Hong Kong chief executive election 2022: sole candidate John Lee wants to set up policy unit to ‘listen to public sentiment’, restoring old outfit Carrie Lam downplayed
- John Lee plans to reinstate official policy think tank, previously called Central Policy Unit, to address current deficiency in administration, insiders reveal
- Revitalised version would focus on assessing public attitudes to better inform policymaking, they say
The outfit, which dates to the colonial days in 1989 and was previously called the Central Policy Unit (CPU), took a different focus and name under the current administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.
After taking office in 2017, Lam revamped the CPU to focus on positioning Hong Kong as an innovation hub and called it the Policy Innovation and Coordination Office.
The name of the unit under Lee, who is set to be elected as the only candidate with Beijing’s blessing, might be subject to a change, as the word “central” might lead people to confuse it with the government in Beijing, sources said.
“We now lack the ability to find out how people feel and think,” an insider added.
The revitalised version would restore as a key function the sensing of public sentiment in shaping policy, a feature many in the pro-Beijing camp and analysts believed had been absent in the current administration and contributed to its disconnect with society, multiple sources close to the campaign team said.
Another insider confirmed the topic had come up in discussions between the team and Lee, who quit his job as chief secretary earlier this month to enter the race, as he prepared his manifesto.