26
the cause of it, the authority of social leaders and
organizations has suffered from further decline. Compared to
political authorities, social authorities enjoy a lower level of
public trust. 26 This is a reflection of the lingering hold of
traditional political culture among Hong Kong Chinese, for in
traditional China government officials was expected to be the
repository of public interests whereas social leaders were
largely seen as upholders of sectional concerns. Public trust in
social leaders has never been high in Hong Kong.27 The rapacious
self-regarding orientation of the social elites and their minimal
commitment to society have been vividly demonstrated since the
onset of the 1997 issue. Such comportment on the part of the
elites is hardly conducive to, public trust in them. As a result,
public cynicism and even contemptuousness toward social
authorities are on the increase. The degradation of social
authorities in turn speeds up the unravelling of the social
fabric.
As mentioned before, all along Hong Kong has been free from
conflicts springing from serious social cleavages, in spite of
the facts that ethnic inequality is an inherent feature of a
colonial society and that an unfettered capitalist society where
the government only plays a limited redistributive role
26 Lau,
'Institutions Without Leaders,' p. 198.
is bound
27 Ibid, pp. 195-98. See also Lau Siu-kai, 'Perception of Authority by Chinese Adolescents: The Case of Hong Kong,' Youth and Society, Vol. 15, No. 3 (March 1984), pp. 259-84; and Leung Sai-wing, Perception of Political Authority by the Hong Kong Chinese (Hong Kong: Centre for Hong Kong Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1986).
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