Beijing calls the shots over Tsang

The message is clear – China rules, OK?

This much became plain when Xinhua, China’s official news agency, announced the appointment of Sir Donald Tsang Yan-kuen as Hong Kong’s chief secretary for administration half an hour before the press conference in Hong Kong.

Just 48 hours earlier Sir Donald – though no one in the politically correct special autonomous region of China addresses him as a British knight – Hong Kong’s financial secretary, told local university students that he did not want to succeed Anson Chan Fang On-sang as the chief secretary and had asked chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, to find someone else.