Hong Kong National People’s Congress deputy refuses to tone down comments amid election threat

Michael Tien also says people close to Beijing have asked him to support chief executive candidate Carrie Lam, although he currently backs rival John Tsang

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Michael Tien refuses to be less outspoken on controversial issues. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 6:26pm, 12 Mar 2017Updated: 10:51pm, 12 Mar 2017

National People’s Congress deputy Michael Tien Puk-sun has refused to stop being outspoken amid reports that other members have persuaded Beijing not to let him keep his seat for implying that the central government was interfering with the chief executive election.

The Hong Kong deputy also told the Post that people close to the central government had asked him to support chief executive candidate Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

“Judging from the backgrounds of those people, I don’t believe they were just expressing their own views. They were passing on some voices. They were the so-called loyal middlemen,” Tien said on the sidelines of the annual NPC session.

Tien, who is also a lawmaker from the New People’s Party, said in January that the race for Hong Kong’s top job had “lost its shape” due to increasing interference by an “invisible hand”.

I had to make those remarks because they represented Hong Kong people’s thoughts

Michael Tien, New People’s Party lawmaker

Despite being in the pro-establishment camp, Tien has been outspoken in his comments. Last year, he wrote to the NPC asking Beijing to come clean on the disappearance of bookseller Lee Po, who ran a shop that specialised in publications critical of the Communist Party.