City Beat | All abroad for a confidence boost
As the barricades came down in Mong Kok, CY Leung and Carrie Lam were nowhere to be seen
Dozens of bailiffs tore down the barricades in occupied areas of Mong Kok last week, with the help of thousands of police officers. Some saw it as a critical time for Hong Kong, yet the city's leaders had vanished.
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was on a three-day official visit to Seoul, while his No2, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, was in Beijing for two days at a cross-border economic cooperation forum.
Both of them kept track of developments from afar, and indeed commented on the clearance operation, but the fact they were away at this time was significant: the government apparently wanted to show the public that the situation was under control.
And indeed with the protests dragging on for more than two months, the decision to enforce court injunctions to clear the encampment blocking some of the district's main thoroughfares had an unexpected effect - Leung's popularity went up.
His rating rose by 4.3 marks to 44.7 out of 100 in a fortnightly poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme, released the day the Mong Kok clearance began. The net satisfaction rating for the government was minus 8 percentage points - a jump of 16 percentage points in a month. Some 1,022 people were polled from November 17 to 19.
A month ago, Leung had to cancel a trade promotion trip to Europe so that he could stay in the city to handle the Occupy crisis. But last week, a relaxed Leung was on tour, checking out how South Koreans have developed their innovation and technology industries. He also met President Park Geun-hye.