The hopeless situation of Carrie Lam fronting the CCP and having to execute its policy, is what drove Hong Kong into the people's revolution of 2019. Under the CCP, local administrators do not need ideas, just obedience. Carrie Lam's misfortune was to be sandwiched between the increasing paranoia of Xi Jin Ping, and the increasing rebelliousness of HKers, and she has no strategy to resolve the two forces.
Except she could have chosen to take the HKer's side. She is after all a HK citizen and its representative even without true election. Seven million rebels can parallelize a city, but pissing off a few thousand bureaucrats in the politburo simply leads to tantrums and rhetorics. If she had done that, HK's economy would not have stalled, HKers would rally behind her, and the whole Two System debate could be channelled into a consultation process that can remain civil and reasonable.
HKers will not forgive her for her missteps and police brutality that led to thousands of arrested and hundreds of maimed/injured/raped/dead. That will always be her legacy.
But HKers can thank her incompetence for triggering the nationalistic feeling of a Hongkonger. The city of immigrants and world refugees has never been so clearly in sync, and the common enemy so in focus.
Except she could have chosen to take the HKer's side. She is after all a HK citizen and its representative even without true election. Seven million rebels can parallelize a city, but pissing off a few thousand bureaucrats in the politburo simply leads to tantrums and rhetorics. If she had done that, HK's economy would not have stalled, HKers would rally behind her, and the whole Two System debate could be channelled into a consultation process that can remain civil and reasonable.
HKers will not forgive her for her missteps and police brutality that led to thousands of arrested and hundreds of maimed/injured/raped/dead. That will always be her legacy.
But HKers can thank her incompetence for triggering the nationalistic feeling of a Hongkonger. The city of immigrants and world refugees has never been so clearly in sync, and the common enemy so in focus.