Under the watch of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, huge citywide protests deepened political divisions. A national security law silenced a once-vibrant civil society. And restrictive pandemic policies threatened Hong Kong’s status as Asia’s world city.
With each crisis, Lam tried to serve the will of Beijing, which controls the territory, and navigate competing pressures from residents and an international community leery of China’s growing authoritarian grip over Hong Kong.
On Monday, those pressures appeared to boil over as Lam announced that she would not seek a second five-year term, marking the end of one of the most tumultuous periods of governance in Hong Kong’s recent history.