Snowden was going to Ecuador only after he went public, because at that point it was about politics, not black ops. A little-known individual can be easily taken out in US-friendly countries (see CIA "extraordinary renditions"), that's the threat he neutralized by being in Hong-Kong -- which is not just "China", it's a very complex country with a separate political system where both China and China's enemies have to tread carefully; by saying "he went to China" you're just pushing your own frame -- but then again, you already know that, don't you?