{"id":13409,"date":"2007-06-26T04:46:03","date_gmt":"2007-06-26T11:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/06\/26\/hong-kongs-boss-looks-forward-and-back-tom-plate\/"},"modified":"2007-06-26T04:46:03","modified_gmt":"2007-06-26T11:46:03","slug":"hong-kongs-boss-looks-forward-and-back-tom-plate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/06\/hong-kongs-boss-looks-forward-and-back-tom-plate\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong’s Boss Looks Forward And Back – Tom Plate"},"content":{"rendered":"

From AsiaMedia:<\/p>\n

It may be that your ultimate working nightmare would be to have two tough bosses. I mean, one tough boss alone you can handle — just keep that one account squared away and don’t mess up.<\/p>\n

Having even a string of bosses is not so big a deal — just juggle one against the other against the third and so on, then keep your head down.<\/p>\n

But serving two masters, and two masters alone, who are watching you like hawks, and who often disagree — that’s got to go down as one of life’s major headaches. It’s certainly not the kind of job I would want.<\/p>\n

But that’s the kind of job Chief Executive Donald Tsang has. I don’t envy him. He’s soon to commence his second term in the service of a pair of competing masters. One is Hong Kong — meaning the territory’s people, evolving legislature and punchy news media. The other is Master Beijing. [Full Text]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tom Plate is a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network. Read also the edited transcript of Financial Times’ interview with Donald Tsang:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

… FT: With regards to politics, how can you possibly bridge this divide between what the pro-democracy camp wants and what Beijing is prepared to give?<\/p>\n

Donald Tsang: That’s where the challenge is. It’s not an easy job. Any constitutional change is difficult for any nationality and any territory for that matter – and particularly difficult for Hong Kong because we are not a sovereign state. We must achieve universal suffrage as a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. That is important. So we have to work within the framework of the Basic Law<\/a>. Mr Wu Bangguo<\/a> merely repeated what is in the Basic Law. There’s nothing more to it. Don’t read too much into it.<\/p>\n

But if the Democrats are wishing to go beyond what is in the Basic Law then we’ve got a problem. So we need to knuckle down with what we have and achieve universal suffrage at the same time. I’ve got a plan as you know. In the summer this year I will put out a green paper and set out the various mainstream thinkings on this subject and start a public consultation. I’m not talking about interim steps going towards universal suffrage. I’m talking about the ultimate arrangements. I hope that after the consultation I will be able to put up a package that will achieve that and see how the population reacts.<\/p>\n

I’ve been working on it for two years now since this debacle of the last debate on this subject in 2005. I gained experience and the opposition also gained the bitter experience of spurning not a bad interim package. So everyone needs to be careful. You need to accommodate. You cannot just be strident and obstructive. You have to compromise in any political negotiation – within Hong Kong first… It’s not too difficult to gain the public support for a package. There are nearly half a dozen packages in town each of which can gain about 60, 65 per cent support from the population. What is tricky is how are you able to get two-thirds majority in the legislature. Now I nearly got there in 2005. I was two to three votes less. But what the Democrats need to think about is not that they have got a proposal but they need to come up with a proposal that will get 40 votes in Legco. There’s no point telling me they have got a package and 22 votes. I got one and we had 37 [votes] last time and we could still not get through. That’s the challenge…<\/p>\n

At the end of the consultation I have to stick my neck out and suggest to Hong Kong people having the consultation, having heard you, I believe this is what we want from the central government… Legco will debate on it and I hope this package will get me the 40 votes. [Full Text]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See also Is Beijing in Donald Tsang’s Future?<\/a><\/em> by Philip Bowring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From AsiaMedia: It may be that your ultimate working nightmare would be to have two tough bosses. I mean, one tough boss alone you can handle — just keep that one account squared away and don’t mess up. Having even a string of bosses is not so big a deal — just juggle one against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35,100],"tags":[901],"class_list":["post-13409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hong-kong","category-politics","tag-donald-tsang","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nHong Kong's Boss Looks Forward And Back - Tom Plate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2007\/06\/hong-kongs-boss-looks-forward-and-back-tom-plate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hong Kong's Boss Looks Forward And Back - Tom Plate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From AsiaMedia: It may be that your ultimate working nightmare would be to have two tough bosses. 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