Hong Kong's Leader Backpedaled, But Here's Why The Opposition Movement Continues
Under a "one country, two systems" policy, Hong Kong is connected to China but with its own legal protections. Protesters view the extradition bill as a threat to that arrangement.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam has apologized publicly twice for proposing a bill to allow extraditions to mainland China, and now other senior officials have followed suit.
But a week after the legislation set off massive protests, the largely youth-driven opposition movement is keeping up its demands. Protest organizers are urging Lam to permanently withdraw the bill and resign.
Yet the issue has laid bare a broader crisis beyond the extradition bill. Hong Kong is reckoning with its tricky relationship with the Chinese authorities in Beijing, in a clash between two starkly different systems.
Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, under an agreement — "one country,
