People in China, at least those millions people who are able to cross the Great Firewall, know that democracy is generally good, but they also know that a strong central government can also be useful for certain circumstances. Most westerners and HongKongers on Hacker news have a very extreme political view, you just believe "democracy is good"(TM), protesting against the evil Chinese government is good. But can you take a closer look at what is really happening in HK and then decide what you believe?
BTW, I'm neither pro-protester nor pro-police, I think the protest is a result of economic regression in HK. You could also check my comment and posting history to see that I'm not a 五毛党.
If we were to overthrow the Chinese government, can we get a better tomorrow for the Chinese people? The west have show us what happened in Middle East. Clearly, wars are not what we want.
I'm saying that we want democracy, we do want that, but blaming it all to "the evil communist party" is not a good way show us how to get a democracy, please provide some practical guidance. Thanks.