The colonial government only began policy reforms and modernising public administration in the 1970s, partly to seek a way out of the governance crisis following the 1967 pro-communist riots, but largely due to mounting social pressure for change and the demands of a locally born new generation.

Over the decades, the local community - including civil servants and professionals - has played a crucial role in remaking Hong Kong. We are proud of its modern core values and resilient institutions, such as clean and efficient government, fairness and public accountability. To attribute the city's past success only to the British officers and their 'accountability' to a democratically elected government in London is to whitewash colonial history.

Of course, Hong Kong has encountered multiple problems of governance following reunification with China in 1997, and new constraints and challenges in the process of integration. However, its freedom, openness of government and political accountability are better than in the British colonial days.

It is also true that more Hongkongers, especially the young generation, have become less happy about the city. The widening wealth gap and fading upward social mobility are at the root of public discontent. It is made worse by a sense of despair and inability to change things. The middle class, which by and large identified with the 'Hong Kong way' in the 1980s and 1990s, has become disenchanted with the political order.

A new mindset, like governor Murray MacLehose's social reforms in the 1970s, is urgently needed to guide the agenda of the next chief executive.

We must also get the system right. As Deng Xiaoping once said after the Cultural Revolution, if you don't have a good system, even good people could do terrible things.

Just before the handover, Davis had argued that colonial officials, aware of their lack of legitimacy as an alien, non-elected government, strove not to alienate the population. Be that as it may, logic along the lines of 'their nervousness made them sensitive' could equally be observed after 1997, in the form of short-term populism in our political scene. In the absence of a democratic mandate, our government leaders and civil servants have become too 'sensitive' about public reaction expressed via the media and opinion polls.

Not only that, any issue or controversy can quickly escalate to the apex of the system - the chief executive and his ministers, who have to immediately come up with an answer. In the knee-jerk search for a quick fix, neither bureaucratic wisdom within departments nor community and expert wisdom (including that of think tanks) is allowed to play its rightful role to generate ideas and find solutions. Middle-level officials, meanwhile, have little incentive to work out their own bottom-up answers to day-to-day issues, knowing that their bosses and the media will override them anyway. Everyone is bogged down with putting out the fire, giving less time and attention to more deep-seated problems and longer-range issues. The blame game is feeding into a vicious cycle of impatience, intolerance and not recognising a role for individuals.

Such a system is not favourable for Hong Kong's traditional strength in creating smart local solutions, driven by a 'can do' culture that somehow seems to have been lost. Hongkongers need to change the political system as well as their own mentality and attitudes.

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung is an executive councillor and founder of SynergyNet, a policy think tank