Opinion | Hong Kong's little bubble of self-importance
Philip Bowring says its handling of the Manila bus tragedy aftermath and the proposal on how to raise the fertility rate suggest Hong Kong is not learning lessons from the real world
At times, Hong Kong seems to live in its own little bubble with self-important politicians oblivious to where the city stands in the world. A previous column addressed Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's curious attempts to get an audience with the pope. Now we have all and sundry believing that, in international forums, Leung Chun-ying is the equal of the president of a large independent state.
He may appear so at an Apec meeting but the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum is only about economic issues. No one here believes that makes him the equal of President Xi Jinping, so why would he be Philippine President Benigno Aquino's equal? On the subject of which, when did you last hear a president of China apologising for anything, even for mass-scale crimes committed against the Chinese people, let alone for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood or of Filipino tourists in Tiananmen Square? Presidential and similar apologies are reserved for extreme cases of criminality directed by the government itself.
Presidents do not apologise for non-criminal blunders by officials. Do Americans presidents issue personal apologies when foreigners get accidentally killed in a shoot-out involving law enforcement officers? Here in Hong Kong, has the chief executive apologised for the deaths of 36 people in the Lamma ferry disaster, deaths caused in part, according to the inquiry, by government failures to enforce its regulations on boat construction and safety features?
In the Manila bus case, idiotic statements by politicians display an ignorance of the real world, which are no help to the victims of the tragedy, demean Hong Kong in the eyes of foreigners, and do nothing to advance civil compensation claims.
Learning from the rest of the world is something that Hong Kong does not do much of at present. Anti-pollution measures are perhaps the most obvious. But now we may have another issue - how to raise the birth rate, currently one of the lowest in the world.
According to a recent Post report, an advisory committee is recommending that Hong Kong follow the examples of Singapore and Canada in doling out cash as "baby bonuses". This seems a typically Hong Kong approach, as though cash can buy anything. And why look at Singapore and Canada, two countries which have singularly failed to do much to raise fertility rates?
Despite money and massive propaganda, Singapore's fertility rate has risen only marginally, to 1.29. Even that rise may well be accounted for by Singapore's ethnic mix and immigration rate rather than by handouts, and at best the government hopes to get to 1.4 or 1.5, which would put it on a par with Japan, Italy and Greece. Canada's fertility rate of 1.6 is also low compared with the US and northern Europe.
