What's Chan up to?

Former Chief Secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang on Wednesday announced the establishment of Hong Kong 2020, an organization aiming to collect public opinions about the 2017 Chief Executive (CE) Election and 2020 Legislative Council (LegCo) Election, both by universal suffrage. She said the group will work particularly hard on communicating with the business circle and emphasized the bottom line is that the ultimate plan must comply with the principle on popular and fair election.

A slew of activities leading up to Wednesday suggests that, by establishing a new platform for constitutional reform, Chan is set to dictate opposition moves on behalf of her bosses behind the scenes and whatever they will be doing cannot be so simple as merely collecting public opinions. The activities included secret meetings with some of her former subordinates of the colonial era, the return of Leo Goodstadt the former spymaster stationed in Hong Kong, and the fresh showing of Chan, Martin Lee Chu-ming, Cardinal Joseph Zen and Jimmy Lai, collectively known as Hong Kong's "Gang of Four".

Regarding suspicion that she is influenced by foreign forces, Chan insisted Wednesday that she has not received any foreign assistance and never will but stopped short of disclosing the source of her organization's funding. The fact is HK2020 has leased an office more than 1,000 square feet in size as its headquarters right off the bat. As the scale of its operations is already larger than most of the small- and medium-sized parties in Hong Kong, it is naturally hard to believe HK2020 has no funding from the outside.

The HK2020 leadership core also smells thick with foreign connections. The faces out in the front include Civic Party (CP) heavyweights Gladys Li and Johannes Chan Man-mun. And it is common knowledge that the CP maintains unrivaled ties with foreign forces. As for Chan, there is a reason why she is the only ethnic Chinese to have ever served in the British colonial government as chief secretary before the handover.

The author is a current affairs commentator. This is an excerpted translation of his column published in Wen Wei Po on April 25.

(HK Edition 04/26/2013 page1)