[Former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa] said that over the next 20 years the mainland's economy would move from one driven by exports to one driven by domestic consumption that emphasised value-added service industries.
SCMP, June 27
Sometimes I'm glad that I write a column for this newspaper and don't have to come up with a cartoon every day like my colleague Harry Harrison. I'd be stumped on how to portray Ah Tung. The 1950s crew cut, yes, but how do you get across the essence of 'I am the mouth of Beijing'?
We have a well-recognised Hong Kong phenomenon here. Daddy makes it super-rich, and son doesn't really have to do more for a living than step into the office every now and then, which makes him a man of sweet, amiable disposition, infrequently challenged intellect and utterly conventional opinion.
I'm inclined to think that a bell would go off somewhere if Ah Tung ever came up with an original thought - 'Brrrinnng! Your attention, please! A new neural connection has just been established, the first since full appreciation in Primary 4 of the truth that one plus one equals two.'
I saw no evidence of such an unusual event in the yawn of an interview with him that we published yesterday. He's still a busy man, we're told. Really? Why?
But because he reflects present Beijing thinking like a highly polished mirror, it is worth considering his assertion that the emphasis of the mainland economy will swing from exports to consumer services. It has to be the official line up north if Ah Tung has been coached to parrot it.
