What’s Beijing to do? Hong Kong people have found a way to slip through its tightening grip. They’re now doing it week after week with increasing defiance at a place and time of their choosing for...

Two years ago, on July 1, 2017, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor strode on stage to be sworn in as the city’s new chief executive by President Xi Jinping who was in Hong Kong to mark the...

On Sunday morning, just hours before a mass protest, Beijing’s liaison office summoned its Hong Kong allies to a closed-door meeting at its headquarters in Western district. Top officials at the liaison office had a clear...

This coming Sunday, June 9, will be a defining moment for Hong Kong. On that day we will know whose voice holds sway – the voice of the people or that of our government, whose leader...

Three days ago our government silenced the voice of Hong Kong people. It concluded the chief executive’s governing authority is more important than the interests of the people. In full democracies, the governing power of leaders...

Home prices are again skyrocketing. A constitutional crisis over a proposed extradition treaty with mainland China is tearing Hong Kong apart. First-quarter GDP growth slowed to a shocking 0.5 percent. A million mainland tourists flooded Hong...

Once again, the highly divisive issue of Article 23 national security legislation has resurfaced in our politics. It went into a deep sleep in 2003 after a mass protest against the proposed law. There were such widespread...

When about 500,000 people marched in protest on July 1, 2003 against national security legislation, known as Article 23, a stunned Hong Kong government withdrew the proposed law. Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, the security secretary at...

This September marks the fifth anniversary of Occupy Central, a mass pro-democracy uprising that paralyzed Hong Kong’s key commercial districts for 79 days. Five years on, the protest, which drew tens of thousands of people in...

If the administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has any sense, it should withdraw without further delay the poorly thought-out proposal for an extradition arrangement with mainland China. The more Lam and her top...

Most Hong Kong people would agree it is agonizing to watch budget speeches by our financial secretaries. They last too long, are read out in monotone, and are written in the most unimaginative way possible. As...

Hong Kong is undeniably one of the world’s wealthiest cities. The jobless rate is a mere 2.8 percent, over half the population lives in government-subsidized flats, healthcare in government hospitals is heavily subsidized, and life expectancy...

Slowly but surely it seems we are heading back to the bad old days when mutual contempt between then-chief executive Leung Chun-ying and the opposition ran so deep that the two sides wouldn’t even acknowledge each...

There is nothing wrong in promoting respect for the national anthem of your country. As a naturalized American, I stand respectfully with my right hand over my heart whenever the Star Spangled Banner – my county’s...

What exactly is the Greater Bay Area? Those who came up with the concept are branding it as China’s answer to America’s Silicon Valley. Hong Kong and mainland leaders proudly boast it will rival and replace...

Don’t ever read too much into an election outcome. Doing so could make you misjudge which way voters are leaning in the next election. Never forget that an election outcome reflects only the mood of voters...

Is Hong Kong really dying? That was the topic of a seminar last week organized by veteran politician Emily Lau Wai-hing at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. A controversial topic at a sensitive venue, especially after the...

“It’s morning again in America.“ The late US president Ronald Reagan used this 1984 TV campaign commercial to great effect during his re-election campaign. It so resonated with voters that even to this day it’s rated one...

No one disagrees that Hong Kong’s most urgent issue is the abysmal state of its housing. Even the opposition admits this although it insists the housing crisis doesn’t give the government an excuse to ignore political reforms...

Hong Kong stepped into uncharted terrain this week by banning a separatist party which advocates independence from China. By taking such unprecedented action, the government has put us in a legal and political minefield. It would...