Let Hong Kong think its way out of its governance problems
C.K. Yeung believes a diverse network of competing think tanks can provide good policy ideas that answer Hong Kong's critical need for better governance, especially post 2017
In democratic governance, a good policy idea is king. A key institution of democracy that supports good government is a thriving network of competing think tanks with a broad spectrum of policy ideas. This is missing in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's governance has all along been characterised as an executive-led system anchored by a strong career civil service. It is a closed system that leaves little room to accommodate external advisers to the policymaking process. This structural limitation stifles the growth of policy think tanks and dries up the pool of fresh policy ideas. The lacklustre performance of the Central Policy Unit - the government's in-house think tank - testifies to this institutional deficiency.
Another limitation is ideological simplicity. All along, Hong Kong people subscribe to the purest form of capitalism for economics and the utopian form of liberal democracy for politics. Who needs think tanks to provide ideological diversity for the different forms and shapes of capitalism and democracy?
But the rise of an all-mighty China has created an ideological tension. How to achieve economic integration with the mainland, which most people embrace, without ideological or political integration, which many people resist? How to preserve what is uniquely Hong Kong while riding on China's miraculous economic rise?
The polarisation of our community triggered by the Occupy movement is but a violent manifestation of this contradiction. Our economic destiny and our political dreams are pulling us in different directions.
Much cerebral work awaits Hong Kong, as for many years we haven't had a quiet moment to think hard and ponder our alternatives amid the constant political bickering. Against this background, the initiative by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa to set up a non-government think tank - Our Hong Kong Foundation - is both timely and welcome.
Topping its thinking list should be our governance system, which is lagging far behind our rapid pace of democracy. Twenty years is a short time for a system to evolve from having a colonial governor parachuted into Hong Kong to the election of our chief executive by one-person, one-vote in 2017.