President Xi Jinping concluded his visit to Hong Kong. The highlight was an important speech at the celebration of the return of the country. The political focus naturally fell on his four hopes for the new SAR government.
Looking closely at Xi Jinping's speech, we can see that he has a number of specific requirements for the Li Jiachao government.
Xi Jinping takes the oath of the new government officials.
(Joint interview/Associated Press)
"Urgent" to improve governance
In his speech, Xi Jinping said that the central government has high hopes for the new SAR government, and put forward four hopes. The first is to effectively improve the level of governance.
Xi Jinping pointed out that improving the governance system, improving governance capacity, and enhancing governance efficiency "is an urgent need to build and develop the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region well."
Indeed, the efficiency of the SAR government has been criticized for many years, but the start of the new government is different from that of the previous ones. After the central government took action to remove political obstacles, including improving the electoral system, the government can no longer blame the opposition for obstruction in the parliament. The purpose of the restructuring is to improve the efficiency of governance. The new government must show its achievements to win the trust of the people.
The deep-seated contradictions in Hong Kong have become increasingly acute, and livelihood issues such as housing and medical care have yet to be resolved. In order to make the citizens feel happy, the government must speed up and improve efficiency in all aspects.
As Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said at the seminar last July, "every year, we organize several practical events that the general public can see, touch and feel."
Xi Jinping especially proposed to care about the youth to increase the sense of national identity
The second priority is youth issues.
After Xi Jinping put forward 4 points of hope, he also paid special attention to caring for young people, "to lead young people to deeply understand the development trend of the country and the world, and to enhance their national pride and sense of ownership."
In recent years, the leaders of the central government have proposed more than once that the SAR government should do a good job in youth work and strengthen the youth's identification with the country. This aspect has always been a shortcoming of the SAR government. In the future, relevant united front work must be done well. ”, that is, study, employment, entrepreneurship, plus “buying a home”, it can be seen that the grievances accumulated by young people who cannot “get on the bus” are clearly seen by the central government.
Resolving people's worries and difficulties requires "what the people call, and I respond"
The third item is to effectively solve the problems of people's livelihood.
To solve the housing problem in Hong Kong, leaders have mentioned it many times on different occasions in recent years, but this time Xi Jinping said it more bluntly, saying that Hong Kong people "hope for a better life, live in a more spacious house, and have more opportunities to start a business." More, better education for children, and better care when they are older.” He emphasized that the government should “do what the people call, and I respond.”
The biggest livelihood issue in Hong Kong is living and working in peace and contentment.
Over the years, it has been difficult for citizens to get on the bus, and it is also difficult to live well. In the past 20 years, property prices and commodity prices have risen faster than income growth. After deducting necessary expenses such as accommodation, citizens have no spare money to improve their lives, and they have become "busy people", "people who are busy" Moonlight Clan".
High rent and labor, high start-up costs, high education costs, and tight supply of elderly care services are all real problems faced by the public, and the government should step up efforts to deal with them.
Xi Jinping asked the SAR government to change its governance concept and grasp the relationship between the government and the market.
(File photo/Photo by Luo Junhao)
"Grasp the relationship between the government and the market"
The problem has occurred for a long time, why is it still not dealt with properly?
Xi Jinping's fourth KPI requirement is to "transform the concept of governance".
Two points in the speech mentioned this element, including the first point of hope that "we must change the governance concept, grasp the relationship between the government and the market, and better integrate the promising government with the efficient market", and the second point of hope. "The central government fully supports Hong Kong in actively and prudently advancing reforms, breaking down the barriers of solidified interests, and fully releasing the enormous creativity and development vitality of Hong Kong society."
Liu Zhaojia: China wants Hong Kong to give up "active non-intervention"
Liu Zhaojia, vice-chairman of the National Association for Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said that the central government hopes that the SAR government will abandon the old governance philosophy of "big market and small government" and "active non-intervention", but it does not want to change the capitalist system in Hong Kong. While retaining the capitalist market, Under the leadership of the government, the economy can be integrated into the overall development of the country, and even solve the deep-seated social and livelihood problems.
Liu Zhaojia said that Xi Jinping's speech showed that excessive reliance on the market not only failed to solve Hong Kong's problems, but also worsened Hong Kong's original economic development and social stability difficulties.
The government should, in response to development needs and economic changes in the Mainland, promote the economic development of Hong Kong, including formulating policies to broaden the industrial base, strengthen the foundation of economic development, build a fair and reasonable society, so that Hong Kong can maintain prosperity, stability, and long-term and sustainable development.
Liu Zhaojia, vice-chairman of the National Association for Hong Kong and Macao Studies, said that in order to break down the barriers of solidified interests, one must have the courage to act as a government and make breakthroughs with the support of the central government.
(File photo/Photo by Yu Junliang)
Breaking the solidification of interests involves Guangliu: the government has the responsibility to change the market monopoly
As for Xi's reference to "solidified interests", Liu Zhaojia said that a capitalist society should have free, open and fair competition, but after years of development, the fairness of the market has not been as good as imagined, and industrial monopoly has emerged, which has created inequality between the rich and the poor, and created space for the upper class of young people. The industry has an excessively single foundation, which has deteriorated Hong Kong's investment environment and lowered its competitiveness.
In the past, the government believed in "a big market and a small government." Liu Zhaojia pointed out that the government did not feel it had the responsibility to change the market monopoly and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. distortion.
He said that the central government sees problems such as the concentration of wealth in Hong Kong, the monopoly of industries and industries, the decline in the level of competition, the decline in the efficiency of resource allocation, the lack of upper-class opportunities for young people, and the worsening gap between the rich and the poor, and even hinder the economic transformation. Competition is fairer, society is more just, and irrationality and lack of competition are reduced based on emphasis on the market.
Liu Zhaojia pointed out that in order to break down the barriers of solidified interests, we must have the courage to act as the government and make breakthroughs with the support of the central government to build a fairer and more open society, which can drive fair competition, better allocate social resources, and make society more developed. Opportunities and upper class opportunities to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.
As for how to achieve this goal, Liu Zhaojia pointed out that a large number of different policies are involved, including economic development, education policy, social welfare, labor policy, tax policy, anti-monopoly policy, etc., and the central government will help from it.
Full text of Xi Jinping's speech: "One country, two systems is a good system. There is no reason to change it. We must adhere to it for a long time." For July 1, Xi Jinping repeatedly mentioned Hong Kong's unique status, Ye Liu said good news: One country, two systems will continue