The control freaks running Hong Kong's increasingly politicised bureaucracy are close to snaring another victim: the internet. The medium which should be a key part of the city's intellectual and artistic freedom is set to come under the direct control of government appointees. It is a major blow to Hong Kong's development as a centre for information technology and free media.
At stake is the domain name '.hk'. Hitherto, this has been administered by the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation (HKIRC), a non-profit company run by representatives of internet users and providers, plus universities, with one government appointee. It has performed efficiently and at low cost.
The government is moving to take control on the grounds that the .hk domain name is a public resource. Indeed, it is just that - which does not give the government the right to control it rather than allow the public at large, and the internet community in particular, to run it.
Under the scheme, instead of 13 directors from varied interests, it will in future have eight; four elected by local stakeholders and four appointed by the government, including a chairman with the deciding vote.
The underhand way in which the government has gone about this is typical. In 2006, it commissioned a consultancy study into the structure of .hk. It concluded that 'an arm's-length, non-profit organisation should be retained in the near term'.
The government appeared to accept this but so twisted the notion of 'arm's length' that it came up with a system that puts Hong Kong not in the same category of independent management as most developed countries but in one that follows the Singaporean and mainland model of state control.