James Tien's Liberal Party have gone to Beijing to complain that Uncle Donald isn't being nice to them, says the SCMP:

The Liberal Party told Beijing yesterday it wanted to play a bigger role in Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's government but denied allegations it was attempting to seize power...Party chairman James Tien Pei-chun said: "We have expressed that although our relations with the government are improving continuously, there is room for further advancement if we are consulted before government policies are made.

"This is not a demand to share power - we only want to help the chief executive to implement his strong governance by forming a ruling coalition. We didn't want to seize power or even share power with the government."

"Sieze power" is a rather alarmist way of putting it. As a reminder, James Tien quit as an Exco member of Tung Che-wa's administration back in July 2003 after the Article 23 protests and now he's trying to find a way back in. But...

The government has long complained that the support of the Liberals in the legislature cannot be guaranteed despite the party's claims to support the administration. But the pro-business party has said its voters' interests cannot be adequately represented under the existing system.

So Tien can't get into bed with Don on his own terms, so he has to go to Beijing to ask them to force Don. And Beijing will politely listen and ignore him.

What a fun thing it is to be a Hong Kong politician.

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