Category: HK politics
Election ’16: The rural party line
More roads for Lantau, relocation of cattle, improved sewerage works, expansion of Mui Wo tourism.
If those seem familiar they should. They are the demands of South Lantau rural committees, so it is no surprise they should be the main planks of Leung Che-cheung’s Lantau platform.
Leung, the sitting member for New Territories West, is a prominent Heung Yee Kuk politician as well as top of one of the DAB lists for NT West. The kuk is pro-government but not necessarily pro-DAB. Lau Wong-fat was a member of the Liberal Party for some years, and in recent years kuk leaders have canvassed setting up their own party (that would be a milestone; they already have their own LegCo seat). Continue reading
LegCo 2016: An election explainer for Lantau voters
Whether you think Hong Kong has the world’s most “ridiculous political system or that it appropriately protects the interests of business, it takes some explaining.
As a registered voter, you have two votes in the LegCo election on September 4.
Here’s how it works.
The outgoing LegCo consists of 70 seats, of which 35 are from geographical constituencies and 35 from Hong Kong’s unique creation, “functional constituencies (FCs).” These are a frankly random and hard-to-explain assortment of sectors. To take one example: insurance, finance and financial services are all separate FCs.
Only 18 will actually be contested (fun fact: the Heung Yee Kuk seat has never been contested). Voting populations vary immensely – at one end agriculture and fisheries has 154 voters; at the other end education has 88,000. Of the 35 FCs, five are district council super-seats that we all get to vote on. More on that later. Continue reading
CY Leung under fire over Lantau cleanup
Hong Kong leader CY Leung is under fire from multiple directions for his beach cleanup exercise on South Lantau yesterday.
A team of around 60 government cleaning contractors was hired early Sunday morning to collect and sort the trash at Shui Hau ahead of the arrival of Leung and his 70-strong party of senior bureaucrats, according to local activist Ho Loy. Continue reading
CY Leung burnishes green credentials with Lantau beach clean-up
For the second time in less than a month, senior SAR officials have converged on Lantau to collect beach trash.
This morning CY Leung himself led a team of 70 officials that collected 1.35 tonnes of rubbish from Cheung Sha and Shui Hau, RTHK reported. Leung said they had been inspired by the efforts of local residents.
As a minder looks on, CY Leung and Wong Kam-sing make themselves useful. Source: HK Government
Explains a lot: Lantau is central to Leung’s reelection
Zhang Dejiang’s short visit (or inspection) has told us that Lantau is not just a big deal in Hong Kong. It’s a pretty big deal in Beijing, and an even bigger deal for CY Leung’s reelection (or ‘reelection’) strategy.
The Development Bureau was the first place on Zhang’s official agenda, which soon became well-known to Hong Kong thanks to this photograph of the VIP inspecting this hefty 3D visualisation of the Lantau plans:
Suits meet the model (Source: Development Bureau)
Sea change in Taiwan, no change in Beijing
There’s a lot to like about the Taiwan election. It concluded once again without incident and resulted in the first woman president and the first complete transfer of power to an opposition party.
The number ‘689’ – toxic for Beijing – also made another appearance. Tsai Yingwen polled 6.89 million votes, or 56.1%; in 2012 Ma also attracted 6.89 million. ‘689’ has been CY Leung’s derisive nickname since receiving that number of votes in the 2012 CE poll.
Beijing’s response was typically guarded. Whereas Tsai praised her “admirable opponents,” China’s official statements declined to congratulate her or the Taiwan people or to make reference to the milestone of an ethnic Chinese woman being elected to high office (the last woman to lead a Chinese community was Empress Wu Zetian in the eighth century). This is routine for Beijing, though odd anywhere else. Continue reading
Lantau’s rising political star
Lantau has never bred a major political leader, but Holden Chow, a rising star in the pro-Beijing camp, could be the first. 
The 37-year-old DAB vice-chairman, who was elected to Tung Chung South in November District Council poll, is making a tilt at the Legco seat vacated by former Civic Party member Ronnie Tong. As SCMP puts it, the by-election “is widely seen as a showdown between the pan-democracy and pro-Beijing camps.”
Chow is also tipped to contest the LegCo ‘super seat’, likely in September, with backing from Regina Ip’s New People’s Party.
Chow, a solicitor, is often sought out by English-speaking and foreign media for his views. In an interview with the New York Times on the Hong Kong democratic reform bill last year he said China was “going her own way.”
Like it or not, this is the reality and China has to go on her own way. Also, I believe that if all of a sudden China carried out democratic elections tomorrow, that may create a lot of consequences, too. It is something that is very realistic, and I am a very pragmatic person. You have these ideals, good, but you also have to strike a balance with reality.
Election wash-up: Occupy was an issue, but not on Lantau
Randy Yu earned himself a profile in the SCMP last week in the wake of his Lantau election victory. It was the kind of flattering story on a pro-government figure that the SCMP seems to specialise in these days; it skipped the inconvenient fact of Yu shrinking the establishment vote by a third.
Nonetheless it’s a worthwhile introduction to someone who will likely have an influence on Lantau issues for many years to come. Continue reading
Six years in, we don’t know when Macau bridge will open
C.Y. Leung’s visit to Zhuhai last week confirmed what has been apparent for months – the grand project to build a bridge across the Pearl River mouth is so far off schedule no-one can say when it will be finished.
At the start of the year the 50-km bridge was slated to come into service by the end of 2016 as originally planned.
In January the government took a request to LegCo for an extra $5.46 billion, and acknowledged it was waiting on a fresh analysis from the Highways Dept to give a revised timetable. Officials had no trouble in finding reasons for the spike in budget: the high number of construction projects, machinery costs, rising wages, the environmental assessment, the delay caused by the 2010 judicial review and the cost of the new immigration facilities.
In March the head of the Guangdong Development and Reform Commission, Li Chunhong, told the SCMP that construction, which began in December 2009, may not complete until after 2020:
The bridge was scheduled to be completed next year, but Li said even 2020 was a difficult target because of technical difficulties in laying sections of tubes on the seabed and joining them to make a tunnel.
Top five reasons why LegCo should reject ‘reform’
Here’s why lawmakers should vote down the bill today.
1. It doesn’t make any difference
The bill merely codifies current practice for an enlarged voter group. If 2012 were run on the new rules we’d still have CY Leung, a crony of Beijing, vs Henry Tang, a crony of the cronies. It’s an exercise in screening out those who would put the needs of Hong Kong people ahead of the CCP and makes no difference to the governance of Hong Kong.
Lantau Confidential 