Hong Kong election loser tipped for No 2 job in education bureau

Educator Christine Choi in running for top post months after suffering a resounding defeat at the hands of opposition pan-democrat

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Christine Choi is tipped to be the No 2 in the education bureau. Photo: Handout

Published: 12:00am, 22 Jun 2017Updated: 5:24pm, 22 Jun 2017

Pro-establishment educator Christine Choi Yuk-lin stole the limelight from incoming ministers on Wednesday after she was tipped to be the next undersecretary for education, the bureau’s No 2.

Choi ran as lawmaker for the education functional constituency in the Legislative Council elections last September but lost heavily to pan-democrat Ip Kin-yuen – 18,158 votes to 45,984 – so her appointment would upset opposition ranks.

The new education minister, Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, formerly the department No 2, refused to confirm Choi’s posting. “The search process is still going on,” he said.

Incoming chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor had raised eyebrows just a day earlier by promising to step up national education to nurture a sense of an “I am Chinese” identity among young people from as early as kindergarten.

The remarks have renewed concerns that Lam would try to bring back national education – labelled “brainwashing” by critics – after plans were shelved in 2012 amid public opposition. Pan-democrats feared Choi would be assigned to carry out such a task.

But Yeung said national education had not ceased in schools after the protests of 2012.