John Lee won the election on Sunday to be the next leader of Hong Kong. He previously had served as a security chief, and he was the only candidate for voters to choose. The committee who chose him were mostly pro-Beijing, and he won 99 percent of their votes. The previous leader, Carrie Lam, led the country during a tumultuous time. The country had been a site of relentless protests over government policies. For example, an extradition bill was passed in 2019, which brought about a wave of peaceful marches.

Although the marches were peaceful initially, there were later reports of rioting, and thousands of people have since then been arrested for the protests. What started out as legally-approved marches later became riots, as protestors grew more frustrated with the Hong Kong political system. The majority of the protestors are in their early twenties, and the estimated number of arrests have been reported to be in the hundreds of thousands. Between June and December of 2019, 6100 people were arrested for actively participating in the riots.