My Take | Is James Tien a closet pan-dem or just an opportunist?

If, as sometimes alleged, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is a closet Communist Party member, then James Tien Pei-chun must be secretly a pan-democrat.
The former chairman of the Liberal Party may have been part of the business elite. But the billionaire legislator has a tendency to pour oil on the fire during crucial political crises.
Considering his record, he has been acting like a poison pill planted within government and pro-establishment circles.
The latest has Tien denouncing Leung and Beijing's Liaison Office in Hong Kong for interfering in the appointment of pan-democratic legal scholar Johannes Chan Man-mun to the post of pro-vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.
Tien claims he knows many members of the HKU Council who were pressured by the lobbying to delay Chan's appointment.
The claim, predictably, drew an angry denial from Leung's office at the weekend. Pan-democrats have made Chan's appointment their latest battle cry ever since pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong criticised the legal scholar and questioned his suitability for the post, which involves budgeting for and hiring academics and their funding.
