alt Hacker News>the western intelligence hub into PRC
That's kind the point of 1C2S and embassies/consulates in general. Nor do they need or would find the NSC law effective to clamp down on the US Consulate if they wished, this just personal headcanon to justify clamping down on local figures you don't like.
>get shit done
Clearly they aren't lmao after 5 years of their candidate in control. Then again, looking at the job market or those useless bomb checks or mopeds in pedestrian streets, clearly they aren't getting much "shit done" in their "proper tier1 city" either.
If by head-canon you mean political/legal reality under pre/post NSL. Anomalously large 1000+ employee consulate scale for city of 7m is you know... intelligence node. Of course the point is to clamp down on figures Beijing doesn't like, something they didn't get to hammer with full legal prejudice before and now can by explicitly using NSL instrument. How many bold compradors are shaking hands with State Department now vs pre NSL? How many libtard parties disbanded pre and post? Actual legal cannon > your head-canon.
> clearly
Well no, because Beijing still allows HK to stagnant on 2S, apart from half hearted directives to address absolute freemarket shithole dynamics like cage homes, PRC hands off with HK. Useless bombchecks (and XJ securitization) brought national terrorism to basically 0, how many school shootings have the very useful security checks in US prevented ¯\_(ツ)_/¯?. As for how much SZ gets done vs HK, tell that to the ~100m cross border trips from HKers to SZ. Revealed preference has a mainland bias. TLDR the play is letting HK system burn itself out, geoeconomically replacing HK libtards with PRC TTPS and eventually integrating desperate HKers into Northern Metropolis next SZ in next 30 years.