I think it depends on the type of censorship and what the purpose is. Just look at the colonial mentality of neighboring countries, where simply being from "the West" gives you huge perks.

An injustice that lifts hundreds of millions out of poverty...

How was HK independent when their leaders were directly appointed by the British government?

I think, in context, the meaning was that HK was, for a long time, independent of China.

> Xi's regime is less liberal than ever.

Is it? Can you give an example of where Hu and Jiang were more liberal than Xi?

Watch the 60 Minutes interview of Jiang by Mike Wallace.

And they were released and allowed to tell their story.

If this incident happened any time before Xi, would the outcome have been the same?

Why registered a new account to comment on this? You can't be serious right? They told a story based on a script. Sorry, I cannot trust someone who just created a new account to make a comment like this.

I'm not asking you to trust me.

I'm asking you a question.

OP was saying that Xi is more liberal than his predecessors.

You said "Xi's regime is less liberal than ever."

So my question then is how would his predecessors handle the Hong Kong booksellers?

And they were released and allowed to tell their story.

If this incident happened any time before Xi, would the outcome have been the same?

They were released because the mainland government was forced to explain why the owners were arrested (but a lot of people believe they were kidnapped). In particular, one of the owners is a British citizen.

While pro-mainland argued that the owners were arrested lawfully, the truth is not.

> It was widely believed that the booksellers were detained in mainland China, and in February 2016 Guangdong provincial authorities confirmed that all five had been taken into custody in relation to an old traffic case involving Gui Minhai.

How could all five be detained in relation to an old traffic case? Most importantly, there was no evidence of these owners leaving HK, so how did they end up in China? All five of them? Plotting against mainland? Why would a traffic case warrant this kind of arrest? Let's face it, if this was a local traffic incident in U.S., there would be no manhunt at this scale.

So are you saying that Xi's predecessors would have handled the situation in a more "liberal manner?"