Speeches by Numbers

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying gets ready to make his policy address

A guest columnist of a local paper made it his task to go through all the previous policy addresses by all three Hong Kong chief executives, Tung Chee-hwa, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and Leung Chun-ying.

David Dodwell, executive director of the Hong Kong-Apec Trade Policy Group was looking for how many times they used these four words: democracy, consensus, inequality and youth.

Tsang mentioned "democracy" nine times in each policy address, while Tung mainly ignored it except in 2004 when he made 27 references to it when he talked about "enlightened and people-based governance".

Then CE Tung Chee-hwa takes questions from the media

Dodwell is particularly frustrated when it comes to the word "consensus". "The word has been continuously on the lips of every one of our leaders -- Tsang took it to a crescendo in his first two policy addresses in 2006 and 2007 with more than 10 references in each address -- and their failure to achieve consensus has again and again been used as an excuse for inertia following consultation after consultation."

Consensus, says Dodwell, is not possible in politics. He says it is about trying to build coalitions of support through compromises in order to get things done.

"In obsessing about 'consensus', our leaders have demonstrated their failure to acknowledge that differences of opinion are reasonable, natural and normal. They have also hobbled all effective policymaking power," he writes.

When it comes to the word "inequality", especially in light of the recent protests, Dodwell finds Tung only mentioned it twice in his nine years in office, while Tsang showed a bit more interest in it in 2011 and said it nine times when introducing the "My House Purchase" scheme to help people afford housing.

Most telling is that in all three of his policy addresses so far totaling more than 50,000 words, not once has Leung uttered the word "inequality". Has he not learned anything from the Umbrella Movement that went on for 79 days last year?

Then CE Donald Tsang explains his initiatives to reporters

Youth was also a word not used much by our previous leaders, with Tung only saying it 18 times in his 1998 policy address, while Tsang largely ignored it until the last two years of office.

Meanwhile Leung has mentioned this demographic 17 times in 2013, 25 last year and 31 yesterday. But were they for the right reasons?

In his policy address, he basically declared war on the students, blaming them for "putting forward fallacies" regarding nationalism and self-determination. Leung also hit out at Undergrad, a University of Hong Kong Student Union magazine for "advocating independence" which he deemed unconstitutional, but students rebutted by saying they had a right to freedom of speech, and that the article examined Hong Kong's history and identity...

Dodwell notes that after re-reading what each of the administrations promised to do in their policy addresses, he finds a decade later not much has come to fruition. What does this say about our government and why people are so frustrated?

Should it not be surprising the Umbrella Movement happened and people will be out on the streets again on February 1?

CY Leung's "Rule of Law"

Leung Chun-ying's policy address includes his ideas to re-educate the young

Days before Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying delivered his policy address this morning, he and other government officials kept insisting that people should follow "rule of law".

It is a mantra they have repeated since the start of the Umbrella Movement and he reiterated it again in the beginning of his speech.

"The rule of law is the foundation of Hong Kong. The democratic development of Hong Kong must therefore be underpinned by the same. As we pursue democracy, we should act in accordance with the law, or Hong Kong will degenerate into anarchy."

Uh huh.

Paul Shieh questions the government's use of "rule of law"

But the outgoing chairman of the Bar Association, Paul Shieh Wing-tai, took aim at government officials on this point when he spoke at the start of the new legal year on Monday.

"There was an increase in the tendency on the part of the executive... to emphasize the 'obey the law' aspect," he said. "To the untrained mind or the unsophisticated, this may sound respectful to the concept of rule of law.

"However, in my view, and in the view of the Hong Kong Bar, ironically that would have the opposite effect of misleading the public."

He said that citing the need to "do things according to the law creates the misconception that many phenomena in society are the inevitable consequences of adhering to the law when plainly they are not. Law had become the scapegoat or excuse".

So while the legal experts decry the misuse of the phrase "rule of law" by the government, Leung and his administration will most probably continue to use it as an excuse to justify anything the government does.

According to Shieh's observations then, either the Leung administration believes we Hong Kong people are uncouth, or they hope constant repetition will finally make us believe everything the government does for us is for our benefit.

Right...

Regardless the government is not bridging the difference between perception and reality effectively.

In today's policy address, Leung had a section focusing on young people, looking at national education again "to reinforce students' interest in and understanding of Chinese history and culture and broaden their global outlook".

He also announced a subsidy for students to participate in at least one mainland exchange program in both the primary and secondary schools, as well as double the number of primary and secondary schools with sister schools in the mainland within three years.

"This will help further promote experience sharing between sister schools, enhance teaching and learning effectiveness, and relieve teachers from some of the administrative work," Leung said.

"At the same time, we will explore with mainland provinces and cities to expand and enhance such exchange and cooperation," he continued. "Young people can broaden their horizons through two-way visits, life experience activities, cultural and service collaboration as well as job-seeking experience sharing."

Interesting how Leung is keen to get Hong Kong students more integrated with the mainland when a study by the Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre last fall found two-thirds of young people refuse to work on the mainland because they worry about quality of life, rule of law and food safety there.

The Chinese government really needs to do more to clean up the situation, than trying to force young people into accepting the mainland.

While the occasional trip to the mainland would be good for young people to experience, the visit may either heighten their critical thinking skills in separating propaganda from reality, or further exacerbate the differences between mainlanders and Hong Kong people...

That's what one country, two systems is for, right?

Attacking HK's Press Freedom

A man with a firebomb about to attack Jimmy Lai's home in Ho Man Tin

It's strange that even though the Occupy/Umbrella Movement is over, and Next Media Founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has been asked to report to the police next week, that his home and head office would be attacked with firebombs in the early hours of Monday morning.

They were coordinated attacks because the first one happened at about 1.45am Monday when a man wearing a surgical mask and hood threw a Molotov cocktail at the front gate of Lai's home on Kadoorie Avenue in Ho Man Tin. He then fled in a seven-seat car driven by another person.

A security guard put out the fire and called police; Lai was at home at the time.

Then five minutes later there was another firebomb hurled from another car at the gate of Next Media's headquarters on Chun Ying Street in Tseung Kwan O. The car was driven to another entrance and another Molotov cocktail was thrown.

Again security guards put out the flames and called the authorities.

The two cars were later found torched on Tai Woh Ping Road in Shek Kip Mei, and Sham Mong Road in Cheung Sha Wan before 2.30pm. In one report the license plates of the two cars were removed...

Lai was at the Admiralty protest site practically everyday

Police said that while no one was injured in the attacks, they are looking for possible motives. "The attacks were calculated," a police source said. "We believe it was designed to send a warning rather than an attempt to harm anyone."

Meanwhile the pan-democrats condemned the attacks, saying it was an attempt to silence the media and create "white terror".

Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing said the police must do its utmost to solve all cases of violence against media workers, or the city would become "lawless".

"Most of the cases [of violence against the press] were not solved. This is just like sending a message, 'You can go hit them because there will be no consequences'. This is lawless."

Lai has experienced attacks before -- most recently during the Umbrella Movement when someone threw offal at his face at the protest site in Admiralty in November.

And in June 2013, someone rammed a stolen car into the front gate of his home and then an axe and a machete were placed on the driveway before the perpetrator(s) fled the scene.

What Lai and Next Media represent is freedom of the press -- since many of the big advertisers will not buy ads in his stable of publications, what he publishes in print and online are pretty pure in terms of free speech and media.

For someone to send a warning now doesn't make much sense particularly since Lai has formally stepped down as editor-in-chief to apparently spend more time with his family, unless there's another angle to this story we are not aware of.

But Lau is right. The police really need to get to the bottom of this incident and any others involving journalists. Our freedoms in Hong Kong are quietly crumbling, and while we made of show of this during the Umbrella Movement, we still need to do whatever we can to keep propping them up...

Thoughts on The Interview

Did you see this to protect freedom of expression?

I finally watched The Interview starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, curious to see what all the fuss was about, that led to threats of terrorist attacks by a group called Guardians of Peace if the movie was released on Christmas Day.

The story, about a TV host who goes to the Hermit Kingdom to interview (and assassinate) the youngest and most elusive leader, Kim Jong-un.

Seth Rogan's and James Franco's characters go to North Korea

What happens is a series of outrageous, racist or sexist jokes or incidents that can only be dreamed up by a bunch of men who are still stuck in their prepubescent period.

It takes the premise of what little people know about North Korea and creates a preposterous plot, with really bad gags and even worse, over-the-top violent scenes that make viewers wonder if they're supposed to be funny or not.

The Interview, as some critics have said, should never have been made. It's just so improbable and heinous that it's shocking that it was even given the green light.

While there has been much talk about how this movie has impacted US-North Korean relations in reality, even more enlightening is that the comedy was filmed in Vancouver.

Rogan and his friend Evan Goldberg made the film with their production company Point Grey Pictures, after their high school, Point Grey Secondary School where the two met.

Downtown Vancouver doubles as New York in the movie

There are scenes of the exterior of the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the downtown area doubling as New York (not). There's also a scene in a newsroom, which is actually the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's office, and there are lots of wilderness scenery with British Columbia trying to be the desolate areas of north eastern China and North Korea.

Attention over the movie has quickly faded since the initial burst of interest on December 25, which makes one wonder if The Interview would have garnered any kind of attention if there were never any threats in the first place.

And hopefully it will fade further in the distance as a very expensive lesson for Sony Pictures, Rogan, Goldberg and Franco to learn.

Randall Park who plays the Supreme Leader, said that when he got the part, he ran it by his immigrant South Korean parents, who he says, thought the premise of the film was hilarious.

Really?

Maybe it's a Hollywood thing...