Word: tsang
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...Anywhere else, such setbacks would not harm someone's political reputation for long. But Hong Kong is such a can-do town of winners that just a couple of reversals can be magnified to give you a loser's image. Tsang's supporters say his retreats are a sign of pragmatism. "He is bold and determined," says Choy So-yuk, a Legislative Council member from the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB). "In areas like West Kowloon, he knows when to give up when facing public opposition." Yet for an official who declared...
...fair, the blame for a lack of sparkle in Tsang's administration so far cannot be laid solely at his door. Hong Kong's system is intended to have a strong Chief Executive, but the top official cannot be a member of a political party, which means that he has to build support from parties with often competing agendas, like the pro-business Liberal Party and the DAB, which champions Hong Kong's working class. Some believe that limiting the Chief Executive election to just an élite 800, who in turn are selected by only about 200,000 voters...
...Tsang's boosters say that the best is yet to come, and point to his great strength: he's popular. With approval ratings consistently in the mid-60s, Tsang does not lack for support. "He's pretty good," says Johnny Lau, 35, an advertising worker taking a cigarette break beneath a campaign billboard for Alan Leong. In Mongkok, on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong harbor-and one of the most densely populated tracts of land on the planet-Rex Lau, 37, who is working in a bicycle-repair shop, echoes the sentiment. "Donald Tsang is doing okay," he allows...
...Born and bred in Hong Kong-his father was a policeman-Tsang rose through the ranks of the colonial civil service, a common career choice for Hong Kongers with plenty of brains but little money. A devout Catholic (like a surprising number of key people in Hong Kong), Tsang has his roots deep in the city. Because of his background as an official in the British administration, for which he received a knighthood, Hong Kong's leftist camp has never fully trusted Tsang as a Beijing loyalist. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that China's leaders are still feeling...
...feel the time for full democracy is already long past, and that any attempt to delay it is demeaning. Earlier this month, a group of democrats led by Chan unveiled a compromise proposal that would gradually implement universal suffrage. It's hardly a radical blueprint, and it dovetails with Tsang's own target of achieving full democracy by 2012, when his new five-year term will end. The response out of Beijing to Chan's plan, however, was anything but welcoming. Chen Zuo'er, the deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, was at pains to stress...