The Chinese government is considering a plan to replace Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) as chief executive, pro-establishment lawmaker Michael Tien (田北辰) said, in a potential strategy shift by Beijing as pro-democracy demonstrations continue to rock the territory.
Tien said he has information from Beijing that the government was considering candidates to fill Hong Kong’s top job next year.
His comments came after the Financial Times cited unidentified people briefed on the deliberations, that an “interim” chief executive would be installed by March if Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) decides to carry out the plan.
“They recently assessed that this could go on for a while,” Tien said in an interview yesterday. “Dragging this thing out is actually bad for everyone, for Hong Kong, the police. So now they need to sort of take action, and I have heard it’s going to be next year, probably February or March,” Tien said.
Lam’s replacement would not necessarily stay on for a full five-year term.
Tien said that Beijing was weighing two different scenarios: Either appointing a “caretaker” who would serve the remainder of Lam’s term, or trying out someone who could conceivably stay on after the next election for chief executive in 2022.
A replacement would need to be elected by the 1,200-member election committee, Tien added.
A spokesman for Lam’s office declined to comment on the speculation over her position.
The Financial Times said that former Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Norman Chan (陳德霖) and former Hong Kong chief secretary Henry Tang (唐英年) were leading candidates to succeed Lam.
Tang and Chan declined to comment on the report.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said the central government still firmly supports Lam.
“This is a political rumor with ulterior motives,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) told reporters at a regular briefing.
Replacing Lam would represent a delicate reversal for the Chinese Communist Party, which does not want to give a victory to protesters demanding direct elections. Still, Beijing is under pressure to ease months of unrest, which has helped push the territory toward recession and provided ammunition to the party’s critics.
Lam’s introduction of legislation allowing extraditions to China sparked months of increasingly violent protests against Beijing’s tightening grip over the territory. Her moves to withdraw the bill — which formally took place yesterday — and invoke a colonial-era emergency law to ban masks have done little to stem the chaos.
“Business should not expect that the removal of Lam will end the civil unrest,” Verisk Maplecroft, a consultancy that advises businesses on political risk, said in a note. “No matter who the next chief executive is, the protesters will continue to demand an independent investigation into police conduct amid widespread dissatisfaction with how the authorities are managing the demonstrations.”
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