So just like Hong Kong, only smaller and with less tear gas? Would seem to undermine your point that the Chinese are "soft by western standards". There's also

So just like Hong Kong, only smaller and with less tear gas? Would seem to undermine your point that the Chinese are "soft by western standards". There's also a key difference in that crackdowns on G8 protestors are police protecting/facilitating an international summit, and arguably the right of the summit participants to peacefully assemble. By contrast in Hong Kong an authoritarian regime is attempting to suppress human rights through semi-soft force (for the moment), with military forces conspicuously conducting exercises nearby and threats of "Anyone who attempts to split any region from China will perish, with their bodies smashed and bones ground to powder." You're comparing a foothill to a mountain and calling the mountain smaller.