Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has been forced into a humiliating concession after a week of mass protests, promising to indefinitely suspend efforts to pass a controversial new extradition law ahead of another demonstration that has been called for Sunday.
Lam’s announcement represented perhaps the most serious government climbdown in the face of public pressure since a security law was dropped in 2003, an important democratic moment for a city where people are free to demonstrate but not able to choose their leaders.
However, opponents warned they saw it more as a tactical retreat than an admission of defeat, aimed at buying time to intimidate or demoralise opponents. There have already been reports of arrests in hospitals, as people sought treatment, and of digital activists.
“You can say it was a partial victory, in the sense she has halted this bill at this moment,” said the opposition lawmaker Charles Mok.
“We are not celebrating. Many of us were still not satisfied that she hasn’t withdrawn it completely, and the way she talked about police [brutality].”
He joined other activists and critics in urging residents to take to the streets again on Sunday to keep up pressure on the government and chief executive. Lam has proved a lightening rod for protesters, with many demanding her resignation.
In a combative press conference after three days of silence, Lam repeatedly described herself as “heartbroken”, and admitted that the bill had “caused a lot of division” in Hong Kong.
But she insisted her only errors were of communication, defended the law as vital to security and promised to relaunch an improved version after further consultation. She also played down the size of demonstrations and repeatedly claimed police use of force was defensive.
Earlier in the week she added fuel to public anger when she doubled down on support for the law and criticised protesters who had endured a day of teargas, rubber bullets and police beatings as “spoiled children”.
Her abrupt reversal – reportedly made after meeting with one of China’s most powerful leaders on Friday – was apparently aimed at warding off further chaos on Sunday, although Lam denied she was trying to appease the crowds.
“The decision I made is not about pacifying people or, as some have said, restoring my damaged reputation,” Lam told journalists, claiming she acted to stop violence escalating. “This is time to restore as quickly as possible calmness in society.”
The rise in tensions was almost entirely self-inflicted, after Lam tried to ram the hugely unpopular bill through the legislature before it broke up for the summer, leaving minimal time for consultation or debate despite its sweeping implications for everyone from dissidents to entrepreneurs.
If the extradition bill becomes law, it would allow both residents and visitors to be sent to China for trial in opaque courts controlled by the Communist party. Critics say that would destroy the judicial “firewall” that protects Hong Kong, and fatally undermine its economy and way of life.
Some Hong Kong tycoons have already started moving assets abroad amid concern about the extradition law, Reuters has reported, citing financial advisers, bankers and lawyers.
Lam’s hurry was ostensibly aimed at bringing to justice a man who brutally murdered his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan, but authorities there worried it could affect their sovereignty and so said they would not use it.
In response, hundreds of thousands of protesters thronged Hong Kong’s streets to oppose it at the weekend and prevent legislators reaching parliament Wednesday to vote it through.
Emma Graham-Harrison and Verna Yu in Hong Kong