‘ Reassured, proud, no regrets:’ Lam concludes ‘ most challenging’ term

“Reassured, proud and without regrets,” was how incumbent Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ( HKSAR) Carrie Lam described her tenure as she prepared to leave her post on Thursday, thus completing a term recognized as “the most turbulent five years” and officially concluding her 42 years as a civil servant.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Hong Kong on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the city’s return to the motherland, Xi gave full recognition of Lam’s five- year work as Chief Executive. Under the firm support of the central government, Lam has made significant contributions in quelling social unrest in Hong Kong, fighting against the epidemic, and actively integrating the HKSAR into the country’s development plans, Xi noted.

Lam said that the past five years of her career have been extraordinary and she feels honored to have been able to contribute to the cause of “one country, two systems.”

From chaos to governance, today’s Hong Kong has returned to the right track of “one country, two systems,” Lam said, giving her sincere wishes for a better tomorrow for the city, and a happy life for all Hong Kong residents.

Netizens flooded her post and social media platforms with thumbs- up, heart and flower emojis, as they thanked Lam for her unremitting efforts in safeguarding the city and the remarkable performance she has delivered.

As the only female leader of Hong Kong’s five Chief Executives, Lam has experienced the greatest upheavals and gone through the darkest moments during the 2019 social turmoil and also witnessed how things had gradually picked up after the historic adoption of the National Security Law for Hong Kong and electoral reform, which brought huge changes in lifting the city out of chaos and turning to peaceful governance.

Commenting on Lam’s performance, Fan Peng, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Political Science, said that with the central government’s full trust and strong support, Lam firmly implemented the practice of “one country, two systems” and made the right decisions at various critical moments. The HKSAR was at the very front line in a dramatically changing international landscape in which the US and the West launched fierce ideological attacks on the Chinese mainland.

“As the first female Chief Executive of the SAR government, Lam has pulled Hong Kong through with fortitude in a relatively soft and flexible manner. Under Lam’s leadership, the city has not only consolidated the basic national security issue, but actively promoted its connectivity to the Guangdong- Guangdong Hong Kong- Kong Macao Greater Bay Area by boosting Hong Kong’s regional advantages such as technological innovation and expertise,” Fan said.