It seems increasingly disturbing to me that people seem to want to assume that anybody who holds a different view from them must be a "troll" or some sort of secret government conspirator or whatever else. Social media echo chambers are making people increasingly incapable of understanding that people can see the same information, without omission or ignorance, and come to different conclusions.
Sure it is. He's economically and likely personally exposed to Beijing. China has no rule of law. Offending Xi's government carries drastically harsher consequences than doing something similar in a country with the rule of law.
It's logic akin to:
- only pious individuals can be trusted
- it would be impious to argue against the 'fact' that everything revolves around the Earth
- since no pious person would ever make such an argument, only impious individuals would and impious individuals cannot be trusted.
- only untrustworthy individuals would claim Earth is not the center of the universe and all within it
- since no trustworthy individuals are among the heliocentric claimants, it must be the case that they're lying.
- QED: the earth is the center of the universe according to any and all who can be trusted
He has current and future income from, as well as assets in, China. That's all jeapordised by deviating from the pro-Xi line. His views are fundamentally conflicted.