As Hong Kong’s protests rage on, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung has become an inadvertent voice of reason

While Hong Kong’s second most senior official sparked ridicule when he said he could not point to the exact source of public anger in the absence of a public-opinion poll, such a survey is urgently needed

Viswa Nathan

Published: 5:00pm, 17 Nov 2019

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Let’s give the devil his due. Hong Kong’s second-in-command Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, deserves a round of applause for being shamelessly honest.

He told the Legislative Council on November 13 that he doesn’t know what the biggest cause of public anger is at the moment. He pointed out that the extradition bill, which sparked the mass protests in early June, has long been withdrawn and that he didn’t have an opinion poll at hand to find out what else exactly is behind the lingering public anger.

Don’t laugh at him. Being chief secretary is not easy. He is responsible for implementing government policy and overseeing the administration of the entire territory. All government departments report to him. It means reading a mountain of files, acting on them and attending a string of meetings every day.

Amid all that, if Cheung couldn’t find the time to read newspapers or listen to RTHK’s morning programme to find out what exactly is firing up protesters to risk their lives, it is understandable. A public opinion survey, as he said, would surely be the best way to gauge the public pulse.

Anti-government protesters hold a rally in Central during lunch hour on November 13. Photo: Nora Tam

Those mocking Cheung should note that he accords public opinion the respect it deserves. Certainly, he takes it more seriously than his boss, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

Remember, he had offered, in late July, to apologise to the public for the way the police handled the incident in Yuen Long. His comments attracted a strong backlash from the police force.

Since then, the unrest has worsened. Lam said in early August that the protests are hurting the economy more than the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak did in 2003. Beijing’s liaison office said on November 13 that Hong Kong is “sliding into the abyss of terrorism”.

How can Hong Kong get out of this rut?

Many people, including former chief justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang, have put forward in the Post sensible ways to resolve the ongoing crisis peacefully. All of this, as well as confidential pleadings within the administration, have fallen on deaf ears.

Lam is reputed to have been stubborn throughout her career in government. Her superiors in Beijing are convinced the Communist Party knows better than the people.

How Hong Kong leaders spurned chance to listen to public opinion

So, perhaps Cheung concluded that the public statement he chose to make in Legco was the only way for him to make powers above him rethink their stance. His message seems to be: conduct a public-opinion poll by an internationally reputed agency to figure out the source of public anger and what people think of the government’s policies.

A woman displays a poster bearing an image of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam during a protest at Southorn Playground in Wan Chai on August 31. Photo: AFP

A public-opinion poll could also be good for Lam’s credibility. During her chief executive election campaign in 2017, Lam said: “If mainstream opinion makes me no longer able to continue the job as chief executive, I’ll resign.”

Though a committee of Beijing fans nominated Lam, she took office with a good measure of public support, given the general dislike for her predecessor. After she was elected, she displayed humility, pledging to work to “heal the divide and to ease the frustration, and to unite our society to move forward”.

Even pro-democracy lawmakers seemed hopeful. Though they denounced the process by which Lam became chief executive, within the framework of the existing realities, they appeared comfortable with Lam replacing the unpopular Leung Chun-ying. On her first day in Legco, they stood up, together with pro-government legislators, as a mark of respect, when she entered and left the chamber, which they had denied Leung.

Former chief executives of Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying and Tung Chee-hwa, click glasses with Chief Executive Carrie Lam at a celebration of the 21st anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong special administrative region at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, on July 1 last year. Photo: Winson Wong

But she lost that goodwill in one fell sweep in her second year in office. It could be that the people giving Beijing ill-informed advice might have also been advising Lam. Nearly 2 million people marched in mid-June against her administration. They are still out on the streets, protesting and risking their lives.

This is not what Chinese President Xi Jinping, who came down to Hong Kong to swear Lam in, would have anticipated. To make sure that nothing of this sort will happen, he even laid down a red line – undermining Chinese sovereignty and security and challenging the power of the central government – which he warned no one should dare cross. Many have crossed that line and even desecrated the national flag.

Is it not time Lam ordered an opinion poll and found out the reasons for the lingering public anger?

Viswa Nathan, a Hong Kong-based journalist, was the editor in chief of the now-defunct broadsheet morning daily, Hong Kong Standard

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