He answered this in an interview. "Sure. So there's a couple assertions in those arguments that are sort of embedded in the questioning of the choice of Hong K

He answered this in an interview. "Sure. So there's a couple assertions in those arguments that are sort of embedded in the questioning of the choice of Hong Kong. The first is that China is an enemy of the United States. It's not. I mean there are conflicts between the United States government and the Chinese PRC government but the peoples inherently we don't care. We trade with each other freely, we're not at war, we're not in armed conflict, and we're not trying to be. We're the largest trading partners out there for each other." "Additionally, Hong Kong has a strong tradition of free speech. People think 'Oh China, Great Firewall.' Mainland China does have significant restrictions on free speech but the people of Hong Kong have a long tradition of protesting in the streets, of making there views known. The internet is not filtered here more so then any other western government and I believe that the Hong Kong government is actually independent in relation to a lot of other leading western governments." transcript: https://mic.com/articles/47355/edward-snowden-interview-transcript-full-text-read-the-guardian-s-entire-interview-with-the-man-who-leaked-prism#.YRy6fWhCV https://mic.com/articles/47355/edward-snowden-interview-tran... video: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whis... As for why he'd go to a place with disappointing refugee policies, I don't think he was planning to settle there.