Americans have a Pavlovian response to the phrase “freedom and democracy,” and it’s no surprise that so many of them are rooting for the protesters in Hong Kong. But here are three quick facts that everyone should know:

1. Hong Kong has democracy and elections! Really! Hong Kong actually has more democracy than the US! Hong Kong has 26 political parties with representation! That’s 13 times more democracy than the US! LOL. And then there are dozens of other parties that didn’t win enough votes to have representations.

2. Less than half turn out to vote! While protesters have been spending the last four months destroying the city and plunging it into a recession, they couldn’t spend one or two hours to vote. This is human nature. In the 2016 elections, for example, less than 47% of the eligible people voted in Hong Kong! 20% of Hong Kong adults don’t even bother to register.

3. Hong Kong is ranked higher than the US in the Human Freedom Index! China has given Hong Kong more freedom than the US or 98% of other countries in the world. In CATO institute’s Human Freedom Index, Hong Kong ranked #3 — and the US was #17.

Conclusion:

These protests are just Color Revolutions sponsored by the West, as I describe in an earlier post. The excuse to start the protests was the extradition bill, which was withdrawn long time ago. There are a lot of disillusioned youth in Hong Kong, but the real problem is crony capitalism perpetrated by the Hong Kong billionaires. With 20% of the people living in poverty and 50% living in “coffin homes,” Hong Kong needs to focus on urgent and pragmatic issues rather than “freedom and democracy.”