Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Ka-chao has received mixed reviews on his first 100 days in office

Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Ka-chiu will mark his 100th day in office on October 8 after taking office on July 1. In the past three months, he and his team frequently went down to the district to get closer to the people. In terms of epidemic prevention policies, they kept following the people’s wishes and made continuous actions. Their popularity reached a new high since 2018.

But his government’s overly conservative quarantine policies have left Hong Kong far behind other places. Hong Kong also faces a serious brain drain and a low social atmosphere, which will test its ability to govern in the future.

In the past 100 days, what policies and work has his new government implemented? How will he deliver on his election promises? What do people think?

After taking office, Li Jiachao proposed the “100-day Reform”, which was “results-oriented” and stressed that he was “not just calling for slogans, but really hoping for results”.
In his election platform, he put forward two goals: one is to establish “key performance indicators” (KPIs) for assigned tasks within the first 100 days of taking office; Second, as housing policy is the top priority, the Public Housing Project Action Working Group, which is responsible for overseeing public housing construction projects, has pledged to submit, within its first 100 days of its appointment, initial work proposals on accelerating the construction of public housing projects, with a view to enhancing the overall public housing production in the next five years. No longer or even shorter waiting times for public housing.

In response to more than two years of quarantine policies, his government canceled the flight circuit breaker mechanism, relaxed the quarantine policy on overseas arrivals in Hong Kong, first changed to “3+4”, and recently lowered to “0+3”, and gradually relaxed the social distancing measures.
In terms of social wellbeing, he launched a new poverty alleviation policy to help disadvantaged families and secondary school students housed in Xiebi premises. In August, the government announced a pilot program to help grassroots junior high school students get rid of intergenerational poverty (hereinafter referred to as “Co-create Teen”). The first 2,000 students received mentoring and financial support from teachers and friends. The government believes that junior high school is a critical period for personal growth, and grassroots families lack social resources and don’t know how to ask for help. The “Co-create Ming Teen” allows students to have the opportunity to contact mentors, broaden their horizons, learn about financial management and life planning.

On the community environment, Mr Lee launched a territory-wide clean up campaign entitled “Hong Kong’s New Cityscape”, which included cleaning up black spots and rat infestations in streets and back alleys; In addition, he initiated the Front Office meeting of the Legislative Council to enhance communication with members.
In view of the two pre-election goals – land housing and KPI performance, on the eve of his 100th day in office, Li Ka-chao especially posted on social networking sites that he had received two 100-day reports on land housing supply, and that he would review their recommendations and consider including them in his Policy address to be announced on October 19. He also revealed that 100 different targets covering different areas such as land and housing, talent strategy and health and social welfare had been set, which would be announced in his Policy Address.

According to the Hong Kong Opinion Research Center’s survey of Chief Executive’s popularity in September, Li Ka-chao’s latest score was 53.5 points, with 49% support and 36% opposition, and a net popularity of 13 percentage points, the highest net popularity since August 2018. However, 10% of the respondents gave Li score of 0, indicating that the public’s opinion of him was mixed.