Paradoxically, Carrie Lam, the leader who created the crisis, is now in the strongest position to defuse the chaos on the streets. Beijing threw her under the bus when she was summoned to Shenzhen and told to back off the Extradition Bill. Lam was used as the scapegoat. She has no reason anymore not to do the right thing by Hong Kong.
Support was withdrawn not because Beijing didn’t want the Extradition Bill passed, but to avoid embarrassment to the president at the G20 summit in Osaka, and to prevent Tsai Ing-wen gaining political advantage in the upcoming Taiwan elections. The timing was just inopportune. Lam was sacrificed to a higher political need.
