What is Hong Kong's "Five-Year Plan"?

Chief Executive-designate Li Jiachao proposed in the platform that the new SAR government should set goals and set "Key Performance Indicators" (KPIs) for the designated tasks within 100 days of the new SAR government taking office, so as to strengthen the execution.

Twenty years ago, the then Prime Minister Zhu Rongji criticized the SAR government for "deliberation without decision, and decision without action". The language is still in my ears. If the mechanism can be modified to solve chronic diseases, why not do it?

Instead, what needs to be paid attention to is how to set KPIs so that the efficiency of governance can be truly improved.

KPI is regarded as a powerful tool for scientific management of enterprises or institutions. Quantitative indicators are used to evaluate employee performance and serve as an incentive mechanism. Promotion, rewards and punishments are clear at a glance.

However, business management textbooks tell us that it may also lead to the "cobra effect" that puts the cart before the horse. The original hope was to lure people to catch cobras through bounties, but instead, people raised snakes to make money, which led to more snakes being caught.

Therefore, in order for various departments and civil servants to perform their duties according to effective KPIs, they must first set clear goals for the overall work of the SAR government.

Goals require planning. Therefore, the most fundamental question is whether the SAR government has a plan for macro-level and long-term governance.

In the past, the SAR government only made a fuss about "cooperating" with the national plan, but did not really exercise a high degree of autonomy, fulfill its main responsibility, and make a good long-term development plan for Hong Kong.

(Associated Press)

Governance goals require planning

"Planning" has recently aroused unprecedented enthusiasm in Hong Kong's public policy research and Legislative Council inquiries. How Hong Kong's economy will develop in line with the "National 14th Five-Year Plan" released last year is a topic of common concern.

As we all know, the National "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" released in 2011 has begun to set up a special chapter to discuss Hong Kong and Macao affairs. Then, why is Hong Kong still like students who are new to the new curriculum ten years later, entangled in what planning is, what to plan for Hong Kong, How to plan these basics?

Just half a month after the release of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", on March 31, 2011, the Legislative Council debated the motion "implementing the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan". Solve many mysteries.

For the new Hong Kong management team, it can also be a reference material for the formulation of policy planning.

Although the Five-Year Plan itself covers economic and social development, the sharpest debates caused by the above-mentioned motions focus on the political and ideological fields: first, the inclusion of Hong Kong in national planning is equivalent to being "planned", and the second is that planning is equivalent to a planned economy.

Unsurprisingly, these two questions were raised by pan-democratic lawmakers at the time. If you look at it purely from a political standpoint, you might think that this situation will no longer exist in the new Legislative Council composed of "patriots".

However, judging from the results, the variable "political stance" did not hinder the final passage of the motion, nor did officials and pro-establishment lawmakers fall into the trap of wrestling with pan-democratic lawmakers. However, Hong Kong obviously did not go further on the road of planning. Otherwise, there would be no such criticism as "the SAR government needs to plan" today.

On the other hand, if the establishment could counter the fallacies clearly and concretely at that time, and at the same time urge the government to correct its attitude and embark on the road of planning the long-term development of society, Hong Kong may not need to be entangled in these issues today.

Whether it is "planned" or "planned economy", they all point to the same myth, that is, they mean that Hong Kong follows the country's policies and even adopts the mainland's socialist system, which violates "one country, two systems" and undermines a high degree of autonomy.

Among the lawmakers who questioned the "planning", some people subjectively described the mover as "holding the emperor to command the princes" from the political background, forcing Hong Kong society to accept the plan of the mainland.

Paradoxically, these MPs did not deny the role of planning when defending themselves. Although the motion requires Hong Kong to cooperate with the implementation of national planning, it also pointed out that the premise is that Hong Kong should implement its own long-term development plan as soon as possible.

It is not advisable to use the rigid logic of binary opposition to discuss politics. If the administrators also make such a clear cut, it will even kill the space for social development.

Unfortunately, this is a common problem with Hong Kong's traditional elite.

(Associated Press)

Hong Kong has not handed in Wen Jiabao's homework

In fact, this is also the homework given to Hong Kong by then Premier Wen Jiabao.

On March 14 of that year, Wen Jiabao stated at the National People's Congress press conference that Hong Kong should pay attention to three things. First, it must have a long-term and scientific development plan; second, it must pay attention to and solve the deep-seated problems in economic and social development. Contradiction; third, we must strive to improve people's livelihood.

If the first thing is changed to the current popular political term, it is that Hong Kong needs to assume the main responsibility for planning its own long-term development.

It can be seen that "being planned" was originally just a false proposition.

The accountability officials who attended the meeting at the time also seemed to have a clear understanding of this, and solemnly stated that Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy and was not planned at all.

The problem is that not being planned does not mean that you will plan yourself. The subsequent development trajectory proves that Hong Kong has never given a qualified answer.

The reason is that the SAR government itself only understands the problem one-sidedly, and only makes a fuss about "cooperating" with the national plan. It has not really exercised a high degree of autonomy, fulfilled its main responsibility, and made a good long-term development plan for Hong Kong.

One Autumn Leaf shows how high the SAR government's inter-departmental overall planning and coordination capabilities are, as shown in the work consultation document "Coordinated with the National "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" submitted to the Strategic Development Committee in 2014.

Its content is simply assembled from the briefings of the relevant policy-making departments collected by the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau.

With such a "planning" by the SAR government, it is no wonder that Professor Liu Zhaojia, who has been the chief advisor of the Central Strategy Group for a long time, recently bluntly stated that one of the top priorities of the new Chief Executive is to formulate Hong Kong's own "five-year plan", otherwise it will not be able to integrate into the overall national development.

What is embarrassing is that the SAR itself delayed without planning. As a result, the contradiction between Hong Kong's economy and people's livelihood has become increasingly serious. In the end, with the strong intervention of the central government, it was "planned" in another way.

If the voice of "planned" at that time mainly came from a blind anti-political standpoint, equating "planning" with "planned economy" reflects a rigid ideology. In short, it is the use of socialism and capitalism. A starkly dichotomous mindset sees planning as an outdated system unworthy of imitation.

It is not advisable to use the rigid logic of binary opposition to discuss politics. If the administrators also make such a clear cut, it will even kill the space for social development.

Unfortunately, this is a common problem of traditional elites in Hong Kong, and it is deeply ingrained. One of the chief executives even bluntly said that he was a "Hong Kong citizen trained by the capitalist economic system", so he "will not talk about economic positioning, urban positioning and other concepts of planned economy." ".

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Hong Kong has long been portrayed as a model of a free economy, while the eventual collapse of the Soviet planned economic system was a negative example of the superiority of the capitalist market economy.

However, instead of repeating the mistakes of the Soviet Union, China's economic scale has increased several times in the past few decades, which shows that China's development planning system has long since broken away from the planning model inherited from the former Soviet Union.

Whether it is from the mainland or Western academic circles, there have been many studies that have clearly explained this, and the Chinese government has proposed a "socialist market economy" as early as 1992, breaking through the rigid understanding of the economic structure, even if the time is reversed to In the time and space of 2011, Hong Kong's political elites should not be unfamiliar with such major changes related to national development.

Literally, the central government abandoned the term "five-year plan" from the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" in 2006 and changed it to "five-year plan". A programmatic document that outlines the direction of development, outlines the overall development blueprint, determines the priorities of the government's future work, and guides the behavior of market players.

In other words, the plan aims to clarify the government's governance vision and goals, and to clarify the government's role in promoting the development of the market economy and its responsibilities to the government.

In the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan", "binding indicators" were added to set clear work requirements for government administration in various policy areas such as population, resources, environment and public services.

The new SAR government should seek to change the unreasonable per capita living area, reduce poverty, improve the community environment, build a complete social security network, and create a truly livable city.

(Associated Press)

Breaking down ideological binary opposition

In fact, if you can take off the ideological glasses, you will find that every government needs planning, which is the key to public administration and formulating public policies, even in capitalist societies.

The Roosevelt New Deal that took place in the United States nearly a hundred years ago was based on a series of decisive and effective policy plans.

In the final analysis, the other two main subjects of government operation are the market and society. An absolutely free market does not exist in reality, and the damage to society caused by blind superstition of the "invisible hand" is also vivid in our eyes.

If the world structure of Hong Kong society, especially the political elites is broad enough, at least since the financial tsunami of 2008, they should realize that there have been a lot of discussions and works reflecting on capitalism in the Western academic and public opinion circles, and their focus is not limited to re-understanding. The relationship between the government (state) and the market, to break the superstition that the market is omnipotent, and more importantly, to rediscover the society that has long been ignored in the discourse of capitalist free economy, because from the financial crisis to the "democratic recession" that later hit the Western world. "One of the root causes of panic is that the hollowing out of industries has led to an imbalance in the economic structure, the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, and the serious injustice in the distribution of resources.

Whether it is the operation of the government or the market, it is ultimately based on the well-being of the public. Economic and public policies cannot only deal with the relationship between the state and the market, but should rationalize the relationship between the government, the market and society. When the consequences of market failure are obvious, the role of the government in allocating resources should be taken seriously.

These discussions are by no means a simple and rigid binary between socialism and capitalism.

This should also be the basis for a new understanding of the meaning of planning.

The three things that Premier Wen Jiabao asked Hong Kong to pay attention to are the meaning of the title.

The government's long-term planning is to solve deep-seated economic and social conflicts and to improve people's livelihood.

Eleven years later, Hong Kong has failed to do these three homework well, so that the central government's words are becoming more and more plain.

To formulate KPIs, the new government really needs to first formulate a macro plan for itself, and formulate policy goals covering various fields of social and people's livelihood, economic and industrial diversified development, and urban planning and layout, so that various government departments and 180,000 civil servants can clarify their social responsibilities. , realize that KPI is not a cold work index, but behind it is the vision of orderly operation and sustainable development of society, and it is the mission of public service providers.

In fact, the Hong Kong government has put forward blueprints in these areas more or less over the years, but it is often undecided. If the new government wants the whole society to see innovative thinking and governance, it should condense the originally empty policy promises into practical and feasible ones. Operational binding indicators.

The formulation of KPIs for various departments and civil servants must be organically combined with macro goals in order to achieve people-oriented governance.

(Associated Press)

The starting point for prioritizing land issues

As Professor Liu Zhaojia said, in order for Hong Kong to do a good job in the "Five-Year Plan", the primary task is to do a good job in policy research.

Only by clarifying the nature of social problems can we prescribe the right medicine.

When Li Jiachao delivered his election speech on Sunday, he stated that he would give priority to solving the problem of land and housing after taking office.

Before proceeding with the measures promised in the Executive Outline, it is necessary to straighten out the root causes of Hong Kong's housing predicament, especially why the living environment at the grassroots level is getting worse and worse.

The answer can also be found in the above-mentioned debate on the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" motion. At that time, when a member responded to a colleague's proposal to rehabilitate HOS, he clearly stated that this should not be the focus of social security, because "the vulnerable groups in society are living in Their demands are to improve the living environment and wait for public housing. What they need is not to buy a home, but to arrange for a public housing sooner rather than the "cage house", "slab room" or "no tile to cover the head" level. To meet the basic requirements of living and working in peace and contentment... Therefore, I deleted the sentence "providing subsidized housing for sale" in the amendment and added the appeal of "building additional public housing", I believe that public housing is an important part of social security construction." It is not without surprise that such a sharp observation came from a congressman with a business background.

The new SAR government just needs to understand first that housing is a key part of social security for the general public, and to formulate a policy goal for this, it is not only to reduce the waiting time for public housing, but also to take a longer-term perspective. In the future, we will seek to change the unreasonable per capita living area, reduce poverty, improve the community environment, build a complete social security network, and create a truly livable city.

The formulation of KPIs for various departments and civil servants must be organically combined with these macro goals in order to achieve people-oriented governance.

For details, please read the 316th issue of "Hong Kong 01" Electronic Weekly (May 10, 2022).