Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her review of her tenure as chief executive said that she did not regret her handling of the extradition bill because the special administrative region government had done nothing wrong.
She said that the only thing that is regrettable is that government officials did not do enough to explain it to the Hong Kong public. This was why, she surmised, the bill led to social unrest.
I agree that there was nothing wrong with the SAR government pushing for the legislation of the controversial bill. Unfortunately, just like the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, the opposition legislators had wanted to block it at all costs from the start. I doubt if a bigger effort at persuasion would have made any difference. The all-out anti-extradition-bill propaganda campaign was expected. It was not a belated effort at communication that was to blame. Both the extradition bill and the Copyright (Amendment) Bill were necessary and timely, but bolstered by their success in blocking the introduction of national and moral education in Hong Kong schools in 2012, the opposition forces were determined to block the legislation regardless of how the government promoted it.
If the SAR government was to be successful, it had to be able to pin down the specific things that could trigger fear and then tackle those specific things effectively. Trying to force the issue without addressing the key issues could backfire.
I recall that Professor Albert Chen Hung-yee, a member of the Basic Law Committee, had proposed that the SAR government exempt Hong Kong residents from the proposed law, so that the government could consider trying residents locally for crimes committed across the border. I myself had proposed requiring a jury in an extradition hearing and at least two-thirds majority agreeing before a Hong Kong suspect was extradited to the Chinese mainland. Otherwise, the trial should take place in Hong Kong.
These proposals specifically address key concerns, and would have softened the opposition far better than just a bigger effort to explain it to the public.
All this of course is too late. What has happened has happened. But the message that policymakers need strategic thinking still stands. Being right is not enough. Policymakers need to address the sources of fears and handle them properly.
Strategic thinking is of course not just about fears. It is also about being specific with regard to key problems. Broad-brushed approaches often do not work and they can lead to dire consequences. The success of “targeted poverty alleviation” (TPA) that was practiced on the Chinese mainland comes to mind. The idea of TPA is to identify the exact causes of poverty for specific people and then address those causes. Targeted poverty alleviation of course requires extra effort to study and tackle the problem. But this may end up far less costly than when broad-brushed approaches leave a lot of holes to fill. Going the extra mile may be well worth it. Exactly because a targeted approach hits the nail on the head, it is effective.
In the last week, many in Hong Kong are worried that new COVID-19 cases appear to be on the rise again, and many have noticed that several bouts of infections have occurred within bars. An industry spokesman said that in terms of percentage, the outbreaks affect only a tiny portion of the bars’ population. A targeted approach would entail more severe punishment for those bars with outbreaks with a larger number of infections. For example, no extra punishment may need to be imposed if five or fewer people are infected. For infections with six to 10, 11 to 15, 16 to 20, 21 to 25, etc., fines will be doubled from one class to another class. This way, bar owners will have a much stronger incentive to hold down the numbers of guests and to make sure that they comply with the anti-pandemic rules. This would be a far better approach than the broad-brush approach of closing down all bars for an extended period.
Since teachers and students could spread infections to other students, I would propose that teachers and students should not be allowed to visit bars, which tend to be risky venues. If a teacher who visits a bar gets infected, he or she should be punished with a stiff fine.
On June 1, Hong Kong opened up to foreign visitors from designated places. Quarantine at designated hotels has now been cut to seven days. This is a good beginning to reestablishing our overseas connections. I believe we can do more to reinvigorate our tourism industry. I propose that, in addition to negative-test and vaccination requirements, we should reduce the quarantine period further to three days, but add a mandate of four days of “no entry to scheduled premises” after quarantine. We may allow tourists to come to Hong Kong, but they must dine in specially designated places that open services to these visitors for specified hours, during which no other patrons would be allowed. An easy way to go about this strategy is to mandate the use of the LeaveHomeSafe app for all visitors and returning Hong Kong residents that would be programmed to deny entry to the scheduled premises unless specifically allowed under “closed loop arrangements”.
The author is director of the Pan Sutong Shanghai-Hong Kong Economic Policy Research Institute, Lingnan University.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.