Hong Kong residents had long believed that Beijing’s promise of “one country, two systems,” was a hollow one and got evidence of as much last week when the mainland communists insisted Hong Kong’s legislature pass a bill to outlaw subversion, sedition, treason, and other crimes against the state.

Beijing might well have succeeded in putting a muzzle on dissent had more than half a million people not taken to the streets last Tuesday. The demonstrations were the largest on the island since the 1989 protests over the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, and they rattled the Chicom leadership in Beijing.

Until last night, Hong Kong’s pro-China chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, was insisting that the island’s legislative council had to approve the sedition law anyway, as Beijing had directed. No one expected what happened next: Hong Kong’s pro-China legislators grew a conscience.

Last night, James Tien, a leader of the pro-business Liberal Party, resigned from Mr. Tung’s top policymaking body. Mr. Tien said the sedition bill needed to be delayed for more “public consultation.”

The Liberals had been the lapdogs of Mr. Tung’s administration ever since Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Their eight votes in the legislature would have been enough to put the mainland’s bill over the top. Now the Red Chinese regime will have to rethink its strategy. While Mr. Tien didn’t dismiss the bill outright, he has provided some breathing room for its opponents. And more time for other lawmakers to grow a conscience too. No doubt the cause of freedom in Hong Kong is being helped by expressions of support from overseas.