Can a ‘Very Confident’ Carrie Lam Salvage Her Legacy in Hong Kong?
The New York Times
Mrs. Lam is Hong Kong’s most unpopular leader ever, blamed for mass protests and a political crackdown. Yet she now appears reinvigorated, perhaps even ready for a second term.
HONG KONG — The students sat quietly as soldiers goose-stepped into the Hong Kong high school’s auditorium, hoisting a Chinese flag. The M.C.s spoke in Mandarin, the language of mainland China, rather than Cantonese, the city’s predominant language. Then Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, took the podium, to extol the importance of patriotism in the city’s youth.
It was Mrs. Lam’s fourth visit to a school in recent weeks — a striking count for a leader who for two years had barely set foot on a campus. When anti-government protests engulfed the city in 2019, young people were among the most devoted participants, with high schoolers boycotting classes and forming human chains.
But now, as the scene this month at the school, Pui Kiu, made clear, things had changed: The pro-China side — and by extension, Mrs. Lam — was back in charge. While a Hong Kong cliché long held that the chief executive serves two masters, Beijing and the Hong Kong people, the 2019 protests and the ensuing crisis crystallized that only one really mattered.
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