Hong Kong SCRAPS hated China extradition bill but China warns against more unrest
BELEAGUERED Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has formally SCRAPPED the controversial extradition bill today in a massive blow to Chinese influence over the state.
The bill, which would have allowed extraditions to mainland China where courts are controlled by the Communist Party, has sparked months of unrest.
But since the protest movement started in June, it has evolved into a push for greater democracy in the former British colony.
And in a historic climbdown Ms Lam has announced the formal withdrawal of the bill in a meeting today, government sources have told Reuters.
But Chinese leaders warned that further unrest would not be tolerated.
Chinese spokesman Yang Guang said: “There’s no middle ground on the issue of quelling unrest. No hesitation, wavering or vacillation should be tolerated.
“They are rioters, 100 per cent.”
Protest leaders pledged no let-up.
Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index earlier jumped after it was first reported that the bill would be scrapped - trading up about 3.3 percent. The property index also jumped 6 percent.
Last week, protesters set fires at Hong Kong International Airport and also smashed up a train station near the major travel hub amid anger over alleged police brutality.
The withdrawal of the draft legislation was one of the protesters' key demands. Lam has said before that the bill was "dead" but she did not withdraw it.
Hong Kong returned to China under a "one country, two systems" formula that allows it to keep freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland such as the right to protest and an independent legal system.
BILL TO BE SCRAPPED
The anger sparked by the extradition bill was due to a perceived creeping influence by Beijing.
Leading activist Joshua Wong says the withdrawal is "too little and too late now".
In response to the news of the bill's proposed removal, he tweeted: "Carrie Lam's response comes after 7 lives sacrificed, more than 1,200 protesters arrested, in which many are mistreated in police station."
He said that alleged police brutality has "left an irreversible scar on the entire HK society."
Mr Wong said that despite today's move, he believes that "a full-scale clampdown is on the way."
It emerged on Monday that Lam told business leaders last week she had caused "unforgivable havoc" by introducing the bill and that if she had a choice she would apologise and resign, according to a leaked audio recording.
At the closed-door meeting, Lam told the group that she now has "very limited" room to resolve the crisis because the unrest has become a national security and sovereignty issue for China amid rising tensions with the US.
Her remarks are consistent with a Reuters report published on Friday that revealed how leaders in Beijing were effectively calling the shots on handling the crisis.
HONG KONG'S HISTORY
Hong Kong became a British colony with the end of the First Opium War in 1842.
The British fought the war to preserve the right of the East India Company to sell opium into mainland China.
The establishment of the colony gave Britain control over a number of ports to which foreign merchants could deliver goods.
Britain obtained a 99-year lease for the territory in 1898, and relinquished control when that lease expired in 1997.
Hong Kong now operates as a semi-autonomous territory, with control over its own trade, tax, and immigration policy.
Under the terms of the 1997 handover, that status is protected until 2047.
What happens after then is currently undecided, but opponents of the Beijing government fear that China will seek to gain control of the territory.
The Chinese government rejected a recent proposal by Lam to defuse the conflict that included withdrawing the extradition bill altogether, three sources told Reuters.
Asked about the report, China's foreign ministry said the central government "supports, respects and understands" Lam's decision to suspend the bill.
The Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily, denounced it as "fake".
China has regularly denounced the protests and warned about the impact on Hong Kong's economy.
PROTESTS ROCK HONG KONG
The emerging superpower denies it is meddling in Hong Kong's affairs but warned again on Tuesday that it would not sit idly by if the unrest threatened Chinese security and sovereignty.
The unrest had shown no sign of easing last night.
Riot police fired beanbag guns and used pepper spray - both anti-riot weapons - yesterday to clear demonstrators from outside the Mong Kok police station and in Prince Edward metro station.
One man taken out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face, television footage showed.
Videos showing the man being apprehended by the police in the station have been widely shared on social media.
CHINA 'TAKING CONTROL'
Protest groups and activists say the disturbing footage is evidence of police brutality they claim is widespread and needs to be investigated.
Cops, who have repeatedly denied using excessive force, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Three men, aged between 21 and 42, were taken to Kwong Wa Hospital late on Tuesday, a hospital authority spokeswoman said.
Two, including the man stretchered out of Prince Edward station, were in a stable condition and one had been discharged, she said.
Timeline of the key dates around the extradition bill and the protests it triggered.
- February 2019 - Hong Kong's Security Bureau submits a paper to the city's legislature proposing amendments to extradition laws that would provide for case-by-case extraditions to countries, including mainland China, beyond the 20 states with which Hong Kong already has treaties.
- March 31 - Thousands take to the streets of Hong Kong to protest against the proposed extradition bill.
- April 3 - Lam's government introduces amendments to Hong Kong's extradition laws that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial.
- April 28 - Tens of thousands of people march on Hong Kong's parliament to demand the scrapping of the proposed amendments to the extradition laws.
- May 11 - Scuffles break out in Hong Kong's legislature between pro-democracy lawmakers and those loyal to Beijing over the extradition bill.
- May 21 - Lam says her administration is determined to push the bill through the legislature.
- May 30 - Hong Kong introduces concessions to the extradition bill, including limiting the scope of extraditable offences. Critics say they are not enough.
- June 6 - More than 3,000 Hong Kong lawyers take to the streets dressed in black in a rare protest march against the extradition law.
- June 9 - More than half a million take to the streets in protest.
- June 12 - Police fire rubber bullets and tear gas during the city's largest and most violent protests in decades. Government offices are shut for the rest of the week.
- June 15 - Lam indefinitely delays the proposed extradition law.
- July 1 - Protesters storm the Legislative Council on the 22nd anniversary of the handover from British to Chinese rule, destroying pictures and daubing walls with graffiti.
- July 9 - Lam says the extradition bill is dead and that government work on the legislation had been a "total failure".
- July 21 - Men, clad in white T-shirts and some armed with poles, flood into rural Yuen Long station and storm a train, attacking passengers and passers-by, including members of the media, after several thousand activists surrounded China's representative office in the city earlier in the day, and clashed with police.
- July 30 - Forty-four activists are charged with rioting, the first time this charge has been used during these protests.
- Aug. 9 - China's aviation regulator demands Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific suspend personnel who have taken part in the protests. The airline suspends a pilot, one of 44 charged with rioting the month before, the next day.
- Aug. 14 - Police and protesters clash at Hong Kong's international airport after flights were disrupted for a second day. The airport resumed operations later that day, rescheduling hundreds of flights.
- Aug. 21 - China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba delays its up to $15 billion listing in Hong Kong, initially set for late August.
- Sept. 2 - Lam says she has caused "unforgivable havoc" by igniting the political crisis engulfing the city and would quit if she had a choice, according to an audio recording obtained by Reuters of remarks she made to a group of businesspeople.
- Sept. 3 - Lam says she had never asked the Chinese government to let her resign to end the Chinese-ruled city's political crisis, responding to the Reuters report
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