Hong Kong can learn from U.S. think tanks, says Legco chief Jasper Tsang
Legco chief says Hong Kong needs an advocacy centre to help push out good policy proposals
After a fact-finding trip to the United States in July, the Legislative Council president returned convinced of Hong Kong's need for more advocacy think tanks to put forward policy proposals backed by high-quality studies.
Over the course of his visit, Jasper Tsang Yok-sing studied the experiences of high-powered think tanks, one of which he would like to form in Hong Kong. He noted the United States had two main kinds of think tanks: academic and advocacy.
"The Brookings Institution is a good example of an academic think tank, which Hong Kong cannot emulate," Tsang told the South China Morning Post. "Another type of think tank, an advocacy one, strives to win support from the community for the ideas they champion. The Heritage Foundation is one of these."
Tsang said Hong Kong needed advocacy think tanks aimed at winning over participants in public policy discussion and policymaking, getting these people to adopt their recommendations and proposals.
"If I am spearheading a think tank in Hong Kong, I'd suggest forming a centre-right think tank that would advocate earmarking more resources to help the underprivileged while sticking to free-market principles," he said, indicating that he would be happy to facilitate the formation of such institutions in the city.
The Legco chief has been of the view that Hong Kong needs a new breed of high-quality think tanks to bring policy debates up to the standards required to tackle challenges facing a major metropolis in a global economy.
During the 2012 chief executive election, a core member of a local think tank told Tsang he was worried whether Leung Chun-ying, once elected, would implement his election platform.