Opinion | Reaction to Hong Kong’s mass coronavirus testing reveals city’s Pavlovian politics
- While the opposition tends to object to any proposal coming from the chief executive or the central government, Carrie Lam has also reacted defensively to legitimate questions about her policies
In the experiment for which the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov is best known, he sounded a buzzer just before he fed his dogs. The dogs developed a connection between the sound and provision of food so that eventually they salivated upon hearing the buzzer even in the absence of food.
We have two excellent examples of Pavlovian behaviour now in Hong Kong politics. The first concerns any proposal put forward or endorsed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. Whatever its merits, you can be sure that it will be immediately attacked without serious thought – or indeed any thought at all – by certain members of the opposition camp.
For some reason, the amount of saliva doubles if the central government is associated with the idea.
Interestingly, the reverse is also true. Any proposal put forward by the opposition will be forthwith rubbished by the administration and given little or no serious consideration at all. The administration also fiercely counter-attacks against any criticism of its ideas, whatever the source. The buzzer sounds, the official mouth waters.
