Politics_Tung official resigned today

Sina reported(in Chinese) Tung Chee Hwa, the chief executive of Hong Kong, got the permission to resign today. He also got the nomination of the Vice Chairman of CPPCC(Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) today.

The rumor has been hanging around HK for almost a week. Finally, everything is clear now. Oh, no, there is still something unclear.

First, did someone forced Tung resign or he wants to resign himself? We did an interesting survey on the class. Almost ten students, half of the total, agreed that it is the Central government who forced Tung out of his CE position, while only three to four students, including me, agreed that Tung departed volunteerly. My reason is that the Central government was not willing to remove the top official in Hong Kong, its nominator since the handover, from his position at the current stage because it will be embarrassed. It is not usual even in the history of Chinese government, while official always complete its whole term, though his managing ability may be just so so. Tung's resignation application confirmed my point(in Chinese), saying he considered the departure since the third quarter last year. But I admit that he couldn't leave only on his own will. So he may take time to persuade the central government and assure the smooth transmission of the power. There is definitely a schedule of Tung's resignment, both decided by the central government and local government. But it must be Tung who asked for the departure first. The time is also a period where certain candidates are valued. From Oct21 to Oct 24 Tung took a secret leave of four days and appointed Henry Tang Ying-yen, the Financial Minister and now loser of the future CE in short term, as the acting CE.

The second unclear question is who released the information to the media a week ago. I believe many people's assumption will still be the sources in BJ or close to central government, as quoted by many local media, too. But, I say, but, why central government released such information at the expense of being discovered and quoted later? My assumption, just assumption, is that the purpose of the people who released the tip to media is the one who didn't want to see HK people and stockmarket shocked at the sudden news that the top official resigns. He must have the experience of dealing with the local stock market, the most important section in Hong Kong, which are sensitive to the shocked news but could bear rumor in a period, to say, a week. Also, he is kind-hearted to Hong Kong to do so.

He, or they, are smart. In another word, they know how to deal with local media, without getting responsibilities and faults.

Anyway, all above are rumors, too. Maybe someday when Tung writes a biography, saying that all of them are bluh, bluh, bluh....