Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday refused to scrap a controversial plan to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland, a day after record crowds came out to oppose the proposal.
Striking a defiant tone after the territory’s largest protest since the 1997 handover, Lam said the legislature would debate the bill tomorrow as planned, rejecting calls to delay or withdraw the law.
The decision sets her administration on a collision course with opponents who decried her stance and called on supporters to rally outside parliament tomorrow or hold strikes.
Photo: Reuters
“She’s really pushing Hong Kong towards the brink of a precipice,” Hong Kong Legislator Claudia Mo (毛孟靜) told reporters.
Sunday saw huge crowds march in blazing summer heat through the streets of the financial hub’s main island in a noisy, colorful demonstration calling on the government to scrap its planned extradition law.
Organizers said as many as 1 million people turned out — the largest protest in three decades and the biggest by far since the territory’s return to Chinese rule.
Lam’s government is pushing a bill through the legislature that would allow extraditions to any jurisdiction with which it does not already have a treaty — including mainland China.
Authorities say it is needed to plug loopholes and to stop the city being a bolthole for fugitives.
However, the proposals have birthed an opposition that unites a wide cross-section of the territorty, with critics fearing the law would entangle people in China’s opaque and politicized courts.
In her first comments since the mass rallies, Lam pushed back against calls to delay the law and said the huge rallies were proof Hong Kong’s freedom of speech was still protected.
She said her administration had already made major concessions to ensure political cases would not be considered and that human rights safeguards met international standards.
“We have been listening and listening very attentively,” she said.
However, her words drew an incredulous response from opponents who accused her of ignoring massive public opposition.
“Yesterday 1.03 million of us marched and the government is still indifferent, turning a deaf ear to the people. This government has become a dictatorship,” Hong Kong Legislator Ip Kin-yuen (葉建源) told reporters.
Political analyst Dixon Sing (成名) said that Lam could be facing “political suicide” if she pushed for a showdown after such huge demonstrations.
“In the short run, the Hong Kong government led by Carrie Lam will suffer a worsening legitimacy crisis,” he said. “Fewer and fewer people will trust her and the entire cabinet.”
However, much would rest on whether the public comes out to back further protests or strikes, he said.
Sunday’s huge rally passed without incident until shortly after midnight when small pockets of protesters fought running battles with police in chaotic and violent scenes.
Nineteen people were arrested, police said, mostly young men in their early 20s.
Hong Kong authorities said they believed the violence at the end of the largely peaceful protests was planned by organized groups.
“It’s easy to tell they are organized, premeditated, prepared, radical and violent people,” said Li Kwai-wah (李桂華), senior superintendent of the Organized Crime And Triad Bureau.
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said it plans to revise the export control list for strategic high-tech products by adding 18 items under three categories — advanced 3D printing equipment, advanced semiconductor equipment and quantum computers — which would require local manufacturers to obtain licenses for their export. The ministry’s announcement yesterday came as the International Trade Administration issued a 60-day preview period for planned revisions to the Export Control List for Dual Use Items and Technology (軍商兩用貨品及技術出口管制清單) and the Common Military List (一般軍用貨品清單), which fall under regulations governing export destinations for strategic high-tech commodities and specific strategic high-tech commodities. The
RSS