vines in sai kung
stephen says...
The cock-up theory Stephen Vines examines the government’s attitude to country parks. Why the odds are stacked in the battle to preserve Sai Kung I have been trying to get my head round the question of why preservation of Hong Kong’s countryside – not least in our backyard of Sai Kung – appears to morph into a more or less permanent battle between officials seemingly set on eroding the countryside fighting those who are trying to preserve the environment. The same question could just as easily be turned on its head: why are people with no historic ties to the New Territories so determined to thwart its development and trample on the rights of indigenous villagers? After a long career in journalism and a shorter, but formative period as a political party researcher advising British government ministers on, among other things, aspects of agricultural policy, I am forcibly drawn towards the cock-up theory of policy-making as opposed to the idea of deliberate policy formation. Bureaucrats and their political masters are drawn towards solutions that cause the least trouble. Rarely do they aim for objectives that will do the most good because this aspiration is seen as a form of infantile idealism. In Hong Kong, things are far worse because the bureaucrats and the policymakers are largely the same people. It may be argued that our head of government is not a bureaucrat, but most of his ministers are. The system institutionally weakens the power of the Chief Executive because, unlike a leader elected by the people, he can never claim a popular mandate for his policies, a claim I heard British ministers make on several occasions when faced with bureaucrats trying to obstruct their
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plans. In the interests of honesty I need to report that, despite this, the bureaucrats usually got their way – but not always.
The government behaves like a fireman tackling sporadic blazes Cock up or deliberate policy? It is wrong, as some of my good friends claim, to say the government cares little about conservation. Nor can it be realistically said there is some kind of master plan to despoil the natural environment in favour of developers’ interests. A much more likely explanation is that the government has no real plan but behaves like a fireman tackling sporadic blazes, hoping they will not combine and become a major inferno. When the powerful Heung Yee Kuk puts forward a proposal, officials ponder how they can respond without offending the Kuk or its individual members, who have come up with yet another scheme for enriching themselves. The government sort of knows there is considerable public support for things environmental, but this support tends to be casual and quite low on most people’s priorities. Environmentalists occasionally mount impressive displays of support, but not often, and they are far removed from the centre of power. Therefore, there is little political cost attached to ignoring their demands. On the other hand, bureaucrats find that annoying the Kuk can be costly, not least because it has powerful friends in Beijing and, astutely, has made itself an indispensable
part of the pro-government camp, even to the extent of providing thugs to intervene in antigovernment protests. None of this means the government bureaucracy lacks people who genuinely care about the countryside. Some civil servants are battling within the machine to preserve as much as possible. However, promotion within the bureaucracy goes to those who make the least trouble and are regarded as a “safe pair of hands”. So these brave bureaucrats are few in number and doomed to relatively junior positions. The net result of all this is that the countryside, like all policy issues, is basically a matter of balance of power. The system responds to pressure, it rarely produces new initiatives itself, aside from master plans for massive projects, which the bureaucrats love. Should we just give up? Preserving an area of natural beauty, saving trees, protecting the shoreline and preserving historic buildings are regarded as “good”. But when “good” comes up against vested interests, it is easy to see who will prevail. So, should those of us who want to preserve Sai Kung, and elsewhere in Hong Kong for that matter, simply concede defeat? Of course not. But the battle for preservation needs to be ratcheted up to involve more people. It’s a slog, but a worthwhile one. Stephen Vines is a journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur. He is the former editor of the Eastern Express and Southeast Asia correspondent for The Observer.
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