The coming election of the next chief executive (CE) will have the most long-term ramifications on the future prosperity and stability of Hong Kong in this precarious time when Hong Kong is caught in the middle of the Sino-US rivalry. It should be understood that without stability, it is hard for prosperity to take hold in Hong Kong.
Hence, national security should remain a major focus of the new CE in the coming years. Since the National Security Law for Hong Kong came into effect, we have experienced a welcome return of peace and tranquility. But it would be naive to assume that the current state of affairs will remain without our continued efforts. The subversive forces are still out there, biding their time, and stirring up public discontent and hatred toward the government at every opportunity. There are plenty of recent cases demonstrating such subversive behavior, such as people with COVID-19 purposely going out to restaurants to spread the virus, and thousands of cases of sabotage at the isolation centers built with the aid of the central government. Some have likened the current situation to sharks swimming beneath the tranquil waters awaiting the right moment to strike again. Indeed, it is most surprising to see the Falun Gong, banned on the Chinese mainland, is still being tolerated right within our urban centers.
The CE must be able to harmonize our society, which can only be achieved by captivating the hearts of the people with a vision of a better tomorrow and a set of strategies to lead them there. With popular support, the CE would have no problem introducing tough new measures to make it happen
The legislation of Article 23 is therefore a top priority for the new CE to plug the remaining loopholes of national security, but the process may present the surviving 2019 rioters and their puppet masters with an opportunity for an attempt at their revival. We must therefore be alert to the possibility that civil disturbance could be stirred up again under the pretenses of “democracy” or other “noble causes”. The CE must be able to deal with it more resolutely than in 2019, and should not hesitate in eradicating the first signs of potential threats to our social fabric, whether they manifest itself in the media, education sector or even within the civil service. We need a new CE that adopts a zero-tolerance rather than a compromising approach.
With the increasing friction between China and the US and other Western countries, the CE also needs to handle the complicated external challenges with tact and firmness. As they continue to demonize the Hong Kong SAR and central governments, the CE must be ready to robustly defend us against such calumny. We can no longer wait until our back is forced to the wall before fighting back!
Indeed, the mindset of the entire civil service needs to be overhauled under a tough new CE who is up to the task. First, the CE must have the political courage and acumen as well as leadership skill to reorganize the civil service to allow it to operate at its best. Perhaps one can draw inspiration from a speech of Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, when he said: “To achieve good governance, some of the corresponding systems and mechanisms will have to be improved, while many deep-seated contradictions and problems will need to be resolved. Acts of complacency or dodging responsibility will only stifle the spirit to fight and the courage to reform.” This is clearly an unambiguous expectation on the CE, that the SAR leader must be courageous and capable enough to tackle the many institutional and philosophical problems of our civil service.
As one famous columnist aptly put it, “Hong Kong has a well-trained, rules-based, but highly bureaucratic, inflexible and slow-to-respond civil service class.” Unfortunately, our 25 years after the reunification has been marred by the colonial mindset of our civil service, led mainly by administrative officers (AOs). It is distinguished by three undesirable characteristics. First, their perception of the “one country, two systems” policy means to keep the Chinese mainland at arm’s length. This is clearly manifested by maintaining the restricted status of a vast piece of borderland requiring citizens to apply for permits to enter. Such “frontier closed areas” were established by the British colonial administration in line with London’s Cold War practices after the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949. But they are clearly an anachronism now and should have long been abolished as they were in Macao. Instead of maximizing its development potential, the SAR government planned to locate a cemetery and an expansive “funeral city” on a valuable piece of underused land just 300 meters from the Luohu Commercial City!
Second, without realizing it, their unjustified superiority complex erects in them a mental blockage from ever picking up any best practices from their mainland counterparts, such as in combating COVID-19.
Third, until the onset of the raging fifth wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, their arrogance prevents them from seeking any assistance from the mainland even though it is readily available.
Thus, the new CE must not hesitate in breaking down the unnecessary border restrictions and psychological barriers between Hong Kong and the mainland. This “dual barrier” of restrictive border control and ideological difference has needlessly hampered Hong Kong’s development since Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997.
Another negative mindset of some senior AOs, largely due to the entrenched policy of limited tour of duty, is their avoidance of “opening any can of worms”. This resulted in all these deep-rooted problems concerning education, poverty and elderly care remaining largely untouched as they required bold new thinking to tackle entrenched problems. These are clearly the “deep-seated contradictions and problems” that Director Luo was referring to.
The most pressing livelihood problem is our housing shortage. We need a strong CE who is not afraid to confront the environmentalists to convert part of our disproportionately huge country park area for public housing, and will take on major land developers in exercising government authority to buy back agricultural land owned by them for new-town development, and will not hesitate to be harsh with government departments stalling development with their endless studies and consultation exercises.
The current fifth wave of COVID-19 has exposed many problems affecting our homes for the elderly, which have cost the lives of thousands of our elderly people. Had the current administration pursued the Leung Chun-ying administration’s project of building large numbers of homes for the elderly and public housing at the periphery of the country park in the shortest possible period of time, thereby enabling a better environment for these homes for the aged, many of these innocent lives probably could have been saved. The new CE should address this elderly care problem as one of the new administration’s top priorities.
The pandemic has also exposed our long-standing shortage of doctors. Again, it requires a strong hand in pushing through new criteria for the hiring of overseas doctors and nurses, as well as borrowing expertise from the mainland in the application of traditional Chinese medicine. This involves, of course, facing head-on the blatant protectionism of the local medical sector. After COVID-19, the new CE should initiate a thorough review of our inadequate preparedness for pandemics, including the inflexibility of our Hospital Authority system, the lack of synergy and sustainability of our public health system, and the need for interface of public and private medicine.
The new CE must establish a good working relationship with our mainland counterparts. The opportunities are self-evident in the 14th national Five-Year Plan (2021-25), which calls for strengthening Hong Kong’s status as a global financial, innovation and technology and logistics hub, etc, with particular reference to the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Guangdong’s 2021 gross domestic product has reached 12.4 trillion yuan ($1.95 trillion), as compared with Hong Kong’s 2021 GDP of $360 billion. The CE needs to introduce radical measures to facilitate deeper integration in such a diverse and rich conurbation. The right policies must be implemented to ease the flow of people, capital, goods and services, in order to unleash the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’s full potential which Hong Kong stands to benefit from. Our long-term strategies should include partnering with the mainland in the promotion of the technology and innovation industry as the new growth engine.
Above all, the CE must be able to harmonize our society, which can only be achieved by captivating the hearts of the people with a vision of a better tomorrow and a set of strategies to lead them there. With popular support, the CE would have no problem introducing tough new measures to make it happen. This would positively affect a whole spectrum of livelihood, economic, developmental and educational issues. It would not be a walk in the park, but more like climbing up the Lion Rock mountain. Hong Kong people are not averse to hard work; they need only reassurance that their expenditure in blood, sweat and tears will be duly rewarded. They need to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel before they embark on their journey! The CE must be able to hold up the light for them to follow!
The author is an adjunct professor of HKU Space and a council member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.