If Carrie Lam is governing Hong Kong and Luo Huining is supervising, who’s really in charge?
- Beijing played a wild card when its agencies asserted that they were exempt from Article 22 of the Basic Law
- They have created so much ambiguity about their roles that it can’t possibly bode well for Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy
What made them exempt? Simple. They are not mere mainland government departments but an extension of the central government. In some card games, a joker can be anything you want it to be. Recasting what was commonly understood as something else in the blink of an eye was a well-played joker by Beijing.
That’s where the murky part of governing and supervising comes in. Does governing transcend supervising or is it the other way round? The three flip-flopping government statements may provide a pointer.
Three hard truths for Beijing to accept about ‘one country, two systems’
The first said the liaison office and HKMAO fell within the scope of Article 22, the second omitted mention of Article 22, and the third said both entities were exempt from Article 22 – the exact position of the liaison office.
To many, the attacks on Kwok by the liaison office and the HKMAO – the accusations of misconduct and that he is breaching his oath of office by filibustering – would fall into the category of micromanaging a domestic issue rather than playing a wider supervisory role.
To supervise is to keep watch over someone, to make sure everything is done correctly. Is Luo keeping watch over Lam? Since reunification, and even before, people had feared that the real power centre was in Western, the location of the liaison office, rather than in Central, the seat of the government.
If Zhang’s assertion still holds true, Lam’s power transcends Legco, the judiciary and the executive but Luo has a supervisory leash on her, which technically means Luo’s power transcends everything. Way too complicated. I give up.
Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong journalist and TV show host