Last December, when President Xi Jinping received Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s report on Lee’s work, Xi explicitly advised the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government to adhere to and improve executive-led governance. On Thursday, Premier Li Qiang proposed in his Government Work Report to enhance the effectiveness of governance in the Hong Kong and Macao SARs in accordance with the law and promote their economic and social development.
In the years to come, Hong Kong will face an increasingly complex and volatile international situation that urgently requires the government to continuously improve its governance capabilities and standards by leveraging the advantages of executive-led design. This will allow Hong Kong to better promote economic development and industrial restructuring and upgrading, improve people’s livelihoods, and broaden the space for international economic activity to counter the containment of the United States and its allies.
Hong Kong’s previous governance philosophy of laissez-faire, “positive noninterventionism”, and “small government, big market” has long been outdated and virtually abandoned by all economies worldwide. In the coming years, Hong Kong needs to align its own five-year development plan with the national 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), to serve the national development strategy and accelerate its integration into the overall national development framework. To promote Hong Kong’s economic and social development, major tasks include accelerating the development of the Northern Metropolis, supporting and strengthening new industries with new quality productive forces as their core, promoting Hong Kong-Shenzhen cooperation, actively and effectively participating in the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Belt and Road Initiative, and resolving the city’s deep-seated social contradictions. In recent years, the SAR government has shown its determination to break away from passive governance, aiming to become a strong, proactive, and effective government. It has initiated reforms and innovations in governance. Given the current domestic and international situation and Hong Kong’s circumstances, the central government’s proposal to “adhere to and improve ‘executive-led’ governance” and “enhance governance effectiveness according to law” is timely, aimed at continuously and consistently enhancing the SAR governance to address increasingly severe external and internal challenges.
As the primary responsible parties for the governance of the SAR, the chief executive and the government bear a greater responsibility to adhere to and improve executive leadership and enhance the effectiveness of governance.
First, unlike in the past, the incumbent and future SAR governments must possess an international and national vision, strategic thinking, systemic awareness, forward-looking capability, a broad and historical perspective, and the ability to plan and implement a long-term development path, so that Hong Kong can maintain its prosperity and stability, and promote its economic and social development amid an ever-changing global landscape.
Given that the government is no longer a passive “small government” but a proactive and effective one leading and promoting socioeconomic development, it must plan and deploy strategies to increase government fiscal resources in the future, especially by making appropriate and fair tax system reforms and optimizations while maintaining Hong Kong’s simple and low-tax system
Second, the government must comprehensively grasp the changes in the international situation, the country’s development policies and trends, and the trajectory of changes in the city’s internal environment, so that its development strategies can be based on a solid foundation of reality, thereby ensuring their feasibility and achieving results.
Third, the government must strengthen its top-level, overall, and coordination capabilities. In other words, the leadership team must enhance its political and policy leadership capabilities, as well as its ability to manage the entire executive branch and numerous statutory bodies closely related to it, so that major policies can be coordinated, consistent, and effectively implemented. The prerequisite for this is that the leadership team must be highly united, ideologically aligned, and act in unison.
Fourth, the government needs to allocate the necessary resources for its development strategy and major policies over the next five years to ensure their effective implementation. The fiscal resources allocated to different departments from year to year will have to vary significantly due to changes in policy priorities. Given that the government is no longer a passive “small government” but a proactive and effective one leading and promoting socioeconomic development, it must plan and deploy strategies to increase government fiscal resources in the future, especially by making appropriate and fair tax system reforms and optimizations while maintaining Hong Kong’s simple and low-tax system.
Fifth, a strong and effective government must possess robust policy implementation capability, capable of translating visions and plans into tangible outcomes. Improving the efficiency of administrative agencies through various means, including introducing new technologies and reforming operational models, has become a priority for future administrative reforms. Strengthening accountability for civil servants, enhancing their sense of responsibility, and encouraging them to leverage their work experience and social connections to offer suggestions for improving governance will boost civil servant motivation and overall governance capacity. The government also needs to recruit talent from outside the region to enhance its governance and development capabilities, including specialists and experts from the Chinese mainland and overseas.
Sixth, the operational efficiency of the executive branch must be continuously improved to optimize Hong Kong’s business environment to attract investors. Updating concepts, adopting new standards, reducing regulations, simplifying processes and procedures, cutting bureaucratic red tape, optimizing or simplifying hierarchical structures, eliminating outdated administrative units, merging existing units, establishing new units, reducing the cost of policy projects, and introducing new technologies (including artificial intelligence) should be important aspects of future reforms.
Seventh, the government must possess a strong policy implementation capability, which is closely related to the efficiency and effectiveness of civil servants. The government has started introducing reforms to the civil service system. For example, civil servants can no longer use “political neutrality” as an excuse to resist tasks and work assigned by the government. The chief executive has set performance indicators for officeholders and introduced a “department head responsibility system” to change the bureaucratic culture.
Eighth, facing increasingly daunting tasks, the government needs to actively seek support from all sectors of society and strengthen cooperation in order to improve governance efficiency. In advancing Hong Kong’s major policies and projects, the government’s resources — whether human, financial, expertise, or land — are certainly insufficient. It’s essential to have the active participation and support of all sectors of society, such as being willing to purchase government bonds, actively investing in major projects promoted by the government, or voluntarily participating in the government’s work.
Finally, the government needs to enhance the credibility of its governance and the “patriots administering Hong Kong” system through economic development and improvements in people’s livelihoods. For a long time, because of attacks from internal and external hostile forces, achieving effective executive-led governance has been difficult. Now that they no longer pose a threat, and with the support of the central government and patriotic forces, the government should be able to act decisively and vigorously to revitalize Hong Kong, winning stronger public support through achievements. Upholding and enhancing executive-led governance is the only way forward.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
