The fog seems to be lifting over at Upper Albert Road with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor seeming to have realised that her government needs to do more than just release the same stale statement condemning violence day after day as it has done over the last six months. During the Christmas break, the government finally released new content, targeting Britain-based charity Hong Kong Watch for being “fake, utterly irresponsible and grossly unfair”. But it remains clueless as to how to curb the violence and get Hong Kong back on track. The Lam administration seems unaware that delegating its job to the police has left the reputation of Asia’s finest in tatters, reflected in the distressing results of a recent survey commissioned by the Post . The police has borne the brunt of increasingly violent protests and a largely hostile society combined with a government hell bent on sitting on its hands. With violent clashes still common, the survey found an alarming 73 per cent of respondents from across the political spectrum had lost trust in the police. Although Chinese President Xi Jinping has used every opportunity to express the central government’s endorsement of the chief executive, several things are worth noting. First, Beijing’s repeated message hasn’t inspired Lam and her government to step up on the action front. For all intents and purposes, the government remains one of just talk and no action. Taking out public service announcement spots in the local media to tell residents to “say no to violence” hasn’t helped the situation in Hong Kong, as the fresh round of violence and arson over Christmas confirms. The lives of ordinary Hongkongers continue to be severely affected. That these violent clashes have moved from the few “designated spots” of yore into shopping malls didn’t just dampen the mood of holiday shoppers. There was very little Christmas cheer in Hong Kong. Midnight masses were moved up or cancelled due to widespread public safety concerns. The last time Hongkongers celebrated Christmas in the midst of fear was in 1941 , when Hong Kong fell to the Japanese imperial army on Christmas Day, having been under fierce attack for weeks. What people then called “Black Christmas” made a comeback this year. Supposed to the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas, too, became a political casualty. In case Lam hasn’t noticed, the Tourism Board has effectively cancelled New Year as well, calling off the city’s traditional New Year’s Eve fireworks over Victoria Harbour. Looking further ahead, the Lunar New Year parade will not be happening either. Other major events have been cancelled since the protests began in June; without any meaningful action from the government for so long, the scrapping of the fireworks and parade was inevitable. The government’s latest move – a second advertising blitz involving full-page ads placed in international newspapers – is a tad misleading. The ads feature an eye-catching “On” image next to “Hong Kong” and sell the city as continuing to be a “welcoming, free society”. In reality, very little is “on” in Hong Kong and I am not just talking about the pyrotechnics display. It is not lost on the international community that as free and safe as the government claims Hong Kong to be, it wasn’t deemed good enough for China’s president. Xi was in neighbouring Macau to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the city’s handover to China. Xi Jinping stresses need to get balance right in ‘one country, two systems’ A quick pop-over via the world’s longest sea crossing, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge , which Xi inaugurated just in October last year, shouldn’t have been hard. The fact that it didn’t happen, even though the mega structure, touted as a product of Chinese technological advancement, is now in operation, definitely points to how “off” Hong Kong actually is. For 2020, the government must recognise that actions speak louder than words. It must respond to the crises that have arisen from its months of inaction. Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA