David Dodwell

Hong Kong extradition protests reveal deep-rooted problems that need addressing. How will Carrie Lam and Beijing respond?

The government has failed to account for people’s mistrust of China, lack of faith in the ability of Hong Kong’s leadership to make independent decisions and the demographic complexity of the community

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Young anti-extradition bill protesters clad in black flood Causeway Bay and march to the government headquarters in Tamar, Admiralty, calling on Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign, on June 16. Photo: Winson Wong

David Dodwell

Published: 5:00pm, 21 Jun 2019Updated: 10:28pm, 21 Jun 2019

On the spectrum between cock-up and conspiracy, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s blundering into what may be Hong Kong’s biggest political crisis since China resumed sovereignty over the territory in 1997 smells strongly of a bungle. That does not make it any less serious.

The credibility of the administration is in shreds. Divisions in the Hong Kong community have been widened. Crude stereotypes of Hong Kong gradually being swallowed by China’s dark totalitarian forces have run rampant across much of the international media.

The “one country, two systems” arrangement which underpins international business confidence in Hong Kong and trust in the independence of its legal system has been jeopardised. So, too, has progress on Hong Kong’s engagement in the Greater Bay Area initiative and its role as a safe haven during the US-China trade war.

I was among the thousands who watched perplexed as the Hong Kong government fuelled some of the biggest, but astonishingly peaceful, demonstrations the world has ever witnessed, and then crumbled, with abject but unconvincing apologies, implausible promises to listen more carefully to public opinion and undeliverable calls for a healing process to begin.

I have five points to make. First, the administration is on the brink of making its first post-crisis mistake by focusing on the extradition bill. That legislation is dead on arrival and should formally be recognised as such. The painful reality is that Hong Kong’s youth, and their families, did not trudge through the searing heat on Sunday just because of that bill.