More big news from East Asia. Hong Kong's chief executive has resigned with 2 years left on his term. Tung Chee Hwa who has led Hong Kong since it rejoined the PRC and was hand picked by the PRC has resigned citing health reasons. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/03/10/hongkong.tung/index.html Tung was widely unpopular among pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong and also considered inept in his handling of the government, people and economic crisis. He was also falling out of favor with the top PRC leadership.
I was attending a wedding banquet in Hong Kong the night before the formal resignation. There was an ovation when one of the guests brought this up as another happy event of the evening.
Tung was pretty despised by much of Hong Kong but pro-democracy supporters shouldn't consider this a good thing. Its just as likely that Beijing will put in someone even more hardline than Tung.
Are you saying Tung wasn't despised by the pro-democracy side or his actions weren't considered undemocractic?
Well, if you checked the latest news, the "pro-democracy" in Hong Kong had pretty much lost all credibility. It wasn't from a single event, but rather from a string of events. Let's just say they've put their election ahead of the good of the people of Hong Kong, and got caught lying way to many times. Also, I should point out that the pro-democracy group is hardly representative of Hong Kong. I don't think it makes a difference whether Tung is despised by pro-democracy groups as long as he isn't despised by the general populace of Hong Kong. All that aside, I think people have the opinion that Tung's job is easy. No it isn't. Could Tung have done better? Yes, which is why I say he's incompetent. But any improvement in that area is marginal at best, because Tung is in the perfect example of a typical catch 22 situation. If you flip open a dictionary, you'd see his picture there. In order for Hong Kong to strengthen its weak economy, it has to get close to China, which can provide Hong Kong with cold hard $$$ which the city desperately needs just to keep the economy afloat. But if he does that, the "pro-democracy" groups, who have considerable audience here in the US, and who will claim he's sucking up to the Chicoms and trampling Hong Kong's democracy. If he doesn't do that he'll be bashed by the general populace for screwing up the economy. He's in a typical situation where he just can't win. So what do I think about his resignation? Well, I don't care actually. But on a personal note from Tung's perspective, it's probably good for him.
