Hong Kong needs a 'street-fighter' chief executive to avoid mass confrontations, former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew said yesterday.
Mr Lee, now Singapore's Minister Mentor, also said his long-time friend, former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, had been 'too nice' and had not acted quickly enough to handle Hong Kong's problems.
He warned that people in Hong Kong should not push the city's next leader too hard for changes that Beijing would not approve.
'Please remember the same tap that was open can be shut,' he said, referring to the series of measures taken by Beijing to dilute political tension and boost Hong Kong's economy.
Speaking at a leadership luncheon in Hong Kong, Mr Lee said: 'Mr Tung was too nice a man, not sufficiently young and nimble. He wasn't a street fighter.
'In the Hong Kong situation, with people out in the streets, you want a street fighter. Then you can avoid this kind of confrontation,' he said, in a reference to the mass July protests of the past two years.