Silence not proving golden for C.Y. as the real handover starts
The phrase you increasingly hear these days in business circles is that 'the real handover starts now'. By this, people seem to mean that with C.Y. Leung as the new chief executive, Beijing has its own man in charge. From this follows dark speculation that we can expect more behind-the-scenes intervention by mainland bodies than we have had already, and further erosion of the 'one country, two systems' idea.
That may be true but as our president, Hu Jintao, may have noticed over the weekend, too much of this and the people of Hong Kong push back. Much of this discontent would have been defused if the people felt that they had a chief executive who was prepared to stand up for Hongkongers rather than being keener to do Beijing's bidding.
There was a moment after Henry Tang's implosion when Leung was quite popular in the polls. But this popularity was squandered following early signs of having a tin ear. Leung's reluctance to say anything meaningful about Tiananmen Square, Li Wangyang and other sensitive topics has made him an easy target for exploitation by pan-democratic parties. There is nothing more they would like heading into the September legislative election than an unpopular chief executive, whereas a popular chief executive would hurt their electoral chances.
What he needs to do is get ahead of the political curve with a few bold measures that will appeal to people and steal the thunder of those that are kicking up the dust around him. But the chances of this seem remote and we would appear to be in for more of the same attritional politics.
In Time we trust
Time Magazine has caused quite a stir with its recent edition that features a big close-up photograph of C.Y. Leung and a headline that says: 'Can Hong Kong trust this man?' The cover, which appeared on editions sold on the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, has gone viral, as they say, on the internet, appearing on Weibo, Facebook and Twitter. In many cases, the cover appeared with an extra word, making the headline: 'How can Hong Kong trust this man?'
