Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam pulls extradition bill that caused months of protests. Will it be enough?

Photo from June 16th's protest that may have seen 2 million people in the streets. New York Times.

Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam has pulled an extradition bill that has caused months of protests in the city. New York Times. The bill caused the worst crisis in China since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. The withdrawal of the bill gets rid of one of the demands the protesters had but it is unclear if pulling the bill will do anything to reduce the unrest. The bill had already been tabled but not formally withdrawn. The protesters have other demands including investigation into police brutality, amnesty for arrested protesters and direct elections. 

My Comment:

I am guessing that this is too little too late for the protesters. If Carrie Lam had done this back in June she might have stopped the protests in their tracks. But too much has happened since then and there is now a lot of anger at how the protesters were treated. Pulling the bill completely won't change that. 

I do think that this is an attempt to quell these protests and is strong proof that China's leadership is terrified of the protests spreading. They lost quite a bit of face in pulling the bill as even now hardliners are saying that they caved to protester demands. I think there is truth in that and doing so is evidence that China's leadership is out of ideas. 

Should the protesters give up the fight? There is an argument for it. The extradition law was the cause of all of this in the first place and now it's dead. Continuing the protests now could result in a crackdown as it may convince the Chinese government that nothing else will work. After all, pulling the law is a major olive branch and to reject it could have serious consequences.

On the other hand, I think the people of Hong Kong fear that their city will eventually be taken over by the Chinese government. Due to unusual circumstances Hong Kong is essentially a western city in China. They are used to freedoms that the people of China lack, such as limited democracy and different laws. Pulling the bill won't ease those fears and I think they are right that China hates the fact that Hong Kong isn't fully under their control. They only option the people of Hong Kong may have is to continue the protests. 

It remains to be seen what the protesters will do. My gut says that a few of them will now stay home but the movement as a whole will survive. This will almost certainly result in a crackdown from China. I don't think they realize that they can probably just wait this out like France did with the Gilets Jaunes protests. They are terrified of these protests spreading.

Of course if they do crack down it will have major consequences, not the least of which is the protest spreading to mainland China. They would also face international sanctions and would likely lose their trade war with the United States. But I can't see them doing anything else. Totalitarian states only have one option when it comes to resistance and it's to crack down...