Mainland No 3 official, CY Leung hold private meeting in Beijing

The mainland’s No 3 official on Thursday held a closed-door meeting in Beijing with Hong Kong’s outgoing leader, Leung Chun-ying, whose shock decision not to seek a second term was followed by a new opinion poll recording the city’s highest level of trust in the central government in five years.

Two days into his final annual duty visit to the nation’s capital, some of Leung’s limelight was stolen by his No 2 official, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. She attracted a media frenzy on Thursday when she arrived in Beijing amid intense speculation over her expected bid for Hong Kong’s top job, although she was not officially in the capital to discuss the possibility.

Lam, who will stage a high-profile and rare press conference in the Forbidden City on Friday as part of her involvement in organising events to mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China, remained tight-lipped on her pledge to “reconsider” whether to run for chief executive in the March election. She made her pledge soon after Leung ruled himself out of a second term two weeks ago.

Leung was seen on Thursday entering the Great Hall of the People, where he met Zhang Dejiang, the nation’s third highest-ranking official. Zhang received the chief executive as head of the Communist Party’s leading group on Hong Kong and Macau affairs.