https://www.scmp.com/rss/322399/feed Raymond Young Lap-moon was Hong Kong's permanent secretary for home affairs from 2010 to 2014. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The official dinner immediately preceding the handover ceremony on June 30, 1997, was a cordial, if highly choreographed affair. I had been drafted to be a master of ceremonies for the proceedings, and had the honour of addressing both Prince Charles, the representative of my hitherto sovereign, and Chinese president Jiang Zemin, the head of the country I was about to start serving. I was at the time a senior directorate officer in the administrative service of the Hong Kong government. To put... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3183224/it-has-taken-25-years-hong-kong-government-has-finally-found-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3183224/it-has-taken-25-years-hong-kong-government-has-finally-found-its?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 29 Jun 2022 01:15:17 +0000 Since Hong Kong’s first chief executive Tung Chee-hwa introduced the Principal Officials Accountability System in 2002, successive chief executives have tried their hand at enacting new measures to enhance public governance. Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, the current chief executive, moved to review the existing promotion and appointment mechanism of senior civil service positions in her last policy address. The incoming chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, suggested in his election manifesto the use... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3178463/how-hong-kongs-next-chief-executive-can-show-he-means-business?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3178463/how-hong-kongs-next-chief-executive-can-show-he-means-business?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 May 2022 01:15:21 +0000 There is an old Chinese adage, “Who killed your horse but the bystanders?” It comes from a story where a good horse dies of exhaustion after bystanders cheer it on to run ever faster. I fear this is what a large swathe of our community is doing to the violent youngsters wreaking havoc in Hong Kong now.  The violence shows no sign of abating because a large number of highly educated and respected adults, including senior members of the legal profession and university vice-chancellors, give them... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3034347/violent-young-protesters-arent-fighting-noble-cause-they-will-only?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3034347/violent-young-protesters-arent-fighting-noble-cause-they-will-only?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Oct 2019 22:45:05 +0000 If it is the protesters’ plan to hold Hong Kong’s economy hostage to press for their ‘five demands’, they should beware that the hostage itself might soon perish before any of their demands can be fulfilled. Our economy is facing the worst crisis since the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003, as business confidence is battered by the double whammy of the US-China trade war and the escalating domestic strife following the Fugitives Bill amendment. Shuttered shops and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3022270/small-steps-government-could-defuse-hong-kongs-biggest-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3022270/small-steps-government-could-defuse-hong-kongs-biggest-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Aug 2019 10:13:44 +0000 As a locally educated Chinese person, I consider the simplification of Chinese characters to be an affront to the aesthetics of the Chinese language. It is a massive dumbing-down for the sake of simplicity, somewhat like adopting the word “telly” as the official term for “television”. The simplified script looks foreign to us, and some of the words are a far cry from their elegant original forms used in our beloved traditional Chinese calligraphy and poetry. Contrary to popular belief, the use... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1931596/whether-traditional-or-simplified-chinese-characters-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1931596/whether-traditional-or-simplified-chinese-characters-are?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 29 Mar 2016 10:49:27 +0000