The legitimacy of a government requires the consent of a country’s citizens and beneficial consequences for them, as judged by reasonable persons, and tested within a democratic framework.
Chairman Mao Zedong’s dictum that “political power comes from the barrel of a gun” fails all of that. Most recently, we have seen that gun-barrel power in Hong Kong, where even the promise of a 50-year continuation of its freedoms, could not be tolerated.