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Kong people administer Hong Kong, the conditions must suit the situation in Hong Kong. And the second point is that political system will not affect the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong. Behind this reality and to follow the existing trend, we cannot change ourselves because of this political situation. We must have our own ideal, and recognize the value of human dignity, the spirit of democracy is the assent of this concept. In any political reform, we must ensure that people are respected and there is equality among the people and we must build the democracy among the people of Hong Kong.
Carrying back to the question of how we should identify the administrators, I do not think the existing system would be suitable and that people who appear all of a sudden will be in a good position to administer Hong Kong. Also, I do not think that any abrupt changes is suitable to the circumstances of Hong Kong. To introduce any changes and to identify administrators we must develop according to the existing system and achieve our target or our ideal by these means. How should we identify the administrators? When we review the past history we discover that the administrators of our existing system have two different types. Firstly, they are government officials; secondly, they are the elite to our community and the elite include professionals as well as the people from the business community. They are usually appointed and the role of the elite in the past 20 years have been strengthened and increased. In other words, if we are to identify administrators, we must work on these two aspects. Before we start, we must consider that over the past 140 years, is there anything lacking in our political system? I think that there are a lot of important points lacking, that is the involvements of the Hong Kong people. Looking at the matter from this angle, if we are to have a truly democratic system in Hong Kong, is it not necessary for us to involve the participation of the Hong Kong people? I think the answer is affirmative. So in order to identify the future administrators, we must look at how bureaucracy is working in Hong Kong, how the elite system is working in Hong Kong, and how the general public view this system. Talking back about bureaucracy I think that firstly, it is a trend that the bureaucracy will expand; secondly, that we should limit the expansion; thirdly, we will come to a zero achievement. From the present Government trend, it is obviously not the point 1, but point 2 or point 3 might happen, it depends on how we look at it.
The second method to identify administrators at the moment by the appointment system, the appointment system is to identify elite, they are professional or the people from the business community. We would also look to the possibility of expanding or limiting or doing away with this appointment system. But in any case from the Green Paper on representative government, we understand that there is an additional method to appoint elite into the administration and there is a new system of appointment suggested in the Green Paper. That is they will appoint a particular trade and that particular functional groups will elect their representative. Whether we are to develop this election by functional constituencies or to limit it, to confine it or to do away with, we do not know yet. But is it the only way? We can identify the elite from the D.B.S
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and UrbCo election, the following statistics can be quite handy, from the D.B.s election, 47% of the D.B. members are from the commercial field and 36% are professionals, and only 4% come from the working class. This is the result of election, even though, this might not be a trend but from the development in the western country, I think election system in fact is a system where we identify elite of the community. From this system we learn that apart from appointment system or appointment through the functional constituencies, direct election will also bring about similar effects.
Thirdly, we owe to the people, we should involve the participation of the general public. How are we going to encourage the participation? There are three developments, firstly, they take part in the election, secondly, they nominate and thirdly they run for the elected seats.
I have listed three possibilities that how we can identify our administrators and I am going to analyse my own views on this. Firstly, I feel that over the past 140 years, Hong Kong has been quite harmonious and nobody has ever pinpointed at the class distinction, we have never exploited our workers and there have never been any direct conflicts between the professionals and the ordinary citizens of the community, but there are a lot of other conflicts in our community but these conflicts are not directed at the difference classes. Most of the complaints are against Government, for example, concerning housing, employment, welfare, education, medical services and so on, and in the overall developments, Government becomes a shield of this class conflicts and because of the presence of the Government the class conflicts have not been very distinct. And I worry that, the Green Paper seems that Government is suggesting we ought to have class differences. The functional constituencies, in fact, has served to destroy the sense of value we have established over the past 140 years, that is we do not have a very clear class consciousness in our community. Firstly, how are we going to identify the functional constituencies? At the moment there are quite a large number of organizations and unions, they are trying to prepare to fight for a seat in the LegCo. They would like to be identified as one of the six functional groups and they would like to reduce the status of other groups. The second point, if a functional group will take part in election they are going to turn very political, because if they want to run for election they must present their platform and their views of the various matters concerning Hong Kong and those views are not personally views, the views should represent the entire functional groups. So the medical practitioners, apart from looking at the medical services, must look at the housing and education aspects as well; the accountants, apart from looking at the financial field, must also look into the problem of education and politics, medical services. So all these functional groups will turn political and that is going to affect their contribution as professionals of the community, is this something we would like to see? Thirdly, the functional elections through the functional constituencies will represent their own body but do we have any candidate who will be able to look at things fairly and squarely without any prejudice or without focusing on
126
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Kong people administer Hong Kong, the conditions must suit the situation in Hong Kong. And the second point is that political system will not affect the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong. Behind this reality and to follow the existing trend, we cannot change ourselves because of this political situation. We must have our own ideal, and recognize the value of human dignity, the spirit of democracy is the assent of this concept. In any political reform, we must ensure that people are respected and there is equality among the people and we must build the democracy among the people of Hong Kong.
Carrying back to the question of how we should identify the administrators, I do not think the existing system would be suitable and that people who appear all of a sudden will be in a good position to administer Hong Kong. Also, I do not think that any abrupt changes is suitable to the circumstances of Hong Kong. To introduce any changes and to identify administrators we must develop according to the existing system and achieve our target or our ideal by these means. How should we identify the administrators? When we review the past history we discover that the administrators of our existing system have two different types. Firstly, they are government officials; secondly, they are the elite to our community and the elite include professionals as well as the people from the business community. They are usually appointed and the role of the elite in the past 20 years have been strengthened and increased. In other words, if we are to identify administrators, we must work on these two aspects. Before we start, we must consider that over the past 140 years, is there anything lacking in our political system? I think that there are a lot of important points lacking, that is the involvements of the Hong Kong people. Looking at the matter from this angle, if we are to have a truely democratic system in Hong Kong, is it not necessary for us to involve the participation of the Hong Kong people? I think the answer is affirmative. So in order to identify the future administrators, we must look at how bureaucracy is working in Hong Kong, how the elite system is working in Hong Kong, and how the general public view this system. Talking back about bureaucracy I think that firstly, it is a trend that the bureaucracy will expand; secondly, that we should limit the expansion; thirdly, we will come to a zero achievement. From the present Government trend, it is obviously not the point 1, but point 2 or point 3 might happen, it depends on how we look at it.
The second method to identify administrators at the moment by the appointment system, the appointment system is to identify elite, they are professional or the people from the business community. We would also look to the possibility of expanding or limiting or doing away with this appointment system. But in any case from the Green Paper on representative government, we understand that there is an additional method to appoint elite into the administration and there is a new system of appointment suggested in the Green Paper. That is they will appoint a particular trade and that particular functional groups will elect their representative. Whether we are to develop this election by functional constituencies or to limit it, to confine it or to do away with, we do not know yet. But is it the only way? We can identify the elite from the D.B.S
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 81 of 233
127
and UrbCo election, the following statistics can be quite handy, from the D.B.s election, 47% of the D.B. members are from the commercial field and 36% are professionals, and only 4% come from the working class. This is the result of election, even though, this might not be a trend but from the development in the western country, I think election system in fact is a system where we identify elite of the community. From this system we learn that apart from appointment system or appointment through the functional constituencies, direct election will also bring about similar effects.
Thirdly, we owe to the people, we should involve the participation of the general public. How are we going to encourage the participation? There are three developments, firstly, they take part in the election, secondly, they nominate and thirdly they run for the elected seats.
I have listed three possibilities that how we can identify our administrators and I am going to analyse my own views on this. Firstly, I feel that over the past 140 years, Hong Kong has been quite harmonious and nobody has every pinpointed at the class distinction, we have never exploited our workers and there have never been any direct conflicts between the professionals and the ordinary citizens of the community, but there are a lot of other conflicts in our community but these conflicts are not directed at the difference classes. Most of the complaints are against Government, for example, concerning housing, employment, welfare, education, medical services and so on, and in the overall developments, Government becomes a shield of this class conflicts and because of the presence of the Government the class conflicts have not been very distinct. And I worry that, the Green Paper seems that Government is suggesting we ought to have class differences. The functional constituencies, in fact, has served to destroy the sense of value we have established over the past 140 years, that is we do not have a very clear class consciousness in our community. Firstly, how are we going to identify the functional constituencies? At the moment there are quite a large number of organizations and unions, they are trying to prepare to fight for a seat in the LegCo. They would like to be identified as one of the six functional groups and they would like to reduce the status of other groups. The second point, if a functional group will take part in election they are going to turn very political, because if they want to run for election they must present their platform and their views of the various matters concerning Hong Kong and those views are not personally views, the views should represent the entire functional groups. So the medical practicians, apart from looking at the medical services, must look at the housing and education aspects as well; the accountants, apart from looking at the financial field, must also look into the problem of education and politics, medical services. So all these functional groups will turn political and that is going to affect their contribution as professionals of the community, is this something we would like to see? Thirdly, the functional elections through the functional constituencies will represent their own body but do we have any candidate who will be able to look at things fairly and squarely without any prejudice or without focusing on
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