Carrie Lam: Difference between revisions
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{{main|Hong Kong Chief Executive election, 2017}} |
{{main|Hong Kong Chief Executive election, 2017}} |
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[[File:Carrie Lam CE candidacy annoucement.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Carrie Lam declared her Chief Executive candidacy on 16 January 2017.]] |
[[File:Carrie Lam CE candidacy annoucement.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Carrie Lam declared her Chief Executive candidacy on 16 January 2017.]] |
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Lam formally announced her plan to enter the [[Hong Kong Chief Executive election, 2017|2017 Chief Executive election]] after resigning as Chief Secretary on 12 January 2017, ending her 36-year government career. She also set out what she described as an eight-point "achievable new vision" with a call to play to "strengths with determination and confidence".<ref>{{cite news|title=Carrie Lam declares bid to lead Hong Kong|date=12 January 2017|newspaper=South China Morning Post|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2061552/carrie-lam-resigns-hong-kongs-no-2-official-ahead-expected?spm=0.0.0.0.yqPad3}}</ref> |
Lam formally announced her plan to enter the [[Hong Kong Chief Executive election, 2017|2017 Chief Executive election]] after resigning as Chief Secretary on 12 January 2017, ending her 36-year government career. She also set out what she described as an eight-point "achievable new vision" with a call to play to "strengths with determination and confidence".<ref>{{cite news|title=Carrie Lam declares bid to lead Hong Kong|date=12 January 2017|newspaper=South China Morning Post|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2061552/carrie-lam-resigns-hong-kongs-no-2-official-ahead-expected?spm=0.0.0.0.yqPad3}}</ref> The press conference was hosted alongside Executive Councillor [[Bernard Chan]], who became the director of Lam's campaign office. The chairmen’s committee of the campaign office would be composed of heavyweights, such as former [[Hong Kong Stock Exchange]] chairman [[Ronald Arculli]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Keeping continuity in Hong Kong politics without the hardline is a balancing act|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/2062642/keeping-continuity-hong-kong-politics-without-hardline|date=16 January 2017|newspaper=South China Morning Post}}</ref> |
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==Personal life== |
==Personal life== |
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Revision as of 16:01, 20 January 2017
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor | |
|---|---|
林鄭月娥 | |
 Carrie Lam at a forum in July 2016 | |
| Chief Secretary for Administration | |
| In office 1 July 2012 – 16 January 2017 | |
| Chief Executive | Leung Chun-ying |
| Preceded by | Stephen Lam |
| Succeeded by | Matthew Cheung |
| Secretary for Development | |
| In office 1 July 2007 – 30 June 2012 | |
| Preceded by | Sarah Liao (Secretary for Environment, Transport & Works) Michael Suen (Secretary for Housing, Planning & Lands) |
| Succeeded by | Mak Chai-kwong |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Cheng Yuet-ngor 13 May 1957[1] Hong Kong[2] |
| Nationality | Hong Kong Chinese |
| Spouse | Lam Siu-por |
| Children | Lam Jit-si Lam Yeuk-hei |
| Alma mater | University of Hong Kong (1980) Wolfson College, Cambridge |
| Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 林鄭月娥 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 林郑月娥 | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, GBM, GBS, JP (Chinese: 林鄭月娥; born 13 May 1957) is the former Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong SAR Government, the most senior rank of principal officials of Hong Kong.
Graduated from the the University of Hong Kong, Lam joined the civil service in 1980 and has served in various bureaux and departments. She became a principal official in 2007 when she was appointed Secretary for Development. During her service, she earned the reputation as a "tough fighter" from her handling of the demolition of the Queen's Pier.
She became the Chief Secretary for Administration under Leung Chun-ying administration in 2012. She had headed the Task Force on Constitutional Development on the political reform from 2013 to 2015 and held talks with the student leaders during the large-scale occupation protests in 2014. She has announced her candidacy in the 2017 Chief Executive election after she resigned as Chief Secretary in January 2017.
Early life and education
Born to a low-income family of Zhoushan ancestry in Hong Kong, Lam was the fourth of five children.[3][4][2] Lam grew up in Wan Chai that she finished her primary and secondary education at St. Francis' Canossian College, a catholic girls' school in the neighborhood.[5][6] Despite being raised in a tong lau subdivided flat, which only allowed Lam to do her homework on a bunk bed, she still managed to always rank first in class and even became the Head Girl.[7][8] Lam received three As, five Bs and a D in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination.[9] Besides excelling in academics, she also developed her desire to serve people during her 13 years at St. Francis'.[7][9]
After graduation, Lam attended the University of Hong Kong majoring in social work.[5] As a student, Lam was an activist and advocated on behalf of the Yau Ma Tei boat people, who faced a difficult situation.[7] She once took part in a sit-in outside the government headquarters and organized exchange trips to Tsinghua University.[4][3] To better understand society and participate more actively in student activities, she switched her course of study from social work to sociology after first year to avoid placements.[7][5] Lam eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences in 1980.[1][10]
Whilst in the government service, Lam attended a one-year diploma course in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge in from 1981 to 1982 and received a Fulbright Fellowship on attachment to a US federal agency for several months in 1988.[11]
Civil service career
Lam joined the Administrative Service in 1980 after she graduated from the University of Hong Kong. She has served in various bureaux and departments, spending about seven years in the Finance Bureau which involved in budgetary planning and expenditure control. She worked initially as Principal Assistant Secretary and subsequently as Deputy Secretary for the Treasury in the 1990s.[11]
In 2000, Lam was promoted as the Director of Social Welfare Department during the period of high unemployment and severe fiscal deficits in Hong Kong. She tightened the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme and making it available only to people who had lived in Hong Kong for more than seven years, excluding the new immigrants. With other senior officials, he set up the We Care Education Fund, raising over HK$80 million to meet the long term education needs of children whose parents have died of SARS epidemic in 2003. In November 2003, Lam was appointed Permanent Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands (Planning and Lands) and chairman of the Town Planning Board. She was soon appointed Director-General of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London in September 2004.[11]
On 8 March 2006, Lam returned to Hong Kong to take up the position as Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs. She was involved in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Equestrian Events and the West Kowloon Cultural District plan.[11]
Secretary for Development
On 1 July 2007, Lam left the civil service was appointed Secretary for Development by Chief Executive Donald Tsang, becoming one of the principal officials. In the first days of her office, Lam oversaw the demolition of the landmark Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier for the Star Ferry and the Queen's Pier to make way for land reclamation, which triggered occupation protests by the conservationists. In July 2007, she was sent down to the Queen's Pier to attend a public forum, in a bid to persuade the protesters to disperse and allow work to start. She firmly repeated the government’s stance that keeping the pier was not an option, saying that she would "not give the people false hope".[12] Her handling of the pier conflict earned her a reputation as a "tough fighter" by the then Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui.
Lam also put forward a new Urban Renewal Strategy, to lower the threshold for compulsory sale for redevelopment from 90 percent to 80 percent in 2010. Human rights organisations criticised Lam's policy as benefiting the big real estate developers and violating the right to housing as recognised by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as the bargaining power of the small owners would be undermined.[13]
In 2012, Lam stirred up a big controversy when she cracked down on the unauthorised building works which were largely found in the indigenous villages in the New Territories.[14] It caused a big uproar among the the rural leaders and big row between the Development Bureau and the Heung Yee Kuk, the powerful organ representing the rural interests. During a protest, somve villagers staged a mock funeral for Lam and stamped on an effigy bearing her name, before burning it.[15] Lam also tried to tackle the "Small House Policy", which has been subject to abuse amidst a land crunch. The policy gives male indigenous villagers in the New Territories the right to build a house close to their ancestral homes but the policy has drawn criticism because in some cases, it has been abused for profit.[7][14]
In recognition of her achievements as Secretary for Development, she was awarded honorary member of the Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects, honorary fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers, Property Person of the Year in the RICS Hong Kong Property Awards 2012, Honorary Member of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, honorary member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, honorary fellow member of the Hong Kong Institute of Architectural Conservationists, and honorary fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers.[11]
During the 2012 Chief Executive election, Lam cracked down on the unauthorised building works of Chief Executive candidate Henry Tang who was contesting Leung Chun-ying. That scandal put paid to Tang’s hopes of becoming Chief Executive. Leung was later found to also have unauthorised building works at his house. Lam criticised for letting him get away with it.[14]
Chief Secretary for Administration
After hinting she would retire in the United Kingdom with her family, Lam received appointment to become the Chief Secretary for Administration under Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on 1 July 2012. Her popularity started to shrink as Chief Secretary as the Moral and National Education controversy sparked in the first months of the Leung administration, which saw Lam's popularity rating dipped two percentage points from 64 percent to 62 percent.[16]
2014 political reform and protests
In October 2013, she became the head of the Task Force on Constitutional Development headed by the with Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam which was responsible for the constitutional reform consultation for the electoral methods for the 2017 Chief Executive election and 2016 Legislative Council election. After the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) decreed the restriction on the 2017 Chief Executive election in August 2014, the pro-democracy suffragists launched a large-scale occupation protests which lasted for 79 days. In response to the occupations, Lam announced that the second round of public consultations on political reform, originally planned to be completed by the end of the year, would be postponed.[17]
During the midst of the occupation protests, Lam also held talks in a televised open debate with student leaders on 21 October. In the talks, Lam stood firm by stating that students' proposal of civil nomination falls outside of the framework imposed by the Basic Law and the NPCSC decision, which cannot be retracted.[18] The political reform caused Lam to lose her long-held title as one of the most popular government officials when her approval ratings in a University of Hong Kong poll plunged to its lowest level since she became Chief Secretary.[7] The constitutional reform proposals were defeated in the Legislative Council in June 2015.
Lead-in-water scandal and controversies
Lam sparked controversy when she was the only principal official not to offer an apology for the lead-in-water scandal, insisting that, "even though the commission’s hearings reflected an inadequate awareness by government departments and flaws in the monitoring system, it did not necessarily equate to particular officials not following laws or neglecting duties – because of that, they do not have to bear personal responsibility."[19] She fought back pan-democrat legislators in a Legislative Council meeting, criticising the pan-democrats for politicising the scandal, stating that she could be as bold as she wants as "a government official with no expectation is always courageous". Her words were criticised for being arrogant.
She stirred another controversy when she, in a speech to open the Caritas Bazaar in 2015, Lam cited the eight Beatitudes, saying "Some said that the eighth blessing applies very well to me – it says, 'blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven' – there is already a place reserved for me in heaven." Senior cleric, The Reverend Thomas Law Kwok-Fai, told the media "No one would say that about themselves… I won’t dare to myself", while a senior lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong said that Lam sounded arrogant.[20]
Palace Museum controversy
In December 2016, Lam was under fire when she announced a deal with Beijing for the plans for a Hong Kong Palace Museum as the chair of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority without public consultation and transparency during the decision-making process. She was also criticised for appointing top architect Rocco Yim Sen-kee to start a HK$4.5 million feasibility study for building the museum and exhibition centre complex behind closed doors months before the authority board chose the architect as its design consultant. Lam linked the backlash to her announcement that she would "reconsider" running in the 2017 Chief Executive election after incumbent Leung Chun-ying said he would not seek a second term.[21] Lam previously said she would retire in the English countryside with her family after her term ended in 2017.[7][22]
2017 Chief Executive bid
Lam formally announced her plan to enter the 2017 Chief Executive election after resigning as Chief Secretary on 12 January 2017, ending her 36-year government career. She also set out what she described as an eight-point "achievable new vision" with a call to play to "strengths with determination and confidence".[23] The press conference was hosted alongside Executive Councillor Bernard Chan, who became the director of Lam's campaign office. The chairmen’s committee of the campaign office would be composed of heavyweights, such as former Hong Kong Stock Exchange chairman Ronald Arculli.[24]
Personal life
Carrie Lam was the fourth child of the five siblings. She was married to a former mathematician Lam Siu-por whom she met during her study at Cambridge.[22] Lam Siu-por obtained his PhD in algebraic topology under the supervision of Frank Adams in 1983.[25] He used to teach at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and spent his retired life in the England but has taken up a job at the Capital Normal University in Beijing. The couple has two sons who studied in England. Their eldest son has also joined a mobile company in Beijing in April 2016. All three of her family members are British citizens.
Honours
In recognition of her career achievements and contributions to the community, Lam was awarded Gold Bauhinia Star and Grand Bauhinia Medal in 2010 and 2016 respectively. She was also conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Social Sciences by Lingnan University and Officier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French Government in 2013 and 2015 respectively.[11]
See also
References
- ^ a b Ho, Andrew (15 January 2013). "The SAR's Superlady" (PDF). The Student Standard. Hong Kong. pp. 6–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ a b "HK Tramways grows with time". news.gov.hk. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. 18 July 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2014. Lam stated in a speech "To those who were born and brought up in Hong Kong like me"
- ^ a b "林鄭由住板間房到進軍禮賓府 仕途兩度「轉線」鋪排今日攀峰之路". HK01. 12 January 2017. (Traditional Chinese)
- ^ a b "The tough side of nanny carrie". The Standard. 13 January 2017.
- ^ a b c "Lam bares the `bad records' in her life". The Standard. Hong Kong. 3 May 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
- ^ "Wan Chai: Evolution of a District". CornerStone. Swire Properties. 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Hong Kong protests: 8 things you might not know about Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's Chief Secretary". The Straits Times. Singapore. 3 October 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
- ^ "回顧上位之路 從政逾30年基層出身慣考第一". Apple Daily. 12 January 2017. (Traditional Chinese)
- ^ a b "Carrie Lam: I need my husband to lean on". South China Morning Post. 21 October 2013.
- ^ "港下屆特首熱選林鄭月娥 形象「好打得」". Central News Agency Taiwan. Taiwan. 10 December 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016. (Traditional Chinese)
- ^ a b c d e f "The Hon Mrs Carrie LAM CHENG Yuet-ngor, GBM, GBS, JP - Chief Secretary for Administration" (PDF). The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
- ^ "'Good fighter' plus 'peacemaker', but can Carrie Lam hold up the sky?". South China Morning Post. 15 December 2016.
- ^ "強拍條例 林鄭企硬三不 不撤回 不修訂 若否決不會再推". Apple Daily. 16 March 2010.
- ^ a b c "Illegal building works may be ticking time bomb for Carrie Lam". South China Morning Post. 29 December 2016.
- ^ "Heung Yee Kuk leader says Hong Kong illegal structure row with Carrie Lam all in the past". South China Morning Post. 17 January 2017.
- ^ "Tearful Carrie Lam says she put reputation on the line". South China Morning Post. 8 September 2016.
- ^ "Yung, Chester. Carrie Lam: Hong Kong to Delay Discussions on Political Reform", The Wall Street Journal. 29 September 2014.
- ^ Ap, Tiffany (21 October 2014). "No breakthrough as Hong Kong officials open talks with students". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
- ^ Cheng, Albert (2 June 2016). "Why Carrie Lam doesn't have what it takes to be Hong Kong's next chief executive". South China Morning Post.
- ^ "Chief Sec. Carrie Lam says there is a place reserved for her in heaven". Hong Kong Free Press. 2 November 2015.
- ^ "Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam links Beijing Palace Museum row to leadership bid". South China Morning Post. 10 January 2017.
- ^ a b "Mom's the word for a retired Lam". The Standard. 4 May 2016.
- ^ "Carrie Lam declares bid to lead Hong Kong". South China Morning Post. 12 January 2017.
- ^ "Keeping continuity in Hong Kong politics without the hardline is a balancing act". South China Morning Post. 16 January 2017.
- ^ Siu-Por Lam at the Mathematics Genealogy Project