Too much for a bureaucrat to handle
A source close to the administration said Lam missed the opportunity to stem the crisis when she dismissed advice to withdraw the bill after the second mass protest, and to ask the police chief to stop referring to the June 12 protest as a riot.
It took almost three months more before Lam finally announced on September 4 that the bill would be withdrawn, a move which sources said required the approval of President Xi Jinping.
Behind the scenes, Lam appeared to distance herself from Beijing, hinting that she had limited power and that her hands were tied. In a leaked transcript of a private gathering held in August, Lam said she had little choice, given that the massive backlash against the bill had elevated the issue to a national level problem, and “a sort of sovereignty and security level” matter. Once that happened, the “political room for maneuvering is very, very, very limited,” she was recorded as saying to a group of business leaders.
Lam rejected speculation that she herself, or someone from the administration, had deliberately leaked the recording in order to shift the blame to Beijing. She was also reported to have said at the same gathering that she would have quit if she had the choice. But again Lam denied saying so. “I have not given myself the choice of taking an easier path, and that is, to leave,” she said in a statement after the leaked recording emerged.
Lawmaker Ip revealed that, at one point, she and other Exco members had considered resigning en masse, but Lam had stopped them. “The chief executive said we were on the periphery, merely giving advice, meaning if anyone had to be held accountable, Exco members would not be the first,” Ip said. Political scientist Ma Ngok, of Chinese University, said: “In other countries, the leader and officials would have stepped down if such a large number marched on the streets.”
Two sources close to the government said Lam’s troubled tenure exposed the weakness of a leader lacking global political exposure and the experience of elections. “During most of her career, Lam was a bureaucrat tackling domestic issues,” said one. “If she could have understood the political headwinds of the US-China tensions and seen how the bill could get entangled in that, she would have thought twice from day one.” The other said: “Lam and the absolute majority of ministers are former civil servants who lack experience in elections. That’s why they underestimate negative public sentiments.”
New year, and a pandemic takes over
The new year brought Lam unexpected respite from the protests, only because of the arrival of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. She now led the administration’s efforts in combating the biggest public health crisis in years. Health professionals went on strike when Lam refused to seal Hong Kong’s border with the mainland, but she introduced a series of bolder-than-expected measures to deal with the outbreak.
To slow the spread of the coronavirus, Hongkongers had to get used to social-distancing measures that include a ban on public gatherings of more than four people and the temporary closure of places of worship, pubs, cinemas, spas and massage parlors. Restaurants were told to operate at half capacity and employers were asked to let staff work from home. The government announced a total relief package of HK$287.5 billion (US$37.1 billion) in cash handouts, tax breaks and a raft of subsidies aimed at easing the financial burden on residents and businesses.
While the Covid-19 outbreak ravaged countries worldwide, including in the US and Europe, by late April Hong Kong managed to keep the coronavirus under control. New infections were in single-digits and as of April 24, it recorded 1,035 cases and four deaths. For Lam, however, a sense of alienation from those closest to her lingered. In a letter sent to Beijing in March and leaked to the media, she allegedly complained about the “disappointing” pro-establishment bloc, accusing them of joining in criticizing the government’s response to the pandemic instead of being supportive. She called her Exco members “unsatisfactory” and claimed she was “facing enemies on all sides.” Her allies were angered, but Lam did not deny saying those words.
Lau Siu-kai, vice-chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a semi-official think tank, said the pandemic had upset the momentum of the protests and provided Lam an opportunity to recover some lost ground with the public. “Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves and medical system gave the government more leeway than many other countries in tackling the coronavirus,” he said, adding that Hongkongers could see how people elsewhere were worse off.
Despite all that had happened in 2019, he did not think Beijing wanted to remove Lam. “Replacing the chief executive would be equivalent to surrendering to the opposition and that would only bring endless troubles,” he said.
Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, leader of the Civic Party, said Lam would be mistaken to believe she could breathe a sigh of relief because Covid-19 had stopped the protests. “There will be more people joining because of the poor [coronavirus-related] policies,” he said.
The extradition bill saga cost Lam heavily in terms of her public approval ratings. Her popularity plummeted by more than 60 per cent from 47.4 out of 100 points in February 2019 to 18.1 points in February 2020, according to Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute surveys. Her handling of the Covid-19 crisis helped her claw her way up to 25.5 points in April.
At a closed-door meeting in the midst of the protests, Lam was quoted as saying: “Many people thought I died, but I won’t die.”
That was the top girl speaking.
— With reporting by Kimmy Chung
The murder behind Hong Kong’s worst political crisis
Jasmine Siu and Chris Lau
A love story gone badly wrong in Taiwan sparked Hong Kong’s biggest political storm. The search for justice has not ended.
It was a Valentine’s Day vacation that went horribly wrong. When Chan Tong-kai and Poon Hiu-wing boarded their flight to Taiwan on February 8, 2018, they were a picture of happiness, two young adults celebrating a pregnancy and the prospect of a long, loving future together. Yet by their return flight just nine days later, that picture would be shattered. Only one of them would make the journey back to Hong Kong; the other would be dead, the corpse abandoned and left to rot in an unfamiliar land.
When Poon’s badly decomposing body was found in thick bushes on the outskirts of Taipei a month later, all the evidence pointed to Chan. He had not only explained in detail to police where to find the body, but had also admitted to the killing, saying he had attacked Poon after hearing the baby was not his and viewing a video of his lover having sex with another man.
To a stunned city, the details of the case were shocking and tragic enough. Yet this was a tragedy in two acts. And what nobody could have foreseen was that, like a butterfly causing a far off tsunami with the flapping of its wings, the ripples of a single crime of passion in Taiwan would one day become a tidal wave bearing down on 7 million Hongkongers.
Nobody could have known then that the city was about to be swept into one of its worst periods of civil unrest; that Poon’s murder would expose a loophole in its justice system; or that attempts to close that loophole would spark widespread violence and the arrests of thousands.
A love story gone wrong
Long before the couple’s story sparked a political cataclysm, it was a personal one.
Poon and Chan had met in July 2017 at a company where both were working part time and the former students clicked immediately.
Within a month they were lovers and by December of the same year, 20-year-old Poon told Chan she was pregnant. Chan, 19, appeared delighted and, believing he was the father, splashed out on a romantic getaway to Taiwan to celebrate.
At this point, at least to her friends, Poon had given every sign of being happy with how