Troubled leaders

CHINA’s record of picking leaders in Hong Kong has hardly been glorious. The current chief executive—the third since China regained the territory in 1997—is hugely unpopular. The first one resigned after a public outcry over his plans for a new security bill. Now the second, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, who was knighted by the British but whose once-widespread support had shrivelled by the time he left office three years ago, faces possible disgrace.

Mr Tsang was arrested on October 5th following a lengthy investigation by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). At a magistrate’s court, where he appeared wearing his trademark bow tie (see picture), two charges were read out to him. The first was that he had failed to declare his rental of a flat in the nearby Chinese city of Shenzhen from a businessman whose applications for broadcast licences were being considered by Hong Kong’s policymakers. The other charge was that Mr Tsang had proposed an architect for a public honour without revealing that the nominee had been hired to work on the flat’s interior design.