Could she ? Wouldn’t she have been "disappeared" as well as her family ?
Not trying to excuse anything of course, she chose her side a long time ago, but still…
But let's say you believe that dark scenario. In that case, even small gestures, like visiting a school or hospital, or not calling protesters "enemies of the people", would have been a sign of sympathy.
She did visit the local mosque to apologize when the police blasted it with tainted water, after she was called out on it. She did not visit nor apologize to local churchs which experienced worse behavior.
She simply refuses to learn what Hong Kongers truly think of her. The district elections were a stinging rebuke to her administration, yet she believes that she is right.
We Hong Kongers will remember her and her cronies forever, in the same way we remember the June 4th crackdown.
China is, and Hong Kong is part of China. This is the root of the entire problem.
If she decided to "make Beijing happy", then what's the endgame?
She thought this was going to end well? And she was going to get rewarded by the CCP?
Interesting part of the article is that it says different. Carrie Lam initiated the crisis on her own without instructions from Beijing.
Lam's own leaked statements say otherwise [1].
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3025579...
> “But, of course, I’m sure in your hearts you will feel, and I’m sure a large number of people feel that I do have a solution, that is a political one. But I have to tell you that this is where the crux of the matter lies."
> “Once an issue has been elevated to the situation [name redacted], to a national level, to a sort of sovereignty and security level, let alone in the midst of this sort of unprecedented tension between the two big economies in the world.
> “The room, the political room for the Chief Executive who, unfortunately, has to serve two masters by constitution, that is the central people’s government and the people of Hong Kong, that political room for manoeuvering is very, very, very limited."
Assuming she was being honest (no reason not to, given this was a private meeting behind closed doors), if she has no political power of her own, how is she not executing CCP policy?
Also, I would take what Carrie Lam says here (and anywhere) with a grain of salt.
I don't say anything. I refer to the specifics mentioned in the article.
Any large movement has divisions within it with different priorities.
Except she could have chosen to take the HKer's side. She is after all a HK citizen and its representative even without true election. Seven million rebels can parallelize a city, but pissing off a few thousand bureaucrats in the politburo simply leads to tantrums and rhetorics. If she had done that, HK's economy would not have stalled, HKers would rally behind her, and the whole Two System debate could be channelled into a consultation process that can remain civil and reasonable.
HKers will not forgive her for her missteps and police brutality that led to thousands of arrested and hundreds of maimed/injured/raped/dead. That will always be her legacy.
But HKers can thank her incompetence for triggering the nationalistic feeling of a Hongkonger. The city of immigrants and world refugees has never been so clearly in sync, and the common enemy so in focus.