On a visit to the Pearl River Delta last year, then premier Zhu Rongji was taken on a tour of Guangzhou. The city had been transformed since his previous inspection, with the completion of a new downtown road network, a second subway line and spruced-up pedestrian boulevards along the banks of the Pearl River, which flows through the city.
Mr Zhu was duly impressed and, according to one municipal government source who was present, his observation thrilled his local hosts. 'I used to think Guangzhou was a s***** little place, but not any more,' the premier said approvingly.
The central government's recognition of Guangzhou's transformation over the past four years, which remains little appreciated in Hong Kong, benefited two local politicians in particular: then Guangzhou party secretary Huang Huahua and mayor Lin Shusen. Guangdong's executive vice-governor, Ou Guangyuan, was removed late last year to make way for Mr Huang and pave the way for his elevation to governor in January. The acerbic Mr Lin, thought by some as a kind of 'mini-Zhu Rongji', assumed Mr Huang's duties as municipal party secretary.
Last week Mr Huang was in Hong Kong to co-chair the Hong Kong-Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference, which oversees a number of subsidiary bodies tasked with environmental, transport, infrastructure and other matters of mutual concern to the two sides. Until June the conference had been overseen by Hong Kong's chief secretary for administration and Guangdong's executive vice governor. As a result of a mutual agreement by Hong Kong and Guangdong that future conferences be chaired by Hong Kong's chief executive and Guangdong's governor, Mr Huang suddenly emerged as a key figure in regional development issues.
Predictably, Mr Huang was polite about Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa's leadership skills and his 'high sense of mission and responsibility'. He said he supported accelerating plans to build a bridge linking Hong Kong with Zhuhai and Macau. And in a more interesting departure from the Hong Kong itineraries of most mainland governors', he met the head of a local political party - Tsang Yok-sing of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong.
From Hong Kong's perspective, however, Mr Huang is not as supportive a figure as his platitudes about Mr Tung, the bridge and the importance of regional development suggest. It is easy to exaggerate the importance of personalities in Chinese politics for the simple reason that people are naturally drawn to forceful and dynamic politicians - Mr Zhu being a classic example - who appear to shape events more than they are shaped by them.
