Paralysed by the people
The best New Year's resolution for the Hong Kong government would be to reclaim its authority. That is easier said than done.
A democratically elected government can usually rely on its mandate being respected, even by those who voted for the other side. It accepts that voters may throw it out at the next election, but meanwhile it has the moral authority to carry through its programme, even if that includes some unpopular measures.
Unfortunately, the Hong Kong government has no such democratic mandate. Even support from the Legislative Council, if it can be won, may not be enough to satisfy the public at large, since only half of Legco is elected through what most would regard as a properly democratic process. The public thus becomes restive. In deference to such rumblings, or in an effort to pre-empt them, the government may choose to canvass views through earnest consultation. Ultimately, however, it may simply cave in to populist pressure. Article 23, the Hei Ling Chau prison project, harbour reclamation, the Hunghom flats and the West Kowloon cultural hub are all high-profile examples where initiatives launched by, or implicitly supported by, the government have been threatened, if not actually derailed, by popular protest.
One may welcome some or all of those outcomes. But the process does not only claim high-profile victims. It afflicts the execution of government at the more mundane level. Vital budgetary decisions, such as broadening the tax base - whether through a goods and services tax or a border-crossing levy - may be hostage to single-issue popular activism that is, almost by definition, likely to be oppositional. And any mass consultation exercise, designed to short-circuit the urge for a street rally, is liable to that same bias. What is the financial secretary going to do if all his Budget ideas receive negative feedback from his much-advertised consultation programme? He cannot ignore the feedback, or simply spin it to his liking - remember how the government got into hot water during the Article 23 debate for issuing an allegedly biased summary of comments? And he surely cannot proceed with an idea if it is resoundingly opposed, albeit by a probably unrepresentative slice of the community, but the only people bothering to respond.
It is no coincidence that so much of the upbeat news delivered by the government tends to be related to uncontroversial collaborative initiatives with the mainland, where the authorities have a horror of mass dissent in Hong Kong and of any reports of it reaching mainland televisions or websites, and believe that a buoyant economy is the best antidote. The many examples from the past quarter of a century of regimes being toppled as a result of sheer people power is surely never far from their minds.
So, paradoxically, despite having little by way of formal democracy, Hong Kong actually exhibits a rather extreme form of it, but sadly not an effective form. No government wants mob rule; still less does it want to be seen to cave in to the mob. The solution emerging in Hong Kong is for the government to shy away from anything that may provoke confrontation and to seek the line of least resistance - effectively, the 'lowest common denominator' formula. It is driven to shelve its more contentious or, dare one say, visionary ambitions. You may be one of those who is against the cultural hub plan, but at least it possesses a certain grandeur. If the forces of populism throw it out, do not be surprised if, in its place, you get something of gruesome mediocrity. It is even more worrying that a host of other policy issues may be resolved by the same formula. The government's ability to get on with the job of governing has been seriously weakened; policy paralysis looms. It will only regain its authority if it first regains the trust and confidence of the people - an urgent task for next year.
Tony Latter is a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong
