Donald Tsang to be China's man

Hong Kong is unlikely to win more democracy from Beijing, despite promises by the man expected to be its next leader that he will usher in a new era of openness and strong governance, political analysts said yesterday.

Backed by Beijing, Acting Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) is certain to clinch a two-year term as chief executive next month. But he will have to keep his masters happy if he is to extend his leadership and procure a full, five-year term in 2007.

Beijing has baulked at demands for more democracy and decreed there can be no full voting rights for several more years.

"I don't think Hong Kong can get far on democracy under Donald Tsang. He's a pragmatic person and any reform would be tightly within the boundaries set by the central government," said Kuan Hsin-chi (關信基), professor of government and public administration at the Chinese University. "There will only be marginal improvements as far as electoral reforms are concerned. He will tread very cautiously."

Tsang, a civil-service veteran, took over as interim leader when his unpopular former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) quit in March, citing poor health.

Beijing believes Tsang's widespread popularity and proven administrative ability will help defuse demands for more democracy, analysts said.

Since Tsang resigned last month to run for the city's top political job, he has been trying to cast himself as a man of the people, even though the city's next leader will be elected by a Beijing-sanctioned electoral college of just 800 people. But he has also been pointedly pragmatic.

At a news conference launching his campaign last week, Tsang said it was necessary to first win the trust and respect of Chinese leaders if Hong Kong wanted to obtain full voting rights in the longer term. He said he would work at expanding voting rights, but within the parameters laid down by Beijing.

But Anthony Cheung (張炳良), public administration professor at the City University, holds little hope that much can be gained.

"Beijing is not keen to quicken the pace of democratization," he said, adding that Beijing's game plan would be to keep people happy in the hope that demands for democracy peter out.

"If Donald Tsang can win over the civil servants and the economy continues to improve, then people will be kept happy. And when they realize Beijing won't budge [on the question of democracy], they will compromise," Cheung said.

Tsang has said he would keep the present Cabinet, which Tung put together, intact. It is the same team which was responsible for many of the government's blunders that made Tung so unpopular.

"For the time being, one should not expect democracy to receive preferential treatment from Mr. Tsang ... Democrats are likely to find it as tough a job to convince Mr. Tsang as it was to convince Mr. Tung," Legislator Margaret Ng (吳靄儀) wrote in a newspaper column last week.

Nonetheless, well over half of the public believe Tsang will do a better job than Tung, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Some 66 percent of people surveyed by the Ming Pao daily believed Tsang would be better, 15 percent said he would be the same and 7.5 percent said he would be worse.