How angry golfers hit Hong Kong’s extradition plan into the rough
- With volley of criticism launched from Beijing, local business leaders aim to show their normally reliable backing of the government cannot be taken for granted
How a city manages its land and how it deals with foreign fugitives do not generally overlap. But in Hong Kong, enemies made in the former field appear to have come back to bite the government in the latter.
Because business heavyweights’ rare open criticism of the local government’s plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, sources have said, was fuelled by anger over its decision to build houses on a prestigious golf course where many of them play.
The leaders were also showing that their support for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was not to be taken for granted, emboldened by the knowledge that Beijing had not foisted the extradition move on Lam, but it was an idea of her own government.
Peter Lam and Jeffrey Lam are, respectively, the council chairman and vice-chairman of the Business and Professionals Alliance (BPA), which has eight seats on the 69-member Legislative Council. Unlike another pro-business group, the Liberal Party, the BPA has always had a close relationship with the government and rarely openly criticised it.