PANGKONG
Hongkong's resettlement and housing schemes are famous, quoted in Europe as an example. But those who praise them do not have to live in the great new hells of the New Territories
Consigned to Limbo
was carnival time this week in the burgeoning industrial
I was carnival time this weers, flags and posters splashed
colour over the sprawl of factory blocks and government housing estates a few miles along the coast from Kowloon. A gaudy parade of floats and prancing lion-dancers climaxed festivities which were more than a brave attempt to entertain residents or plug the area's potential. This was a bid to pro- mote civic pride no simple task in a place like Tsuen Wan.
For it is difficult to feel affection for this bustling satel- hte city. However bright the bunting, however earsplitting the cymbal-clashing, there's no disguising the fact that Tsuen Wan is singularly unattractive to the eye and singularly soul- less in character. It remains a charmless symbol of what happens when urban development outstrips the administra- tive system and the imagination of the planners. Where the cash and the opportunity were available to create a “garden city" a model for Asia there has sprung up what one local critic terms a "disaster area". And a disaster area without a voice. Although 300,000 already live there - the number will double by 1976 - they have no community council, no spokesman on the colony's legislative council, not one elected representative to state their case or call for help.
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Tsuen Wan is an extreme example. But it dramatises the plight of Hongkong's limbo land, the 365 square miles of the New Territories. If anything, the future of the New Terri- tories is more uncertain than the rest of the colony for under the Second Convention of Peking in 1898 they are due to revert to China in 27 years' time when Britain's 99-year lease runs out. Until recently, this largely mountainous and infertile district, with its 235 islands, was dependent on fishing and agriculture; but today it is rapidly becoming industrialised and accommodating a bigger and bigger proportion – about one-seventh at the last count of Hongkong's population. Unfortunately, it is still geared in many respects to the past.
"Sometimes", confesses one district official, "you'd think we were in another hemisphere not just a few miles from Hongkong Island. You read little in the newspapers about events here and we're low on the priority list when it comes to government decisions."
A combination of neglect, bureaucratic tardiness and blinkered vision has made the New Territories a happy hunt- ing ground for land speculators, a paradise for the corruptly inclined and a haven for illegal business. It is also shackled to an outdated, illogical system of representation. In theory territories-dwellers have more voice than their counterparts in the rest of the colony. Each of the 651 villages elects or nominates one or more representatives who through
muttees are responsible for interpreting public an haising with the government. Once a year these comme- tees met to elect the Heung Yee Kuk, which acts as an advisory body to the New Territories administration.
ut this system only represents 30% to 40% of the people, Jr thousands of newcomers - many of them refugees from
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(.. a - have settled in the territories and few are allowed to te in village affairs. Even those who do vote feel the
FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW
Pix:
David
Baird
Tsuen Wan, "disaster area": Recreation
space squeezed between factories and matchbox flats.
David Baird Hongkong FA 71101
channelling of their views through the NT administration is inadequate; they want direct representation on the colony's chief advisory and law-making bodies. The Heung Yee Kuk is hardly noted for its progressive attitude - recently it has distinguished itself by calls for a continuation of the con- cubine system, for the establishment of a dog-racing track and for mass resignation if a tough anti-graft bill became law. Lack of opportunity in some of the remoter villages has prompted 35,000 people to migrate to Britain to work in restaurants. They remit more than HK$30 million a year to. their families. But some of those who stayed behind have made far richer pickings, thanks to the territories' land policy. Anyone whose agricultural land is resumed for development by the government is entitled normally to two square feet of building land for every five square feet he gives up. On pro- duction of his letter of rights and payment of a premium, he can obtain a valuable industrial site.
In Tsuen Wan recently industrial land has been auctioned off at $95 a square foot, but landowners claiming their rights can acquire plots for a premium of only $30 a square foot. Rights are bought, sold and resold by brokers in deals in- volving thousands "fantastic wheeler-dealing takes place. It's like a stock market", says one administration official. By using the system to acquire land, the government avoids paying out cash but in the process huge opportunities for · graft are opened up - particularly among officials handling land sales and development is often delayed. Several American businessmen have been so appalled at the land rights jungle that they have dropped plans for investment in the territories and opened factories in South Korea and Taiwan instead.
Another brake on development and spur to illegal prac-
Farming near Castle Peak:
As a new
town rises
near here too,
will the same mistakes be repeated?
MILIC
16/12
LADY PAPER
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