THE OFFICE OF Ma Ngok, associate professor in the Department of Government and Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, isn't decorated with the wall charts of government structures, the Legislative Council, or pods of social activism you might expect to find. Instead, there's a huge poster of Manchester United. It turns out that the author of the recently published Political Development in Hong Kong - State, Political Society, and Civil Society, which reviews the political development of Hong Kong before and after 1997, is also a keen soccer fan and has even written a book on the game. Ma's latest work is a rather more academic tome - examining state-society relations during the past 20 years and breaking down the different government institutions and political parties. The account of Hong Kong's recent political history is comprehensive, if somewhat depressing, and a good read for anyone interested in Hong Kong at the top and grass-roots levels, and the conflict between government and society. It puts into context key clashes between the public and government - for example, the debacle over Article 23 or the attempts to prevent Link Reit shares going on the stock exchange. The outlook isn't positive, says Ma. Without considerable institutional reform, Hongkongers may find themselves living in a city where they can't express themselves politically, and the frustration and demonstrations will grow. He explains the slow growth of democracy in Hong Kong and why there's a governance crisis, caused in part by the rigidity of a system borrowed from colonial days. Political society is underdeveloped, but the roots are in Hong Kong's colonial past, he says. Ma decided to write the book after the 2002 re-election of chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. 'I was sitting in Cable Television's studio doing live commentary and I was struck by all these celebrities queuing up to praise Tung,' he says. 'It didn't strike me that that was the sentiment of the public - and certainly not in the newsroom. A lot of Tung's comments and those by the celebrities were met by jeers in the newsroom.' Added to that, Tung wasn't elected by the people, and surveys showed that only 18 per cent of people approved of him. 'It's a situation that's novel to Hong Kong,' Ma says. 'Most non-democracies wouldn't tolerate that. In a lot of authoritarian countries the government would try to control the media.' With the growing aspirations of the younger generation and continuing economic development, Hong Kong's political system was trying to play catch-up. Ask the disenfranchised, disenchanted taxi drivers in Hong Kong - one of the most politically minded groups in the city - and they'll say Tung and Beijing ruined the whole thing. 'That's not actually true,' says Ma. Hongkongers tend to look nostalgically towards Britain. It was after the Joint Declaration of 1984 that many of the social and political problems Hong Kong faces today took root. Ma says there was a desire before the handover not to change anything - if everything stayed the same and no one did anything stupid politically it would all be OK. Leave it 10 years, see how things go and let the younger generation sort it out. But the government structure wasn't the only thing stagnating after 1997. The democrats became impotent and defensive in an environment where they were powerless to invoke change. They lost touch with their younger, more activist element, causing a build-up of frustration that has led to demonstrations such as the recent protests at the Star Ferry. Ma says that unless government institutions and political parties reform, such demonstrations will proliferate. The younger post-colonial generation has had more exposure to politics and wants more involvement. The Basic Law has to be rewritten if Hong Kong is to progress, and those in power need to stop second-guessing Beijing. Hongkongers are pragmatic, says Ma. 'If you had universal suffrage for the position of chief executive, people wouldn't elect a pro-Beijing figure.' But neither would they elect a democrat such as Alan Leong Kah-kit, Ma says. And although Leung 'Long Hair' Kwok-hung 'is much smarter and has much more political knowledge than' Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, 'people wouldn't vote for him'. Similarly, if Martin Lee Chu-ming were to run, 'people wouldn't vote for him because of his relationship with Beijing'. But if Anson Chan Fang On-sang were to run, 'that's another story', Ma says. And if there were universal suffrage, big business would start financing the parties. As long as the city's economy is thriving, Beijing sees Hong Kong more in terms of what it can offer the rest of China. So if the city's political structure is unlikely to change, Ma says senior civil servants should try to ensure that people are more engaged in decision-making. 'The government has to deal more with the Democratic Party and the DAB. There has to be the inclusion of more groups, more co-operative structures. If the government is going to procrastinate on reform then there has to be more consultation with selected communities, not just the traditional advisory committees.' Ma says Hong Kong will gradually move towards more open democracy. 'I think the democratic movement is still going to come. We saw a lot of welfare reform in the past 20 years, including the Equal Opportunities Commission. We've seen a lot of things that have helped build a modern city. Take the issue of pollution, for example - the government is at least taking a serious look.' Ma's book is one of the few comprehensive social and political surveys of Hong Kong. He can only hope that people will be as interested in reading it as they have been in his less academic book, Professor Football, and his bi-monthly soccer columns for a local newspaper. Political Development in Hong Kong - State, Political Society, and Civil Society by Ma Ngok (Hong Kong University Press, HK$195)
