Ever since Han Zheng, the Senior Vice Premier of the State Council in charge of Hong Kong and Macau affairs, handed down his decree to solve the housing problem in Hong Kong, some leftists (pro-establishment politicians) have further intensified their offensive against the Carrie Lam administration. In addition to the increasingly widespread “mass struggle against landlords,” the soon-to-open M+ Arts Pavilion, Hong Kong’s pioneering contemporary art museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), had become a new battleground for the leftists and loyal Leung Chun-ying fans to attack the Carrie Lam government. The museum exhibition originally included Ai Weiwei’s artwork Study of Perspective: Tiananmen Square (1997), which photographed the artist raising his middle finger before Tiananmen Square in Beijing. There are people in the political circle and in the former West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) who believed that the incident is ostensibly directed against the incumbent Chairman of the Board of the WKCDA Henry Tang, but “in reality, it is aimed at Carrie Lam and a group of political proxies from the business sector who have seized the opportunity of Beijing’s implementation of full governance to pull down the leftists who have been at odds with them.”

A former member of the WKCDA candidly pointed out that, in the M+ saga, the leftists rehashed old stories to criticize the museum, which appeared to target Chairman Henry Tang who at the time decided to accept donations from Dr. Uli Sigg to M+, including the works of Ai Weiwei. Subsequently, Carrie Lam became the Chief Secretary for Administration and took over from Henry Tang as the Chairman of the WKCDA Board, so it would seem that the matter was not related to her. “But let’s not forget that at the time of the discussion on the acceptance of the collection, Carrie Lam had been sitting on the board of directors of the WKCDA in the capacity of Secretary for Development. If the leftists and Leung supporters were to dig deeper into the dirt, Carrie Lam could not shirk away from responsibility.” Moreover, Carrie Lam had appointed her ally Betty Fung to take charge at the WKCDA as the Acting Chief Executive Officer. “Therefore, with the leftists attacking M+ for showing Ai Weiwei’s artwork with his middle finger in the exhibition, it was obvious that they were targeting the interim CEO of WKCDA, so it was inevitable to ponder that the real target of the criticism was actually Carrie Lam.”

Another political insider even believed that there had been signs to increase the intensity of the “struggle against landlords” since the incumbent President and former Chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), Stanley Ng, wrote a public article criticizing real estate developers. “In another article written by Pro-Beijing columnist Chris Wat, she falsely claimed that Selina Chow served as a director of the WKCDA who supported the acceptance of Ai Weiwei’s works. It should not be forgotten that Chow was a senior and important figure of the Liberal Party. As the Liberal Party represents the interests of the traditional business and real estate sectors, what was the real purpose of discrediting Chow, who has already retired from the political arena? This is the most important point.”

This insider also believed that Carrie Lam should have sensed this internal struggle from afar beforehand. Speaking at the Hong Kong Economic Summit 2021 the day before yesterday, Carrie Lam mentioned the situation in Hong Kong today. “Not only the chief executives and the government had the ability to improve the system. Many people, in important positions, could also improve the system from their perspective. It was a pity that they did not see the problem or did not care about it.” In fact, it was a counterattack against the leftists and loyal Leung Chun-ying fans, so don’t think it’s none of their business.

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