Letters | No, Hong Kong’s problems were not created by liberal studies: but unaccountable officials may have played a role

Tung Chee-hwa blames the liberal studies curriculum his administration introduced for the discontent of young people today. He would do better to fault another failed programme he started

Hong Kong extradition bill

Letters

Published: 7:45am, 9 Jul 2019

Why you can trust SCMP

I refer to “Liberal studies to blame for protests claims ex-Hong Kong leader” (July 3), and here Tung Chee-hwa seems to be desperately clutching at straws. Perhaps he is now wishing that he had made the study of Confucian values a compulsory subject instead. To the contrary, I think that introducing liberal studies was one of the better moves of the Tung administration, as it gave students some relief from the stifling rote-learning methods that dominate local education, and gave them some room to think for themselves.

Tung may reflect that a real failure of his administration was the introduction of the Principal Officials Accountability System (“ministerial system”), and this must take some blame for the protests. Tung heralded this as the “dawning of a new era for the governance of Hong Kong … [to become ] a government more accountable to the people of Hong Kong”.

It was introduced in good faith, but there is no doubt that it floundered. Finding capable people from outside the civil service willing to serve in the administration has proven extremely difficult. The promise of “an open, enlightened and progressive government” has become a bad joke, as civil servants are promoted above their capabilities and have only succeeded in establishing another layer of bureaucracy.

Decision-making is pushed down the pyramid, from bureau to department to district. It is no wonder that Hong Kong has lost its dynamism. With this vacuum for decision-making, it is the tycoons, vested interests and paid consultants who have been calling the shots. A most obvious shortcoming of the accountability system is that no minister has resigned to take responsibility since 2003. No one is accountable.

In a functioning ministerial system, our secretary for justice and the secretary for security would have already resigned to take responsibility for the extradition bill fiasco. In these “unaccountable” circumstances, it is no wonder that youths have become inflamed: and not just youths.

I.M. Wright, Happy Valley

If the bill is really dead, why not withdraw it?

I refer to the current impasse regarding the Hong Kong extradition bill. On June 17, Alex Lo wrote that “there is no real difference between the government indefinitely suspending the extradition bill and shelving it”. Bernard Chan echoed this in his opinion column on July 5, “the extradition bill is basically dead”, but then felt the need to qualify this by adding, “technically, it will lapse next year when the [Legislative Council] term ends. I can’t imagine this or any future administration trying to reintroduce it.”

If the extradition bill is indeed dead and there is no real difference between suspending or withdrawing it, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor should consider the greater good and officially withdraw the bill.

This gesture of goodwill to the Hong Kong people might help break the current impasse. Or perhaps Peter Kammerer is right to be suspicious and the bill could still be “slipped into law any time … without discussion” (“All that is wrong with Hong Kong has been exposed”, July 2).

Helen Cheung, Ho Man Tin

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