The Year of the Rabbit marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of direct elections to the Legislative Council. As Hong Kong prepares to enter the brave new world of mass democracy, it is timely to reflect on what democracy is and isn't in Hong Kong.
The historical background to the fostering of democracy in Hong Kong - jitters over the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997 - gave Hong Kong's democratic development a special character grounded in anxiety about possible erosion of the city's unique lifestyle and separate systems. As legislator Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee pointed out in an article written a few months before the handover, many believed that only democracy, in giving the masses a say in governance, could provide a check on corruption and real protection for human rights against an authoritarian government.
Rightly or wrongly, such an instrumental view of democracy has exerted a powerful influence on democratic development in Hong Kong since the 1980s, to the extent that among many democracy advocates, there has for years been considerable confusion between democracy and liberalism. Be that as it may, the egalitarian character of democracy has put down strong roots in Hong Kong, and has been a powerful force behind the campaign towards universal suffrage in recent years.
Now that a timetable on Hong Kong's march towards universal suffrage has been agreed, the dawn of a new era behoves us to deliberate more critically on the ontological values of democracy and freedom, and what it takes for democracy as an institution to succeed. It is time people recognised that freedom is not just the ability to do what you will, but rather, as Oxford scholar Stein Ringen says, 'freedom is power, but it is power over meaning, purpose, and ends as well as over means and choice'. This understanding of freedom, Ringen goes on to say, contains the qualities of 'wisdom, restraint, and self-control' - what he calls reason.
Promoting greater understanding of rational liberalism aside, it is also time to ponder more deeply the institutional design that would ensure a workable democracy in Hong Kong. However attractive the idea of government by the people may sound to the man in the street, it is well accepted that there is a built-in trade-off in democracy between representativeness and efficiency. Perfection in consultation (if it is at all achievable) will inevitably entail costs in efficiency and a timely response to global developments. As Hong Kong faces a rising challenge from neighbouring cities and its old nemesis in Singapore in the drive to be Asia's business and finance capital, how does the city amp up its democratic index without being left behind in the restructuring and regeneration of its economy?
The 'competitive struggle for the people's vote', in Joseph Schumpeter's words, which remains a central feature of modern mass-based democracy, also creates an unavoidable tension between the need to respond to voters' short-term demands and the longer-term need to override populist pressures in the interest of the public weal. Take the landfill in Tseung Kwan O or other obnoxious facilities, for example. How do you resolve the conflict between local hostility and the city-wide need for additional waste-treatment facilities? Or on matters pertaining to the economy and livelihood, with the government's coffers overflowing with surplus revenue, how do you resist populist pressures for handouts and channel the community's resources towards investing in the long-term future?
