Why Hong Kong should celebrate the breakthrough in science funding from the mainland

Regina Ip says Xi Jinping’s pledge to help Hong Kong become an innovation hub will not only bring in much-needed research funding but will also enable Hong Kong scientists to participate in national research projects

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A researcher works at the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine in Pok Fu Lam. Hong Kong’s 16 state key labs and six national research centres will receive one million yuan each from the mainland government. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 11:33am, 2 Jun 2018Updated: 7:48pm, 2 Jun 2018

As a city which has thrived, without much government support, from trade, light manufacturing and, in more recent decades, property and finance, Hong Kong has always found it hard to wrap its mind around technology.

The colonial administration lived in blissful ignorance of the transformative power of technology. First-term chief executive Tung Chee-hwa was a strong believer, and set up a commission on innovation and technology with Professor Tian Changlin, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, as chairman. The work of the commission, however, ground to a halt when Hong Kong reeled under the headwinds brought on by the Asian financial crisis and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

When third-term chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen took over in 2007, he replaced the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau established by Tung in his second term with the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau. The blatant way Tsang slighted industry and technology set off a storm of protest, but to no avail.

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