Rapid adoption of masks
Octopus is ubiquitous
Closed the borders early
People no longer 'flee to HK'
Early track and trace
Quarantine measures
Early social isolating (Schools / government)
Self awareness of HK'ers for hand cleaning etc
All of the above
Other - -please state
"In Hong Kong, even though infection numbers have stabilised and many public venues are being opened up, the public rated the government’s handling of the crisis poorly, giving it a score of just 11 out of 100."
There was a lot of dithering and shambolic mixed messaging from the executive branch in the early days of the infection
- We'll close all borders except the highest risk commuter East Rail and the super costly to tax payer Macau bridge
- No need to wear a mask but I'll wear a mask, no, but yey but..
- Healthcare workers are enemies of China for striking to close the borders (which we plan to do as soon as Beijing let's us)
- We trust China's data.
The basic civil servants have performed very well with facilitating voluntary lockdown, fast testing, nurses doing track and trace, confidence in healthcare systems etc.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/polit...rs-hongkongers
China scored 85 - the highest. One poster suggested the CCP scored 82% positive rating on transparency but after repeated requests to offer a reference fell silent - still an improbable figure to quote for a dictatorship.
HK Gov did better than the 11% survey result shows but I guess it was the cluelessness in front of a free press that mattered.
I think you identified an interesting point. The decision-making at the leadership level is poor in HK. But the administration of government service to the public is actually not too bad in many cases. Not necessarily great service in all cases mind you, but certainly acceptable in most situations, barring some glaring exceptions like the police or marine department.
This dichotomy between inadequate leadership and reasonably competent provision of government service always interested me. The question is why. One possible reason is that the bureaucracy of the government is, like all bureaucracies, resistant to change and what change or reform it does is usually slow and gradual. In other words, the institutional functioning of the government is path dependent on how it was created at the beginning. How it was setup at the start influenced subsequent choices and operations of the entity.
This can be a problem if the rules guiding the bureaucracy is problematic or corrupt to begin with. But fortunately, the civil service and government operations was created during the British colonial era. Whatever problems colonial rule had (and it had many), the British colonial rulers did have the foresight of creating a relatively effective bureaucracy. This happened because, in order to implement a British style of rule (i.e. with a British legal system and regulations over society), it was necessary to have a capable administration that can implement that rule in practice.
This benefit was also a problem for leadership though. The same colonial rulers who had the vision to create an effective government administration neglected the decision-making or policy-making aspect. This was not surprising. As colonial rulers, the ones who decide on the fate of the city were not locals. They did not bothered to train locals to make decisions until very late in the colonial era (the period leading up to the handover). This was too little too late, was the pool of capable CEs was simply too small and inadequate to meet the needs of the city.
Compounding this problem is Beijing. The CCP could have train HKers to have leadership qualities. But they didn't. They prefer someone who is more "red" than capable. So we end with a list mediocre-at-best and incompetent-at-worst CEs.
So far we have praised ourselves.
Rapid adoption of masks 68.18%
Self awareness of HK'ers for hand cleaning etc 53.03%
Early track and trace 36.36%
Quarantine measures 36.36%
Early social isolating (Schools / government) 30.30%
Closed the borders early 25.76%
All of the above 12.12%
People no longer 'flee to HK' 7.58%
Octopus is ubiquitous 1.52%
Bottom line, why did HK came off relatively better than other places during this pandemic? In a word, it's people. HK people have a strong sense of self-preservation, arguably stronger than other places. This is due to history. Many HK people were refugees escaping the madness of Maoist campaigns. They experienced the nightmare that existed on the mainland and treasure the relative sanctuary that HK offered. The spillover of the Cultural Revolution into HK and the subsequent 1967 riots made HK people understood their hard-earned wealth could be taken away from them at a moment's notice due to the political mood of Beijing. Likewise, Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 reminded HK people again of the precarious nature of their relative stability in HK. Finally, SARS was a wake-up call on the danger of diseases and the need to safeguard their health.
The net result of all these events is that HK people take their self-preservation very seriously, because they were aware that all their wealth and joy can disappear when living next to or under the CCP.
Last edited by Coolboy; 07-05-2020 at 09:02 PM.
Meanwhile, according to SCMP 's data , HK has already 7,000 covid-19 cases. Or, perhaps could be the fault of Johns Hopkins University (that supplies the data) .