Hong Kong leader under attack from China
By Alexandra Harney and Justine Lau in Hong Kong
Published: December 21 2004 02:00 | Last updated: December 21 2004 02:00
Hu Jintao, China's president, yesterday took theunusual step of publicly criticising Hong Kong's leadership, underscoring the continuing concern in Beijing over the political situation in the former British colony.
Speaking in Macao, where he praised the running of the territory on the fifth anniversary of its return to Chinese sovereignty, Mr Hu made pointed comparisons with Hong Kong, whose officials he said had to "improve their capabilities and abilities to govern".
He added: "The officials must turn back and look over the past seven years and find out what has gone wrong."
Mr Hu praised Macao,the former Portuguese colony. "The economy continues to grow," he said, and the government had solved "problems that affected Macao's complete and long-term development".
Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's embattled chief executive, responded by calling a rare press conference. "I hope I don't disappoint you by telling you it was not a dressing down," he said.
"The president did affirm the work we have done. And it is quite natural . . . the president or a leader of a nation would express the hope and desire of what they would expect the team to be doing."
However, Mr Hu's comments are likely to be seen as a stern warning to the man hand-picked by Beijing after Hong Kong's 1997 return to Chinese rule.
Mr Tung has faced a string of controversies since mid-2003, when public opposition to an anti-subversion bill drew half a million people to the streets to protest.
The rally fuelled demands for democratic reform, with surveys showing a majority of Hong Kong people supporting fully direct elections in 2007 and 2008. But Beijing and the Tung administration have ruled out such moves.
In recent months, the government has come under pressure over plans to build an arts complex and to demolish a waterfront housing estate and replace it with new buildings. It was forced to drop the housing estate plan under public pressure.
This week, the government suffered an embarrassment when the Housing Authority was forced to pull Hong Kong's first real estate investment trust because of a lawsuit from a pensioner.
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