The public has been given another 'thinking loop' by the chief executive. This time, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen led us through a circuit on the intricate relationship between development and conservation, in a half-page advertisement published in a local Chinese-language newspaper yesterday. Mr Tsang went through a soul-searching journey triggered by the Star Ferry clock tower standoff last December. This is not the first time he has sought to impress the public with his problem-solving skills, as well as the unusual timing he has worked out with his strategies. Well-known for sending e-mails to his aides in the small hours, Mr Tsang drew up his first loop, on wealth-gap problems, at 3.05am on December 14, according to the graphics on his campaign website. The second one, relating to the challenge of health-care financing, was worked out at 11.42 pm on December 30. He put on his thinking cap again at 2.15am on January 3, expounding on the 'tipping point' for development and conservation. 'So where are we?' the veteran public servant asks at the start of his latest thinking loop. 'The economy had always been driven by infrastructural development. But the demolition controversy highlighted the need for a rethink,' Mr Tsang wrote. This was because 'times are changing. Hong Kong is competing with other first-class cities'. What are the targets and how will they be achieved? Well, resolve air pollution, preserve heritage, help Guangdong factories reduce emissions, impose stringent emissions standards for power plants ... Mr Tsang's list goes on. Has he succeeded? 'Not easy. Need to keep working hard,' he tells himself at the end of the loop. But the concluding remarks are not always depressing. In his first series on poverty, Mr Tsang invoked his catchphrase at the end of the loop. 'I'll get it [the job] done'.
