Some Social Roots Behind Hong Kong's Amendment Storm

Source: Xinhua News Agency Author: Wang Xufangdong, Zhu Yuxuan Time: 2019-09-05

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Xinhua News Agency, Hong Kong, September 4 (Reporter Wang Xufang Dong, Zhu Yuxuan) In the summer of 2019, a sudden storm swept through Hong Kong. Why could such a huge upheaval be triggered by a "revision" bill designed to hand over murderers to Taiwan?

After blowing up the noisy political bubble, there are some deep-rooted social contradictions and problems behind Hongkong. These contradictions in economic and livelihood are complicated and have not been solved for a long time, which has accumulated into huge social problems.

In the eyes of many young people, the future lacks brightness.

It is said that young people represent the future, but in the eyes of many young people in Hong Kong, the future lacks brightness.

Xiao Kuang, a 35-year-old driver, loves motorcycles and runs wild in the countryside every weekend on a high-powered motorcycle. At this time, he is full of pride. But when it comes to the future, the mood drops. "In the future, do we have a future?" Without a house, living in a crowded house with his family, his girlfriend who had talked for many years could not get married, and the idea of having children had disappeared. Renting? The monthly rent of a 30 square meter house is about HK$89,000, while Xiao Kuang's monthly income is only HK$15,000. How can we rent it? As for saving down to buy a house, it's even more important not to think about it. You can't save as fast as house prices.

Comparing the rising rates of house prices and income in Hong Kong, we can see clearly that the prices of different regions and housing types in Hong Kong vary, but most of them are above HK$200,000 per square metre. What about monthly income? A citizen told reporters: "Twenty years ago, university graduates received HK$10,000. In the past 20 years, they have risen to 12,13,000. How much has the price risen in these 20 years? Taking inflation into account, college graduates are actually depreciating.

According to the data of the International Labour Organization in 2018, from 2008 to 2017, the real wage growth rate of the Mainland reached 8.2%, Macau 1.6%, Korea 1.2%, Taiwan's real wage growth was only 0.2%, and Hong Kong even lagged behind Taiwan, only 0.1%. From 2004 to 2018, Hong Kong's housing prices rose 4.4 times.

It is high house prices and stagnant salary income that have led to a decline in the proportion of Hong Kong's own housing. Since 2003, the proportion of Hong Kong's own housing has dropped from 53% to 48.9%. Behind this data, wealth is more concentrated, and how many young people's dream of owning their own houses is shattered.

Like Xiao Kuang, if you only live in the present and don't think about the house, you won't worry about eating, drinking, shopping and outing, just "never think about the future".

Middle-class Falling Anxiety

The middle class has always been regarded as the backbone and social stabilizer. But in Hong Kong, the stabilizer is failing, and the fear of falling "middle-class anxiety" is particularly prominent in Hong Kong.

Zhang Bingliang, former director of the Transport and Housing Bureau of the HKSAR Government, has a general term for this, which is "grassroots middle class". What does it mean? "That is to say, the educational level and cultural identity of this class are middle-class, but the actual life has not reached the level of the middle-class, convergence with the grass-roots level."

In Hong Kong, the median monthly salary in 2018 is HK$17.5 thousand, and that of civil servants and teachers is HK$28.4 thousand. The overall income is already quite high. However, Zhang Bingliang disclosed that when he was the director, he did a small survey of civil servants'housing. He was surprised to find that many people could not afford to buy a house, and some even lived in a villa (referring to a housing unit being cut into many very small living spaces).

As far as Hong Kong is concerned, real estate is the wealth of the rich and the expensive ticket for the middle class. Hong Kong's middle class, which has no way out, paid a huge price for this ticket. Including extremely high debt, overdraft consumption and binding career. The so-called Hong Kong middle class, like the sand in the corridor of a house, reverses between the

The continued growth of high housing prices has torn Hong Kong society into two major opposites: those who own houses and those who do not. Without the idea of "getting on the bus" (owning a house), the moment of "getting on the bus" becomes the maintainer of high housing prices. It is the complex entanglement of various stakeholders that makes the HKSAR government in a dilemma and easily to blame. Recently, the most prominent example is the East Lantau Reclamation Plan, which was launched to cope with the shortage of land supply. As a long-term strategy to solve the housing problem, it has been questioned by many people for no reason.

Rising passage is narrow and "dumbbell" society is shaping

As a highly modern capitalist society, Hong Kong still has a large number of poor people. Behind the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the solidification of social strata in Hong Kong, there is a high degree of singularity and hollowness in the industry.

According to statistics, in 2016, the Gini coefficient of the gap between rich and poor in Hong Kong was 0.539, which was much higher than 0.4 of the danger warning line, and was equal to that of some Latin American countries. Despite the efforts made by the SAR Government to address the gap between the rich and the poor, the level of social welfare is not commensurate with the level of Hong Kong's economic development.

In a healthy society, young people and grassroots people can usually achieve upward mobility through employment, education and other means. However, Hong Kong's social class is basically solidified. For example, people at the top of the rich list have remained unchanged for many years, mostly property developers and their families. The reasons for this situation are very complicated, and the hollowing of industry is one of the main reasons for the narrowing of the rising channels of youth.

In the 1970s, nearly half of Hong Kong's workers were industrial workers. Since the 1980s, Hong Kong's finance, shipping, business logistics and service industries have sprung up. Management, administration, technology, finance and professionals have absorbed a large number of labor and entered the middle class. However, in the subsequent industrial upgrading, in addition to the original trade and shipping, only the development of financial, tourism and other services.

"The failure of science and technology industries to develop is a major pain point for Hong Kong," said Lei Dingming, professor of economics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "Hong Kong's financial sector accounts for about 19% of GDP, but only provides about 6% of employment." The ability of the financial industry to create wealth is astonishing, but only a small number of local elite young people can be absorbed. Most local young people are not able to engage in high-end services, and many Hong Kong financial practitioners are more talented from overseas.

As for the current situation, the SAR government has tried to change it by various means, but the industry of scientific and technological innovation has made several efforts and died several times. Among them, the opposition has made various unprovoked obstructions for political purposes, such as the founding Bureau set up by the SAR Government to promote the development of innovative science and technology. The opposition has opposed it and has been blocked for three years in the Legislative Council in spite of repeated calls from the society to stop political waste.

This has led directly to the fact that Hong Kong's manufacturing output today accounts for only about 1% of Hong Kong's GDP, with very little labour force to absorb.

Political disputes persist and difficult problems are more difficult to resolve.

High housing prices, the gap between the rich and the poor, and the difficulty of the upward mobility of young people. These social problems have long been exposed. Over the past 22 years since returning to China, successive SAR governments have also made efforts to varying degrees. But so far, the results have been very little, and it is difficult to resolve public grievances. This is an important reason for the outbreak of the storm of revision once instigated.

Tian Feilong, a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said: "Since the return, for various reasons, the SAR government has not been able to solve the social and livelihood problems of Hong Kong more reasonably through policy guarantees and livelihood guarantees, resulting in a strong endogenous momentum to politicize economic and livelihood issues in Hong Kong."

It is undeniable that some people's grievances are caused by the lack of foresight in the policies of the SAR government. However, the deep contradictions in Hong Kong are difficult to resolve because of the mutual restraint of political structure, resulting in difficulties in governance, the inappropriate actions of the government and the inaction caused by the dogmatic implementation of the concept of "small government, big market" under the long-standing concept of a free market. The most important thing is that the opposition continues to create. They have created various kinds of difficulties artificially by provoking political disputes and ignoring the overall situation of the economy and people's livelihood.

These factors are intertwined, together with various interest groups seeking what they want, and those with ulterior motives take the opportunity to stir up the situation. As a result, problems are constantly being discussed, measures are delayed, and contradictions are hard to return with the passage of time.

Typical is to increase the supply of housing. Tung Chee-hwa, the first Chief Executive, proposed an annual increase of 85,000 housing units, but the plan could only be canceled as house prices plunged under the impact of the Asian financial crisis.

Consideration of increasing land supply has led to endless controversy. Many people think that Hong Kong has "more people and less land", but the actual level of land development in Hong Kong over 1100 square kilometers is 24.3%, and residential land only accounts for 6.9%. Of the 75.7% of the undeveloped land, 42% are designated as country parks. Even if it is not developed for environmental protection, there are more than 300 square kilometers available. But after years of controversy, development is still far away.

Especially in recent years, in order to fight for the power of governance, the opposition has artificially created political disputes, which has greatly increased the cost of governance. For example, in 2010, a Hong Kong old lady was fooled by the opposition to propose a judicial review of the impact of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge on environmental protection. Although the government won the case, the project was delayed for more than a year and the cost increased by HK$6.5 billion. Other similar economic and people's livelihood motions, whether in policy or funding, the opposition must make every effort to create obstructions and use the Legislative Council as a political arena. It will never take into account the needs of the majority of the citizens and the development of Hong Kong's society.

Many politicians in Hong Kong abhor the so-called "democracy" which can't do anything like this. In their talks with reporters, they repeatedly mentioned "Never engage in this kind of democracy".

Who will answer the second question correctly?

In the storm of revision, the opposition, by virtue of the closed and exclusive trend of thought that has emerged in Hong Kong in recent years, has desperately described the mainland as a flood beast.

Huang Shenghua, a 29-year-old Hong Kong youth, is deeply distressed that some people in society have extended their dissatisfaction with the SAR government to the central government and the mainland.

He could not forget the pride of the Hong Kong people brought by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, nor the deep feelings of the two places where blood was thicker than water during the Wenchuan earthquake. For some of the emotions and collisions that exist in Hong Kong society, he looks at them from a broader perspective: "These conflicts and contradictions, which I personally believe will inevitably occur in the period of integration, are inevitable when two different cultures and different values are integrated."

Liang Haiming, president of Silk Road Zhigu Research Institute, scorned the mainland for stirring up and excluding anti-riot Hong Kong elements: "Hong Kong has a hollow industry, a limited market size, and the ability of self-hematopoiesis?" Many Hong Kong people only know.

Liu Peiqiong, an adviser to the Hong Kong Economic Association, said: "Closure does not bring opportunities for development. Young people nowadays do not understand that if Hong Kong is really separated from the Mainland, it will be worse. In the face of the current economic difficulties, Hong Kong needs to have closer and more effective links with the Mainland. The opposite trend of thought is actually taking place in Hong Kong. Pushing into the abyss."

Do you have confidence in the development of our motherland? The old man of history once gave the same exam in 1997. On the eve of the return, a group of doubtful Hong Kong people panicked and left home. But the final facts prove that they made the worst choice in their lives and missed the opportunity to develop with their motherland.

History will prove once again that loving our motherland is not only a just and correct act, but also a farsighted and wise one. I hope 20 years later, today's Hong Kong Youth Association proudly replies: I have made the right choice!