Student gives Tsang a hard time in London
When a political leader is unpopular at home, there is no escape overseas, as Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen found.
On his visit to London, Mr Tsang was asked by a Hong Kong student at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) whether he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa, who stepped down in 2005 after receiving low popularity ratings.
'Tung Chee-hwa's main shortcoming was in how he handled public relations,' a final-year law student said in a question-and-answer session after Mr Tsang made a speech. 'It seems to me that I can't help noticing the similarity between Mr Tung and you, and that I find both of you have a certain degree of indifference towards public opinion. I was just curious on whether you are worried that you are following in the steps of Mr Tung?'
Trying to lighten the mood, LSE director Howard Davies, who hosted the function, joked that Mr Tsang would probably not welcome the student's return to Hong Kong after his studies - a suggestion dismissed by Mr Tsang.
Mr Tsang, who has told lawmakers in the past that he treated popularity ratings as 'passing clouds', denied ignoring public opinion and said it was impossible for any policies to be '100 per cent perfect'.
'Very often, in an open society, those who are against and unhappy with the policy speak loudly; this exactly happened in Hong Kong,' he said.
Saying he and his colleagues tried every day to gauge public views, Mr Tsang said that rather than believing popularity ratings were unimportant, he always tried to find solutions to public concerns after considering people's views towards the government.
The audience was given a glimpse of a possible remedy to his plunging popularity when Mr Tsang talked about being 'full of admiration for the American system', when he answered a student who questioned the slow progress towards the introduction of universal suffrage.
In his speech to more than 300 LSE students, Mr Tsang said that although the financial crisis would last for some time, measures introduced by the government, including infrastructure projects, would aid economic recovery.
