If social media posts “with seditious intent” were grounds for arrest and detention in the US, America’s incarceration rate would be even higher than it already is.

In the US, seditious conspiracies are tolerated as a manifestation of protected speech, a hideous perversion of the First Amendment which has evolved into an impenetrable legal shield for pretty much anything you want to say and, increasingly, anything you want to do.

In China, by contrast, seditious conspiracies are frowned upon, to put it mildly. The same goes for Hong Kong, where democracy was throttled to death several years ago by Xi Jinping.

In a notable development, the city just made its first arrests under the so-called “Safeguarding National Security Ordinance,” a decree masquerading as legislation. In March, Hong Kong rushed the bill through what’s now a rubber-stamp process at the behest of an impatient Beijing. Since 2020, Hong Kong’s legislature operates under the shadow of a ban on opposition politicians. Sitting lawmakers are effectively subject to fealty tests. If you’re not sufficiently patriotic — which is to say unflinchingly loyal to Xi — you can’t serve.

The new ordinance, which builds on Xi’s infamous 2020 national security law, gives city authorities unfettered latitude to stifle dissent and silence critics. Critics like 39-year-old Chow Hang-tung, a Cambridge-educated activist who served as vice chair of a now defunct group that organized Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Square vigil, which Chow attended from a young age.

The charges against Chow, and particularly her “arrest” on Tuesday, felt redundant: She was already in jail in connection with the vigil. The latest charges include “repeatedly publishing posts with seditious intentions” tied to “an upcoming sensitive date,” an obvious allusion to the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

Local officials also detained Chow’s mother on Tuesday, along with four others on the same charges. Chow was “arrested” at the Tai Lam Centre for Women, a 400-capacity maximum security facility. So, Chow was arrested while in prison. Ah, the absurdities of authoritarian regimes.

Apparently, the new charges stem from Facebook posts attributed to Chow. Those posts — which SCMP described as “a series of personal reflections… which told how she became involved with the [Tiananmen vigil] alliance” — were derided by the city’s security secretary as an “incite[ment] of hatred” and an effort to sow “distrust of the central government, the Hong Kong government and the judiciary.”

Tiananmen commemorations are banned in Chinese cities, but they were allowed in Hong Kong until 2020. Chow’s been in jail for nearly 1,000 days already. She was originally charged on September 9, 2021 with inciting subversion, a crime that carries a 10-year sentence under Xi’s national security law. If convicted on the “new” charges (they’re basically the same charges), she could face another seven years.

“Those who intend to endanger national security should not imagine that they can avoid police pursuit anonymously online,” city police said. Tuesday’s events suggest they can’t “avoid police pursuit” if they’re already in prison either.

While addressing reporters, Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s security boss, emphasized that the city “must take resolute action to protect the security of our country.” Our country. One country. And, now, one system.