Passing through Indonesia back in 2019, I asked a longtime friend why Southeast Asians were so quiet when it came to supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Once an anti-Suharto activist, now a businessman, he rolled his eyes at my naivete. "Hong Kong has had it too good for too long," he said. "The rest of us in Asia put up with jackboot stuff every day. We learn to work around it."
