Sometimes I wonder if the opposition camp is living in a make-believe world where everything is possible if you fight long and hard enough for what you want. In politics, as with everything else, it is,...

If you do the crime, you do the time. It’s an American saying that means if you commit a crime you must accept the consequences. Many Americans and people around the world regard Edward Snowden as...

Now that Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has been selected as our next chief executive, Hong Kong people must decide if they want to start a new chapter in dealing with the difficult issue of our divisive...

When the Election Committee gathers on March 26, it will do two things. Hong Kong people with one eye open will see only the process of the committee’s 1,194 voters selecting a new chief executive. But...

When Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor declared her intention to run as chief executive, it became clear the election race would be between her and John Tsang Chun-wah. Lam and Tsang quit as the government’s second and third-highest...

Democracy did not elect Hitler as Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee claimed during the fierce public opposition to Article 23 national security legislation in 2003 when she was security secretary.  But democracy did elect Donald Trump as...

When a resentful Richard Nixon lost the California gubernatorial election in 1962, a defeat he blamed on biased media coverage, he castigated reporters during his concession speech by saying “you won’t have Nixon to kick around...

Many people agree that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has a face that is hard to read. You can never tell what he is thinking or feeling. It’s not exactly a poker face because a poker face...

Those of you still hoping that the central government can somehow be talked into trusting Hong Kong with so-called genuine democracy, hope no more. It’s gone out the window. Hong Kong’s defenders of democracy themselves killed...

Just like professional chess players, people who play high-stakes politics need to think many moves ahead. When chess grandmasters make a move, they anticipate how their adversaries will respond and how they themselves will respond to...

It is late October but we still don’t know who will run for chief executive next March. In political terms, it’s a slap in the face of Hong Kong people.  Surely, with just five months to...

Silence is golden. This is a well-known proverb that means it is often better or wiser to say nothing. Most people would agree it’s a very meaningful proverb. But it should not apply to Rebecca Li...

Will Chief Secretary Carrie Lam become a candidate in next March’s chief executive election? She has said numerous times she is not interested in becoming Hong Kong’s next leader but the media just doesn’t believe her....

It is a fact that many Hong Kong people don’t like Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. But does this hatred run so deep that if the central government offers him a second term, a million people will...

What will Hong Kong be like in the year 2025? The locally produced Cantonese movie Ten Years gives us an imagined glimpse. It visualizes Hong Kong in 2025 being under the totalitarian thumb of communist China....

You can change Hong Kong this coming September. I wish I could say you have a chance to change it for the better. But the sad reality is that you cannot. It doesn’t really matter which way...

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying had the misfortune of starting his annual policy speech in the Legislative Council just as US President Barack Obama was ending his annual State of the Union speech in the US Congress....

Is it game over for Hong Kong? I have asked this question in two previous articles. In a 2013 article, I wrote: “I do not think Hong Kong is ‘game over’. But I do think we...

During the emotionally charged months leading up to last June’s Legislative Council vote on the central government’s political reform framework for Hong Kong, many leading politicians, including Executive Council convenor Lam Woon-kwong and Legislative Council chairman...

Is academic freedom under threat in Hong Kong’s universities? To answer that question, it is necessary to first define what academic freedom means. This is how Encyclopedia Britannica defines it: “Academic freedom is the freedom of...