My Take | Beijing puts extradition bill first, not Carrie Lam’s political survival

The world of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has been turned upside down. Until recently, the city’s leader had got away with so much by offering back so little.

Not any more. Sunday’s mass rally exceeding a million people, according to organisers, means not just the usual opposition groups object to the government’s extradition bill, but many Hongkongers. The bill enabling the sending of fugitives to Chinese territories including the mainland may be the political crisis from which Lam won’t be able to recover.

The turnout was all the more extraordinary considering just a few days before, the annual vigil to mark the June 4 crackdown recorded the highest number of participants in years.

There was a period of so-called protest fatigue following the Occupy movement in 2014 and the Mong Kok riot in 2016, a time of passivity from which Lam had greatly benefited in the past two years. That might have given her a false sense of security.

The opposition was so demoralised during that time, the government was able to crack down on radical localist and separatist groups in and outside the Legislative Council, as well as Mong Kok rioters.

Disqualification of radical lawmakers and election hopefuls; tightening of Legco rules to halt the opposition’s delaying tactics against government bills; “co-location” at the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus allowing mainland officers to clear customs and immigration in the heart of Hong Kong – Lam got away with all of them, thanks more to luck than skill.

With the extradition bill, the government started off by being too clever by half; now that has come back to haunt them. Initially, the official story was that a legal loophole had prevented Hong Kong from returning a murder suspect to Taiwan where he had allegedly killed his girlfriend.