{"id":43372,"date":"2022-04-08T16:57:21","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T07:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/08\/john-lee-hong-kong-chief-security-police-officer-beijing"},"modified":"2022-04-08T16:57:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T07:57:21","slug":"john-lee-the-hardline-security-official-leading-race-to-become-hong-kong-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=43372","title":{"rendered":"John Lee: the hardline security official leading race to become Hong Kong chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-police officer who oversaw government crackdown on protesters in 2019 is sole candidate with Beijing\u2019s blessing<\/p>\n<p>John Lee, a career police officer turned hardline security official, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/06\/hong-kong-security-official-to-stand-as-chief-executive\">running unopposed<\/a> to take over the top job in Hong Kong\u2019s elections next month. As the sole candidate with Beijing\u2019s blessing, he is all but guaranteed to become the next chief executive, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n<p>Lee announced his intention to run after stepping down on Wednesday from his post as chief secretary, the city\u2019s second-highest post, less than a year after he was promoted to the position from top security official. Carrie Lam, who currently holds the position, announced on Monday she would not be seeking a second term.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/apr\/08\/john-lee-hong-kong-chief-security-police-officer-beijing\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-police officer who oversaw government crackdown on protesters in 2019 is sole candidate with Beijing\u2019s blessingJohn Lee, a career police officer turned hardline security official, is running unopposed to take over the top job in Hong Kong\u2019s election&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2735,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43373,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43372\/revisions\/43373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}