https://www.scmp.com/rss/141970/feed John Chan is a founding member of the Democratic Party, and also of its predecessor, the United Democrats of Hong Kong. A keen observer of local politics, he has been a regular commentator in the local press since the late 1980s. He worked briefly as a civil servant in the colonial government before turning to law. As a solicitor, he worked extensively on the mainland during the early years of China’s economic reform, where he gained an in-depth understanding of China's political, economic and... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Sunday’s by-election was a setback for Hong Kong pan-democrats’ bid to regain all four Legislative Council seats vacated by disqualified lawmakers. Pan-democrat candidates won back only two of the three geographical constituency seats. The greatest surprise was the failure of Edward Yiu Chung-yim’s bid to win the Kowloon West seat, which has traditionally been a pan-democrat stronghold. It is generally accepted that the pan-democrats can gain up to 60 per cent of the vote in the geographical... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137123/hong-kongs-pan-democrats-might-find-their-missing-election?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2137123/hong-kongs-pan-democrats-might-find-their-missing-election?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Mar 2018 05:39:19 +0000 Since the custodial sentences imposed on young protesters and three student leaders, young anti-establishment leaders have started to use the term “authoritarian rule” to describe Hong Kong’s governance. The last colonial governor, Chris Patten, visited the city recently to boost the morale of its frustrated young leaders. Demosisto leader Derek Lam Shun-hin, during his return visit to Patten at Oxford University, remarked that Hong Kong has become a “dictatorial city”. By describing Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2114744/hong-kong-not-singapore-dont-believe-authoritarian-hyperbole?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2114744/hong-kong-not-singapore-dont-believe-authoritarian-hyperbole?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Oct 2017 00:56:16 +0000 Liu Xiaobo’s (劉曉波) story is a tragic one, both for himself and for China. While none can doubt the Nobel Peace laureate’s sincerity and devotion in pushing for democracy and human rights in China, which led to his predicament, as a scholar, he – like many vocal dissidents of the past three decades – was misled by his illusory but honest belief that his sincerity could change the one-party dictatorship regime. Liu had been in and out of prison or compulsory confinement for 10 years after being... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2103995/tragedy-liu-xiaobo-shows-why-china-not-mandelas-south-africa?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2103995/tragedy-liu-xiaobo-shows-why-china-not-mandelas-south-africa?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Jul 2017 06:21:00 +0000 The recent court ruling that disqualified four Hong Kong lawmakers was received with anger by their pro-democracy peers. Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu said he could not entirely agree with the court’s reasoning. James To Kun-sun of the Democratic Party called the ruling a “declaration of war” by the Hong Kong government against its people. Their stance is disappointing, as blind refutation of a court ruling to stir up commotion only risks widening the already wide social rifts in Hong... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2103131/enough-pan-democrats-politicking-over-unseating-four-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2103131/enough-pan-democrats-politicking-over-unseating-four-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Jul 2017 10:08:31 +0000 A High Court Judge at the Court of First Instance has ruled that the Civil Service Bureau’s stance of denying an officer’s same-sex marriage partner the benefits enjoyed by the spouses of heterosexual colleagues was “indirect discrimination”. In delivering the unprecedented decision in a judicial review brought by a senior immigration officer, the judge rejected the bureau’s claim that the secretary had a justifiable aim “to act in line with the prevailing marriage law of Hong Kong” and not to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2094126/hong-kong-ruling-spousal-benefits-gay-partner-reveals?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2094126/hong-kong-ruling-spousal-benefits-gay-partner-reveals?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 May 2017 09:15:30 +0000 To those who have been watching local politics closely over the past two decades, one of the most notable changes among mainstream pan-democrats has been their shift from political pragmatism to idealism. At the change of sovereignty 20 years ago, there was unanimous acceptance that the undemocratic political structure we inherited from the colonial era was far from ideal, but there was an unspoken consensus that, given time, it would be changed. The change the democrats expected – that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2085722/hong-kong-democrats-have-given-their-moral-high-ground-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2085722/hong-kong-democrats-have-given-their-moral-high-ground-and?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Apr 2017 06:27:06 +0000 John Tsang Chun-wah has said he resigned as financial secretary not to run for chief executive, “but because of many other things”. “Unhappiness at work was one of the reasons. It was not a sudden decision.” He also said he only made up his mind to run after he had left. Most would find that hard to believe. Judging from Tsang’s high-profile preparation over the past two years, and the fact that he never denied suggestions that he intended to run, it is inconceivable that he should say he... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2079102/it-morally-right-john-tsang-contest-hong-kong-chief?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2079102/it-morally-right-john-tsang-contest-hong-kong-chief?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Mar 2017 06:02:46 +0000 Thirty-seven years ago, I was working as a civil servant in the Transport Department’s licensing division. In the summer of that year, we carried out a major licensing exercise for school buses. The department had to rush to complete the overhaul by September that year, so that all licences could be issued before the school term started. With the help of extra staff deployed from other sections of the division, we finally got the work done. To show their appreciation for our efforts,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2074653/errant-donald-tsang-misjudged-hong-kong-he-swore-serve?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2074653/errant-donald-tsang-misjudged-hong-kong-he-swore-serve?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Feb 2017 05:46:45 +0000 When Sir Murray MacLehose arrived in Hong Kong in 1971 to assume office as the city’s governor, the most visible signs of the acute housing shortage were the squatter huts on almost every hillside. Many others were living in pre-war buildings, in deplorable conditions. In 1972, he launched an ambitious 10-year housing programme, with the aim of providing decent accommodation for 1.8 million people. Between 1973 and 1982, some 220,000 flats were built, of which 180,000 were public rental flats,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2069813/hong-kong-housing-built-serve-market-not-people?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2069813/hong-kong-housing-built-serve-market-not-people?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Feb 2017 01:03:09 +0000 Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe, then US president George H. W. Bush proclaimed the death of communism in his State of the Union address. In that same year, 1992, we saw the publication of The End of History and the Last Man by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, in which he argues that Western liberal democracy signals the endpoint of humanity’s sociocultural evolution. The liberal capitalist democracy of the West is, in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2060842/pity-hong-kong-people-who-cannot-accept-reality-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2060842/pity-hong-kong-people-who-cannot-accept-reality-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Jan 2017 09:47:51 +0000 The Chinese term pang men zuo dao (旁門左道) is often used to describe the dirty tricks or unorthodox means employed to meet a goal. Speaking on the government’s move to file judicial reviews against four lawmakers, asking the court to declare their oaths invalid and their Legislative Council seats vacant, veteran lawmaker and senior solicitor James To Kun-sun described it as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s pang men zuo dao. This stupid comment is typical of the many pan-democratic legislators and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2052871/hong-kong-courts-are-proper-place-hear-governments-case?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2052871/hong-kong-courts-are-proper-place-hear-governments-case?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Dec 2016 04:48:16 +0000 In China, citizens aged 60 or over enjoy the privilege of concessionary fares in many places, but they do not use the term “senior citizen”. People aged over 60 are called lao ren (old people). My wife and I were in Hangzhou (杭州) with five of my secondary school colleagues and their wives in late October. Eleven of the group of 12 had just joined the ranks of lao ren. Retire at 60? Don’t force it ... why we need Hong Kong’s ageing population to keep working As part of the visit, we went on a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2049749/how-old-too-old-when-it-comes-staying-workforce?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2049749/how-old-too-old-when-it-comes-staying-workforce?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Nov 2016 08:33:37 +0000 On May 16,1989, as over 200,000 students demonstrated in Tiananmen Square outside the Great Hall of the People, Communist Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) met the visiting president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. At the meeting, Zhao revealed to Gorbachev what was considered a state and party secret, that although Deng Xiaoping ( 鄧小平 ) had stepped down from the party’s Central Committee and the Politburo Standing Committee in 1987, he was still the de facto paramount leader as,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2039817/dont-expect-beijing-heed-public-opinion-hong-kongs-chief?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2039817/dont-expect-beijing-heed-public-opinion-hong-kongs-chief?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Oct 2016 04:30:30 +0000 Brownfield sites in the New Territories go back a long way. Back, in fact, to the mass occupation of government and privately owned rural land for industrial and commercial use, in most cases illegally. It was regularised through the granting of short-term licences and waivers. However, what started as a policy of tolerating in the short term the illegal occupation of government land, and allowing deviation from prescribed use on land parcels not immediately required for development, has... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2022885/do-less-err-less-attitude-lives-hong-kong-government?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2022885/do-less-err-less-attitude-lives-hong-kong-government?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Sep 2016 05:46:14 +0000 If the University of Hong Kong opinion polls can be believed, voter preferences for the five “super seats” in Sunday’s Legislative Council election signal a rise in overall support for the pro-establishment camp. The Beijing-friendly camp now commands 45 per cent of the vote share, compared with the widely believed 40 per cent in the past. The HKU’s public opinion programme has, of course, been criticised for basing its rolling opinion surveys on a too-small sample size (no more than 200 in each... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2011236/can-hong-kongs-pan-democrats-rise-challenge-localist-trend?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2011236/can-hong-kongs-pan-democrats-rise-challenge-localist-trend?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 31 Aug 2016 03:06:56 +0000 Last week, High Court Judge Thomas Au Hing-cheung refused to hold an urgent hearing on the application for a judicial review of the Electoral Affairs Commission’s sudden decision to require an extra declaration from Legislative Council election candidates. That forced one applicant – Hong Kong Indigenous spokesman Edward Leung Tin-kei – to sign the form. However, it did not prevent him from being disqualified this week. Hong Kong justice secretary defends decision to bar localist from Legco... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1998592/hong-kong-electoral-officials-put-independence-seekers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1998592/hong-kong-electoral-officials-put-independence-seekers?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Aug 2016 06:51:57 +0000 During his press conference, when defiant Causeway Bay bookseller Lam Wing-kee recounted what had happened to him after being detained at the Shenzhen immigration checkpoint, he urged Hongkongers to speak up against what he sees as an encroachment of their rights under “one country, two systems”. He said that if we do not speak up, there is no hope for Hong Kong. “I also want to tell the whole world,” he said, “this isn’t about me, this isn’t about a bookstore, this is about everyone. This is... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1978360/bottom-line-hong-kong-bookseller-lam-wing-kees-case-has?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1978360/bottom-line-hong-kong-bookseller-lam-wing-kees-case-has?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 Jun 2016 08:42:52 +0000 During National People’s Congress chairman Zhang Dejiang’s (張德江) visit to Hong Kong, all legislators were invited to a welcome dinner. Pan-democratic lawmakers boycotted the event, claiming it did not offer sufficient opportunity for in-depth dialogue. This excuse is laughable. Such an occasion is not intended for dialogue. Pan-democrats were invited because of their constitutional status, not for what they have to say. If they want to start a revolution, they cannot be politicians During the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1968126/hong-kongs-pan-democrats-need-decide-if-they-want-reform-or?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1968126/hong-kongs-pan-democrats-need-decide-if-they-want-reform-or?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Jun 2016 08:25:23 +0000 The film Truth by Robert Redford, which played recently in Hong Kong, tells the true story of the production and airing of a CBS 60 Minutes programme in September 2004. It used four of six documents obtained by producer Mary Mapes from unverifiable sources within the Texas Air National Guard to question – two months before the US presidential election – whether George W. Bush, who was seeking re-election, had completed his training at the Air National Guard in the 1970s. The documents, which... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1942987/where-proof-hong-kong-leader-leung-chun-yings-abuse-power?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1942987/where-proof-hong-kong-leader-leung-chun-yings-abuse-power?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 May 2016 04:00:05 +0000 The bits of information provided by Lee Po since his return from the mainland more than three months after he mysteriously vanished have not helped to clear the suspicion and widely held belief that he did not voluntarily smuggle himself across the border. Fog of uncertainty descends on Hong Kong in wake of bookseller ‘mess’ When his wife filed a missing person report after he went missing, Lee phoned and faxed his wife from the mainland telling her that he went “by means of his own choice”. The... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1935358/only-truth-about-what-really-happened-bookseller-lee-po-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1935358/only-truth-about-what-really-happened-bookseller-lee-po-will?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Apr 2016 04:01:41 +0000 Hong Kong’s independence has always been a taboo subject. Early advocates during the colonial era faced relentless suppression. At best, they were harassed and ridiculed; in some cases, they were persecuted. To Beijing, advocates of Hong Kong independence are separatists, on a par with Tibetan separatists who formed their own government-in-exile in India, or those in Xinjiang (新疆) who push for independence through armed struggle and terrorist attacks. It is a move in the right direction that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1922439/seekers-hong-kong-independence-must-have-foresight-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1922439/seekers-hong-kong-independence-must-have-foresight-and?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Mar 2016 08:48:31 +0000 Three years ago, I attended the Hong Kong University Students’ Union centenary dinner on campus. The dinner, attended by many notable alumni, including former Legislative Council president Andrew Wong Wang-fat, was disturbed by a demonstration by a group of 20 or so HKU students and young alumni. They were protesting against the student union president’s handling of a case involving a union employee, who they claimed had been unfairly dismissed. READ MORE: University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1909820/unruly-hong-kong-student-protesters-have-crossed-line-abused?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1909820/unruly-hong-kong-student-protesters-have-crossed-line-abused?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Feb 2016 02:01:26 +0000 The recent conviction of a developer of small “ding” houses in the New Territories and 11 indigenous male inhabitants sparked a strong reaction from the Heung Yee Kuk, the body which represents the interests of indigenous inhabitants in the New Territories. The kuk sees the right to build and sell ding houses as a customary right protected by the Basic Law and has vowed to fight against the criminalisation of the sale of “ding rights” to developers, not ruling out seeking a National People’s... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1898103/time-thoroughly-overhaul-hong-kongs-small-house-policy-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1898103/time-thoroughly-overhaul-hong-kongs-small-house-policy-and?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Jan 2016 06:43:59 +0000 In a recent speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, retired permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal Henry Litton slammed the abuse of judicial reviews in Hong Kong by politicians and public policy advocates. He specifically singled out the judicial review application of Yvonne Leung Lai-kwok, former head of the University of Hong Kong student union, in March, to challenge the government’s proposal for selecting the chief executive in 2017. Litton believes there were no reasonable... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1888331/hong-kong-courts-judicial-review-screening-system-working?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1888331/hong-kong-courts-judicial-review-screening-system-working?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Dec 2015 09:20:44 +0000 In Hong Kong, the term "old men's politics" or gerontocracy was first widely talked about in 1989 when hundreds of thousands of students gathered in Tiananmen Square demanding an end to bureaucratic corruption and the start of political reform. In 1989, China was run by premier Li Peng , then aged 60, and party general secretary Zhao Ziyang , then aged 69. The fate of the country, however, was in the hands of the "eight patriarchs", namely Deng Xiaoping , Chen Yun , Peng Zhen , Yang Shangkun ,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1875236/age-reason-hong-kong-far-being-run-old-men-despite-what?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1875236/age-reason-hong-kong-far-being-run-old-men-despite-what?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Nov 2015 06:50:45 +0000 Three days after the University of Hong Kong council decided to reject the recommendation to appoint former law dean Johannes Chan Man-mun as pro-vice-chancellor for academic staffing and resources, the dean of HKU's architecture faculty, Chris Webster, said he did not think the appointment of a pro-vice-chancellor for internal administrative affairs had a lot to do with academic freedom. He wrote that his personal (favourable) view of Chan's suitability for the post was no longer relevant since... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1865129/did-university-hong-kong-council-consider-bigger-picture?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1865129/did-university-hong-kong-council-consider-bigger-picture?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Oct 2015 03:00:15 +0000 In April 1987, when China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping met the Basic Law Drafting Committee members in Beijing, he criticised the suggestion to introduce the principle of separation of powers to the would-be Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. He said Hong Kong could not copy directly from the West. The then undemocratic system in Hong Kong was based on the British system, and had been in practice for a century and a half. Deng said it would not be appropriate to introduce to such a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1861340/hong-kong-chief-executive-not-above-executive-judicial-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1861340/hong-kong-chief-executive-not-above-executive-judicial-and?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Sep 2015 09:53:56 +0000 The saga surrounding the appointment of the University of Hong Kong's new pro-vice-chancellor has turned into open political confrontation, with hundreds of alumni joining a signature campaign to condemn the HKU council's decision on June 30 to postpone its deliberations. Council chairman Leong Che-hung explained that the council thought the appointment should not be made until the provost (to whom the pro-vice-chancellor will report) had assumed his post, and that the provost's views on the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1843118/hku-appointment-saga-shows-need-university-council-stand-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1843118/hku-appointment-saga-shows-need-university-council-stand-its?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Jul 2015 17:45:45 +0000 Ningxia choy-sum is well known to housewives in Hong Kong, but a recent visit to the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region revealed something that few of us notice. A friend in Yinchuan city took me to visit Yongning county, a remote area to the south that, with an area close to that of Hong Kong's, is quickly turning into an important base for wine production in China. The story began in 2007 when the local government proposed to start planting white poplars, in the semi-desert areas along the eastern... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1831941/mainland-investment-stories-and-opportunities-still-exist?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1831941/mainland-investment-stories-and-opportunities-still-exist?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Jul 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Beijing's latest draft of a proposed national security law has raised concern in Hong Kong. Article 11 of the draft law obliges the people of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, alongside their mainland compatriots. Article 36 of the draft calls on the Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions to fulfil their responsibility of safeguarding national security. Hong Kong is part of China, so it is natural that the SAR government should... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1815678/catch-all-national-security-law-adds-hong-kong-worry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1815678/catch-all-national-security-law-adds-hong-kong-worry?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Jun 2015 06:33:45 +0000 Pan-democrat lawmakers have repeatedly said that the reform package for the 2017 chief executive election, based on the National People's Congress Standing Committee's August 31 decision, is fake universal suffrage and have vowed to veto it. Such a move would see Hong Kong's five million eligible voters deprived of the right to cast their vote to choose a leader, albeit with screened candidates, a right that hitherto has not existed. It thus boils down to the question of the nature of the right... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1785578/pan-democrats-have-no-right-deny-hong-kong-people-vote?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1785578/pan-democrats-have-no-right-deny-hong-kong-people-vote?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 May 2015 06:19:29 +0000 Every April, the Law Society opens application to overseas lawyers who wish to sit the qualifying examination to become solicitors in Hong Kong. The society held its first Overseas Lawyers Qualifying Examination in 1995. Between 1996 and 2013, Hong Kong saw a total of 8,073 newly admitted solicitors. Among them, 1,672 - or about one in five - were overseas lawyers. Take the figures from just 2009 to 2013, and the proportion of foreign solicitors becomes more than one in four. It is generally... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1761669/hong-kongs-law-graduates-deserve-fair-chance-enter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1761669/hong-kongs-law-graduates-deserve-fair-chance-enter?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Apr 2015 06:50:54 +0000 Not long ago, King's College, Hong Kong, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's alma mater, was attacked by both pro-establishment parents and pro-democrat parents in the span of two months. Last December, some parents protested outside the school after it allowed a few students to march up onto the stage of the school hall with yellow umbrellas during a singing contest. The protest was followed up by harsh criticism by Wen Wei Po of the school's handling of the incident, blaming it for inciting... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1731097/hong-kongs-young-protesters-need-lessons-civility?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1731097/hong-kongs-young-protesters-need-lessons-civility?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Mar 2015 17:00:10 +0000 In his policy address, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying criticised the University of Hong Kong Student Union's magazine, Undergrad, for proposing independence as a political choice for Hong Kong, which raised the profile of a magazine that had previously been little known to the public. In those few controversial issues of Undergrad, the students did not use the term "Chinese government" or "Beijing government" when referring to the central government. Instead, they wrote about the "Chinese... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1710910/pan-democrats-must-halt-their-war-words-establishment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1710910/pan-democrats-must-halt-their-war-words-establishment?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:00:15 +0000 Regardless of how undemocratic the political reform package may seem to the pan-democrats, in deciding to veto any proposal formulated n the basis of Beijing's August 31 decision, the legislators face two dilemmas. First, no one can deny that the proposed reform package allowing 5 million eligible voters to cast their vote is a great improvement over the election by 1,200 selected voters. Vetoing such a package means denying 5 million people the right to vote. Pan-democrat lawmakers owe... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1678610/hong-kongs-pan-democrats-must-learn-art-compromise-if-they?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1678610/hong-kongs-pan-democrats-must-learn-art-compromise-if-they?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Jan 2015 08:53:59 +0000 Hong Kong Jockey Club chairman John Chan Cho-chak recalls an unforgettable experience What were you doing on July 1, 1997? I remember very clearly the night of June 30, 1997. I was already a steward at the Jockey Club and managing director of Kowloon Motor Bus, and I had been invited to attend the handover ceremony at Tamar and the dinner afterwards. I remember stepping out the door of my flat in Mid-Levels when the loud roar of the thunder storm began. I decided not to brave the elements and... https://www.scmp.com/article/594559/eye-witness?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/594559/eye-witness?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 May 2007 16:00:00 +0000 IT IS NOT often that you get to meet a chairman who is happy to admit that his organisation's mission is to give away all its profits. But it is this unique not-for-profit business model that has helped the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) pump more than HK$10billion into the community over the past decade. Overseeing this distribution of its surplus funds in the form of donations to hundreds of charity and community projects is John Chan Cho-chak. Mr Chan, who is also managing director of Kowloon... https://www.scmp.com/article/573784/leading-charge-charity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/573784/leading-charge-charity?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:00:00 +0000 John Chan Cho-chak is still in the hot seat. The former top civil servant who resigned to take charge of Kowloon Motor Bus is also chairman of the Community Chest's corporate donations committee. And with the rising number of local charities, all eyes are on him to get the vast sums of money for which they yearn. Even as he expresses optimism about securing the remaining $5 million of the $60 million targeted from the corporate sector for the fiscal year ending next month, charity groups are... https://www.scmp.com/article/161562/battle-keep-tins-bulging?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/161562/battle-keep-tins-bulging?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 May 1996 16:00:00 +0000 JOHN Chan Cho-chak, who turns 50 on April 8, must have had a laugh or two during the past months. Whenever a civil service re-shuffle was announced, the diminutive Education and Manpower Secretary always appeared in the post-announcement analysis, whetherhe was affected by the events or not. This obsessive media interest in Mr Chan's career has been mostly based on the assumption that his future was pivotal to a much grander plan. Executive Councillor Mr Chan, the commentators said, was... https://www.scmp.com/article/20633/private-mandarin?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/20633/private-mandarin?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Mar 1993 16:00:00 +0000