Thanks – and Best Wishes

Congratulations to all the students who took the exam this morning! Thanks to all of you for your hard work during the semester. I am grateful in particular for your excellent contributions to this blog. Do drop by. I will keep this site up, though postings may not be as frequent as during the semester.

From me and my family to you and yours, warmest wishes for the holiday season and for a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Taiwan: Lessons for Hong Kong?

In March, Zoher Abdoolcarim, the Asia editor at Time magazine who was a guest in class this semester, wrote an essay on the Taiwan elections and the rise of Ma Ying-jeou, the island’s Hong Kong-born leader. Can Hong Kong learn anything from how Taiwan’s politics have developed? Even though the “worst-case scenario” for Beijing happened – the election of the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian – the sky didn’t fall and the Taiwan Strait didn’t become a war zone. Now, the Kuomintang are back in power. This is in many ways a more important milestone for Taiwan than Chen’s election as President back in 2000. And now, Chen is in jail, under investigation for corruption. All rather messy…What do you think? Does Taiwan hold any lessons for Hong Kong?

Does Hong Kong Have a [Cultural] Life?

Is there a Hong Kong culture? Are we lacking the cultural life that we should have to be a truly international city? Do we need to be a global cultural hub to be a globally competitive and cosmopolitan city? Are we too absorbed by doing business and making money? And should the government be doing more to promote culture – ditch “positive non-interventionism” and adopt an ambitious and aggressive culture policy? To spur your thinking, you might like to read this article by writer and former Taipei culture chief Lung Ying-tai, who is currently a visiting professor at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at HKU. This is an unofficial English translation from the original Chinese. It might be a little dated now, but Lung still makes some interesting points.

Let’s hear your views.

Renovating Hong Kong: Wanchai Under Threat?

This article in Asia Sentinel discusses the gentrification of the Wanchai district. The correspondent, however, worries that in cleaning up the area, the government may be ridding Hong Kong of some of its character and color. The author writes:

“So far none of this has had much impact on the open-front bars along Lockhart Road, theoverpriced go-go bars or the steaming discos packed with tourists, businessmen and crowds of enthusiastic women looking for a gold ring, or at least taxi fare and the next day’s rent. But if the history of urban renewal in Hong Kong is any indication, it won’t be long before even Wan Chai’s vice will fall prey to what some call progress.”

Would Hong Kong lose some of what makes the city interesting if districts such as Wanchai are “cleaned up”? Is it progress or ruin? Or perhaps the government can pursue urban renewal while at the same time preserving the character of a place like Wanchai? Share your thoughts.

Steve Vines on Hong Kong Disneyland

You might be interested in reading this piece by veteran journalist Steve Vines, who was one of our journalist guests a few weeks ago. I was reminded of this essay when one of your colleagues asked me about Hong Kong’s laissez-faire approach to governance. The question is: Was Disneyland a mistake? Vines concludes:

“It is not too soon to say that this venture has entered the realms of debacle and it still begs the question of why a government that prides itself on leaving businesspeople to get on with business should have thought it was smart enough to step in where real business feared to tread.”

What do you think?

Review Session on 5 December at 11 am

I have scheduled a review session for POLI0019 students on Friday, 5 December, from 11 am to 12.30 pm. The venue is Theatre 3 (T3) in the Meng Wah Complex. I will not go for the whole 90 minutes but will be available for questions for about half an hour at the end. Students in the two full courses I taught last year generally found the review to be helpful so I encourage you to attend if you can. There may be a surprise bonus for making it. POLI0068 friends, you are most welcome to join, particularly if you have just submitted your research paper to the counter staff at 622 Meng Wah.

Next Week: 24 November and 26 November

Next week is the last teaching week of the semester. We will have class as usual in LE8 on Monday, 24 November, from 9.30 am to 11.35 am. Our guest will be Bernard Chan, Member of the Executive Council, Deputy to the National People’s Congress, and a leading businessman. He is a very dynamic person who is deeply involved in community affairs. We will talk about the quality of life in Hong Kong, culture and sports, film, the local youth and community service. At the end of the session, I will give you time to fill out the official end-of-semester course evaluation.

As noted in the syllabus, I am scheduling a special lecture on Wednesday, 26 November, from 9.30 am to 11.35 am. This will be the final lecture. I will discuss globalization and the impact of globalization on Hong Kong. We will discuss the financial crisis and its impact. If you can attend this special lecture, please do so. THE VENUE WILL BE THEATRE 3 (T3) IN THE MENG WAH COMPLEX, which is a much nicer classroom than LE8. If you cannot make it because of a conflict, do not worry. As with the class with Martin Lee, I will have the session taped and will upload the clips to the PPA channel on youtube.

I had hoped that we would have the representative of the International Monetary Fund as our guest on one of these days to discuss the financial crisis. Unfortunately, he is unable to join us due to his very busy schedule.

Bright Lights, Smoggy City

Green groups and a growing number of citizens have been critical of Hong Kong in recent years for not doing enough to address the problem of pollution. The sky is full of smog, the harbour is dirty, the city noise is deafening, and now the bright neon lights – Hong Kong’s trademark – are said to be wasteful. I think most of us would agree that Hong Kong needs to address its environmental stresses effectively if it is to remain a place which people from all over the world want to live and work in and visit. Hong Kong people are increasingly concerned about the health risks from pollution.

If you had a chance, what would you say to  Chief Executive Donald Tsang about the pollution in Hong Kong? What is to be done? Is enough being done? Look through the haze and tell the CE just what you think.

Next Week: No Lecture

A reminder that there is no lecture on Monday, 17 November. The next lecture is on Monday, 24 November. There are no POLI0068 tutorials next week. There will, however, be POLI0019 tutorials as usual on Wednesday, 19 November. The first round of debates will be held.

Hong Kong’s Identity and Prosperity: At Risk?

Former Far Eastern Economic Review editor Philip Bowring, who has lived in Hong Kong since 1973 and today writes opinion pieces for the International Herald Tribune, recently wrote an essay in the Hong Kong Journal about the threat to Hong Kong’s identity. His key points:

“Hong Kong’s future prosperity, its assumed status as a world class city with living standards to match Tokyo, London or New York, is closely bound up with its sense of identity. Forty years from now, when the One Country, Two Systems formula and Special Administrative Region status will have expired, China as a whole may be as prosperous as Japan, Germany and the US. In which case there is no reason why Hong Kong should not be China’s San Francisco. But, in the meantime, it has a struggle on its hands to retain an identity which allows it to follow policies to help sustain its position as one of the world’s richest cities, which necessarily means revisiting pressures to force the pace of integration with a still much poorer mainland.

“In turn that means focusing more on what makes Hong Kong different, emphasizing the positive aspects which no city is the mainland will be able to offer, at least in a medium term of at least a decade. By then, Hong Kong’s promised 50 years of special status will be roughly at mid-point. Failure to do so could easily have several negative results.”

He concluded:

“Hong Kong must raise its sights beyond the muddy waters of the Pearl River delta, and focus on its differences. Look at the challenges to its role vis-a-vis both the mainland and the world at large. Look to fostering links to a southeast Asian Chinese community which once played a key role in its financial sector. Look to bolstering links with Japan and Korea. Be more open to Indians, Malaysians (not just ethnic Chinese). Clean up the environment – forget authoritarian Singapore; if Taipei and Seoul can do it why not Hong Kong? “Asia’s World City” is a fine idea but remains a self-deluding slogan.”It also needs to consider changing its currency system. The US dollar peg may have been useful but could well become a liability if its international role declines and Asian currencies in particular float against each other or use different benchmarks such as trade-weighted baskets. Hong Kong’s separate status and international role would be best served by a currency management system similar to that used by Singapore to maintain a strong and independent currency. But Beijing may well prefer that if there is to be a change it should be a peg to the Yuan. It is doubtful if a risk-averse Hong Kong government has the self confidence to develop and operate an independent monetary and exchange rate regime.

“Hong Kong needs a degree of vision unlikely to be found in consultants’ reports or in the heads of career civil servants with scant international exposure and a level of self-esteem not necessarily shared by the community. And it needs political will. At the time of the handover I wrote that Hong Kong could well be better off if it had a Chief Executive from the mainland with political clout in Beijing. Mayors of Shanghai, Nanjing and Dalien have proven their worth by fighting not for vague notions of national solidarity but for the betterment of their cities. Hong Kong, on the other hand, was likely to end up with a local worthy acceptable to Beijing but with little political base either there or at home, and often beholden to vested business interests that remain a drag on still-flourishing real entrepreneurship. In that respect, Tsang is weaker than Tung Chee-hwa, his unsuccessful predecessor.

“None of this is meant to write off Hong Kong, which still attracts talent and gives scope for new ideas. Self-improvement is still deeply engrained and foreigners still have readier access than almost anywhere. But this is no time to be resting on laurels, or relying mainly on mainland success to pull Hong Kong along. Otherwise, historians will look back on the city in much the same way people today may look back on Trieste or Tangier, Lubeck or Weihai.”

What do you think? Is Hong Kong going to fade?