On July 1, 2022, John Lee Ka-chiu became Hong Kong’s sixth-term chief executive. After more than three years of setbacks caused by political upheaval and pandemic-induced isolation, Lee had a long to-do list, and was racing against time to catch up with the city’s regional rivals.
Lee had both immediate and structural problems on his hands. His immediate tasks included phasing out pandemic-related travel restrictions, reopening Hong Kong to the world and reviving the ailing economy. Lee accomplished these tasks fairly speedily and with distinction.
Even before Hong Kong reopened to the world upon the lifting of the “amber” health code on Dec 14, 2022, Hong Kong had already resumed its function as a global financial hub. In October, the city hosted a financial summit which drew strong support from global financial leaders. Other mega events — Art Basel, the Hong Kong Sevens, Art Week — followed in quick succession, testifying to Hong Kong’s renewed status as an international arts, cultural, sports and business center.
Hong Kong’s structural problems — chronic land and housing shortages, economic inequality and narrow economic structure — were much harder nuts to crack. Lee made them his top priorities even as Hong Kong was still recovering from its economic doldrums.
To tackle inequality and the shortage of subsidized public housing, Lee’s team rolled out a Light Public Housing program, which will provide 30,000 units of much better quality housing for inhabitants of subdivided cubicles within five years, and shorten the public housing waiting list.
To restructure the economy, Hong Kong requires a determined effort by government to abandon its long-cherished “small government, big market” credo, and jumpstart technological development by investing heavily in research and development, recruiting tech talents and making land available for advanced manufacturing.
Lee lost no time in putting new policies in place to provide the necessary resources for technological development. His administration pushed ahead with development of the Northern Metropolis, the northern part of the New Territories encompassing Yuen Long and North districts, a massive project which is slated to provide an area of 300 square kilometers, create 650,000 jobs and accommodate 2.5 million people.
To make this happen, Lee’s administration secured support from the Legislative Council to amend six pieces of infrastructure-related legislation to speed up the development process. Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho confirmed in the Legislative Council recently that the administration would resume 500 hectares of private land in the New Territories in the next five years, four times more that the amount resumed five years ago, to make land available for housing and technological development.
This does not include more land to be produced, through land resumption or public-private partnership, to build the San Tin Technopole, a vastly expanded tech park to support development in artificial intelligence, data analysis, health and life science and new energy.
Another hurdle the government must overcome is the shortage of professional talent and labor. The government reckoned that in 2022 there was an outflow of at least 140,000 Hong Kong residents. This labor shortage and the exodus of professionals have severely handicapped Hong Kong’s economic recovery.
It is to the government’s credit that within the space of one year, Lee’s administration has launched a Top Talent Pass Scheme, which has attracted at least 17,000 top talents to Hong Kong together with 13,000 family members. In addition, the government launched two sector-specific programs to remedy the acute labor shortage in the construction and transport sectors, and suspended the exclusion of 26 occupations from the existing Supplementary Labour Scheme. It is expected that in the next couple of years, as many as 100,000 workers with different levels of skills will join Hong Kong’s workforce.
The Northern Metropolis is crucial, not only for the purpose of turbocharging tech development, but also promoting greater connectivity with the Guang dong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and providing a much broader range of opportunities for young people. As President Xi Jinping has reiterated, young people are Hong Kong’s future, and Hong Kong cannot rise again unless its young people regain hope and confidence.
With youth development among Lee’s top concerns, his administration pressed ahead with the provision of youth hostels to improve the housing conditions of young people, and launched a Strive and Rise program to provide a comprehensive mentorship program for less privileged youngsters.
Lee’s tasks are many and varied, ranging from safeguarding national security, maintaining societal harmony and stability, instilling a greater sense of national identity, reforming Hong Kong’s governance structure, to improving livelihoods and spurring economic recovery. Lee has worked tirelessly in the past year and ticked all the right boxes. He is on course to meeting President Xi’s expectations and fulfilling pledges made in his first policy address.
Yet there is no lack of dark clouds of uncertainty looming on the horizon. With China and the United States locked in a long-term strategic competition, geopolitics will dominate the global landscape and Hong Kong needs to beware geopolitical black swan events.
Although Hong Kong’s economy is on an uptrend and forecast to grow at 3.5 percent to 5.5 percent, the recent spate of knife attacks, with two especially egregious cases involving perpetrators who are recipients of public assistance, indicates there is no lack of tension and frustration at the bottom of our society. Poverty, inadequate mental care and fraying family relationships remain issues the government needs to tackle to heal the city’s hidden wounds.
The debate on the partial resumption of the golf course in Fanling continues to fester, despite the administration’s firm decision to go ahead with resumption, a telltale sign of the deep division between the have-nots and the perceived privileged class of Hong Kong’s society.
The most challenging task remains Hong Kong’s constitutional obligation to enact local legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law to safeguard national security. Lee has indicated this task will be completed by the end of 2024 at the latest.
Hong Kong has a long outstanding constitutional duty to complete this task, but it must be executed with skill to strike a balance between safeguarding national security and maintaining the rights and freedoms pivotal to Hong Kong’s continued success as a global business and financial hub. Lee’s performance so far has shown him to be a man of caution who is willing to listen. There is a good chance that he will be able to accomplish this historic mission with the same level of determination and sensitivity that he has displayed thus far.
The author is convener of the Executive Council and a legislator.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.