A brutal public dressing-down by the Chinese president in December may have signaled the beginning of the end of Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's (董建華) turbulent seven years as the territory's leader.
With TV cameras recording each uncomfortable second, the 67-year-old Tung looked every inch an errant schoolboy as President Hu Jintao (胡
"Identify your inadequacies," Hu barked at Tung as the stony-faced Hong Kong leader stood rigidly to attention. "Raise the standard of your administration and improve your governance."
ILLUSTRATION: YUSHA
Tung had gone expecting a friendly encounter. His office even trumpeted details of the meeting when it was confirmed. Instead he was ambushed and confronted with his failings in the cruelest manner imaginable.
China had clearly lost patience with the man they hand-picked to lead Hong Kong after the 1997 return of the territory to Chinese rule by Britain. For Tung, the loss of face on Dec. 20 may have been the last straw.
Before, there had been only private expressions of concern and public messages of support for the former shipping magnate who was due to serve as chief executive until 2007.
But Hu -- with no personal loyalty to the man appointed by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin (江
Shortly afterwards, Tung is understood to have made up his mind up to resign. Significantly, it was not the first time he had reached the decision that it was time to go.
The first occasion was as he watched more than 500,000 protesters take to the streets in a massive anti-government demonstration on July 1, 2003, underlining the depth of his personal unpopularity.
Widely seen as autocratic, remote and too willing to do Beijing's bidding while ignoring the wishes and democratic aspirations of Hong Kong people, Tung knew he was disliked.
But the sheer numbers on the July 1 march and the sight of dummies in Tung masks being held aloft by jeering members of the crowd persuaded him to offer Beijing his resignation.
He was told to stay on but from that moment onwards, China -- alarmed at the prospect of protests spilling over from Hong Kong -- decided to take a more active role.
China began to openly meddle in Hong Kong politics. Officials started last year by launching a series of attacks on pro-democracy legislators, labeling them unfit to run Hong Kong.
Beijing intervened again last April to announce that there could be no free elections in Hong Kong until after 2008 at the earliest, a move criticized by Washington in a human-rights report this week.
Now, it is sources in Beijing -- not Hong Kong -- who are leaking news of Tung's expected departure and officials there will decide how any change of leadership is handled.
Tung is expected to be elevated to the position of vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference -- an honorary position usually given to retired officials.
It is believed that he will cite ill health and possibly stress as the reasons for his early retirement, and there is little doubt that his health has deteriorated over the past two years.
Tung has suffered from hypertension and other illnesses and has given up the tai chi exercises that used to start his long working day.
He has cut down significantly on public appearances and last month canceled appearances at Lunar New Year parties because of ill health.
Superficially, Tung's resignation could be viewed as a delayed triumph for "people power" after the 2003 demonstration -- but pro-democracy champion Martin Lee (李柱銘) warns it is more a signal of China's tightening grip on Hong Kong.
"This is the end of Hong Kong people running Hong Kong," Lee told one newspaper.
Christine Loh (陸
"You could argue that on that day his government fell," she said. "If it was the British parliamentary system, he would have had to call an election to be reconfirmed as the government of the day.
"Between then and now the economy has improved but Mr. Tung's government has lost credibility with the people and he hasn't been able to get it back," she said.
Tung had a "troubled relationship" with Beijing, Loh said, and if news of his resignation was confirmed, it would seem that the vital decisions have again been taken in Beijing.
"If my line of logic is correct, then the [Communist Party] politburo has effectively said it is better for Mr. Tung to go now rather than later," she said.
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan. For decades,
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
RSS