Hong Kong can't afford a class war
Two initiatives stood out from Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's otherwise insipid seventh policy address. Mr Tung will oversee the establishment of a consultative framework for cultural and creative industries, while Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen will head a new commission to alleviate poverty.
The first proposal does not appear to have any urgency. After all, Mr Tung has put forward a spate of ideas to promote Hong Kong as, among other things, a cyberport and a Chinese medicine hub. The original ideas behind the plans are now practically forgotten. In the case of Cyperport, what is left is a controversy on government-business collusion.
It will not do any harm to look into how to advance the special administrative region's cultural and creative industries. But it may take years before that amounts to anything. In contrast, the problem of poverty in Hong Kong is clear and present. However, the mere fact that Mr Tang is to lead the commission speaks volumes. Given his portfolio, he is, by nature, more inclined to balancing the deficits than to spending more to help the poor.
Hong Kong is among the world's most affluent cities. Our foreign reserves are the fifth-largest at US$118 billion. Yet, despite the city's high gross domestic product, the Gini coefficient for the city - a standard measure of income inequality between zero and one - is as high as 0.525. This means that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is wider than in most developing nations.
According to the Hong Kong Council for Social Services, one in six residents can be described as poor. If the entire population is divided into 10 classes, the median household income of the lowest strata has dropped from $3,084 in 1991 to $2,977 now.
Some of those in the middle class have interpreted the anti-poverty initiative as an attempt to help the poor at their expense. In western democracies, few people would blame a person for being poor. Poverty is regarded as a social problem. Some local critics, however, have sought to exaggerate the demands of those on welfare.
Welfare recipients are, therefore, being wrongly accused of asking for government subsidies to send their children to ballet classes, piano lessons and tuition schools. These so-called opinion leaders are obviously ignorant of how hard it is for low-income groups just to eke out a bearable life.
There are students who cannot afford a pair of glasses. There are street-sleepers who have no idea when - or if - they will have their next meal. There are elderly citizens who live in darkness to save electricity.
Some vocal figures have been flaunting the fact that they were deprived when they were young. They are proud of the way that they have worked hard to become who they are. Speaking as self-made men, they suggest that it is the duty of a person to be diligent and work their way out of poverty.
What they have overlooked is the reality that, unlike in the 1950s and 1960s, one can no longer easily turn to labour-intensive work to make ends meet. The job market in manufacturing and other unskilled areas of work has virtually evaporated.
Of course, people should work hard for their own survival. Yet, a person is a product of his surroundings. Hong Kong is now a polarised community at a crossroads. The uneven distribution of wealth is doomed to create social crisis and eventually bog down development.
Before we can see any benefits from the poverty commission, it has already triggered a new round of smear campaigns against welfare recipients. It is imperative for the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, York Chow Yat-ngok, to stand up and defend the poor against the efforts to demonise them - before the propaganda spins out of control.
Albert Cheng King-hon is a directly elected legislator
