Word: tsang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...feel about him? They like the fact that he's a career civil servant. "After Tung, Beijing prefers a man with experience in government," says Ma Ngok, a political scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Beijing also prefers someone who won't rock the boat. Tsang, a lifelong bureaucrat trained to follow rather than give orders, fits the bill. Indeed, during a press conference last week, he repeatedly stressed how important stability was to Hong Kong. Moreover, with Tsang at the helm, at least the fa?ade is maintained of a Hong Kong person running Hong Kong...
...Tsang in Hong Kong? The 170,000-strong civil service supports him. The general public like him, too. A poll taken last month by the University of Hong Kong ranks Tsang as one of the territory's most popular leaders, with an approval rating of over...
...against him? The business lobby wanted to see one of their own become Chief Executive. Hong Kong's leftists mistrust Tsang as a colonial Anglophile (the knighthood, the British boarding schools his two sons attend). And the democrats find Tsang too conservative. In its eagerness to replace Tung, Beijing may have underestimated the contentiousness of Hong Kong party politics. If Tsang can't keep the territory's powerful factions under control, he could find it difficult to get anything done...
...What are the challenges facing Tsang? The biggest is the growing demand in Hong Kong for greater democracy, which often manifests itself in the form of mass street protests. The public will also carefully watch what Tsang does regarding the city's West Kowloon Cultural District, a huge real estate project that has drawn accusations of collusion between the government and Big Business. Then there's the state of the harbor, Hong Kong's most precious natural resource; air pollution; worsening traffic; conservation; the widening wealth gap?in short, everything you'd expect from the educated and cosmopolitan society Hong...
...What happens next? For now, Tsang is only the acting Chief Executive. Hong Kong's constitution requires that a new leader be chosen by the Election Committee, which currently consists of 800 community stalwarts, within six months of the post being vacated. Last week Tsang announced that the selection would take place on July 10. If he runs, he is unlikely to face any serious opposition, not least because the committee is heavily pro-China. "Beijing has already anointed him," says opposition legislator Emily Lau. Tsang would then serve out Tung's current term until 2007, when the committee meets...