The Chinese Communist Party has finally managed to annex the city of Hong Kong and officially integrate with the mainland. The new national security bill effectively abolishes the famed “one country, two systems” principle which was established in 1997 when the UK handed the city to China. As the CCP officials enforce their will, the Hongkongers are scrambling to escape from the city as wherever the CCP establishes its rule, unfathomable atrocities and censorship follow. Hong Kong is on its way to becoming a ghost town from a hustling financial capital all thanks to its Chief Executive, Carrie Lam who couldn’t have cared less for Hong Kong and its people.
This time around, Hong Kong, backstabbed by its own leader, Carrie Lam, isn’t erupting again, it has now accepted its sad fate and those who can afford are scrambling to leave the city and settle elsewhere as no one wants to be under the direct rule of tyrant Xi Jinping and his communist party.
After the introduction of the controversial national security legislation, the CCP has pulled the plug on Hong Kong’s freedom. Through this legislation, Beijing plans to stop mass protests by banning acts of treason, secession and subversion which would effectively signal the death knell of the “one country, two systems” principle which China had promised to the UK when it took over the reigns of Hong Kong in 1997 and pledged to keep the city semi-autonomous until 2047.
Being the leader of Hong Kong, one would expect Carrie Lam to stand up for her citizens, however, she has proven to be a loyal puppet of the CCP who facilitated this attack on Hong Kong’s freedoms. Carrie Lam has pledged to “fully cooperate” with Beijing over the national security law as Lam in a statement said that the local government would, “complete the legislation as soon as possible to discharge its responsibility”.
It must be noted that the people of Hong Kong don’t elect its chief executive. The Chief Executive is elected by a Beijing backed 400 member panel who then acts as a loyal lapdog of the CCP.
Last year, Carrie Lam reached the nadir of her career as the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests exposed her failings. Lam who was overconfident, pushed for the highly controversial extradition bill which allowed the extradition of the Hongkongers to the mainland. There was no doubt in anyone’s minds that the CCP would use this bill as a weapon to punish any dissenters of the CCP regime in Hong Kong and bring them to justice in the mainland. The bill would have effectively allowed the CCP to punish anyone who earned the wrath of Xi Jinping and his lackeys despite the fact that Hong Kong is an autonomous region and the CCP on paper is supposed to have no jurisdiction in the city.
The CCP was already battling accusations of how it kidnapped its naysayers from across the border and made them mysteriously disappear in China. The extradition bill would have given the CCP a legal cover. If Carrie Lam had the best interest of Hong Kong in mind, she would have never pushed for the bill.
Hong Kong was in no mood to sell its soul to the CCP like Carrie Lam and it took to the streets and protested against the bill, which caught the attention of the world. A whopping 1 million people marched against the bill in June 2019, but Lam was unmoved. Her administration arrested 9,000 people during the pro-democracy protests.
The protests only grew as an estimated 1.7 million people took to the streets after Lam announced that she was “suspending” the bill. The subsequent brutal crackdown on the protesters caught the global media’s attention which saw Lam under increasing pressure. Lam finally cracked and in September, withdrew the bill.
While Lam publicly postured a tough stance, a leaked audio recording the night before Lam would announce the withdrawal of the bill revealed that Beijing was pressuring her to stay on as a loyal puppet. The audio recording saw Lam say, “For a chief executive to have caused this huge havoc to Hong Kong is unforgivable. If I have a choice, the first thing is to quit, having made a deep apology, is to step down.”
Carrie Lam who has publicly claimed that she admires Xi Jinping the most out of all the leaders, recently claimed blamed Hong Kong’s ‘liberal’ education system for last year’s protests. Lam has claimed that students need protection from being “poisoned” and fed “false and biased information”. She said, “In terms of handling the subject of liberal studies in the future, we will definitely make things clear to the public within this year.”
This will effectively mean that Lam will change the country’s education system with the aim of producing slaves of the CCP who think Mao Zedong created the human civilisation and Xi Jinping is the modern day version of god.
Carrie Lam will only get more hawkish now as after the last year’s protests, Beijing added two trusted hardliners who have the personal backing of Xi Jinping to tighten the CCP’s grip on Hong Kong. It is a separate thing that the hardliners have no prior experience in managing Hong Kong’s affairs but it’s hardly a criteria. Lam wasted no time in toeing Beijing’s line as soon as she assumed the reigns of Hong Kong.
Lam has also systematically ended the careers of pro-democracy candidates in Hong Kong. In the local legislative elections, Lam started disqualifying all pro-democracy candidates who pressed for “self-determination”. In July 2018, Carrie Lam banned the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party under the garb of sedition.
After last year’s pro-democracy protests, the local elections in November 2019 delivered a huge blow to Lam and her party. Lam’s pro-Beijing party suffered the largest electoral defeat in Hong Kong’s history as the pro-democrats gained more than 240 seats, which is over 80 per cent of the available seats, and now controls 17 of the 18 District Councils.
Earlier in April, Lam seemingly enraged after her defeat, decided to arrest Martin Lee who is known as “godfather of democracy,” media tycoon Jimmy Lai and the veteran lawyer, Margaret Ng were arrested by the Lam administration.
The self-confessed devout of Xi Jinping is now labelling those who dare to oppose the law as “enemies of the people.” While she loves to label the detractors of the CCP, Lam is well aware of the threats posed but the CCP. Acting as a true coward, her husband and her two sons continue to enjoy British citizenship and continue to live outside the city. If Lam is so sure of Hong Kong’s progress under the CCP, why doesn’t her family give up British citizenship and reside in Hong Kong?
Although Carrie Lam renounced her British nationality, her HUSBAND and TWO SONS are BRITISH citizens. It is clear that Lam doesn't care about Hong Kong and its future, her family lives outside and it's all that matters for her.
3/n
— Indranil Sen (@TheIndranilSen) July 4, 2020
The people of Hong Kong are dejected, and pretty much given up as they have no hopes from Carrie Lam. Even before the pandemic, the once economically prosperous region of Hong Kong had entered into a state of recession. Without firing a single bullet, Carrie Lam killed an entire city that is now likely to flooded with a CCP-loyalist population and completely changed the demographics of the city.