After eight years as Hong Kong's government boss, and ten days of ignoring the rumours, Tung Chee-hwa has finally resigned. Good riddance.

Officially he's stepping down for health reasons, but everyone knows that Beijing was getting fed up with him, just as the people of Hong Kong were. A shipping tycoon, he didn't have the political experience to move quickly on things like the 1997 financial meltdown or the SARS crisis. And he just hasn't let Hong Kong liberalize as fast as it wants to - and needs to, given the new development opportunities to be serviced in China.

Things might be a bit better under his deputy, who takes over. Donald Tsang is a Harvard-educated career administrator. He'll have to call an election within six months, though. And that doesn't mean that the residents of Hong Kong all get to vote. Beijing will hand-pick the candidates, and the only electors will be a 800-strong Beijing-controlled committee.

In economic terms, China is tearing away. It will be the world's biggest economy by 2040. It should be mature enough now to bring in real democracy in Hong Kong - and elsewhere, for that matter. Then its growth would be even faster.