What Carrie Lam can do for fed-up Hongkongers: control the pandemic and revive the economy

With the city’s splintered opposition camp posing little threat to her rule, the chief executive should devote her energies to solving the problem of the hour – overcoming Covid-19 to protect public health and people’s livelihoods

Alice Wu

Published: 6:45am, 4 Jan 2021

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What is 2021 going to be like for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her administration? I’m taking a wild guess here, but I’d say it’s going to be somewhat of an extension of 2020, and those chickens are going to come home to Government House to roost.

The public isn’t only pandemic fatigued, it’s fed up. Lam has obviously learned from the mask shortage last year and secured enough vaccines for Hongkongers this time around, though we can’t be sure until they actually materialise. But the vaccine will not inoculate her from public wrath.

Lam is going to have to step up and deliver on economic recovery and helping to get people back on their feet. The industries that have been devastated need more than mere platitudes and appeal for people to look for opportunities in the Greater Bay Area.

Her financial secretary has just launched a public consultation for his upcoming budget. And, right off the bat, Paul Chan Mo-po sought to manage public expectations by warning of difficult times ahead.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan dressed as a chef in a promotional video published late last year to appeal for participation in the public consultation for the budget. Photo: Facebook

But the excuse of a light government purse isn’t going to cut it when Lam’s administration moves forward with her expensive Lantau Tomorrow Vision plan. And with people paying their taxes at this time of year, public resentment will build. The budget is poised to be the government’s first test.

That is, if, Beijing doesn’t make Lam disqualify district councillors before then. The possibility of a mass disqualification that got everyone worked up late last year did not materialise, ending 2020 with a political cliffhanger.

It’s perhaps the ultimate way for Beijing to make its presence and authority felt with the pan-democratic camp. If the disqualifications of Legislative Council members serve as any guide, then district councillors are not out of the woods.

Remember, when the National People’s Congress Standing Committee was due to rule on the constitutional arrangements to accommodate a postponement of Legco elections due to Covid-19, there was speculation that it could bar some legislators from an extended term. But, it didn’t. Instead, it sat and watched the pan-democrats trip themselves up over whether to stay on for the extended term. It was in no hurry to deal the final blow; the pan-democrats’ disunity was the camp’s own undoing.

04:08

Hong Kong opposition lawmakers to resign en masse over Legislative Council disqualifications

This is the new political normal that we must get used to: Beijing will push buttons and watch us fret. The brouhaha over district councillors facing possible disqualification was not without effect.

The Hong Kong Citizens’ Deliberative Platform, which was meant to be a cross-party platform for political cooperation for opposition district councillors who have taken control of 17 of the city’s 18 district councils, came to nothing. On the last day of 2020, the preparatory committee for the platform formally disbanded, killing any hope of uniting the opposition at the district level.

And so, in a sense, Lam has very little to worry about. The opposition is so splintered it can’t possibly pose any serious threat to her rule.

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At the end of the day, Lam can always blame feng shui for her problems. As records declassified by Britain last week showed, the feng shui at Government House was deemed so bad that the first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, would have none of it.

But Hong Kong must begin again, regardless of feng shui, which literally means “wind water”. Whichever way the wind blows and however tough the waters, Lam must keep Hong Kong afloat.

So please, Mrs Lam, put on hold those grand and expensive visions for decades down the line that we can’t afford now. Your primary focus should be on helping Hongkongers survive 2021 and that means, first and foremost, fighting the coronavirus with vaccines and all, and getting people jobs, food on their tables and kids in classrooms.

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