Christ you people are really mad at the internet today.
Whether I think China is being hostile is not the point, dude. Take a xanax or five and read my post again. And I've said like five times I think the media is being exceptional. I just happen to actually believe in the principle of free speech regardless of whether I like that speech. Calm down.
Pretty horrifying honestly. Free speech as long as it's speech I like!
See that would actually be really interesting. Not an entirely implausible theory, but I don't necessarily think it's more likely than the obvious answer that the media is just being exceptional in the way they usually are. Especially since this exceptionalism looks exactly like all their past retardations, and China's status as an economic powerhouse is in the absolute shitter right now.
Yeah that's bad though. "Well OTHER people have violated civil rights" isn't really a compelling argument for doing so.