Hong Kong leader offers ‘sincerest apologies’ to protesters, but refuses to resign position
HONG KONG — With her term likely reduced to lame duck status, Hong Kong’s leader offered her most forceful apology yet for championing a massively unpopular extradition bill, but still declined to accede to the demands of 2 million people who took to the streets last Sunday to call for her ouster.
Speaking solemnly at a news conference Tuesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam acknowledged the bill — which would have allowed Hong Kong to send people to stand trial in China, but was recently suspended — had triggered conflict and dissatisfaction with her government.
“I personally have to shoulder much of the responsibility,” she said. “For this, I offer my most sincere apologies to all people of Hong Kong.”
Lam, however, declined to submit to the main demands lodged by her critics, including retracting the bill and resigning. The 62-year-old civil servant said she would not revive the legislation as long as it remained unpopular and she would not resign because she wanted “another chance.”
The crisis consuming the city of 7 million highlights Hong Kong’s desire to maintain basic democratic rights enshrined in its constitution, even as China moves to integrate the territory further into its authoritarian system.
It’s also exposed the spectacular miscalculations of a bureaucrat ostensibly appointed by Beijing two years ago to help bridge the fundamental differences between Hong Kong and mainland China.
At each juncture, critics say, Lam failed to anticipate the magnitude of the bill’s unpopularity. It started when she ignored opposition from Hong Kong’s business community shortly after the ordinance was proposed in February — prompting many wealthy individuals to move capital to safe havens such as Singapore.
She was largely silent again when 1 million people demonstrated against the bill on June 9. When riot police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bags at mostly peaceful demonstrators last Wednesday, she called the protests a “blatant organized riot.”
The public, however, saw it the other way and were appalled by the police’s heavy handed response. Lam then held a press conference Saturday announcing the suspension of the bill, but never apologized and blamed the conflict on her government’s poor communications strategy.
The following day, more than one-quarter of Hong Kong’s population took to the streets to repudiate her leadership.
“Carrie Lam is politically illiterate,” said Steve Tsang, a political scientist at SOAS University of London. “She’s never read Machiavelli’s “The Prince” because she would know if you need to make concessions like this, you do it in the beginning and not drip, drip like this.”
Anson Chan, who once held the second-highest position in Hong Kong’s government as chief secretary, said the historic demonstrations last Sunday were fueled in part by Lam’s inability to convey empathy or sincerity.
“She needs to realize that in politics timing is everything,” Chan said. “It seems that every concession that she’s been willing to make has been dragged out of her.”
So toxic is the extradition bill that China’s ambassador to Britain told the BBC that the legislation was entirely the Hong Kong government’s idea.
“The central government gave no instruction, no order, about the making (of the) amendment,” said Liu Xiaoming, distancing his government from Lam. “This amendment was initiated by the Hong Kong government.”
Lam’s apology Tuesday, while seemingly heartfelt, did little to assuage people’s concerns. In addition to resigning and retracting the bill, critics want Lam to open an investigation into police misconduct during clashes with protesters last Wednesday. They also want a promise that demonstrators will not to criminally charged and to refrain from designating the clashes as “riots,” which has legal significance.
Lam said Hong Kong already has channels to raise complaints about police behavior. On the question of the term “riots,” she deferred to Hong Kong’s police commissioner, who on Monday, back pedaled by allaying concerns that anyone who showed-up to the protest were deemed rioters. He said only five participants were accused of the crime.
“She didn’t deliver on the demands,” said Joshua Lee, a 20-year-old journalism student at Hong Kong University, who watched Lam’s press conference on a Facebook livestream.