Carrie Lam faces social media backlash after final debate

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor may have scored points by ceasing her obsession with policy details in the final debate for the chief executive candidates, but the presumed front-runner soon attracted ridicule from netizens over her attempt to embarrass rival John Tsang Chun-wah.

Making a dig at the former financial secretary’s “paperless office” – an implication that he’d done minimal policy preparation – Lam attracted social media backlash that showed how little paper could be found on the working tables of global leaders like President Xi Jinping or Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing.

Pan-democratic Election Committee member Bruce Lui Ping-kuen shared a picture of Xi’s table – a spacious one with just two small trays, some telephones and a calendar, and cited what the president’s confidante had said about a clean desk.

“Party secretary Xi Jinping requests that we who do work have no piles of files on our desk, and not to leave any work overnight,” said Li Zhanshu, director of the party’s general office. “[Xi] does the same thing too.”

In the debate – the last before the March 26 election – Lam said: “John used to be my boss. When I went to his room for meetings, I saw that there were no files, no paper on his desk.