The Leaderboard: Carrie Lam

The Leaderboard profiles the people behind the policies of the Asia-Pacific.Who is she?

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is the Hong Kong government’s Chief Secretary for Administration, the highest administrative position below Chief Executive CY Leung. She joined Hong Kong’s civil service in 1980 after obtaining a social science degree from the University of Hong Kong.

Prior to taking up her current post in 2012, she served in various leadership positions in the Hong Kong government, including the Home Affairs Bureau and the Development Bureau.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam. Source: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äusseres’ flickr photostream, cropped under a creative commons license.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam. Source: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äusseres’ flickr photostream, cropped under a creative commons license.

Why is she in the news?

Chief Secretary Lam has emerged as the moderate face of the Leung administration during the Occupy Central demonstrations. As the protests gained momentum, the two sides agreed to talks between the protesters and government representatives led by Lam. She was slated to meet with student leaders on October 10, but the talks were cancelled the day before when the Hong Kong government accused students of making unreasonable demands. Lam and representatives of the Hong Kong government finally sat down with the leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Students on October 21 to discuss ways to resolve Hong Kong’s worst political crisis since the 1997 handover. At the conclusion of the meeting, however, Lam and the students were unable to reach any agreements. It is expected that Lam will continue to take a leading role in direct talks with leaders of the Occupy Central movement.

What can we expect from her?

The people of Hong Kong perceive Ms. Lam as a peacemaker. She has experience in negotiating with protesters, making her better suited for the task at hand than the unpopular Mr. Leung. In 2007, she received widespread praise by personally appearing before a public forum and defusing protests over the demolition of a historic ferry dock. She also possesses immense institutional knowledge of the governing system, having spent more than thirty years working in the civil service. Because of her experiences, expect pragmatic negotiations and outcomes from her, despite forces on both sides that push for more extreme results.

Lam knows that convincing China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) to retract its stipulations on chief executive candidacy approval–a key demand of the protestors–is unlikely. But while giving in to demands to alter the NPCSC’s decision is unlikely to happen, Lam could agree to changes within the ruling’s framework. During talks with protest leaders on October 21, she said there was ample room to work out nominating procedures and election methods under the NPCSC’s stipulations. Assuming Beijing approves, such steps could include altering the composition of the nominating committee to make it more representative of the general populace as well as lowering the simple majority threshold required for nomination. She also stressed that the NPCSC’s electoral framework for 2017 is not final, leaving room for further incremental democratization in the future. Pressured by the protesters on one side and Beijing on the other, Lam must find some sort of middle ground to resolve Hong Kong’s current crisis.

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *