Hong Kong's leadership crisis

Contrary to the expectation of many, overt Chinese interference in Hong Kong's affairs since the handover has been conspicuously absent. Officials all over the country have been instructed to keep their hands off Hong Kong. And Hong Kong has actually taken over tasks, such as the handling of the Vietnamese migrants, that were formerly the preserve of the sovereign power.

Given these favourable conditions, one might have expected Hong Kong's leaders to shine as they became, in Tung's phrase, masters of their own house. Yet a series of misadventures, from Sir SY Chung's birthday party, to the handling of the bird flu, to the assurances that the Asian financial crisis would be "over by Christmas" have dulled the image of the leadership in the public's mind.

Why has there been this shortfall when on the face of it the conditions for leadership have been so propitious? No doubt the personalities are partly to blame. Mr Tung cannot be faulted for diligence. But he has concentrated too much on the execution and not enough on leading his team and communicating his leadership to the people.

Yet structural problems are the main culprit. Mr Tung has inherited a structurally difficult situation, which unfortunately his policy choices have made worse.

Structural problems

• Legitimacy. There is the basic problem of the legitimacy of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government. Anachronistic though the British colonial regime was, it had a certain legitimacy in the eyes of Hong Kong people. It had delivered decades of rising living standards, had been reaffirmed through crises such as the Japanese occupation and the 1967 riots, and in its final years, if belatedly, it had granted a measure of democracy and real participation to the people. In contrast, the SAR began with the replacement of a legislature elected by the people by an appointed body, with the abolition of key laws protecting human rights, and with the selection of a Chief Executive by a "small circle" that did not represent Hong Kong people as a whole.

• Bureaucracy. One of Hong Kong's traditional strengths has been a relatively efficient civil service. Under the colonial model, the civil service was not merely a bureaucracy, but, at its upper echelons constituted the political executive - the Policy Secretaries deciding, rather than merely implementing, policy. Mr Tung, accordingly, retained existing team of Policy Secretaries almost intact.

Why, then, does the Civil Service now seem so fallible? Firstly, localisation, whatever its merits, has had the effect of stripping the Civil Service of much of its talent and experience. Secondly, the traditional Administrative Officer (AO) structure, under which high-flying generalists rotate through diverse policy areas, is becoming increasingly inadequate to handle the complexities of each area. There is a need to recruit more expertise from the private sector, and reform management structures and processes.

Thirdly, the very continuity in the Civil Service through the transition has undermined its credibility, as officials who had previously appeared to have authority over policy were now, as a result of policy reversals, clearly no more than implementers of policies decided by somebody else. Fourthly, there is the evident split between the Civil Service and the Chief Executive's office.

The effect of these developments has been a tendency for the Civil Service to diminish in the public's eyes from an "Administration", with an authority and right to govern, to a "bureaucracy", fit only to implement policy decisions.

• Executive. The reduction in the political authority of the Civil Service would not matter so much, and would in fact bring the Hong Kong service more into line with its counterparts in developed civil societies overseas, if there were an clearly established political level to the executive. However, this has not yet happened. Mr Tung's Executive Council still has the largely behind-the-scenes advisory role that it had in the colonial period. Initial attempts to grow the Executive Councillors into a ministerial role provoked public outcry. The Civil Service also resisted encroachments on what it perceived as its perogative. Nor have the Executive Councillors, who were chosen from relatively narrow business and pro-China circles, proved very effective at channelling public opinion into the policy-making process.

• Legislature. If the quality of advice from the Executive Councillors was lacking, the former colonial administration in its latter days could rely upon vigorous input from the Legislative Council. But here again the SAR faced a structural constraint. The Provisional Legislative Council comprises appointees who were selected more for their political compliance than their steadfastness in reflecting public opinion. The quality of debate and the scrutiny of Government initiatives has declined, the more so because being unelected the council is supposed to exercise restraint.

In the event, the Provisional Legislative Council has performed better than might have been expected. In the debate over the financial crisis, Legislator Chim Pui Chung went so far as to demand the dismissal of three senior officials for incompetence, and the censure of Mr Tung for appointing them. Nonetheless, the limited representativeness of the Provisional Councillors results in narrow views being channelled into the scrutiny process.

• Advisory Boards. The former colonial administration appointed large numbers of advisory boards and committees to supplement the formal governmental process. The official function of these boards was to channel public opinion and to provide expert advice; the unofficial function was to capture elite groups and subsume them within the colonial structure. This strategy was broadly successful while the elites interested in political influence remained relatively small. However, when in the 1980s and 1990s the masses started to seek political participation, the role of the advisory boards became increasingly superceded, as elected members - from functional constituencies and then finally from geographical constituencies - replaced appointed members in the Legislative Council.

Needing to channel opinion from the community and give them a sense of engagement in the policy-making process, the SAR Chief Executive has sought to revive the colonial system of advisory boards. In his policy address, Mr Tung created at least eight new advisory committees, and more are created with each turn of events. However, this instrument of cooption has had its day. Advisory committees have little appeal to the masses, who see them as elitist, while among the elite the sheer number of committees strains the talent available to fill them, and are not always taken seriously.

• Sovereign backing. The colonial administration had, as a last resort, the authority of the sovereign power, Britain, to fall back upon. Although Britain was hardly loved, and was regarded by many as a cold, wet - and relative to Hong Kong in more recent years somewhat backward country - it had an undeniable international standing and a depth of experience and expertise that could be drawn upon in a crisis. Hong Kong drew many of its governmental systems and practices, and much of its law, directly from Britain, and they worked reasonably well.

The SAR Chief Executive enjoys the strong support of the Government of China. Yet this backing, though well-intentioned, is in some senses more a hindrance to Mr Tung than a help. Too enthusiastic expressions of support from the China side arouse Hong Kong people's suspicion of interference. And perhaps more importantly, China's actual ability to help Hong Kong resolve the complex dilemnas of its advanced society is limited. British practices, while often by no means ideal for Hong Kong, were at least those of an advanced market economy and civil society. The systems were broadly compatible. This is not the case with the new sovereign. The "two systems" of the formula is a reality: in most areas there is a vast gulf between the Chinese and the Hong Kong system. The few attempts to adopt Chinese practices - for example, voting by clapping of hands in the selection of NPC delegates - have tended to alienate Hong Kong people.

A solution

Hong Kong thus faces a leadership crisis. The crisis is due to the basic colonial structure of the SAR Government, now shorn of the participative features that it developed in the final years of British rule. The crisis is not yet acute, and there are safety valves, such as the upcoming Legislative Council elections in May, and the envigorated council that they are likely to return. Yet it would be wise for Mr Tung to begin now to restructure his Government into a post-colonial mode.

Ultimately there must be general elections for the entire Legislative Council and for the Chief Executive himself. And it is doubtful that Hong Kong can wait another decade for this to happen. Yet even before there are general elections, the structure can be reformed. The key to such reforms would be to establish clearly the political level of the executive, the level at which authority and responsibility for policy decisions resides. This political level should be clearly identified as the present Executive Council, who should become proper ministers or "secretaries of state", perhaps somewhat like the US system of presidential appointments. Even before the "president" - ie the Chief Executive - is elected through universal suffrage, it would be possible for his appointees to function in their full capacity. There would then be a focal point for the channelling of public opinion, and in the event of error, a place for the buck to stop. The civil service could then refocus on professional implementation of policy.

Policy Committee