Exclusive interview: Hong Kong’s leader-designate John Lee says ‘I am a pragmatic person’ and ‘I will be open to everybody’
- In a wide-ranging interview, John Lee describes his approach to governing, his views on the civil service and the priorities of his incoming administration
- Lee also says freedoms exist because of strong rule of law and that Hong Kong offers room for political opposition
‘I am a pragmatic person’
You’re seen as a hardliner and ‘landmine detonator’. What landmines are you expecting?
I describe myself as a pragmatic person: what needs to be done will be done and should be done. So, like Covid, there are difficult questions, but I have to face up to them. I don’t hide behind problems. It is better to face up to them so that I can design solutions.
If you ask about what potential threats or risks there are likely to be, I think one is, because of the complexity of the geopolitical situation, the certainty of supplies, You can see the tensions in Ukraine. There are problems in different areas of supplies, including goods and necessities. We have to ensure that [if] these things do get worse, out of our control, we have a contingency plan to deal with it.
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Hong Kong’s John Lee flags a possible review of hotel quarantine rules when he takes office
But we are lucky because we have ‘one country, two systems’. So the contingency plan is not limited to just Hong Kong locally. The contingency plan can take advantage of what can be offered by the mainland authorities.
