Community dialogues can help heal rifts in Hong Kong

In an attempt to foster community cohesiveness and gauge public opinions as a way to end the violent turmoil that has rocked the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for more than three months, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor met with 150 members of the public in the Wan Chai district on Thursday.

This was the first of a series of "difficult" face-to-face community dialogues seeking change for the "betterment of Hong Kong society".

Lam announced her intention to build communication platforms on Aug 20, with the aim of collecting input from various sectors of society and across the political spectrum in a bid to find a way out of the current situation and the way forward for the SAR.