As deputy chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Laura Cha helped promulgate regulations to rein in the mainland’s casinolike stock markets. But even though she had the support of former premier Zhu Rongji, Cha was belittled by investors unhappy with her regulations as a “sea turtle” -- an overseas Chinese who returned to her homeland but lacked a native’s understanding of China.
But now Cha’s star is again on the rise thanks to the backing of a powerful politician. Last month Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa appointed the University of Wisconsin educated lawyer as one of 21 members of the Executive Council, the city’s highest policymaking body.
Cha, who was born in Shanghai but raised in Hong Kong and speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese, will likely be a strong advocate for China to wary Hong Kongers. “Many people in Hong Kong view the mainland as frozen in the 1980s,” Cha, 54, tells Institutional Investor in a rare interview. “Hong Kong is very self-centered, and we’re full of ourselves, in a way. So we tend not to spend the time and effort to understand the outside.” The onetime Coudert Brothers attorney says Hong Kong residents need to be made aware of the mainland’s “quite astounding economic development and the change in its officials’ mentality.”
Gossip has begun about Cha’s future. Her years as a securities regulator, first in Hong Kong and then for three years in Beijing, have prompted speculation that she might be a candidate for Hong Kong finance minister or even, as a dark horse, for chief executive to succeed Tung in 2007. Says Cha, sounding very much the politician, “We’ll see what happens later.”
