City has the trappings of a failed state
- With a panic-driven public having no confidence in a government that lacks ability and competence, the words of a foreign financial writer who sees signs of Venezuela ring true
Hong Kong has been described in many negative ways over the years. A borrowed place on borrowed time, a new Chinese colony, a city in decline … but a failed state?
How ridiculous? Or, is it? That is how Bloomberg columnist Clara Ferreira Marques describes the city in a new column. She is not too far off.
I have often found that foreign financial writers are usually much more perceptive about Hong Kong politics and society than bona fide political commentators. They are sensitive to the outlooks of foreign investors who put their money where their mouth is, and they are usually far more practical rather than ideological in their analysis.
Marques wrote: “Grocery runs in Asia’s financial powerhouse have begun to remind me of shopping in Russia in the chaotic summer of 1998. You grab what you can find, and if there is a queue, you consider joining it. Surgical masks and sanitiser gel are bartered for; detergent shelves are bare. A run on toilet paper last week, after an online rumour, was reminiscent of Venezuela.”
Yes, such behaviour is embarrassing. I thought we were first world. But compare us with Singaporeans in their reaction to the current coronavirus outbreak – they have more cases than us; or Japanese in the way they responded to disasters such as the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
We are behaving like headless chickens. But of course, we are like a headless body; the administration of Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is absurdly and unforgivably unready.
As Marques has observed, a functioning government needs legitimacy and social capital, both of which are in short supply with Lam’s team. We are not talking about electoral legitimacy, the kind you get through the ballot box, but performance legitimacy, in other words, ability and competence.
One word: masks. During eight months of protests, Lam could not force rioters to take off their masks. Now, she can’t get enough masks for people to protect themselves.
You may be inclined to think Marques is wrong – Hong Kong is not a state. But under “one country, two systems” and “a high degree of autonomy”, the city has many of the trappings of a state. So, if we have a failed government, it’s not too far off to say we have a failed state.
“The prognosis for Hong Kong’s future as a financial hub looks poor,” she wrote.
Who can argue with her?
