by Fong Yuen

Unusual things have been happening on Hong Kong political stage lately: one being Carrie Lam’s Beijing visit to report her work was suddenly postponed; another is back to back ruthless criticism from people of the pro-Beijing camp to Carrie Lam. They attacked Lam’s anti-pandemic measures and forced her to carbon copy the barbaric policy of the mainland. If Lam obliges, the society will turn into chaos; if she does not, she would have to step down. How is she going to tackle this?

Lam’s trip being postponed could be due to the pandemic. Maybe Xi Jinping is just too busy. The central government has always been unpredictable; some people from the pro-Beijing camp like Abraham Shek and Charles Ho previously, criticize Lam because they personally or their industry are dissatisfied with her, are also nothing out of the ordinary as there have always been different schools within the camp which often disagree with each other. However, something must be up when both events happened at the same time.

If Xi allows Lam to make her trip to do a little show and say a few empty words, it would have been sufficient to show his support to Lam’s administration; but Xi would not even do that. It does make us wonder what is hidden behind this.

Regardless of who in Beijing is in power, the central government always demands all the industries in Hong Kong to support the Chief Executive no matter how bad the work has been done. The criticism they made, such as Zhu Rongji’s “discussion without decision; decision without action” or Wen Jiabao’s “resolve deep-rooted conflicts” were never harsh or direct; Xi Jinping also looked very positive whenever he met Lam. Then suddenly, people from the pro-Beijing camp started an all-out attack on her. There must be a reason for it.

Having been given the cold shoulder from the central government and attacked by the pro-Beijing camp, has no friends, no support from the family, and being imprisoned in the Government House, how does Lam cope?

What good has Lam done for the CCP since she took office? I could not think of any. Lantau Tomorrow Vision and the Great Bay area have been discussed for years, but nothing concrete has happened. The Extradition Bill amendment last year created a world-class political storm. It has damaged the status of Hong Kong as an international finance center and ruined the CCP’s plan of making a perfect “one country, two systems” example of Hong Kong to Taiwan. Since the start of the anti-ELAB movement, Lam has repeatedly made wrong judgments when dealing with it and expanded the turmoil even Xi complained impatiently, “whoever caused the trouble must resolve the matter.” In the end, the CCP had to take the matter into its own hand and bring out national security law. With the help of the pandemic, Hong Kong became calm again. But the problem has not been resolved, and the undercurrent remains.

If the CCP does an inventory on Lam’s work since she took office, it can probably not find any political achievement. If all she does is destruction, how can Xi tolerate her any longer?

The past year was raging of police-civilian clashes, blood splashes on streets, and indecisiveness and inaction from the government. Within the Hong Kong officialdom, the CCP is unable to find an able and trustable individual to pass the baton, therefore Carrie Lam is able to remain comfortable in her position. In fact, for Xi Jinping, Carrie Lam has long been “insipid” and “tasteless”.

The situation has changed. First, with the epidemic, large-scale resistance cannot occur; Second, the National Security Law has started settling the scores. At this point, Carrie Lam is useless. What is left is to find someone to be blamed for issues she has caused.

The anti-extradition episode completely shattered the “patriotic hearts” of hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers. This was all Carrie Lam’s fault. As long as Carrie Lam remains, the people’s grievances would remain. Keeping Carrie Lam will only be immense negative equity on the CCP’s back, and it knows. Autocratic rulers depend on both gratitude and power. In addition to the draconian national security law, it needs a way for Hongkongers to let out their anger. The focus of Hongkongers’ hatred now is all on Carrie Lam. At this stage, Carrie Lam’s head is once again handy.

The CCP concocted the national security law and opened fire. It tore off its mask of modern civilization, and exposed the hideous appearance behind. But Hong Kong still has irreplaceable value for use, and the CCP would not want to go too far. If Carrie Lam has been failing at her job since she took power, stirred up all the troubles, but has not been able to clean up her mess, thus she has enemies all around Hong Kong, then why keep her?

The pro-Beijing camp has their ways of hearing things, coupled with the overdue tolerance of Carrie Lam, whenever there is any wind, people from all fronts release their thousands of arrows, and hoping that one would hit Carrie Lam and bring her down. All these opportunists in a dog eat dog world.

The pro-Beijing camp’s bombardment of Carrie Lam has only two reasons: one is that the party secretary of Hong Kong province, Luo Huining, has launched a Cultural Revolution-style criticism of mayor Carrie Lam in an attempt to force her to resign; second is that Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing factions can no longer keep their mouths shut about Carrie Lam, and are attempting to impose collective “public pressure” to force her to step down. No matter what the reason is, Carrie Lam is all by herself, and has no basis for governance. Time to consider a way out.

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