HK cabinet headhunt forces Tung retreat

Asia Times ^ | 08.06.03 | Wong Kwok Wah

[Dr. Marten]

HK cabinet headhunt forces Tung retreat
By Wong Kwok Wah

HONG KONG - Hong Kong saw a rehabilitation of career bureaucrats on Monday, denoting a setback to the program of introducing a ministerial government in the special administrative region (SAR) of China. It also meant a personal blow to the head of the territory.

Tung Chee-hwa, the chief executive of the SAR, introduced four new faces in his administration in what was the first occasion of musical chairs for his government since he introduced the ministerial system last year. With the exception of Henry Tang Ying-yen, the new financial secretary who was elevated from his former position of commerce secretary, all were recruited from the ranks of civil servants.

This meant a step backward from Tung's vision of relying less on the civil service, one of the major legacies of the former (and reviled) British colonial regime. Tung had been heard laying the blame on the uncooperative attitude of the civil service for the many failures of his administration in his first term of five years, which ended in June last year. This passing of the buck was made public through his supporters. His design of a ministerial government was aimed at appointing policy secretaries from the private sector to tame the arrogant civil service. But when the program took off last year, it was only half-baked, as about half of the policy secretaries had to be recruited from the career bureaucrats.

This latest reshuffle was necessitated by the resignation of two former members of Tung's cabinet. Former financial secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung left in disgrace, facing possible prosecution on abuse of powers in the purchase of a luxury sedan just before he introduced a tax hike for such products. Regina Ip, the flamboyant former security chief, departed the SAR to accompany her only daughter for studies in the United States.

When Leung was appointed to the financial top job in 2001, there were murmurs within the civil service, as Leung was a career banker, or more precisely a foreign-exchange trader, without any public financial management portfolio. Later his appointment was known to be an advance step in Tung's overall plan to banish civil servants from his cabinet.

Leung is now replaced by Tang, another person uncolored by a civil-service resume. Tang's former ministerial position, however, is filled by John Tsang Chun-wah, the former permanent secretary for planning and lands. Therefore it is a politician out, a bureaucrat in.

The reason for Tung scaling back the process of de-bureaucratizating his cabinet need not be asked in Hong Kong, for it has been an open secret since the first day of July that Tung has become untouchable. His insensitive response to the procession of half a million citizens in the street condemning his governance, in particular the unjustified attempt to rush through a complicated bill to deprive people of many of their freedoms in the name of state security, has demonstrated to anyone who has a political ambition that adhering to Tung meant nothing less than a Satan's kiss. Ever since Leung's resignation was announced on July 15, the media in Hong Kong have been inundated with prominent business and academic figures denying their interest in stepping in.

Even Tang himself joined the chorus of dissociation at the very early stage. On being confronted with a question on why he has now eaten his own words, he smiled with embarrassment, and said that while he had really been speaking his mind at that juncture, it was before Tung had issued the invitation.

Tang accepted the posting in the middle of an official visit to Canada and Britain, and in fact canceled, with only one night's notice, an appointment with the British Trade Ministry and flew directly back to Hong Kong from Canada last Thursday. Rumors had it that Tung had to persuade Tang's father, a standing committee member of the Chinese People Political Consultative Conference, China's top advisory council, to make the younger Tang bow in.

Tung is unpopular not only among the men and women of the street. As demonstrated most recently in the difficulty of cabinet headhunting, his absence of popularity has in fact reached the circle of the rich and the elite. He himself is possibly the last one to realize this.

[Dr. Marten]

Ping!

[FreepForever]

Thanks for the post, Dr. Marten. Let me explain the situation.

Tung is now forced to pick his men from second and third rated officials. There are first class people within the government, but Tung doesn’t trust them and view them as saboteurs left by the pre-1997 British government. His strategy is to sideline and marginalize them.

There are first class people outside of the government too, but nobody wants to board a sinking ship. During the month long vacuum period, the media had tipped 15 candidates but they all scrambled to make public statements saying that they have no interests. The newspaper have put it so aptly: “Government vacancies now are like first class tickets on Titanic’s maiden voyage with Tung as Captain.” That’s why Tung has to promote unqualified people within his own camp. We are now watching a Titanic replay in slow motion.