Demonstrators in Hong Kong yesterday gathered outside the office of Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), demanding that she step down for the crisis over a highly unpopular extradition bill that has tested the durability of China’s promises to respect the former British colony’s quasi-autonomy.
The mostly young protesters blocked a street near the territory’s waterfront as they stood outside Lam’s office chanting calls for her to cancel the proposed legislation.
As night fell, protest leaders debated their next steps. Some wanted to set a deadline for a meeting with Lam. Others decided to head home.
Photo: Reuters
Nearly 2 million Hong Kong residents, young and old, on Sunday joined a march that lasted late into the night to express their frustrations with Lam and the extradition bill, backed by Beijing. Many stayed on afterward.
Protesters blocked some downtown roads well into yesterday morning, but gradually yielded to police requests to reopen roads, moving to areas near government headquarters.
The protest revived after Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), a prominent activist leader, rallied the crowd later in the day after his release from prison.
Photo: Reuters
The activists have rejected apologies from Lam for her handling of the legislation, which would allow suspects to be sent to nations that Hong Kong does not currently have an extradition treaty with, including China, for trial.
She announced on Saturday that work on the bill would be suspended after large protests last week.
“We are very angry that Carrie Lam has not responded to the demands of all the protesters, but now is the time to talk about strategy, and talk about strategy is about how to make the whole struggle into a long-term struggle and not a day struggle, so if Carrie Lam does not respond to the demands by the protesters, people will come back and the struggle will continue,” former legislator Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) said yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
Wong, who was imprisoned for his role in the 2014 “Umbrella movement,” was released from prison after serving half of a two-month sentence on a contempt charge, and soon joined the fray.
“After the end of the Umbrella movement we claimed we would be back. Finally five years later we did it,” Wong said.
“It’s lucky that Beijing and Carrie Lam transformed a whole generation of youngsters from normal citizens to dissidents. That’s the price that Beijing must pay,” Wong said.
Photo: Bloomberg
However, a senior official in the territory’s government who is close to Lam yesterday told Reuters that Beijing would not let her step down even if she wanted to, adding that the proposed extradition law has effectively been withdrawn.
Despite the anger against Lam, she was unlikely to go, said the official, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
“It’s not going to happen,” said the official, who has been involved in meetings on the political crisis.
Photo: AFP
“She’s appointed by the central government, so for her to step down requires a very high level of considered discussion and deliberation at the mainland level,” the official said.
Lam was voted in by an electoral college of Beijing-approved delegates, after Beijing rejected demands for universal suffrage in the territory.
Her resignation now, even if Beijing thought it was time, and the search for a new leader, would likely rekindle the debate about democracy in the territory.
“It would create more sorts of problems than it solves, at all sorts of levels,” the source said of the prospect of Lam quitting.
The official said the decision to postpone the bill had been made with Beijing’s consent, to the relief of many in the territory’s administration.
Lam’s office issued a statement on Sunday evening, apologizing and acknowledging that “deficiencies in the government’s work had led to substantial controversies and disputes in society.”
The official said the proposed law was effectively dead in the water.
“Suspending it actually means withdrawal ... it would be absolute political suicide to bring it back again,” the official said.
However, the protests had probably damaged Lam politically in the eyes of Beijing and it was “doubtful” that she would seek a second term, the official added.
Hong Kong Executive Council member Regina Ip (葉劉淑儀), an adviser to Lam, told Reuters that she did not think Lam would resign.
Veteran opposition Democratic Party lawmaker James To (涂謹申) said Lam had to go.
“She has missed golden opportunities to show repentance and recover and now has lost all credibility to govern,” he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
STAYING ALERT: China this week deployed its largest maritime show of force to date in the region, prompting concern in Taipei and Tokyo, which Beijing has brushed off Deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, the White House said in its National Security Strategy published yesterday, which also called on Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to help protect the first island chain. Taiwan is strategically positioned between Northeast and Southeast Asia, and provides direct access to the second island chain, with one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea, the report said. Given the implications for the US economy, along with Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductors, “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” it said. However, the strategy also reiterated
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
RSS