Opinion | As Hong Kong prepares for a Covid-19 fourth wave, Carrie Lam’s policy address needs to have a real economic impact

Name: Hong Kong leader forced to deliver policy address via video
Uploaded: 2020-10-12T01:15:12.000Z
Duration: 3 min 36 s
Description: Hong Kong leader forced to deliver policy address via video

The chief executive should spare Hong Kong grand visions or platitudes about the Greater Bay Area, and focus on spelling out how the government will pick up the pieces of a devastated economy

Reading Time:3 minutes

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam meets the press at the Hong Kong government headquarters in Admiralty on September 29. Photo: Nora Tam

Alice Wu

Published: 9:15am, 12 Oct 2020Updated: 5:59pm, 3 Nov 2020

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s penultimate policy address, now due to be unveiled by the end of November, is going to be an extraordinary one: how does anyone plan and look ahead in the midst of Covid-19?

The good news for Lam is that I suspect not many of us are sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for the address, which has been overshadowed by news of the deregistration of a teacher accused by the Education Bureau of spreading independence ideas.

And, as we fight what some public health experts fear is a prelude to a fourth wave of Covid-19, the policy address is simply not generating the level of fanfare that previous ones did. Take a look at the official Facebook page set up for it and you’ll find the response rate utterly pathetic.

The pandemic has at least made managing expectations unnecessary: we do not have bucketloads of cash to throw around or the luxury of allowing leaders to wallow in grand visions – however misguided – as we did previously.

Forget all the fancy stuff. There will be a better time for it, although that time is not likely to come while Lam remains in office. But for this policy address, which should simply be titled “As if last year wasn’t bad enough”, Lam is better positioned than she was in 2019 when the city was rocked by protests.

Lam delivered last year’s policy address remotely, in a pre-recorded video, after being repeatedly heckled by lawmakers in the Legislative Council chamber. The city she leads was doused in that much anger and open hostility. That was the reality a year ago, before Covid-19 and the national security law. Any sort of live delivery on Wednesday would be a step up from last year.

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Hong Kong leader forced to deliver policy address via video