The Hong Kong Public Opinion Program recently released a rather depressing survey on Hong Kong’s governance performance. On a scale of zero to 10, with the exception of rehabilitation services for people with disabilities as well as family and child welfare services, all other social policy areas score lower than 5. 

In descending order of scores, these are medical and health policies, tertiary education policies, services for the elderly, social security policies, basic education policies, labor policies, services for young people, and, not surprisingly, housing policies, which received only an average rating of 3.40 out of 10. The survey was conducted in October and covered 1,000 Hong Kong residents. While the sample size is not very big, the errors of plus or minus 0.21 to 0.22 suggest that no matter how you look at it, in the eyes of many Hong Kong residents, the special administrative region government’s overall performance is dismal.

While the results suggest that the SAR government should review and improve its policy performance with openness and humility, the very low scores tell more about the high expectations of Hong Kong residents than the poor performance of the SAR government. Consider housing, which is the worst rated. Although the queue for public rental housing has climbed to 5.9 years in the 12 months up to the end of September, there is more story behind the gap between supply and demand.

First of all, Hong Kong’s public-housing benefits are tremendous compared to most countries, and we offer proportionately a much greater percentage of the population this benefit. Apart from various low-cost for-sale housing programs that accommodate about 20 percent of Hong Kong’s households, some 30 percent of Hong Kong’s households live in low-cost public rental housing. They pay rent that is typically less than 10 percent of household income. The United States has 128.45 million households but only about 1.1 million public housing units across the country. Thus fewer than 1 percent of America’s households get the benefits. And what are the benefits? According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “most tenants pay 30 percent of their income (after certain deductions are taken out) for rent and utilities.”

Part of the reason for Hong Kong’s demand for public housing is of course the high cost of housing in the private market, but another reason is certainly the extent of the subsidy, which few jurisdictions can match. The government just reported that public housing along with other interventions helped reduce the poverty rate from 23.6 percent of the population to just 7.9 percent. The government uses the concept of relative poverty, defining the poverty line as one-half of median income.

Compared to Hong Kong, in the US, according to a report in May by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a US think tank, “tenants in New York City Housing Authority apartments too often lived in squalid conditions, and it was they who filed suit in 2018 claiming the agency ‘failed to provide tenants with heat and hot water, keep residents safe from lead, involve tenants in policymaking and hire residents, as required under federal law.’ In June of the same year, after NYCHA’s chairwoman resigned amid intense scrutiny of the agency’s failures, federal prosecutors filed their own complaint against the authority for ‘violating basic health and safety regulations’ and ‘exposing children to lead paint.’ ” The report went on: “HUD (the Department of Housing and Urban Development) estimates that more than 62,000 public housing units nationwide require lead abatement.”

The next worst-rated was Services for Young People. How bad is this? Actually, Hong Kong’s youth and community services are mostly provided by various NGOs which in turn get subventions from the government. There are 139 Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres, 22 Children and Youth Centres, 18 teams of overnight outreaching service for young night drifters, etc. The annual service provisions and statistics are on the Social Welfare Department website, and everybody can see the extent of the SAR government’s commitment to youth services. For after-school care, there are 1,615 full fee-waiving places and 498 full fee-waiving places for enhanced after-school care.

The World Justice Project just announced its Rule of Law Index, and Hong Kong ranks at 19th among 139 jurisdictions. Our ranking is much higher than that of the US, whose global ranking stands at 27. We are particularly strong in Absence of Corruption (ninth) and in Order and Security (fifth). The UK stands at 12th and 29th respectively for these two.

Overall, Hong Kong is a safe place to live. Our rule of law is still highly regarded. I understand that young people who aspire for universal suffrage are disappointed and they are even angry because the progression toward universal suffrage has been delayed. This disappointment and anger have affected their rating of the government’s overall performance. But they need to know the limitations of ballot-box democracy and the true face of China, which does care for the well-being of its people, stressing sustainable development, common prosperity, and the safety and well-being of its people. Although we will need to wait a bit longer for the “double universal suffrage”, it will come, as Beijing never reneges on its promises. Meanwhile, the SAR government continues to improve the welfare of the weak and the elderly. Extending the HK$2-per-trip (26-US-cents-per-trip) fare for public transport to those aged 60 to 64 is a case in point.   

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.