Lai See | Sign up to save the government from another political blunder

The government appears to be setting itself up for another political blunder in seeking to cede 3,000 square metres of prime central waterfront to the People's Liberation Army.

Having created this vast new area which we had been led to believe was to be open space to be enjoyed by the public, the bureaucrats now want to rezone it as military land. There seems to be an inherent default position in this government that whenever it has an option, it does the wrong thing. True, there is an agreement to provide land 150 metres long and 20 metres deep for use by occasional visits by PLA warships for social or ceremonial visits. There is no harm in that and indeed might be fun for the public. But there is no need to cede the land to the PLA for this. As Paul Zimmerman, the chief executive of Designing Hong Kong, points out under the Public Order Ordinance, the area can be declared a temporary closed area for use by the PLA when a vessel is in town.

The government says the PLA has given an as yet unseen undertaking that the public can use the area when no vessel is in town. In which case, why doesn't the government look after the land? The explanation, according to Zimmerman, bizarre though it may seem, is that the Leisure and Cultural Services and Food and Hygiene departments do not want to clean the toilets which are built into the PLA berth, or maintain the gates. "It is a typical bureaucratic battle as government departments try to avoid management responsibility."

Hong Kong's annual art jamboree was fittingly enlivened on Friday evening with a debate staged by Intelligence Squared on the motion, "The market is the best judge of art's quality". Intelligence Squared aims to raise the level of public understanding and discussion of culture in its broadest sense.