"Rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world" was not the committee's job. Their job was something much simpler: to conduct the awards with integrity.
If some external actor (say the Chinese government) makes that impossible then you cancel the awards. This comes down to McCarty and the people under him not upholding the values of the WSFS and appropriately they have now all been censured or sacked.
This could have been handled much much better and while it probably looked very scary and hard to an amateur, you would think the people at this level of authority in the organization would not be amateurs. The best way for things to go down probably would have been for the committee to engage early and aggressively with Chinese authorities, state their commitment to free speech assertively, make it clear that they were going to give awards to Chinese political dissidents, and then when the Chinese responded with "you're not going to get a permit for that" or whatever other signal emerged that respecting the Hugo's principles was a no-go in China, you make that information public and you cancel the awards. If it happens early enough you move the venue, if it happens too late in the game maybe you have to do them online or something. All better options than compromising the awards. Yeah the members who chose Chengdu are not going to be happy but that's better than EVERYONE losing respect for you and that's also why you engage with Chinese authorities in good faith until they admit that this thing is gonna be a no-go... let China defend its own policies don't do it for them.
If some external actor (say the Chinese government) makes that impossible then you cancel the awards. This comes down to McCarty and the people under him not upholding the values of the WSFS and appropriately they have now all been censured or sacked.
This could have been handled much much better and while it probably looked very scary and hard to an amateur, you would think the people at this level of authority in the organization would not be amateurs. The best way for things to go down probably would have been for the committee to engage early and aggressively with Chinese authorities, state their commitment to free speech assertively, make it clear that they were going to give awards to Chinese political dissidents, and then when the Chinese responded with "you're not going to get a permit for that" or whatever other signal emerged that respecting the Hugo's principles was a no-go in China, you make that information public and you cancel the awards. If it happens early enough you move the venue, if it happens too late in the game maybe you have to do them online or something. All better options than compromising the awards. Yeah the members who chose Chengdu are not going to be happy but that's better than EVERYONE losing respect for you and that's also why you engage with Chinese authorities in good faith until they admit that this thing is gonna be a no-go... let China defend its own policies don't do it for them.