Opinion | To stay in Beijing’s good books, Carrie Lam must get to grips with Hong Kong’s housing crisis

Name: Xi meets and praises Lam for Hong Kong Legco poll and Covid-19 work
Uploaded: 2021-12-26T22:45:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 3 s
Description: Xi meets and praises Lam for Hong Kong Legco poll and Covid-19 work

A reception in Zhongnanhai and words of praise from the country’s top leaders won’t get Lam very far if her administration does not begin to solve the city’s long-time livelihood and housing problems

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Workers dismantle bamboo scaffolding on a block of flats in Hong Kong on December 8. Hong Kong must increase its supply of affordable housing, as it is clear the central government is serious about the city “bidding farewell” to subdivided flats and cage homes. Photo: EPA-EFE

Alice Wu

Published: 6:45am, 27 Dec 2021

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has good reason to celebrate Christmas this year, which, in fact, came early for her with a successful duty visit to Beijing. She was finally granted an audience at Zhongnanhai, where she received all-around good marks from her bosses.

It was certainly a big step up from having to give herself a good grade, as she did two months ago in her policy address, where she made the bold claim that 96 per cent of the more than 900 initiatives proposed in her past four policy addresses had either been completed or were progressing on schedule.

But perhaps her desperation can be forgiven: the city’s fourth wave of Covid-19 disrupted her customary duty visit last year, which was postponed then moved online.

Lam’s visit to Beijing last week, meeting both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, may well mean that our border with the mainland will reopen soon. It has been the one thing Lam has struggled to deliver. And hopefully for Lam, the borders can reopen before her term ends. That would be politically significant for Hong Kong.

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Xi meets and praises Lam for Hong Kong Legco poll and Covid-19 work

It wasn’t until after September that Hong Kong’s appeal to Beijing to reopen borders began to be taken seriously. Lam apparently had no political pull to even kick-start discussions between mainland and Hong Kong medical experts.