How Hong Kong’s policy address history explains the city’s present struggles

The changes in the number of references to democracy, consensus, youth and inequality in policy addresses since the handover reveal that our leaders have abysmal political reflexes, are elitist and have failed to translate talk into action

David Dodwell

Published: 6:45am, 9 Jan 2021

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It was over the Christmas break five years ago that, with little better to do, I set myself a mind-numbing challenge. I ploughed through all the policy addresses from 1998 to 2015, and counted the number of times chief executives Tung Chee-hwa, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and Leung Chun-ying had used four words: democracy, consensus, inequality and youth.

Over this year’s holiday break, as a diversion from democratic chaos in the US and arrests of “political subversives” here in Hong Kong, I decided to repeat the exercise with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s four policy addresses since she became chief executive on July 1, 2017. The findings were fascinating.

But first, a reprise of what I found back in 2015. All three of the chief executives paid lip service to “democracy” – Tsang in particular, who on average used the words “democracy” or “democratic” around six times in each policy address.

Tung mainly ignored democracy in his policy addresses, but made up for it in 2005 with three references to it as he continued to focus on “people-based governance”. It was clear even then how much political lip service could be given to commitments that so often came to nothing.

Then chief executive Tung Chee-hwa meets district council representatives at the Leighton Hill Community Hall on January 31, 2005. Photo: SCMP

Most frustrating to me at that time was the steady obsession with “consensus”. The word was repeatedly on the lips of our first three leaders – Tsang took it to a crescendo in his policy addresses in 2006 and 2007 with over 10 references in each address. Failure to achieve a consensus was repeatedly used through numerous inconclusive consultations as an excuse for policy inertia.

The obsession with “consensus” has always frustrated me because I see no role for consensus in politics. Modern complex societies are riddled with large, perfectly reasonable differences of opinion. The very essence of democracy is to broker those differences.

Indeed, the concept of democracy is fundamentally founded on recognition that consensus is a utopian ideal that in the real world cannot be achieved – and that to be held hostage to it can only lead to political paralysis.

The democratic process, commonly underpinned by party politics, is about leaders building coalitions around compromises bundled together in manifestos. If your coalition manages to win political office on the basis of your manifesto, then that vote delivers the mandate needed to push through policies even when minorities disagree, often for good and sensible reasons.

A Legislative Council staff member wipes down a wall in the chamber after lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (not pictured) threw eggs at chief executive Donald Tsang (right) in protest against the policy address during the question and answer session on October 13, 2011. Photo: Felix Wong

In obsessing about “consensus”, our three first leaders demonstrated their fundamental failure to understand what democracy is about, and a reluctance to acknowledge or tolerate that differences of opinion can be reasonable, natural and normal. The obsession also hobbled their policymaking power.

In light of the sobering lessons of the 2014 Occupy Central movement, our leaders’ level of interest in inequality and youth was also telling.

Tung didn’t mention the word “inequality” once in eight years. Tsang paid little more attention to the problem – except in 2011 when he pondered inequality issues as he wrung his hands about improving people’s well-being, reflected on the unaffordability of housing and introduced his “My Home Purchase” scheme. Leung, in his five policy addresses, never used the word.

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Tung by and large ignored the issue of youth – except in his 1998 address when he was focusing on education reform. By the time Tsang came into office, youth challenges could no longer be ignored, and were attracting specific mention, particularly on youth development.

And Leung, confronted by Occupy Central protesters, paid huge attention to the challenges faced by our young – with references rising to the mid-30s between 2014 and 2016. So much good this attention did him.

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But what of Carrie Lam? The contrasts are instructive. The word “democracy” has not been used in any of her four policy addresses, illustrating her classic administrator’s preference for decision-making by experts behind closed doors, rather than in response to community-focused politicians.

It also explains her administration’s appalling deafness to the deteriorating public mood, as sharp and repeated economic reversals – from the 1998 Asian financial crisis, to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003 and the 2008 global financial crisis – entrenched the financial difficulties of a large part of Hong Kong’s working population.

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Shockingly, the word “inequality” has also never been used in any of her four policy addresses, despite the reality that Hong Kong is one of the most unequal cities in the world, with the symptoms of that inequality deep at the heart of the increasingly militant political upheavals that have traumatised the community since the 2014 Occupy movement.

Surprisingly, the word “consensus” has disappeared. After being used nine times in her 2017 address and seven times in 2018, the word has never been used since.

I suspect this has less to do with any realisation that consensus is a naive and utopian political ideal, and more to do with a recognition that division in our community has never been so deeply or severely entrenched. To use the word at present would be to invite ridicule.

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Perhaps predictably, concern about the challenges facing our millennials has surged. Lam used the word “youth” 23 times in 2017 and 34 times in 2018. After a lighter touch in 2019, (she used the word just four times), there was a resurgence to 28 references in the 2020 policy address.

One might say better late than never, except that the continued lack of interest in democracy or inequality suggest that Lam remains deaf to the particular livelihood challenges faced by the young.

Of course, this word search exercise reflects nothing more than the lip service that our leaders have given to these issues. As we saw with Tung’s focus on democracy in 2004, Tsang’s sudden surge of interest in inequality in 2011, and Lam’s recent heightened interest in youth, the rhetoric has rarely led to improvements of substance.

Perhaps the main insight is that our leaders retain abysmal political reflexes, remain profoundly elitist and have consistently failed to translate lip service into substance.

Lam seems to have abandoned “consensus” – not because she has developed a new-found fondness for democracy, but because consensus is so far out of reach. That augurs ill as she prepares the ground for Legislative Council elections now nine months away.

David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view