It costs a lot of money to buy TV and radio air time for political ads in the US. That’s why politicians and political parties start to raise funds well ahead of elections. The US government,...

It took over HK$84 billion and 20 years for Hong Kong to find out in the most painful way yet that “one country, two systems” is a formula full of thorns. Simply described, one country, two...

Hong Kong’s media is regularly accused of self-censorship, with opposition politicians, journalists, and media groups such as the Hong Kong Journalists Association often voicing concern. Broadly defined, media censorship means not publishing or broadcasting news, or...

Something outgoing development secretary Eric Ma Siu-cheung said last week not only infuriated me, it also exposed how out of sync some of our senior officials are with ordinary Hongkongers. It is this disconnect with the...

When a reminder turns into a stark warning, we should worry and ask why. When a political demand becomes an intransigent bottom line, we should also worry and ask why. Both these things happened last month,...

When Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is sworn in as our new chief executive on July 1, her message will be to bring harmony back to a bitterly divided Hong Kong. She told me in a TV...

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...