Leung committed to closer ties

On May 16, a hot, steamy morning during Cambodia’s rainy season, Leung Chun-ying spent two and a half hours being driven along the banks of the Mekong River from Phnom Penh International Airport to the province of Kampong Cham.

Eventually, the car pulled into the driveway of the LBN Asian Hotel on the riverbank, where Leung, the former chief executive of Hong Kong who is now a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was due to meet with an eight-strong volunteer medical team from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

The volunteers — four ophthalmologists and four nurses — were working for a humanitarian campaign Leung has organized to provide free surgery to save the sight of about 8,000 people with cataracts in Cambodia’s most populous province.

Leung started the project in September. He enlisted surgeons from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland and canvassed support from the Cambodian Ministry of Health and the Chinese business community in the developing country, which is a participant in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Eight months later, the team was ready to begin performing surgeries, and Leung arrived in Kampong Cham to coordinate their work.

“We’re keen to show that we Chinese not only run businesses in Belt and Road countries, but also donate resources to communities overseas,” Leung told China Daily in an exclusive interview when he arrived in the province.

The surgical program extends far beyond the traditional economic and commercial ties between the two countries. Instead, it is aimed at helping real people with real problems, and the result is expected to build a strong medical partnership between the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Cambodia, he said.