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HONGKONG
On the Cheap
BY DAVID BAIRD
Hongkong: Getting to grips with graft in Hongkong is as difficult as gauging public opinion. On recent evidence the authorities appear to be making more progress with the former than the latter. This week the colony's legislative coun- cil finally passed a tough new anti- bribery bill.
Under the law the attorney general can authorise inspection of bank ac counts and company books and require their production whether they relate to a suspect or not. Public servants living more affluently than their salaries would normally allow can be called to account. People offering bribes to offi- cials and officials soliciting “advantages" can be fined and jailed.
But at the last moment the govern- ment demonstrated it can always accede to public opinion if it comes from the right quarters. With an abject display of gutlessness, a key clause was altered to change the definition of “advantage”. And Acting Attorney General G. R. Sneath carved his place in any future dictionary of quotations thus: "This (amendment) will mean that it will not be a criminal offence to accept enter- tainment, even if this is both offered and accepted for corrupt reasons. The government has agreed to this change because of the widespread fears of the business community, of the kaifongs and of the Heung Yee Kuk, that to make the acceptance of entertainment a criminal offence is to interfere unrea- sonably with the normal conduct of business life." The leaders of some ki- fongs associations of shopkeepers and various prestige conscious citizens - and members of the Kuk · New Territories had threatened to resign village elders if the change was not made.
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A watchdog committee will oversee investigation of bribery complaints. While this will be a vital safeguard against infringement of individual rights,
the danger exists that will develop into one more means to blunt the new law's admittedly sharp teeth.
But the greatest irony is that the task of fighting graft is left to the police. The anti-corruption branch has had some success in bringing cases to court but to many in Hongkong the mere fact that it is staffed by policemen is enough to discredit it. No doubt the successful pressure from senior police officers to keep the branch within the force, saved
DECEMBER 19, 1970
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face for them but what did it do for those exposed to the corrupt practices of policemen themselves? Rightly or wrongly, they will see the new law through the same eyes as Elsie Elliott, eternal battler for Hongkong's under- privileged, as giving "a monopoly on 'corruption to the police".
For this sort of comment, Mrs Elliott and other outspoken colleagues on the colony's toothless urban council were soundly taken to task by government troubleshooter Denis Bray. Blazing away with both barrels, Bray, acting secretary for home affairs, scolded councillors for criticising the quality of government. "Sensational rubbish," scoffed Bray, adding in case anyone had doubts where his sympathies lay:
Sneath: Trying not to interfere with the
"normal conduct of business life".
"Hongkong people deserve and have one of the best governments in Asia. It has a liberal, farsighted and efficient public service which has, in co-operation with the people, tumed the war-wrecked tumbledown entrepot of 25 years ago into the thriving industrial city of today. Social progress has been as strik- ing as material progress and the story is wellknown. Why else did people come here? Why do they stay?”
Bray apparently has not heard of the expression "any port in a storm" or considered the fact that Hongkong's thousands of refugees from China could not go anywhere else if they wanted to. His poor aim, however, did not deter him from blasting off again. He popped up next at a Rotary lunch to proclaim: "Our government is better informed of opinions in a wider range of social strata than many governments of all sorts and descriptions in other parts of the world." In the last four years the colony's government has certainly made great strides towards at least getting on speaking terms with the people they rule; today there is a network of city district officers where the public can
raise their problems.
But Bray seemed to be stretching things a little. In a colony virtually with- out elected representation, feedback of public opinion is difficult and
if it comes from a section of the community without any power lobby will it necessarily be listened to? The govern- ment is still heavily dependent on the views of the kaifongs, which are not always trusted by the people they claim to represent.
Where else does the government mine its nuggets of public opinion? According to Bray, from clansmen's associations, students, hawkers, multi-storey building managements and "reahouse gossip" by some oversight he left out phone- tapping. Unfortunately, as Bray ad- mitted, industrial labourers are difficult to contact. Some 55% of the colony's working population is in industry; since few bother to join unions, which any- way are badly organised, labour has no effective voice.
The government has pushed through a number of reforms, but it cannot go too far or too fast without offending those on whom its power base rests and assuredly they are not students, hawkers or factory workers. The co- lony's pressure groups operate over cock- tails in the Mandarin Hotel or at exclu- sive dinners on The Peak rather than at tea-house level. And there are no parlia mentary debates to call the rulers to
account.
In the words of one crown servant: "If Hongkong were really serious about wiping out graft, the first thing to do would be to raise policemen's salaries and shake out the corrupt officials at all levels. But that is not going to happen, because the rule is to run the colony as cheaply and easily as possible. This means tuming a blind eye to many faults and letting certain eleinents have their way. But that after all is an old tactic of British colonialism...
CAMBODIA
Who Needs Enemies?
17
BY A CORRESPONDENT
Phnom Penh: The marriage of necessity between two long-hostile nations is showing serious signs of deterioration after less than a year's existence. The latest crack in the strained relationship between Phnom Penh and Saigon came to light last week, when the South Viet- namese ambassador was recalled to Sai- gon for consultations.
The abrupt departure of the ambas
FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW
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