Carrie Lam 'would resign if she had the choice'

Carrie Lam reportedly told business leaders she had limited scope for solving the political crisis. Photo: AP

Chief Executive Carrie Lam has told a group of business leaders that she's sorry for the "unforgivable havoc" caused by her attempts to push through the extradition bill, while admitting she had limited scope to resolve the crisis as Sino-US tensions increase.



Reuters News Agency said it had reviewed a 24-minute audio recording of the behind-closed-doors meeting, which took place last week.



Reuters quoted her as saying, in English: “If I have a choice. The first thing is to quit, having made a deep apology.”



Lam also told the meeting there was no plan to deploy the People's Liberation Army to the city, and denied that Beijing had set a deadline of October 1, National Day, for the resolution of the crisis.



However, Lam reportedly told the meeting the issued had been elevated “to a national level" and "to a sort of sovereignty and security level, let alone in the midst of this sort of unprecedented tension between the two big economies in the world".



Reuters said it had confirmed the contents of the recording with three people present at the meeting.



Lam's spokesman declined to comment on what she said in private meetings.



She reportedly also said the state leadership was aware of the likely effect on the nation's reputation of sending troops in, which would be "too high a price to pay". Beijing was, she added, willing to play the long game, despite the likely decline in tourism and capital inflows.



Still, she expressed frustration at the fact she could neither take the pressure off front-line police officers, nor find a political solution to ease the fury of protesters.