Carrie Lam fighting for political life after bill fiasco

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam steadily climbed her way up bureaucratic ranks to capture the top position in the former British colony, relying on sheer intelligence, ambition, canny networking and an astute deference to authority.

Yet the ground has shifted considerably since she began her civil service career in the 1980s. On Saturday, she appeared to be fighting for her political life as she sought to explain her decision to push through unpopular legislation that would make it easier to extradite suspects to communist-ruled mainland China, which took control of the territory in a 1997 handover.

A key reason for Lam’s vulnerability is that she was not directly elected by the territory’s people, but rather ushered into office in 2017 by the vote of a 1,194-member committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites — despite being far less popular than her main rival.

She now finds herself caught between a public that never truly backed her, and leaders in Beijing who want her to push through unpopular measures seen to be eroding Western-style economic, social and cultural freedoms that Beijing promised to respect for at least 50 years after it took back control from Britain.

Demonstrators in Hong Kong gathered yesterday outside the office of the city’s leader, 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 city’s waterfront as they stood outside the office of Chief Executive Carrie Lam 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.

Nearly 2 million Hong Kong residents, young and old, joined a march on Sunday 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 Monday morning, but gradually yielded to police requests to reopen roads, moving to areas near the city’s government headquarters.

The activists have rejected apologies from Lam for her handling of the legislation, which would allow suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. She announced that work on the bill would be suspended after large protests last week, but the legislation has touched a nerve not easily soothed in a city anxious over the increasingly authoritarian Communist rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“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,” Lee Cheuk-yan, a former legislator and activist, said yesterday.

Few anticipated that Lam would become embroiled in such friction when she took over from her predecessor Leung Chun-ying, a highly polarizing figure who stepped down as chief executive in 2017, citing family reasons.

Lam may eventually, after a face-saving interval, also end up stepping aside, analysts said. That would allow time for Beijing to decide upon a successor that the leadership considers both competent and politically reliable.

“They may not fire her immediately, but her chances for a second term are totally gone now and they may find a reason to let her go without losing much face because now she is hated by everybody in Hong Kong and her administration has become quite ungovernable,” said Willy Lam, a veteran political observer.

Much of the unhappiness with Lam and her administration predates her appointment as chief executive, but the recent uproar over the extradition bill highlights worries that the former British colony is losing the special autonomous status China promised it when it took control in 1997.

One concern over the extradition bill is that it might be used to send critics of Communist Party rule to the mainland to face vague political charges, possible torture and unfair trials.

It’s seen as one of many steps chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms and legal autonomy.

Lam insists the legislation is needed for Hong Kong to uphold justice, meet its international obligations and not become a magnet for fugitives. It would expand the scope of criminal suspect transfers to include Taiwan, Macau and mainland China.

So far, China has been excluded from Hong Kong’s extradition agreements because of concerns over the judicial independence of its courts and its human rights record.

The vast majority of Hong Kong residents fled persecution, political chaos or famine in the Chinese mainland. They value stability and but also cherish freedoms of dissent and legal protections not allowed Chinese living across the border.

Many Hong Kong residents also were angered over the police use of tear gas, rubber bullets and other forceful measures as demonstrators broke through barricades outside the city government’s headquarters during demonstrations last week, and over Lam’s decision to call the clashes a riot. That worsens the potential legal consequences for those involved.

The protesters have mainly focused their ire toward Lam, who has little choice but to carry through dictates issued by Beijing. She has sidestepped questions over whether she should quit and also defended how the police dealt with last week’s clashes.

Many here believe Hong Kong’s legal autonomy has been significantly diminished despite Beijing’s insistence that it is still honoring its promise, dubbed “one country, two systems,” that the territory can retain its own social, legal and political system for 50 years after the handover from Britain in 1997.

Prosecutions of activists, detentions without trial of five Hong Kong book publishers and the illegal seizure in Hong Kong by mainland agents of at least one mainland businessman are among moves in recent years that have unnerved many in the city of 7 million. MDT/AP