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Hong Kong extradition bill
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Extradition bill protests: what Hong Kong’s history of riots can teach Carrie Lam

  • The best way for the embattled chief executive to find a way out of the city’s present crisis may be to look to its past, historians and former officials say
  • After all, the British colonial administration weathered far more violent affairs

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Rioting in Kowloon in April 1966. File photo
Gary Cheung

Temperatures are rising, tensions are boiling over, and the city’s leaders are feeling the heat of the worst political unrest since Britain handed back its colonial jewel to China more than 20 years ago. Now, it seems, is the summer of Hong Kong’s discontent.

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Since an estimated 2 million-plus people – more than a quarter of the city’s population – took to the streets last month to oppose a bill that would allow for extraditions to territories the city does not currently have agreements with, including – and most controversially – mainland China, the government’s efforts to cool fraying tempers have had precious little effect.

When Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor subsequently agreed to put the bill on ice, it was not enough for the young protesters who stormed the legislature on July 1, daubing it with graffiti in a sign of defiance that made waves across the world. And when the embattled leader went a step further this week, declaring the bill “dead”, most protesters remained unmoved, dismissing her comments as a public relations stunt. With no end in sight to the troubles, it’s perhaps not surprising that most minds are concentrated on what the protesters will do next. But some observers, former officials and historians among them, suggest the best way for Lam and company to find a way out of the current mess is to look to the past – at how former administrations dealt with the crises they faced. After all, when it comes to political disturbances, Hong Kong has a long history.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Photo: AFP
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Photo: AFP

THE DOUBLE TENTH RIOTS

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One of the deadliest incidents of civil unrest to hit Hong Kong happened on October 10, 1956 – the so-called “Double Tenth Day” – when fighting broke out between pro-Communist and pro-Nationalist factions. Fifty-nine people were killed and some 500 injured before the colonial administration reined in the situation with the help of armoured troops of the 7th Hussars.

The clashes stemmed from tensions overhanging from the Chinese Civil War, which ended in 1949 with the nationalist Kuomintang fleeing to Taiwan and the Communist Party establishing the People’s Republic on the Chinese mainland.

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