Hong Kong’s Chief Must Go

Whether standing up to a stacked legislature, a clueless regent or his reviled aides, Hong Kong’s people -- half a million of them marching in protest at one point -- have given the world a remarkable reminder of just how much democracy matters to them. Now they and the Chinese leadership must act to preserve the “one country, two systems” compromise that mollifies the mainland and protects the rule of law and other practices of a free society that have made Hong Kong’s economy vibrant.

It won’t do simply for Beijing to shuffle its hand-picked officials. Two roundly discredited Hong Kong Cabinet members -- the secretaries of finance and security -- said Wednesday that they will leave the government. There’s no sign that their departures will quash the welling Hong Kong discontent, fueled by a sluggish economy, record joblessness, falling property values and the government’s failed effort to jam through a draconian security law that would have permitted warrantless searches, threatening of journalists and banning of groups deemed dangerous by Beijing.

Increasingly, the focus has fallen on Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s loathed and inept chief executive. His bungled handling of the SARS epidemic not only terrified the world but damaged Hong Kong’s already struggling economy. He backed his deplorable Cabinet ministers -- one who bought a $100,000 Lexus just before he installed a huge car-tax increase and another who scorned opponents of Tung’s security law.

And just how could Tung have so miscalculated the profound resistance to that law? It bushwacked him and his Beijing masters. The catastrophe, polls show, has left him as gravely unpopular as, well, California’s Gov. Gray Davis. Beijing might not want to see Tung go now, fearing it would look as if street protests had succeeded and that it would need to make further concessions to democracy advocates. But at this point, Hong Kong needs not Chinese stubbornness but a dose of the hard-nosed pragmatism it’s famous for, if for no other reason than so it can return to being an economic powerhouse for its own sake and that of China.

It’s time for a new leader who can satisfy Beijing and respond to the Hong Kong public’s concerns, perhaps to even pave a way for direct elections for all members of the legislature. With world attention riveted anew on Hong Kong and with independence advocates restive in Taiwan, Beijing needs someone better than Tung to becalm the “one country, two systems” apparatus and make it pleasing and prosperous.