People, many elderly, queue up to ask about missing their consumption vouchers at the information centre at Pioneer Centre, Mong Kok, on September 2. The fiasco instils neither confidence nor hope. Photo: Sam Tsang
Opinion
Alice Wu
Alice Wu
Carrie Lam may have a vision for Hong Kong but where is the outreach?
Convincing Hongkongers to get on board is an uphill task with district councils hollowed out. Vision doesn’t translate into real impact unless you’re on the ground sharing it with the people
I suspect that those anticipating Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s swansong policy address scheduled for next month are not so much interested to see what the chief executive has planned for the city but rather, whether Lam would be dropping any hints about her political future.
Lam had been pretty tight-lipped and non-committal until two months ago, when she said this last policy address would offer a “visionary” outlook for the city’s next five to 10 years – not what you would expect from a lame-duck administration. And since she seems to be top-billing the future she has envisioned for Hong Kong, we should give it serious thought.
When announcing the public consultation ahead of her policy address, she said Hong Kong was ready “to forge ahead with renewed perseverance, particularly in reviving the economy and rebuilding hope and confidence”. That’s pretty standard stuff, right?
When have we not been called to press onwards with perseverance? Whenever our leaders, whether in Hong Kong or Beijing, start channelling the Lion Rock spirit, we know we’ve hit rock bottom. Perseverance is our forte.
The government may be ready to go full steam ahead. It’s got no political headwind. But all politics is still local – even if it has become significantly less so (just look at our near-empty district councils and the new Legislative Council make-up) – and so no matter how much help Beijing gives the Lam administration, her government needs to deliver to convince Hongkongers to board her ship.
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Hong Kong opposition district councillors say farewell to constituents after mass resignation
Hong Kong opposition district councillors say farewell to constituents after mass resignation
Beijing surely knows this. Xia Baolong, the director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, has repeatedly expounded on Beijing’s expectations of Hong Kong’s leadership. Xia said these patriot leaders are expected to “achieve several actual things that the vast majority of residents can see, touch and feel” each year.
Yet the consumption voucher fiasco that left crowds gathered outside a government office complaining about missing out gives us neither hope nor confidence. Many were told that they had submitted incomplete or wrong information, or had failed to submit it on time.
Lam needs to reconsider the role of district councils – they are indispensable in bringing government policies into communities. Unfortunately, we feel the crowd’s frustrations and see the government falling short.
Another indication that Hongkongers are not getting on board is that at the start of term this month, no local school had managed to meet the 70 per cent vaccination threshold needed to conduct full-day classes. That instils doubt – not exactly the stuff hope is made of.
Children return to school on the first day of the academic year at a secondary school in Yau Tong, Hong Kong, on September 1. No local school had managed to meet the 70 per cent vaccination threshold needed to conduct full-day classes. Photo: Sam Tsang
The government spending ridiculous amounts of money on public relations to “Relaunch Hong Kong” does not make us ready. Flip-flopping on quarantine measures does not make us welcoming, or a springboard to anywhere. The exodus of about 90,000 and counting is a message in itself – and bad PR. They are all ambassadors who cannot be counted upon to paint a nice picture of the city.
What gives hope then? A confident and competent government to begin with. And a government that can bring communities together.
Since Covid-19, what has consistently given me hope is seeing how ordinary people have come together to look after the vulnerable, whose lives have been made even harsher by the pandemic. I’m talking about initiatives that have taken off in major cities around the world to feed the hungry and reach out to the isolated, such as Heart of Dinner, a community relief effort in New York for the East Asian American elderly, who had been exposed to an increasingly hostile environment due to their race and Covid-19.
That’s the kind of stuff that inspires hope: that in the midst of heartbreak, people step in to lift others up.
And an effective leader is one who has the ability to rally the people. But like the cruise ship we see in our famous harbour, we know that it’s a cruise that goes nowhere. Vision doesn’t translate into real impact unless you’re on the ground and sharing it with the people.
Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA
