Can Carrie Lam steer Hong Kong to greatness again?

Dear Carrie, congratulations on your selection as the next chief executive. I am one of the millions of Hongkongers who had no say in your ­selection, but who you will now represent on the world stage and, more importantly, in the Great Hall of the People. Whether we like it or not – and most of us do not – you are now the face of Hong Kong.

From the moment President Xi Jinping (習近平) administers your oath of office on July 1, you will be inundated with issues to resolve; not only the day-to-day responsibilities of administering a metropolis of seven million people, but also the larger juggling act of convincing Hongkongers that our interests and those of the central government need not be mutually exclusive.

Watch: Carrie Lam is Hong Kong’s next chief executive

While your strongest attribute seems to be your capacity to power through, however much is thrown at you, I worry that, as a reluctant aspirant for this job, your sole focus each day will be clearing the now famous piles of paper on your desk. You will keep your head above water and make sure nothing gets too out of hand. You will act as the custodian of the city and diligently run your leg of the 2047 seat-warming relay for Beijing. You will accept the now common narrative that main­landisation is inevitable, that Hong Kong’s best years are behind us, and be an able caretaker of our decline.

No one has any doubt you could do this well enough to secure a second term. And then, suddenly, we could be 10 more years down the road to irrelevance; perhaps not quite as grim as the future depicted in Ten Years, but grim nevertheless.

That is one way you could ­approach your new job; there is ­another. Imagine you could lead any city in the world. Why wouldn’t you choose one of the richest ­enclaves on the planet, with an economy larger than 80 per cent of the world’s countries? How about a global financial hub with universal health care and the best public transport system known to man?

A city where every marker of human development – infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy rates, test scores, income, connectivity – is among the highest in the world, and crime rates and taxes are among the lowest; where the civil service is efficient and transparent, and the rule of law is sacrosanct. Throw in uniquely close transport, cultural, legal, and financial links to mainland China, and a natural endowment and English working environment attractive to foreigners. If you could lead any city in the world, why wouldn’t it be this one?