9
muster serious challenge to colonial rule.
(5) Integrity and performance of the civil service. Hong Kong
government was in essence a bureaucratic government, or a
government by career civil servants. As it was intrinsically
difficult for a colonial government to justify itself in
ideological or moralistic terms, particularly in the post-War
period, it was highly essential for the colonial bureaucracy to
demonstrate that it was efficient, competent, solicitous of
public well-being, incorruptible, dedicated to common interests
and capable of delivering services and benefits to the people. In
short, the colonial government had to legitimize its rule
primarily on the basis of performance.8 And it in fact was
granted a certain measure of legitimacy by the Hong Kong people
for its performance, who particularly in gave it credit for the
post-War economic take-off of Hong Kong, even though unlike
governments in other successful developing countries, the Hong
Kong government did not assume a leadership role in economic
development.9
7 See Lau, Society and Politics, pp. 102-117; Lau Siu-kai and Kuan Hsin-chi, The Ethos of the Hong Kong Chinese (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1988), pp. 73-92.
8 In fact, the criterion of performance looms very large in the political legitimacy of governments in the modern age. In the words of Arthur J. Vidich, "(i)n the contemporary world, both in Third World nations and in the industrialized countries, legitimacy processes include production and economic performance as a critical dimension on which legitimacy claims are made. The economic performance of a regime may constitute a major prop for its legitimacy in the eyes of groups and classes which have accepted life style enhancement as a life goal." See his
Legitimacy of Regimes in World Perspective, in Arthur J. Vidich and Ronald M. Glassman (eds.), Conflict and Control: Challenge to Legitimacy of Modern Governments (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1979), p. 299.