Oh my gosh, it's true. I was 90% sure that wasn't true and they arrested him for political reasons like Americans would insert child pornography into people's cellphones to arrest them for non-crimes. I thought he couldn't be stupid enough to risk his job and reputation by going to China at such a contentious time and committing such a petty crime, but it's true. I doubted Chinese media and leaned towards the Western explanation and I was wrong. I didn't know that there is still more I need to do to detoxify the poisons that Western media have placed in my mind.
He actually said with a straight face, "I don't want to focus on the question of whether or not I solicit prostitution," with a video of him soliciting prostitutes rolling on the screen LOLOL. This playa thinks he's slick; I laughed for like 4 minutes thinking about how stupid that was...
Do you think it's impossible he was actually tortured? Putting morality and judgement aside for a moment, basically all governments do this, especially to security threats.
He could've very well been working for UK government in some sort of subversive capacity for the following reasons:
1. It is a well known fact that consulates/embassies are spy centres and he was a consulate worker.
2. His cover was flimsy, he was just visiting some friends to collect money and conducting research? He said one of the jobs was to join social media, which can be done anywhere.
3. The consulate fired him (or he left, whatever), but still quickly arranged for him to leave China.
4. The police seemed to be on his trail since they had so much surveillance.
Of course, there is also a case against torture for the following reasons:
- Seems like UK is distancing themselves from him somewhat. As it has been pointed out, if there was concrete evidence, they'd be all over it
- If he really was just a regular employee with proof of torture, they'd probably grant him immediate asylum and again, make a much bigger fuss over it.
- China seems confident enough in their story to release their video (He doesn't look overly distressed).
In my opinion, he was probably some low level spook/field analyst and moronically compromised himself by visiting a prostitute (probably why the UK is distancing themselves).
This is both annoying but also profitable. I've realized that many many Americans have two huge misunderstandings about China: 1. If you speak for China, you were paid to do so by the government (or some other equally retarded variant, lke if Chinese international students speak up for China, it's because the Chinese consulate made them do it) and 2. most recently, the Hong Kong riots can spread into Mainland China and overthrow the CCP (when in reality, most Mainland consider them cockroaches and terrorists and are itching to kill them). While it's incredibly annoying that other people understand you poorly, ironically, it is to China's advantage that not only are hostile powers likely to miscalculate when dealing with China but also, they expend their energy barking up the wrong tree.
To add to your points. With regards to (1), it is also common to think that all companies or academics/scientists are required to spy on behalf of the PRC government because of the law.
On point (2), they also believe that the discontent will spread because they truly believe that american/western political system is 'correct'. That it best embodies the fundamental human spirit, why the Soviet Union collapsed, etc. I have pointed it out before, it is basically a religious belief, that Western Liberal Democracy is the Gospel, all others need to be evangelized. I compare it to religion, because you really need to have "faith" in this truth. Modern parliamentary system is less than 1000 years old.
As you said, there is a profit motivation behind this from a media standpoint. I've pointed this out myself. Being pro-PRC is simply unprofitable due to indoctrination of the population. I don't think that people in a position of power misunderstand China, it is basically a dog and pony show to "keep commoners in line", those "many many Americans" you run into who think "Now that *insert country here* country is free [whatever country that was recently "liberated" by USA], the country will prosper".
There are still at least 50 rioters holed up inside PolyU. Most of them are waiting for others to surrender so they would hide inside the university and hoping the police couldn't find them.
Apparently rumors were true and the hygiene conditions are terrible. Some of the stragglers are coming out with fevers...