Journalist’s Expulsion Casts Shadow on Hong Kong’s Future

By Austin Ramzy and Amy Qin from Hong Kong @ NYTimes.com,  Nov. 2, 2018

[...] Diplomats from the United States, Britain and the European Union have asked for an explanation. Multinational businesses are worried about Hong Kong’s future as a regional base. And some journalists say the “death of Hong Kong” — a phrase commonly heard before the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule in 1997 — has finally arrived.

The controversy has also focused global attention on the cause of Hong Kong independence, which the authorities badly want to suppress, and on the divided allegiances of Hong Kong’s leaders, who are supposed to serve the city and defend its special status but owe their jobs to the Communist government in Beijing.

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, has dismissed as “pure speculation” what almost everyone in Hong Kong has concluded — that Mr. Mallet’s forced departure was an act of retaliation signaling a new limit on political speech. Yet, she has offered no other explanation [....]