My Take | Hong Kong powers ahead, but its people have been left behind
By many measures, the city has done very well indeed since its return to Chinese sovereignty, yet citizens don’t appear to have seen the benefits
Since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong as a city is perhaps doing much better than its people. This seems to be the case if you look up the usual matrixes used to measure the social and economic success or failure of a place. Why that is so may be a more difficult question to answer.
According to the just-released world rankings of life expectancy by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Hong Kong people have displaced the Japanese as living the longest, for the second year in a row.
This automatically means several things. Our much-maligned public health system is actually doing pretty good, at least when it comes to low infant and maternal mortality rates, and care for the elderly. It also means the city’s decades-long anti-smoking policy is working.
Some experts have argued it is not fair to compare Hong Kong with a large country such as Japan. But in terms of population size and economic development, it’s not unfair to compare the city with Cyprus, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and Israel, all of which are in the top 10 of the ministry’s latest rankings.
Meanwhile, when it comes to low crime rates, Hong Kong remains one of the safest in the world. Poverty levels are falling, though experts argue about by how much. Unemployment is low.