Hong Kong braced for rare strikes and further protests amid an escalating standoff over a controversial bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China.
Local companies said they would suspend work or allow flexible office hours today to accommodate workers planning to demonstrate near the territory’s Legislative Council (Legco), which is to meet to debate amendments.
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, a pro-democracy labor group, and several student associations urged members to join the strike and reprise a protest Sunday that drew of hundreds of thousands.
The Legco was expected to gather at about 12 noon to consider changes proposed by opposition lawmakers. The body’s leader closed off the area outside the chamber — a popular protest site known as the Drum — after scuffles in that area early on Monday morning.
Opponents want Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) to withdraw the legislation and threatened to organize a bigger, general strike on Monday next week to keep up the pressure.
“We are calling on Hong Kong people to come and join our protest rally right outside LegCo,” opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo (毛孟靜) said at a news conference with other protest organizers. “When we will call this off is up to Carrie Lam. If she doesn’t scrap this controversial extradition bill, Hong Kongers will fight on.”
Lam canceled a monthly legislative question-and-answer session that was to take place at 11am.
Her popularity fell to its lowest rating since she took power in 2017, according to a survey by Hong Kong University’s Public Opinion Programme.
The poll, which was taken before Sunday’s protests, saw her approval rating plunge to a record low 43 points, down from 64 points the week she assumed office.
Hong Kong-listed Most Kwai Chung said in a Facebook post that it would close business for the day, because “Hong Kong is sick” and they “wish Hong Kong will get well soon.”
Law firm Vidler & Co Solicitors said it had notified all employees that “in the event they wished to act in accordance with their conscience” and not attend work today to go on strike against the bill, the firm would support their actions.
While the potential scale of the strike was difficult to assess, one unconfirmed list of participating companies circulating online had grown to 1,000 mostly local firms by late afternoon. People claiming to be airline crews and teachers urged strikes in their own organizations online.
A number of the almost 1,400 multinational corporations with regional offices in Hong Kong, such as the global accounting company Deloitte, gave employees the option of working from home or at offices away from the protest site.
Hong Kong’s government is working to pass the law, which would for the first time allow extraditions with mainland China, before the end of the current legislative session ends next month.
Critics say the proposal risks undermining the autonomy China guaranteed Hong Kong before handover, as well as its status as a global financial center, while the government says it needs to prevent the territory from becoming a haven for fugitives.
Although the legislation was expected to easily pass the city’s legislature, which is dominated by Beijing loyalists, the opposition had introduced scores of amendments to undermine or slow the proposal’s approval.
Hong Kong Legco President Andrew Leung (梁智鴻) set aside almost 70 hours of debate, ending on Thursday next week.
The US on Monday expressed “grave concern” over the legislation, raising pressure on Lam and her backers on the mainland.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) yesterday reaffirmed the government’s support for the extradition legislation and urged the US to “exercise caution in its words and deeds and stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese