THE CHINESE CERTAINLY HOPE SO: Twilight for Hong Kong’s Democracy?

Exactly twenty years since it reverted to Chinese rule, Hong Kong has its first political prisoners. A group of 16 young activists who took part in the unauthorized pro-democracy protests that began in 2014 were spared jail time after their first trial this past year. The judge sentenced the young protesters to varying lengths of community service, justifying his relatively mild decision by arguing that they had fought “for a noble cause.” However, the Hong Kong government, which brought the cases to court, was dissatisfied with the judge’s leniency. It saw nothing noble in the youngsters’ activism, and so it appealed.

By the time the cases reached the appellate court, all the defendants had already fulfilled the terms of the community service imposed on them. No matter: On August 15, the first group of 13 protesters—who had stormed the local legislature when it was holding a nighttime vote in the absence of the opposition to approve a highly controversial and disruptive development project—were sentenced to between 8 to 13 months in jail for “unlawful assembly.” This second, stunning sentence met with the approval of Hong Kong’s Department of Justice.

Two days later, three of the most renowned student activists were put on the stand again and received jail time: Joshua Wong, now 20, who was still a minor at the time of the protests that became known as the Umbrella Movement; Nathan Law, 24; and Alex Chow, 27.

The sentences have shocked many observers, both locally and internationally, for their harshness and vindictiveness. The same government that refused to talk to its young people through years of growing political polarization now seems to rejoice in jailing them. The young activists were taken to two maximum-security prisons on the very evening of the sentencing.

The Chinese government is not nice, regardless of what Tom Friedman seems to think.