As Wen Jiabao concluded his first visit to Hong Kong as premier, the largest mass protest since June 4, 1989, erupted on the streets: half a million people marched last Tuesday, burned communist party flags and called for Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's resignation.
While protesters seemed focused on the national security legislation, Article 23, emotional outrage deeper under the surface may reflect growing frustration at the local government's perceived inability to address independently a host of economic and social issues with some degree of creative efficiency.
Clearly, the impression from Hong Kong is that Mr Tung's administration takes orders from the top. The mindset of the mainland, however, differs starkly. Nobody at the centre has the time to worry about micro-managing Hong Kong. The rest of the nation is facing huge upward social pressure from acute widening economic gaps, local government ineptitude and pervasive corruption, and a tottering banking system. Further, external foreign relations pressures leave China caught in a pincer between the governments of the US, North Korea and Taiwan.
Sitting in Beijing and looking out at the mess which China's Sars-exhausted leadership must now face, one cannot help but ask who has the time to control Mr Tung's puppet strings? At this point, it seems that nobody in Zhongnanhai particularly cares, given the plethora of other regional basket cases on their desks. In the minds of China's central government, Hong Kong is better off than any other city in China.
Nobody in Beijing has the time to worry about how to re-shape Hong Kong, turn capitalism into socialism with Chinese characteristics, or get involved in making Hong Kong work. Besides, that is one thing the leaders in Beijing are smart enough to know that they do not know how to do. That is why they came up with ditties about Hong Kong people governing themselves.
Why tinker with a good thing when Zhongnanhai has so many problems to fix? It is up to the Hong Kong government to just get on with micro-managing Hong Kong. And that is exactly what the central government would like it to do.
As Mr Wen prepared to leave Hong Kong, he had nothing but wonderful things to say about the city, from 'I love Hong Kong' to 'Hong Kong will have a better tomorrow'.
