Think again, Beijing: Carrie Lam is the wrong person to lead Hong Kong out of the political storm
Tom Plate believes the central government should back John Tsang, the leader the people want, rather than the mediocre and unpopular Carrie Lam to be the SAR’s next chief executive
Since the 1997 handover, the special administrative region of Hong Kong has been in the limelight. On the whole, its new life under Beijing’s absolute sovereignty has not gone badly: People’s Liberation Army troops are not befouling the streets, as much of the Western media once all but predicted; the economy sails along, and this dandy gem remains one of the world’s most iconic metropolises ... up-and-coming Shanghai notwithstanding.
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How should Hong Kong ‘drain the swamp’?
Hong Kong is not alone, by the way, in using a bizarre intermediary system that dilutes voters’ sentiment. Mathematically simple, one-person, one-vote systems are not everyone’s cup of tea.
Is the Hong Kong system for selecting its leader so categorically different? By the end of the month, the 1,194-member Election Committee is to produce, by majority decision, the next chief. Mathematically, that is close to one elector per 6,000 people; by comparison, the US has one elector for every 600,000 people. Choose the system you like better.
Ten years ago, in Singapore, the late Lee Kuan Yew was wondering about Hillary Clinton, who at that time looked a slam dunk to become US president someday. How good was she? I shot a glance at the university colleague with me in Lee’s office at the Istana, the government palace, and we agreed: she’s good enough. Lee mulled that over: “Good enough? Well, good ... Because anyone you elect president, we in Asia have to live with.”
Similarly, anyone selected by Hong Kong as its next leader, the rest of us will have to live with. This means that if the leader is popular and can govern well and keep relations with Beijing steady, we are all winners. Then, Hong Kong stays the shining jewel and avoids turning into ... a Taiwan in diapers.
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It’s a near certainty that none of Hong Kong’s first three chief executives will be crowned by history as great Chinese leaders, in the company of Zhu Rongji ( 朱鎔基 ), Zhou Enlai ( 周恩來 ) and others.
Has Beijing changed its mind about giving Hong Kong people the vote?
Accordingly, Carrie Lam would seem to fit nicely into this unthreatening tradition of mediocrity – as John Tsang very well might not. “Don’t rock the boat” is the course Beijing wants. But probably what it will get instead is the opposite: endlessly turbulent political waters that will sink a hapless Lam, as they have Leung and Tung.
Since taking over in 2012, the Xi government has made a number of commendable decisions. This is not one of them. Is it too late to switch Beijing’s fateful finger of favouritism to Tsang? For, in pushing Lam over Tsang, Beijing is playing a losing game. You’d hate to see Beijing make a major blunder in its custody of Hong Kong. But such appears to be looming. Please think this one through again, Beijing.
Loyola Marymount University clinical professor Tom Plate, its distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific Studies, is author of the Giants of Asia quartet, including Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew