A new head of government was elected in the former British crown colony on Sunday: John Lee, a civil servant loyal to Beijing, is primarily responsible for ensuring political calm.
The only candidate for the post of prime minister, John Lee, was confirmed for the post on Sunday. The 64-year-old has promised to provide affordable housing and reduce the gap between rich and poor.
Probably never since the return of Hong Kong to China almost 25 years ago has the city faced such major problems as it is at the moment. The economy is faltering, more and more people are unemployed, and many well-educated Hong Kongers with higher incomes are turning their backs on the once vibrant city because they do not want to put up with the restrictions on civil liberties. At the beginning of the year, Hong Kong was also hit by another violent corona wave, during which public life came to a standstill for weeks.
In this situation, former police officer John Lee will soon be in charge of the Asian economic metropolis. 1416 of 1424 Electoral Committee delegates elected him on Sunday to succeed current Prime Minister Carrie Lam. No head of government has ever achieved such a high approval rate of 99.4 percent.
The 64-year-old was the preferred candidate of those in power in Beijing and also the only candidate for the office. The election committee is significantly influenced by Beijing: delegates from the Chinese National People’s Congress sit on it, as well as representatives of economic and social groups in Hong Kong.
Beijing apparently fears further protests
The Chinese central government’s priorities are clear. She wants a head of government who, for almost his entire career, has only held posts in which he was responsible for internal security. Even three years after the serious political unrest, the Chinese government is apparently concerned about possible new protests and unrest.
In China, it is customary for top positions in politically sensitive and potentially unstable regions to be filled by members of the security apparatus. Tibet, where there have been repeated protests against Beijing’s rule in the past, is one of them, as is the Uyghur region of Xinjiang. The Chinese government has demanded an uncompromising crackdown on local protests, especially since party and state leader Xi Jinping took power.
Lee is considered a hardliner
John Lee has had an impressive career in Hong Kong’s security apparatus. At the age of 19 he joined the Hong Kong Police Service, where he held numerous posts in the years that followed. Among other things, he was responsible for training, finance, planning and development. Eventually, Lee became director of the crime and security department to be appointed deputy secretary of state for security in 2012. Barely five years later he became head of the ministry; less than a year ago he was appointed Lam’s deputy.
Lee is considered a hardliner. In 2019 he did everything in his power to push through the controversial extradition law and campaigned to put down the protests. In the end, the government withdrew the planned law due to massive resistance from the population. In April, YouTube blocked the channel of Lee’s campaign team. With his statements he violated the guidelines of the company belonging to the Google group, according to the reasoning. The United States has imposed sanctions on what is likely to be the next Hong Kong head of government.
Since the introduction of the National Security Act through Beijing in 2020, Lee and Prime Minister Lam ensured that civil liberties were restricted more and more. More and more key positions were filled by officials loyal to Beijing; there are no longer any representatives of the democratic camp in the city’s parliament. Either they left Hong Kong or they were sentenced to prison terms.
Almost nothing remains of the once vibrant media scene critical of the government and Beijing. In June last year, the newspaper “Apple Daily” had to shut down operations. The paper was one of Hong Kong’s most popular Chinese-language newspapers. In the just released Press Freedom Index Hong Kong only ranks 148th out of 180 countries. Three years ago, the city still made it to 73rd place.
More protests are hardly to be expected. Critics of the anti-democratic course and other disaffected people have either accepted the apparently inevitable or left town. The emigration continues. According to one current survey nearly a quarter of Hong Kongers are considering moving away from the city, especially well-educated higher earners. Many of them say they don’t want their children to grow up in a system like Hong Kong’s.
Many Hong Kongers support Beijing
However, a large part of the 7.4 million Hong Kongers also support the political course de facto determined by Beijing. After the serious unrest of 2019, what they want most is calm and stability, but at the same time they want the next prime minister to take care of the city’s problems.
The pandemic has brought the economy to its knees. In the first quarter economic output shrank compared to the previous year by 4 percent, the unemployment rate rose to 5.0 percent in the first quarter. Business officials in Hong Kong fear that Lee might not face the economic problems with courage because of his lack of economic background and focus on internal security.
After all, Lee introduced his so-called manifestos At the end of April, Hong Kong’s structural deficits were named: a lack of future prospects and opportunities for advancement for young people, unaffordable housing prices and the growing gap between rich and poor. However, Lee has not yet made any concrete suggestions for a solution. After all, the prospective head of government promised a more flexible course in fighting the pandemic. In fact, Hong Kong is likely to end up “living with Covid” – which is not openly said, however, because Beijing is sticking strictly to its zero-Covid strategy.