Opinion

Carrie Lam’s epic policy address reveals a sobering truth about Hong Kong

Name: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam delivers 2020 policy address
Uploaded: 2020-11-29T08:30:17.000Z
Duration: 4 min 47 s
Description: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam delivers 2020 policy address

In an address lasting more than two hours, Lam presented a string of policy ideas that failed to connect with a society facing unprecedented challenges

Even now, her government is scrambling to control the spread of the Covid-19 fourth wave

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam giving her policy address in the Legco chamber on November 25. Her No 1 task now should be to contain Covid-19. Photo: Sam Tsang

Alice Wu

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA.

Published: 4:30pm, 29 Nov 2020Updated: 8:41pm, 29 Nov 2020

If we had to pick one word to describe the policy address that Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor delivered last week, I would go with “sobering”.

Following the eleventh-hour delay to the annual policy speech on the lame excuse that Lam needed to secure Beijing’s support for policy measures, and then the lawmaker disqualification drama that led to the mass resignation of all but two opposition legislators, the policy address itself turned out to be a complete disappointment.

We had scaled back expectations to begin with, but little did we expect an anticlimactic speech lasting a punishing 135 minutes. Much like how people are going “revenge shopping” after lockdowns, was Lam giving a “revenge address”?

Lam had in the past been heckled by the opposition. Last year she tried and failed twice to deliver the address, and had to resort to releasing a pre-recorded video of the speech. Perhaps as “revenge” for that, she gave us an earful – 30,000 words of nothing new, exciting or inspiring.

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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam delivers 2020 policy address

Back in 2017, Lam had broken with tradition by keeping her maiden policy address short and delivering only the highlights. Now, she has gone back to the old ways of previous administrations; her predecessor Leung Chun-ying’s final policy address, in 2017, clocked two-and-a-half hours. Lam’s speech last week proved to be difficult even for one of her own – Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang Kwok-wai – to stay awake for.