Interaction between leaders in China and Hong Kong is shrouded in secrecy. So it is hard to work out whether Carrie Lam had a choice in her departure
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskInteraction between the Communist Party in Beijing and Hong Kong’s chief executive, as the city’s leader is known, is shrouded in secrecy. So it is hard to work out whether Mrs Lam had a choice. She said she had told the central authorities a year ago that she did not want another five-year term, “entirely” for family reasons. But that could be a smokescreen. The party probably wants her to go.
Officials in Beijing may also resent Mrs Lam’s seeming failure to anticipate the unrest in 2019, which was triggered by her plan to introduce a bill that would allow criminals to be extradited for trial by the mainland’s party-controlled courts. But the party’s support for Mr Lee suggests it does not have big misgivings about her handling of the protests: he was her main adviser on how to police them.
Since the end of British rule in Hong Kong in 1997, the party has selected people either with broad experience in the territory’s civil service or who are prominent business leaders. All of them have struggled to keep both the leadership in Beijing and Hong Kong’s public happy. None has yet served two five-year terms, the maximum allowed.
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