Chaos in Hong Kong as Carrie Lam forced to abandon ‘state of the union’ address amid protests

Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam was prevented from delivering her annual state of the union-style address on Wednesday during scenes of unprecedented chaos in the city’s parliament.

Opposition members of the legislative council shouted pro-democracy slogans and projected messages on the wall behind Ms Lam as she began addressing the chamber.

Ms Lam attempted to start her speech twice, but suspended the address after being shouted down a second time. A video message of her delivering the full speech was later made available on the government’s website.

It is thought to be the first time a chief executive of Hong Kong has failed to deliver the address, an annual event that is supposed to set out the government’s policy agenda for the 12 months ahead.

And by stopping Ms Lam’s speech, opposition politicians actually denied legislators their first opportunity to withdraw the controversial extradition bill that sparked months of demonstrations. The legislative council has not sat since July when the main parliamentary building was first targeted by protesters.

During today’s protest in the chamber, some MPs held up placards showing Ms Lam with hands coloured blood red, while others wore masks of the Chinese president Xi Jinping.

They chanted “five demands, not one less”, a reference to protesters’ key stipulations including immunity from prosecution and universal suffrage. The same slogan was also projected on to the wall behind Ms Lam.

Speaking at a news conference after Ms Lam had given up and left the chamber, pro-democracy politician Tanya Chan said the chief executive was to blame for the chaos in the city that began in June.

“Both her hands are soaked with blood,” Ms Chan said. “We hope Carrie Lam withdraws and quits. She has no governance ability... she is not suitable to be chief executive.”

When Ms Lam did finally deliver her speech via video message, she set out key policies to address a housing crisis that her government has described as the most pressing matter the city faces.

Speaking to camera, with China’s yellow-starred red flag to her right and Hong Kong’s flag on her left, she announced a plan to use a colonial-era ordinance to take back about 700 hectares of private land for use as public housing, a measure known as “resumption” that has not been carried out successfully since Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.

“I hereby set a clear objective that every Hong Kong citizen and his family will no longer have to be troubled by or pre-occupied with the housing problem, and that they will be able to have their own home in Hong Kong,” she said.

Ms Lam inevitably touched on what she called the “major crisis” of political unrest, appealing to her 7.5 million citizens to “cherish the city” and warning that “continued violence and spread of hatred will erode the core values of Hong Kong”.

But by focusing on day-to-day issues like the economy and housing, Ms Lam stuck to a strategy that her government clearly believes has the capacity to divide and diminish the protest movement.

“We have to put aside differences and stop attacking each other,” she said. “I thoroughly believe that Hong Kong will be able to ride out this storm and move on.”

After months of bruising, almost daily rallies, Wednesday’s emotional scenes at the legislative council served as a powerful reminder that many in the pro-democracy movement are not ready to “move on” just yet.

And the movement received an injection of support late on Tuesday from the US House of Representatives, which passed a bill aimed at upholding the human rights of citizens in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which still needs to go to the Senate, would require the US government to conduct a review each year into whether Hong Kong still retained enough autonomy from the rest of China to justify its special trading status.

Other bills were also passed, including one which supported people’s right to protest in the Hong Kong, saying they should not be denied US visas in the future even if they had been arrested during the current crisis.

Another bill was approved that would prevent US exports, including teargas, that could be used against protesters in Hong Kong.

The widespread use of teargas by riot-control squads and 2,600 arrests – involving scores of teenagers, some children as young as 12 and one 83-year-old – have triggered public disgust and international condemnation.