John Lee: the former Hong Kong cop Beijing trusts

As a former policeman who rose to become Hong Kong’s security chief, John Lee is the one person China’s leaders trust to run the city.

Hong Kong's new chief executive John Lee is a former city policeman. Picture: AFP

As a former policeman who rose to become Hong Kong’s security chief, John Lee is the one person China’s leaders trust to run the city as their loyal lieutenant, analysts and insiders say.

Mr Lee, 64, was anointed Hong Kong’s new chief executive by a small committee on Sunday, the culmination of a choreographed, Beijing-blessed race with no other candidates.

His elevation caps a remarkable rise for a man whose police ­career lifted him from a working-class family to the upper echelons of Hong Kong’s political establishment.

It also places a security official in the city’s top job for the first time, a man who played a key role in the suppression of huge democracy protests and Beijing’s subsequent political crackdown.

Insiders say Mr Lee’s unwavering commitment to that role won China’s confidence at a time when other Hong Kong elite were seen as insufficiently loyal or competent.

“John Lee is the one that the central government knows the best, because he was in constant contact and interaction with the mainland,” pro-establishment politician and prominent business figure Michael Tien said.

Lai Tung-kwok, Hong Kong’s security minister before Mr Lee took the role, put it another way.

“He is a man who has stood the test,” Mr Lai said. “If he really wants something done, he will try his best to tackle the obstacles.”

Mr Lee represents a seachange from the four chief executives who have run Hong Kong since its 1997 return to Chinese rule – all former business figures or administrators from the civil service.

He spent 35 years in the police before jumping to the government in 2012, followed by a swift rise to the top via what local media have dubbed “a platinum elevator”.

But law and order remained his portfolio, serving in the Security Bureau and then leading it before becoming the city’s No.2 official last year.

Chien-yu Shih, an expert on Chinese security issues at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defence and Security Research, said he believed Beijing started paying attention to Mr Lee after the 2019 democracy protests.

Those huge and sometimes violent rallies were a popular ­expression of anger by Hong Kong residents at their lack of say in how their city was run. Demonstrations organised by students, teachers, unions, medics and even civil servants were some of the biggest Hong Kong had seen.

But the Chinese government portrayed the protests as a foreign-backed plot run by “terrorists”, a stand Mr Lee embraced.

“Beijing has been watching which political figure is willing to follow their narrative,” Mr Shih said, adding China’s leaders still distrust Hong Kong’s civil servants.

Given his security background, it seems unlikely Mr Lee will ­reverse Beijing’s campaign against dissent. Where he will enter less familiar territory is the world of business, an area where Hong Kong is suffering after being cut off internationally during the pandemic as it hews to Beijing’s strict zero-Covid strategy.

Some business leaders say Mr Lee’s appointment confirms that China now puts Hong Kong’s political security ahead of business and livelihood issues. “In the past, China might compromise for some economic benefits,” said Charles Mok, a former pro-democracy politician now living overseas. “But now it seems Beijing wants its people to feel that the world is full of threats and it’s only safe to stick closely to the (Communist) Party.”

AFP