Tag Archives: hong kong

China, Hong Kong

Asia’s wealthiest man endorses Tang

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Coming after a week in which the leadership of People’s Republic of China seemed to indicate that Hong Kong’s next chief executive should be the man who commands overwhelming public support, Leung Chun-ying, one of two vaguely pro-Beijing candidates in the three-person March 25 race for Hong Kong’s next chief executive, Li Ka-shing, Asia’s wealthiest man, has endorsed the one-time frontrunner, businessman Henry Tang, Leung’s opponent. 

Tang has long been thought to be the favorite of Hong Kong’s local development and business elite, and Li’s public support may sway undecided local Hong Kong players to support Tang, whose one-time inevitability has eroded in the face of lackluster campaigning skills, charges of infidelity, a swarm of bad publicity over building an unapproved basement in his current building (and blaming the illicit building project on his wife) and scandal engulfing the current chief executive, Donald Tsang.

Li’s endorsement, which follows comments from Chinese premier Wen Jiabao last week that Hong Kong should result in a leader who has the support of the “vast majority” of the people in Hong Kong, sets up a dynamic that pits a candidate backed by local developers (Tang) against another candidate (Leung) now seen to be favored by Beijing over Tang.  Continue reading Asia’s wealthiest man endorses Tang →

China, Hong Kong

Xi’s just not that into you

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The too hot-to-handle race for Hong Kong’s third chief executive is now so electric it’s verboten to report on the race on the Chinese mainland.

In fact, China and Hong Kong may have stumbled into one of the most (accidentally) democratic elections in the Middle Kingdom’s history, as everyone scrambles to determine which candidate is truly favored by Beijing.

The March 25 race is all the more relevant considering that Hong Kong affairs fall within the portfolio of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the presumptive heir to outgoing Chinese President Hu Jintao, who will step down in 2013.

Three candidates are running for the post, which will be vacated by current chief executive Donald Tsang on July 1:

  • Henry Tang, a businessman who began the race as the favored Beijing candidate as well as the favorite of local Hong Kong developers;
  • Leung Chun-ying, another pro-Beijing candidate who has become the popular favorite, notwithstanding his pro-Beijing sentiment; and
  • Albert Ho, an anti-Beijing candidate of the Democracy Party who has no shot of winning;

The election is not an exercise in direct democracy (or even representative democracy), but rather a decision of the Election Committee, an electoral college of 1,200 Hong Kong SAR residents, which will vote on the basis of Hong Kong business interests as well as the interests of the top leadership echelon of the People’s Republic of China.

In other words, the chief executive will have to be acceptable to both the local business elite as well as to the PRC leadership.

And amid tawdry revelations at every turn of the scandal, there are conflicting signs about the PRC brass’s favorite.

Increasingly, though, in a turn worthy of Yes, Minister, it appears that the unofficial pro-Beijing candidate (Leung) could now be, unofficially, Beijing’s official candidate.

Instead of the officially official candidate (Tang).

Continue reading Xi’s just not that into you →