綠豆 Green Bean

Hong Kong authorities on last Friday (Nov 6) claimed a ringing success in having cracked down on a syndicate and arrested 28 people allegedly involved in bid-rigging by a joint task force set up eight days ago. The joint task force headed by security minister Chris Tang was one of the basket of meas

All eyes were on Chief Executive John Lee last week when he led his team of top aides to respond to the damning report on the Tai Po blaze compiled by an independent panel tasked with digging out the truth and finding ways to avoid the systemic failures. Victims of the to-be-demolished Wang Fuk Cour

In a sense, overtourism is a happy problem. But in many places, an excess of visitors flooding various corners of the living areas of local residents has been deemed as disturbing, causing friction with locals and prompting governments to regulate the flow of visitors in one way or another. Hong Kon

The importance of access to information cannot be emphasised more; it is vitally important for upholding people’s right to know. With effective checks and balances lacking in the present governance system, the role of media, as the fourth power, in telling people what happened and why they should kn

Chief Executive John Lee is caught between a rock and a hard place as he weighs on ways to show accountability or, more precisely, to decide who should be axed to be held responsible for the deadly Tai Po fire that killed 168 people. With an independent panel he named due to announce its findings th

The timing of the launch of Hong Kong’s first five-year plan, a belated move to align with China’s 15th national Five-Year Plan, could not be more intriguing. Coming eight days after the death of first chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, the pioneering move by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to outline

Widely known to have been seriously ill after he no longer appeared in public since mid-2021, the death of Hong Kong’s first chief executive Tung Chee-hwa last week did not come as a surprise. His death has drawn sharply different responses from the populace. There were both praises and curses. That

Flashed back to the 1980s, the promise of keeping horse-racing unchanged after 1997 was made by the Chinese Communist Party leaders aimed to assure the jittery community that Beijing will not kill the goose that lays golden eggs. More importantly, it showcases the “one country, two systems” policy,

The impact of commentary articles written by a former head of the Hong Kong government’s thinktank in Chinese-language Ming Pao and an anonymous writer on Ta Kung Pao respectively concerning Hong Kong’s challenges ahead could not be more sharply different. Taken together, the intriguing phenomenon i

37 years ago, Lee Cheuk-yan was a young unionist-cum-activist. He was 30, full of passion for civic activism and hopes for an open, democratic China. Lee hit headlines after he was taken away by mainland public security officials from a Hong Kong-bound flight at the Beijing airport tarmac one day af

In a rare move last week, the Hong Kong Bar Association has asked a court to overturn a ruling by its own disciplinary tribunal clearing former pro-democracy legislator Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee of professional misconduct linked to her conviction of participation in an unauthorised assembly during the 20

Justice delayed is justice denied. In the case of former Democrat legislator James To Kun-sun and seven democrats who were arrested and were put on bail after January 2021 until recently, the delay of a presumed end of national security police investigation of their role is a case of justice delayed

There was a feeling of deja vu in Hong Kong last week, 31 years after the theme of “The death of Hong Kong” became the cover story of the US Fortune magazine in 1995. From a British colony to a Special Administration Region under Chinese sovereignty, the Hong Kong story featured a never-ending debat

Smoke was in the air at Tamar, where the Hong Kong government headquarters are located, as the legal team of a government-appointed committee investigating the Tai Po deadly blaze gave a damning report that sums up a list of government regulatory deficiencies, if not failures, among others. The 627-

For many years in a row, Luck Win Bookshop and Elmbook, both independent bookstores, had been allocated almost the same locations at the main exhibition hall of the annual Hong Kong Book Fair held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. As usual, they had made the booking for the same pre

To err is human. Lawmakers are no exception. But with Beijing keeping reminding members of the “patriots-only” legislature to do a better job and behave well, mistakes by one legislator after another will be costly and damaging. Also importantly, the swift resignation of legislator William Wong Kam-

With the fourth anniversary of the current administration led by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu nearing, he and his top aides were busy trumpeting their self-proclaimed success in the past four years. Rule of law in Hong Kong Tipped as a “dark horse” in the 2027 Chief Executive election game, Secr

As the fifth Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR, the list of John Lee Ka-chiu’s self-proclaimed achievements sounds impressive. He said he has changed the culture of the civil service towards results-oriented. He pioneered a light public housing scheme, which, he said, could help solve the notorio

Beijing and the Hong Kong government meant what they said time and again: the task of safeguarding national security will be done continuously; there will not be a mission accomplished. That is justifiable for obvious reasons. But national security legislation is a separate matter. A new law on nati

Oddities were aplenty at the Victoria Park on the eve of and on June 4 as the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown marked its 37th anniversary last Thursday. As Hong Kong was hit by extreme hot weather, more weird phenomena under acute political climate surfaced. Patriotism education of a different kind For the

The writing was not on the wall. Grievances of residents of the ill-fated Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po were written in slogans on the T-shirts some of them wore as they visited their home last week. “Rebuild Wang Fuk,” one of them, is self-explanatory. Another one, “not ideal”, was a ridicule of the Joh

Praising “significant improvement” in public finance, Financial Secretary Paul Chan raised expectations of a pay rise for the city’s civil servants this year following a wage freeze last year. He announced in the 2026-2027 Budget in February the government will resume its annual pay trend survey, wh

An early release of media mogul Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years for violating the national security law, remains a possibility, albeit with a distance, following the landmark visit of United States President Donald Trump to Beijing on Friday. Mindful of the risk of over-interpreting the unc

Breaking the Hong Kong government’s longstanding tradition of senior appointments, a righthand man of Chief Executive John Lee with police background was named to head the Government’s propaganda machine or, Information Services Department (ISD), to be accurate. John Tse, who had acted as a spokesma

Flashed back to mid-2020, a group of pan-democrats said they would veto the government budget as part of a game plan to fight for universal suffrage if, a big if, they succeeded in grabbing two-thirds of seats in the Legislative Council in an election scheduled for the end of 2020. To maximise their

For the first time since the end of the British rule in 1997, the top post of the Hong Kong SAR went to a government official with a disciplinary forces background. John Lee joined the government as a probationary police inspector in 1977 before he made his way to the post of Chief Executive in 2022

One year after serving a 50-month jail for being convicted for conspiring to subvert state power in a national security trial in Hong Kong, a former pro-democracy legislator who had once represented the medical constituency was penalised again. This time, a lifetime ban for practising. Kwok Ka-ki, n

Story one. Award-winning singer Denise Ho won the most popular female singer award held by a Hong Kong-based radio broadcaster in 2006, on track to emulate the success of her idol, late Canto-pop queen Anita Mui. Ho’s political activism in the 2014 Occupy Central movement and 2019 anti-extradition p

“Horse racing will continue, dancing parties will go on.” This is a famous saying by late Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping seeking to assure the jittery Hongkongers in the 1980s that the then British colony’s freewheeling capitalist lifestyles would remain unchanged after 1997. Like the future

One day after a government-appointed review committee investigating the Tai Po deadly fire began its public hearing, chairman Mr Justice David Lok was quick to call on people not to draw conclusions before they wrapped up their probe. He said at the opening of the second-day hearing on last Friday （

Donald Liao Poon-huai, a key colonial government official behind the story of Hong Kong’s public housing development, passed away last week. He was 96. News of his death has not caused a stir in the society. But for many who grew up in the 1980s, it stoked a feeling of nostalgia of the good old days

History is full of irony. The depth of doubts and fears of Hongkongers over the then imminent 1997 takeover in the 1980s had prompted the Chinese Communist Party leaders to promise keeping the city’s systems and lifestyles unchanged for 50 years after the handover. The phrase “horse-racing and danci

One day after the sentencing of the Apple Daily case was handed down on last Monday (Feb 9), the Chinese State Council published a white paper on the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law, signaling the beginning of a new stage of the ever-going battle against threats to national sec

As if it is just a matter of time, news of the imminent disbandment of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, founded in 1958, last week has caused no disquiet in university campuses and society at large. Once the champion of students’ participation in political and social affairs before and after th

Language failed us in the case of Hong Kong officials and legislators having bungled a law mandating bus passengers buckling up seat belts, which was passed into law within hours by a Legco subcommittee last year but was declared void on last Friday (Jan 30) six days after it took effect. It was dub

With his five-year term entering its last 18 months, a newspaper report saying Chief Executive John Lee plans to axe two ministers in charge of constitutional and mainland affairs and housing respectively has caused signs of a stir - and confusion - in the city’s ruling echelon and the political cir

In a move loaded with both symbolic and substantive significance, Chief Executive John Lee addressed the first session of the new Legislative Council term last Wednesday (Jan 14) as soon as the 90 newly-elected legislators took their seats. Following his first speech to the lawmakers after they were

Ranked 7th on the hierarchy of power in Hong Kong with the Chief Executive at the top, the contest of the highly-placed presidency of the Legislative Council between two key pro-Beijing political figures has been a non-event to the city’s ordinary citizens. A non-event to the city’s ordinary citizen

More than one month after the horrific fire in Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court rocked and shocked the city and the world, how it started remains a question yet to be answered. This is despite the swift arrest of dozens of people involved with the renovation project of the residential towers. What is certain

There’s no doubt it was coincidental. On December 14, the Democratic Party passed a resolution of disbandment amid mounting but unspeakable pressure for it to wind up. One day later, media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was found guilty of two counts of conspiring to commit foreign collusion and one coun

With the exception of Donald Tsang Yam-kuen (2005-2012), Hong Kong’s three other former chief executives had plunged into governance crises ignited by mass protests during their reign. John Lee, whose five-year term enters its last 18 months on January 1, is faced with a different kind of crisis, wh

The people have spoken up. This is a statement of fact often uttered by the winners and losers in elections after votes were counted. The just-ended Legislative Council election in Hong Kong on Sunday is an exception. That line went missing in post-election speeches by the candidates and government

(This article was first published on Monday and had been updated with the Hong Kong government announcement of the establishment of an independent committee and a rewrite of the last few paragraphs.) Flashed back to 20 November 1996, a blaze broke out at the then Garley Building in Yaumatei in Hong

It has become a new norm in Hong Kong that saw academic exchanges, book talks, exhibitions, banquets and events of similar kinds being cancelled at the 11th hour or even after they had already begun because of “urgent repairs" at those premises. The latest case in point is the cancellation of a phot