In late 2002, former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji visited Hong Kong and sought to put steel in the spine of the city’s establishment that was floundering under an economic slump and a ballooning deficit. “Even if you spend all your fiscal reserves three years from now, what is there to fear?” he asked his dinner…
Eighty per cent of success is showing up, as they say. So, all but one of Hong Kong’s 89 legislators joining a week-long “national affairs study visit” to Beijing made a good impression. Lawmaker Stanley Ng Chau-pei called it a “groundbreaking opportunity” for legislators to study and deepen their understanding of national conditions. Showing up…
Hong Kong’s national security laws must be constantly improved to address risks and close loopholes amid geopolitical tensions, a former senior mainland Chinese official overseeing the city’s affairs has said, while insisting that the local pieces of legislation were less draconian compared with equivalent laws in the United States and United Kingdom. Wang Zhenmin, former…
The government has a lot on its plate right now, especially with public consultations under way for the chief executive’s last policy address of his current term and for the city’s first five-year plan. But there is an urgent matter it must address as soon as possible. The resignation of William Wong Kam-fai from the…
The president of Hong Kong’s legislature has urged fellow members to be “more rigorous in their conduct” to meet society’s expectations after a lawmaker resigned following his arrest for alleged drink-driving. Breaking her silence on Saturday, Legislative Council president Starry Lee Wai-king said William Wong Kam-fai’s resignation the previous day reflected his willingness to accept…
Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong has been restructured, with the economic department split into two and its district-level groups expanded, a move that an analyst said reflected the central government’s greater focus on financial, youth, and district work. A comparison of the office’s organisational chart on its website on Thursday with internet archive records…
Hong Kong’s government will launch a consultation exercise on the city’s first five-year plan next month. The plan is set to be released before the end of the year. It’s a monumental task. Lau Siu-kai, a consultant to the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies think tank and former head of the…
The operations of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in London will remain unaffected by a UK spying verdict, observers have said, arguing that the British government is unlikely to seek its closure so as to maintain relations with Beijing. A British court on Thursday found Bill Yuen Chung-biu, the London HKETO’s manager,…
Hong Kong should step up education on Chinese history and culture while highlighting security threats to cultivate public awareness about the need to defend the country, experts have said, as the nation’s legislature is set to pass a law promoting ethnic unity. The expert’s comments came ahead of the closing session of the 14th National…
Hong Kong’s U-turn on its seat belt rule for buses is a sobering reminder to lawmakers that they must meet higher standards even under the “executive-led” governance model recently underlined by Beijing, according to several policy experts. They noted that some lawmakers had been complacent, prioritising speed over efficacy in policymaking in a “patriots-only” legislature…