Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said she would not blindly obey the orders of Chinese Communist Party leaders in Beijing, while admitting that the territory’s government has no way to suppress skyrocketing prices in one of the most expensive property markets in the world.
Lam was sworn in by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in July as the former British colony celebrated 20 years of Chinese rule under the principle of “one country, two systems,” which promises the territory a high degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in the mainland.
While a recent poll showed the new chief executive is more popular than her predecessor, some accuse her of being a puppet of Beijing amid perceptions of Chinese meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs.
Specifically, critics have highlighted her push for an arrangement that would allow Chinese officials to enforce Chinese laws in a high-speed railway station scheduled to open next year.
Lam said in an interview with Radio Television Hong Kong that she was accountable to both the Hong Kong public and Beijing, but she would not blindly obey the central government.
“Being accountable doesn’t mean you have to do everything you’re told,” Lam said. “So you can’t say you’ll do whatever the central government [says].”
“If the central government asks me to do something that I think is beyond what Hong Kong people can bear or against Hong Kong’s developmental interests, then of course I have the duty to tell the central government and fight for a more favorable arrangement for Hong Kong,” she added.
Lam also said she did not plan to next year kick-start legislation for a controversial national security law, urging people not to “demonize” it.
Asked about Hong Kong’s red-hot property market, where prices have shot up more than 12 percent over the past year and are expected to climb another 10 percent next year, she said the government was helpless in reversing the trend.
“The government really has no ways to curb property prices... The government has introduced a few rounds of cooling measures, but they did not suppress prices... Quite the contrary, now some people say these measures have pushed up prices,” Lam said.
The government’s mixed bag of tax and regulatory policies, on top of eight rounds of mortgage tightening measures since 2009 by the territory’s de facto central bank, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, has effectively locked up supply in the secondary housing market.
Lam said that while she has never promised to suppress property prices, she would seek more land to boost long-term supply.
“I’ve never said I want to turn around the increase in property prices, because there are many factors contributing to that, but I want to turn around how supply falls short of demand, or, simply put, insufficient supply,” Lam said.
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