Letters | China virus: Wuhan mayor should play the Carrie Lam card and deny all responsibility
- Facing calls for his resignation, perhaps Zhou Xianwang should simply refuse to be held accountable, as the Hong Kong chief executive has done despite having caused ‘unforgivable havoc’ in the city
The only bright spot in this sorry saga is proof that the concept of accountability is apparently alive and well in China.
In a not-too-distant past in Hong Kong, such manifest failings would have resulted in the relevant individuals losing their job, status, pension, benefits, and even liberty, under the concept of “accountability”.
One major casualty of the social unrest has been the redefining by Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor of “accountability”. Instead of losing all, the failing individual(s) will keep all. In short, they will suffer no penalty whatsoever for their manifest failures.
The rationale given is that those who failed have now learned their lesson, and, completely irrational as this may seem, are therefore somehow best-placed to repair the damage they have done. It is an unsustainable argument.