https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200814/16330345114/google-responds-to-hong-kongs-new-national-security-law-rejecting-governments-requests-data.shtml > Google's on-again, off-again relationship with China is off again. A decade ago, Google threatened to pull out of China because the government demanded a censored search engine. Fast forward to 2018 and it was Google offering to build a censored search engine for the China market. A few months later -- following heavy internal and external criticism -- Google abandoned the project. > China is now imposing its will on Hong Kong in violation of the agreement it made when the UK returned control of the region to the Chinese government. Its latest effort to stifle long-running pro-democracy demonstrations took the form of a "national security" law which was ratified by the far-too-obsequious Hong Kong government. The law equates advocating for a more independent Hong Kong with sedition and terrorism, allowing authorities to punish demonstrators and dissidents with life sentences for, apparently, fighting back against a government that agreed it wouldn't impose its will on Hong Kong and its residents.