I think China really needs to stop being so clean and play dirty when foreign powers goes out of their way to damage Chinese interests.
If NED tried this shit in places like Russia, their operatives would start turning up en mass at morgues from mugging and traffic accidents.
Not suggesting China go to such extremes, but the true ringleaders and enablers of these riots need to face the consequences of their actions or else there will be no checks on their behaviour.
Right now Trump thinks he can do what he wants because there won’t be any costs for him to pay. China needs to dissuade him, or at least the spy chiefs who present such ideas to him, of that idea, and show that there are serious costs to such underhanded tactics.
The big problem here is that these Evangelical Churches are an almost perfect mechanism for moving slush money. All they have to say is that it was a donation following a televised revivalist meeting.
No doubt these kids are well equipped, well organised, well motivated and with some on the ground, well versed in civil disobedience etc. Clearly there are controlling minds pulling the strings and providing the resources.
Ok so a bit of balance. Hong Kong is still a million miles away from being another Aleppo and China can still sit back and follow the Claudian maxim "let the evil that lurks in the mud, hatch out!"
As others have already noted (you included I think Wolfie) there is plenty of scope here for Chinese Intelligence to gain very significant intel on the degree and nature of overseas Intel operations in HK.
Fortunately these Churches and their Pastors have one well established weakness, namely Financial and Sexual Impropriety. These are the kind of allegation that warrant freezing bank accounts, sequestrating and impounding assets (buildings etc) and holding passports, while very long and very detailed, indeed exhaustive, investigations and inquiries are undertaken!
