And if his administration strays beyond those bounds, democracy will have to defend itself. Last week, a young democracy activist from Hong Kong, Joshua Wong, was in Washington seeking support in Congress and elsewhere. For several years, Communist leaders in Beijing have been nibbling away at their promise to allow Hong Kong to maintain its liberty. Book publishers who offended China’s rulers have been kidnapped from Hong Kong and elsewhere to be imprisoned in mainland China. Visiting Washington, Wong helped remind us of a few things we’ve always known: that democracies are fragile, that the fight for freedom is never finished, that regimes in power will do almost anything to stay in power.

Source: Washington Post November 21, 2016 00:11 UTC