Macroscope | Constitutional crunch crimps Hong Kong competitiveness
For the administration to get on with real business,the city's leaders should learn to live with the shortcomings in itspolitical system
If fools rush in where angels fear to tread, then a fool I must be as I plunge into the Hong Kong controversy on constitutional reform.
One reason is because of a book I wrote with Michael Enright and Edith Scott, The Hong Kong Advantage, in 1997 on the city's competitiveness.
In 2007, the Bauhinia Foundation asked Enright and I to revisit the book 10 years on to examine the competitive changes that had occurred. This we did, and the findings were generally positive.
The Bauhinia Foundation also asked us to add a chapter - on how political changes were affecting Hong Kong's competitiveness - but it was so politically sensitive that the foundation did not release it.
[The chapter] was so politically sensitive that the Bauhinia Foundation did not release it
I was irritable at the time, and I was equally irritable when I reread the chapter last week. So much of what we addressed remains untackled today, and must be tackled if the political developments we are now witnessing are not to get worse.