Hong Kong's battles with the mainland have reached tenacious levels with protesters refusing to back down and for the most part of the protests that have lasted for nearly 14 weeks, the chief executive leader of the city, Carrie Lam has refused to step down. The Beijing-backed leader has long maintained that the extradition bill was scrapped and the leadership “will listen … (but) the crisis in front of us is not about aspirations or the Bill, it is about Hong Kong's security and law and order," Lam said on August 5.
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And even then, Lam had refused to step down. On the night of September 2, a recording emerged saying she wanted to quit and apologise for causing the unrest that has rocked the city. She has however made it clear that she has no intention of stepping down.
"For a chief executive to have caused this huge havoc to Hong Kong is unforgivable," Lam said in the audio recording.
It further said, "If I have a choice," she said, speaking in English, "the first thing is to quit, having made a deep apology." Lam indeed said these at a closed-door meeting with business leaders, but maintained that the audio being leaked was "quite unacceptable".
The business leaders were told by Lam, that she had "very limited" room to resolve the crisis because it had become a national security and sovereignty issue for Beijing.
The city has endured three months of violent pro-democracy protests, triggered by opposition to Chief Executive Carrie Lam's bid to push through a law allowing extraditions to mainland China.
They have now evolved into a wider democracy campaign involving violent clashes between protesters and police. This is the biggest challenge to China's rule of Hong Kong since the handover from the British in 1997.
"I told myself repeatedly in the last three months that I and my team should stay on to help Hong Kong," Lam told a press conference on Tuesday morning.
So far, the Beijing backed police force has arrested more than 1100 people since the beginning of the unrest in June including numerous pro-democracy leaders and politicians. Protesters have been throwing bricks and petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas, water cannon and baton charges. China has also ramped up threats that security forces could intervene if things got out of hand.
An editorial by China's state news agency on Sunday warned the protesters that "the end is coming".
Lam in the meantime said that she did not pity her self, but lamented that she couldn't step out go out in public or visit the hair salon, for fear of encountering protesters. Lam also held a press conference on August 27 and said that she has met with a group of people including few of whom have taken part in political protests. There she disputed criticism that her government is ignoring the protesters. She said, "it is not a question of not responding. It is a question of not accepting those demands."