The U-turn is a humiliation for Beijing, which has sought to tighten its grip on Hong Kong
IT WAS a remarkable climbdown in the face of mass protests. Just three days after suggesting that to retreat would be like spoiling a child, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, announced the indefinite shelving of a proposed law that would allow the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China. Mrs Lam now says she wants to avoid “chaos” in Hong Kong.
On this occasion, however, opposition has involved far more than the usual critics of the party’s policies in Hong Kong. Businesspeople, lawyers and foreign governments have expressed considerable anxiety about the legislation.
Hong Kong’s government had argued that the main reason for introducing the bill now was to enable a suspect to be sent to face trial in Taiwan, where he is alleged to have murdered his girlfriend. The man is currently in prison in Hong Kong for a money-laundering offence and is due to be released in October. The bill would remove a provision in Hong Kong’s current law that excludes extraditions to “other parts of China”, which in Hong Kong means the mainland, as well as Macau and Taiwan.
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