On Twitter, the fans of Greenwald have actually been trying to defend Hong Kong as a wonderful bastion of free speech; I’ve even seen some of them arguing that Hong Kong has nothing to do with China at all.

This, my friends, is known as “bullshit.”

The Atantic’s Matt Schiavenza lays out some of the reasons why: Edward Snowden Shouldn’t Have Gone to Hong Kong.

These possibilities aside, it’s become increasingly clear that Snowden’s decision to go to Hong Kong was a serious miscalculation. The idiosyncratic territory may in some ways be a libertarian paradise of free speech, robust media, and low taxes, but is in no way independent of China. If Snowden’s ultimate goal were to damage the United States government as much as possible, then going to a Chinese territory would make some sense. But this obviously isn’t what he wanted; in The Guardian interview, Snowden disagreed with Glenn Greenwald’s characterization of China as an “enemy” of the United States by stressing the healthy trade relationship between the two countries. Aiding China — whose record of state surveillance and abrogation of civil liberties is inarguably worse than the United States — would go against the entire moral foundation of Snowden’s decision to leak the NSA secrets.

James Fallows has another piece expanding on these points: Edward Snowden in Hong Kong.

This is just one part of Snowden’s story that does not ring true.