My Take | CY Leung is basking in his new role as a state leader

After five years of being the punching-bag-in-chief, who can blame Hong Kong’s outgoing chief executive for preferring to hobnob with mainland honchos than to face his legions of local enemies and critics

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As a soon-to-be ex-leader of Hong Kong, he doesn’t have to worry about provoking the local anti-mainland forces. He now has the luxury of laying it on the line without having to worry too much about consequences. Photo: David Wong

Published: 12:22am, 10 May 2017Updated: 12:22am, 10 May 2017

Leung Chun-ying is giving the term lame duck a whole new meaning. Usually, sunset leaders complain about how ineffectual they have become when important people don’t immediately return their phone calls.

But, despite having almost two months left in office, our outgoing chief executive seems to have already left his old job. Instead, Leung is relishing his new-found status as a bona fide state leader. Like it or not, he is now openly promoting mainland economic policies in the region, and has been doing so ever since he was appointed in March as a vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

He is, for example, leading a 30-strong delegation this weekend to a high-profile summit in Beijing on the country’s ambitious “Belt and Road Initiative”. He will be talking about Hong Kong’s “super-connectivity” to a panel of senior officials from the Ministry of Finance, the People’s Bank of China, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}My Take | CY Leung is basking in his new role as a state leader

My Take | CY Leung is basking in his new role as a state leader