Carrie Lam needs Hong Kong people on her side if she is to do her job

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor probably didn’t expect to be granted a “honeymoon” period. Only six weeks into the job, the Hong Kong leader has been working hard: making trips to Singapore, Thailand and, most recently, Beijing, on top of getting new education subsidies passed at home.

Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, blasted the city’s pan-democrats in a magazine interview, and suggested that Hong Kong should enact national security legislation and introduce national education – two sharply divisive issues in Hong Kong. He inadvertently pulled the rug from under Lam’s efforts to mend the political rift. When pushed for a response, however, Lam said calmly that she respected the checks and balances inherent in Hong Kong’s political system. She barely wriggled out of that one.

Then, at a meeting with the nation’s education minister Chen Baosheng, Lam was sideswiped by Chen’s “mansplaining”. This time, Lam’s response was disappointingly weak. Instead of pushing back at the assumption that she needed to be told what her job was and how to do it, she sidestepped it by saying education policy was not her forte. Lam’s image of being unafraid of taking on a fight took a beating.