This is a rather strange take. In 2013, Hong Kong was a very different place than today, with none of the China stigma.
Additionally, you neglect to mention that is was the US actions in cancelling his passport that stranded Snowden in the Moscow airport that he was transiting through on the way to Ecuador.
If you believe Russia cares about Snowden's travel documents, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Snowden should consider himself lucky that he got detained in Russia because Moreno would have given him up before Assange.
" The Chinese government made the final decision to allow Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, to leave Hong Kong on Sunday, a move that Beijing believed resolved a tough diplomatic problem even as it reaped a publicity windfall from Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, according to people familiar with the situation."
He didn't. He went to Ecuador, but the US cancelled his passport while he was connecting in Russia. And he didn't bring any classified materials with him.
So it's 100% on the US government that he ended up in Russia and not Ecuador
The scandal was watched globally as it unfolded. By the time of his arrival to Sheremetyevo his future FSB minders were getting tired of twiddling their thumbs at the gate.
> A whistleblower doesn't abscond to a hostile country with troves of top secret data.
Why not?
The fact of being a whistleblower is orthogonal to whether you abscond and where to. And Russia wasn't a "hostile country" - many of the biggest companies in the US had operations in Russia.
