Lau Siu-kai: vocal critic with a heart for the nation
Lau Siu-kai's quest for better governance is the reason he doesn't shy away from speaking out about the city's leaders and their policies
Whether in his capacity as head of the government think tank or in his academic career, Professor Lau Siu-kai has never held back from criticising Hong Kong's leaders for mishandling policy.
He has been critical of all three chief executives since the 1997 handover - including Tung Chee-hwa, who appointed him head of the Central Policy Unit, and Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, under whom he also worked. More recently, he has accused Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying of having a "Beijing problem" because of his close ties with the mainland authorities.
But it is Lau's experience as a sociologist that may have earned him his role as vice-president of the new National Association of Study on Hong Kong and Macau, set up last month. He is the only Hongkonger among the think tank's nine vice-presidents. Yet since the appointment, questions have been raised about his independence.
Last week, Lau said Beijing may see nothing wrong in exerting a "slight influence" on Hong Kong's Legislative Council polls, and far from seeing it as violating the "one country, two systems" principle, leaders might believe it was necessary to avoid skewing the principle in "another way".
He recently also said Beijing's new rules for the chief executive's annual duty visit would "encourage" the local government to be more dedicated. Pan-democrats condemned his remarks as justifying Beijing's "meddling" in the city's internal affairs, and he was accused of doing the central government's bidding.
But in an interview with the South China Morning Post, Lau dismissed the accusations.
"I was [merely] responding to questions raised by [interviewers] and explaining according to my own understanding," he said. "They weren't necessarily entirely representative of the [central] government's views.