Carrie Lam’s stand on Legco rule book won’t spread any Christmas cheer

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor made her first duty visit to Beijing last week. For two decades, our chief executives have made “bearing gifts” somewhat of a tradition for their duty visits. To have them traverse afar for this is very Christmas-appropriate.

But these duty visits don’t guarantee words of good cheer filling the air. Leaders in Beijing have generally been generous with words of good cheer. But, back in 2004, our first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, received a shockingly strong rebuke when he met then president Hu Jintao.

There were also times when people could not be blamed for feeling that our country’s leaders could be generous to a fault. Remember how then chief executive Leung Chun-ying was lauded by Li Keqiang just last year for being “proactive and pragmatic”? So it is our hope that Lam will not get too hung up on flattery.

Lam flew to Beijing with her public approval rating at its lowest since taking office. Her rating was 59.6 going into her first policy address just two months ago, but has now dropped to 55.7.

As for Lam’s first duty visit, the public already knows that one of its key “features” was her signing of “an agreement” to spell out Hong Kong’s role in the “Belt and Road Initiative”. A lot of effort was put into the public display of showcasing Hong Kong’s “place” in the country to the world. Hong Kong’s role was set out by Beijing, and Lam’s office said that the chief executive would just be bringing back homework handed down by the National Development and Reform Commission. Beijing set the tone for Lam’s first duty visit days before she left the tarmac at Chek Lap Kok: “show ’em who’s boss”.