John Lee (李家超) became the only candidate for Hong Kong’s top post by proving his willingness to loyally execute Beijing’s demands despite an international outcry. The question now is whether he can convince China that reopening the Asian financial center to the world would not jeopardize its control.
Lee, a former cop and security minister, emerged as a leading advocate for cracking down on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy opposition over the past three years, defending the police’s use of force against protesters and warning that those who supported the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper would “pay a hefty price.”
Such hard-line positions were central to Beijing’s decision to anoint him as the sole candidate in the chief executive’s election on Sunday, according to interviews with 10 members of the committee appointed to ratify the choice.
At the same time, bankers, diplomats, politicians and others who have met privately with Lee say he has been even-handed and receptive to the concerns of the business community in the beleaguered former British colony.
While most expect him to hold fast to China’s sweeping view of national security, they say he appears more responsive to suggestions than outgoing Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), who is deeply unpopular after a single five-year term.
One Hong Kong-based diplomat said Lee, 64, has come off during several meetings as a “gentleman” and appears to know how to balance his views.
A member of Hong Kong’s international business community said Lee was open to meeting up and hearing concerns. Hendrick Sin (冼漢迪), a former HSBC Holdings PLC banker and cofounder of locally listed CMGE Technology Group, said Lee was a “good listener and able to analyze quickly.”
“Without strong ties or entangled relationships with business circles and real-estate tycoons, he is seen as impartial — and that is a plus,” said Sin, who nominated Lee for the Election Committee’s innovation and technology sector. “Hong Kong needs to be united, working toward different goals to face its tremendous challenges,” Sin said.
Most of those interviewed, including several others who worked with Lee at various stages of his rise through government, but are not members of the Election Committee, asked not to be identified by name because they were not authorized to speak on his behalf.
The tasks awaiting Lee when he takes office on July 1 are monumental, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) looking to use the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule to demonstrate his success in rolling back foreign influence in the territory. Beijing’s increasing willingness to dictate local policies — imposing a National Security Law and its “zero COVID-19” strategy — has shaken confidence in the territory’s future as a global finance center.
Lee pledged in his campaign platform to enhance Hong Kong’s status as international business center, while cautiously charting a path forward toward managing COVID-19 in a territory still without quarantine-free travel to either the mainland or the rest of the world.
On Thursday, he said that reopening the border was “the first task on my mind” and he would seek to “remove the obstacles to satisfy the requirements” for doing so, without elaborating.
“I know that the current measures are causing some inconvenience,” he said, according to the South China Morning Post. “The current government is taking action to balance the measures against the need for economic development.”
Even before Hong Kong came under greater scrutiny during a wave of sometimes-violent democracy protests in 2019, its leaders struggled to balance the political desires of its 7.4 million people with China’s demands for control. No chief executive has managed to serve two five-year terms. About 24 percent of the public has confidence in Lee, compared with 12 percent for Lam, a survey in March by the Public Opinion Research Institute showed.
Beijing settled on Lee “very late” in the process, in a decision that was likely influenced by the West’s criticism of China’s position on Ukraine, three pro-establishment politicians familiar with the situation said.
Lee — who, like Lam, is already facing US sanctions over his role cracking down on the democratic opposition — was seen as more firm than other contenders such as Hong Kong Secretary of Finance Paul Chan (陳茂波), one of the politicians said.
A former opposition lawmaker now living overseas described Lee as an “executioner” who was prepared to do whatever was asked, and said his selection showed Beijing’s desire to move away from career administrative officers like Lam.
Choosing Chan or another similar candidate might have been misinterpreted as a sign that the security drive was winding down, the former lawmaker said.
Similarly, Hong Kong cannot completely abandon its “zero COVID-19” policy, which Chinese officials attribute directly to Xi and cite as an example of the advantages of their authoritarian model over fractious Western democracies. While the territory has loosened some restrictions compared with China, including allowing non-residents to enter from May 1, it continues to require quarantines of seven days.
“It seems doubtful he’ll be able to fully satisfy Beijing’s anxieties about national security and, at the same time, address the concerns of companies and professionals who operate globally,” said Michael Davis, a law and international affairs professor at O.P. Jindal Global University in India and a former law professor at the University of Hong Kong. “Beijing has seemed willing to put Hong Kong’s financial, human rights, public health, rule of law and reputational concerns in second place behind what it perceives as national security threats.”
Lee last week revealed that he is Catholic, similar to Lam, which is notable given the Chinese Communist Party’s restrictions on religion. He grew up in public housing before joining the police force as a probationary inspector in 1977, and earned a master’s degree in public policy and administration from Charles Sturt University in Australia.
As chief superintendent of the criminal investigation unit, Lee helped Guangdong police investigate the kidnapping of billionaire Li Ka-shing’s (李嘉誠) eldest son, Victor Li (李澤鉅), in the late 1990s, a person who worked under Lee as a police officer on the case said.
The case foreshadowed future battles over Hong Kong’s legal autonomy, after Chinese authorities decided to try, and ultimately execute, the defendant on the mainland. Victor Li, who is now chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd, was among the first tycoons to voice support for Lee’s candidacy as chief executive last month.
In 2012, then-chief executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), whose father had been a police officer, brought Lee into the government as undersecretary for security. Lam promoted him into her Cabinet as security secretary five years later, where he was central to advocating extradition legislation that prompted anti-government rallies of more than 1 million people in 2019. Early on in the protests, he joined Lam in apologizing for the bill, and the “controversies and rifts it has caused in society.”
As Xi’s government lost patience with the increasingly violent demonstrations, Lee followed Lam in taking a harsher tone against the protests and defending police efforts to sweep protesters from the streets. Lee became a chief proponent of the Beijing-drafted National Security Law that has resulted in the arrests of some 182 people, the closure of at least a dozen news organizations and the dissolution of some of the territory’s largest labor unions.
In June last year, the Chinese government fueled speculation that Lee would succeed Lam when it approved his promotion as chief secretary for administration, the territory’s No. 2 position. An overhaul of the local election system ensured that Beijing would face even less opposition from the committee of about 1,460 insiders who must sign off on candidates.
Soon after Lam’s April 4 announcement that she would not seek a second term, China’s Liaison Office circulated word that Lee would be the sole candidate and informed voters when they could pledge their support, said two Election Committee members who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
A third voter asked not to nominate Lee to avoid making the process look illegitimate.
Lee received 786 nominations from the panel, 35 more than the number of votes he needed to win in Sunday’s election. What remains to be seen is whether such support from Beijing gives Lee more freedom to seek compromise on thorny issues, such as “zero COVID-19” and concerns about foreign influence.
“John Lee has said he’s very concerned about ensuring Hong Kong’s reputation as a international center is maintained,” said George Cautherley, vice chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce-Hong Kong. “To do that, you’re going to have to take a much more pragmatic attitude towards how you handle the borders. Well, let’s see. It’s quite difficult.”
As the Soviet Union was collapsing in the late 1980s and Russia seemed to be starting the process of democratization, 36-year-old US academic Francis Fukuyama had the audacity to assert that the world was at the “end of history.” Fukuyama claimed that democratic systems would become the norm, and peace would prevail the world over. He published a grandiose essay, “The End of History?” in the summer 1989 edition of the journal National Interest. Overnight, Fukuyama became a famous theorist in the US, western Europe, Japan and even Taiwan. Did the collapse of the Soviet Union mark the end of an era as
During a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Monday, US President Joe Biden for the third time intimated that the US would take direct military action to defend Taiwan should China attack. Responding to a question from a reporter — Would Washington be willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan? — Biden replied with an unequivocal “Yes.” As per Biden’s previous deviations from the script of the US’ longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” — maintaining a deliberately nebulous position over whether the US would intervene militarily in the event of a conflagration between Taiwan and
Will the US come to the defense of Taiwan if and when China makes its move? Like most friends of Taiwan, I’ve been saying “yes” for a couple decades. But the truth is that none of us, in or out of government, really know. This is precisely why we all need to show humility in our advice on how Taiwan should prepare itself for such an eventuality. After all, it’s their country, and they have no choice but to live with the consequences. A couple weeks ago the New York Times published an article that put this reality in stark relief. As
US President Joe Biden has done it again — for the third time in the past nine months he has stated that the US will defend Taiwan. And for the third time, his administration officials have rushed to “clarify” that US policy toward Taiwan “has not changed” and Washington still follows its “one China policy.” That is the same scenario that played out with two other presidents. When asked the question posed to Biden in 2001, then-US president George W. Bush said Washington would do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression. In 2020, then-US president Donald Trump
RSS