‘Grimmest year since handover’
Xi backs Lam
BEIJING, Dec 16, (AP): Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his support for Hong Kong’s embattled leader Monday even as he declared that the former British colony has faced its “grimmest and most complex year” since its return to China.
Xi praised Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam for holding fast to the principle of “one country, two systems,” and for courage and commitment during an “extraordinary period” for Hong Kong, where Lam has faced harsh criticism for how she has handled months of fiery anti-government protests.
Lam briefed Xi and Premier Li Keqiang during her first visit to Beijing since pro-democracy candidates swept local Hong Kong elections last month in a clear rebuke of her administration.
Hong Kong has been “haunted by this social unrest,” Lam said at an evening news briefing, adding that the Chinese leaders called the situation “unprecedented.”
“Given the severity of the situation and the difficulties that we are facing, I can say that the leaders are fully appreciative of the efforts needed” to restore order, she said.
Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” framework that promises the city more democratic rights than are allowed on the mainland. In recent years, however, the arrests of booksellers and activists have stoked fears of a growing encroachment by the ruling Communist Party.
The mass demonstrations began in June in response to proposed legislation that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be tried for crimes in mainland China. While Lam has since withdrawn the bill, protesters have continued calling for broader democratic reforms and an independent inquiry into accusations of police brutality.
Xi
Clashes
A lull in clashes between police and protesters ended Sunday. Police said protesters threw bricks and that officers responded with tear gas. Protesters also set fires, blocked roads and smashed traffic lights with hammers.
Video footage showed truncheonwielding riot officers squirting pepper spray directly at a photographer in a group of journalists and ganging up to beat and manhandle him. Police alleged that the photographer was verbally abusive and obstructed officers and said he was arrested. His employer, Hong Kong online news site Mad Dog Daily, said he acted legally and heeded police instructions.
Police said they arrested 31 people Sunday and 99 over the past week, taking the total number arrested since June to beyond 6,100. They also said that officers fired 27 tear gas rounds on Sunday.
Expect
Protesters said they don’t expect Beijing leaders to ditch Lam in the foreseeable future, because that would be an embarrassment for them and hand too large a victory to the protest movement.
“If they did change, let her step down, then that means that it’s a loss in the battle,” protester Fong Lee, a social worker, said at a rally in Hong Kong on Sunday. “The Communist Party wouldn’t do that.”
Several thousand people, some making heart signs with their hands, turned out in Hong Kong on Sunday in an unusual display of support for the police force, even as riot officers clashed elsewhere with protesters and pepper-sprayed a crowd.
Competing rallies on Hong Kong Island and wildcat protest actions, including vandalism, by black-clad youths at shopping malls dramatically exposed the deep gulf between pro- and anti-establishment camps carved out by six months of demonstrations that have shaken and split the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
Truncheon-wielding riot officers fanned out at a shopping mall where demonstrators spray-painted protest slogans on the polished stone floor and smashed glass panels. Watched by shoppers, officers pepper-sprayed bystanders and made several arrests, pinning detainees to the floor and marching them away.
Roaming groups of youths in black popped up at other shopping malls, too, shouting slogans. At one mall, a small group adapted a Christmas carol into a protest song and a woman played “Glory to Hong Kong,” a protest anthem, on a harmonica. The scene was completely different at a waterfront park on Hong Kong Island, where a large crowd showered love on the 30,000-strong police force, broadly criticized as heavyhanded by the protest movement. The rally echoed the Hong Kong government’s view that protesters have become unacceptably violent.