I have talked about these projects with some Chinese, and their view seems to always be that the developer has offered them one or two apartments, but they want more.

Now, I have no reason to believe that this is the whole truth.

These Chinese I've talked to, admit so much that the apartments given to farmers are nowhere as finished as those going to sales (I don't mean furniture and such extra, but basically all interior work).

I can well imagine something like this conveniently left out of paperwork without the farmers knowing to ask for it.

That is austerity only when a government does it on its own citizens.

In other cases, it can be called occupation, colonialism, etc.

No, that is democracy only if the government was elected by those same people.

Democracy is that everyone gets to choose the government, regardless of the quality of that government.

Well they were just getting started with identifying foreign meddlers behind the whole operation. Easier to pick those if there are ongoing protests.

Apparently the police beat someone in custody and it was caught on camera and broadcast in TV in Hong Kong. And this news comes from HK media. Granted, it's not Beijing owned media, but still should be trustable.