Back to the future
On the banks of a clear stream, in the shade of a mountain whose Chinese name means 'carrying fuel wood' lies the renovated Hakka village Pak Sha O. Prettier than a picture, with grey roof tiles and whitewashed walls, its townhouses and ancestral hall are lived in by expatriates, many with small children who play beneath lush bouquets of bougainvillea. Feral cattle squish contentedly in the muddy remains of rice paddies. On a hill above, a diminutive, abandoned church stands behind locked gates.
The quarrels here are over conservation standards. Some residents maintain that the houses should be kept as much as possible in their original form, while others go for comfort. There are regular hikes, followed by cool beer, to the peaks surrounding the valley, or to the nearby beaches and coral reefs of Hoi Ha. A little more than an hour from Central by public transport, the studied perfection of Pak Sha O symbolises Hong Kong's transition to one kind of future, and its loss of one kind of past.
The future represented by Pak Sha O is likely to frown on too-feverish growth and overly conspicuous consumption. It is literate in the vocabulary of sustainable development. It requires replacing a culture based on material gain with one based on principled restraint, and it might be a bit sterile by standards of Cantonese culture, with its vivid spontaneity.
The question is not whether Hong Kong should give priority to heritage and the environment, but whether it is capable of changing course - or setting an agenda if it wants to. For this, it would need public policy and governance mechanisms sophisticated enough to make strategic calculations, and to mobilise public and private assets. It would need efficient feedback loops to convey the impact of policy decisions back to decision-makers, as well as a system of monitoring. In Hong Kong's executive-led government, today's policy address combines nearly all these functions. Predictably, it is not working. Instead, it falls into much the same category as the international summits that are the bane and joy of officials everywhere. These highly orchestrated events guarantee news coverage despite the fact that any actual news is usually telegraphed beforehand. Leaders lay out action plans and agendas with little fear that the public will hold them to delivering on promises. The plans themselves are intentionally vague.
To be sure, the process behind Hong Kong's policy address is painfully earnest, and includes a detailed annual 'progress report' (absent from the official website in 2003 and last year). The drill began in 1997, when the administration reported that it was 'well on target' in meeting 94 per cent of its 830 pledges and 'behind schedule' on the remaining 6 per cent. The reporting process involves a scheme of dividing up tasks among the policy bureaus, which then assume responsibility for tallying the results. It can be difficult matching promises and results, since the policy address itself fails to indicate which agency is charged with carrying out specific tasks.
It may be time for a new approach, since the current one invites cynicism. Why not reverse the order? The public might be better informed by an annual analysis of the administration's performance over the previous year, as well as that of the civil service, than a list of promises. It could be combined with a look over the horizon at challenges facing Hong Kong in the longer term and a process for incorporating public views on the policy agenda. The city might then stand a chance of replicating the beauty and serenity of Pak Sha O - and have a means for deciding if it wants to uphold such values, or different ones.
Edith Terry is a writer based in Hong Kong
