PM (#46279978)
That's kind of misleading. HK had a lot of civil freedoms (rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of speech). China explicitly blocked earlier democratization. The vote only managed to get through after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown made HK panic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Hong_Kong

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Re:Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national s... by lossolo on Monday December 15, 2025 @03:27PM (#46280110)
Those freedoms were never unlimited, even under British rule (colonial era sedition laws and public order restrictions existed).
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Re:Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national s... by dash2 on Monday December 15, 2025 @04:43PM (#46281138)
No freedoms are ever unlimited, so that's not an interesting point. The question is, were they useful? A lot of HKers seem to think so.
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Re:Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national s... by lossolo on Monday December 15, 2025 @07:19PM (#46282985)
> No freedoms are ever unlimited, so that's not an interesting point.

Of course no freedoms are unlimited, so I'm not sure why are you reading this literally?

> The question is, were they useful?

Are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about the lack of freedom under British rule, and you ask if it was useful for HKers? While there are a lot of people in HK who are not happy about what China is doing now, there is almost no one who would take British rule over that. I actually talked with people about it in person when I was in HK.

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Re:Pro-democracy HK tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted in national s... by dash2 on Thursday December 18, 2025 @02:21AM (#46309816)
I've heard of loads of people who would prefer British rule over Chinese rule. The reasons are obvious: free press, free speech, fair trials. These things have gone far, far backwards under China.
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