Exclusive | Hong Kong’s extradition furore ‘a real challenge’ but no crisis, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung insists
- City’s No 2 official says government has not communicated its aims well enough
- He adds that worries about legal amendments – which brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets in protest – will dissipate once they are implemented
Hong Kong’s No 2 official has admitted communication with the public on the controversial extradition bill could have been better and the administration faces “a real challenge” to its governance, while insisting the city has not been plunged into a crisis by a historic public protest against the proposal.
In an exclusive interview with the Post on Monday, Matthew Cheung Kin-chung described the saga over the proposed legal amendments, which would allow the transfer of criminal suspects to places including mainland China, Taiwan and Macau, as “very unfortunate”.
But he said it was essentially a problem of messaging. “Had we communicated with the community much better from day one, I’m sure the situation would have been different,” the chief secretary said.
“At least, we would have eased a lot of unwarranted concerns.”
Cheung said the government should have got the right message across in layman’s terms earlier, adding that it would continue trying to communicate its aims in the coming days.