Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam creates fresh crisis for China after suspending extradition bill.
With an escalating US trade war, a faltering economy and tensions in the South China Sea vexing her bosses in Beijing, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam appeared in no mood to compromise on a planned extradition law at recent meetings, according to foreign envoys and business people who met with her.
Worries over the bill’s impact on Hong Kong’s international standing as a financial hub with a respected legal system were building in Washington, London and other European capitals, but Lam stressed the need for the extradition law to help solve the murder of a Hong Kong woman in Taiwan. Hong Kong’s self-styled Iron Lady had cracked, having apparently created an entirely fresh crisis for President Xi Jinping - and the city’s biggest since Britain handed it over to Chinese rule in 1997 with the guarantee its freedoms and autonomy would be preserved.
The content of the meeting is unknown. Lam on Saturday refused to confirm or deny that it had taken place, despite repeated questions. Many politicians, diplomats and analysts had not expected Beijing to allow any backdown on the bill, unlike in 2003 when contentious national security laws were scrapped after half a million people took to the streets.
“The outcome doesn’t bear thinking about if this situation wasn’t turned around,” the source said, also declining to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.
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