The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Xi Jinping's July 1 speech | Li Jiachao's government must "focus on improving governance"

2022-07-06T10:30:28.499Z


Last week, at the celebration of the return of Hong Kong and the inauguration of the government, President Xi Jinping put forward "four points of hope" to Hong Kong.


Last week, President Xi Jinping presented "four points of hope" to Hong Kong at the celebration of the return of Hong Kong and the inauguration of the government, the first of which is to "strive to improve the level of governance", which means that the chief executive and the SAR government are "the first responsibility for governing Hong Kong." People” should take the lead in “improving the governance system, improving governance capabilities, and enhancing governance effectiveness.” The specific work includes enhancing national concepts and international perspectives, selecting talents and appointing talents according to the standard of both political integrity and ability, and improving the government’s work style.


Chief Executive Li Jiachao said on Sunday (July 3) that he has taken the lead in holding an internal meeting with the leadership of the new government to discuss how to make efforts to make Xi Jinping's "Four Points of Hope" the general direction and blueprint for governance.

When attending the Legislative Council Q&A session on Wednesday (July 6), he also said that the Hong Kong government would "strengthen its governance capacity" for some issues that require high-level leadership and coordination.

However, what exactly is "improving the level of governance"?

The new government was sworn in by President Xi Jinping on July 1.

(Photo by Transport and Logistics Bureau)

There is a precedent in Macau to improve the level

"Governance" has been relatively rarely mentioned in Hong Kong society in the past, but it is not the first time that state leaders "hope" for the SAR to improve its governance level.

In 2014, protests against the "Leaving Supplement" Act broke out in Macau. In September of the same year, the re-elected Chief Executive Chui Sai On went to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping. At that time, he mentioned that "the current internal and external environment of Macau has undergone great changes", and "hope" that the Chief Executive and The new government "did its duties in accordance with the law, enhanced forward-looking awareness and sense of urgency, and improved the level of SAR governance", which is comparable to Hong Kong after the anti-amendment protests.

Since then, Macao has successively launched policies and measures such as the five-year plan in line with national development, and successfully fulfilled the requirement of "improving the level of governance".

Therefore, when Xi Jinping went to Macau in 2019 to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Ho Iat Seng government, he first praised Macau's "improving governance system", and then also put forward "four points of hope", including "adhering to advancing with the times and further improving special Administrative Region Governance".

On the other hand, in the same year, a larger-scale anti-revision demonstration broke out in Hong Kong, and various governance ills also emerged one after another.

Ho Yicheng took the oath, and Xi Jinping took the oath.

(Video screenshot)

Governance is not just governance management

After social turmoil and the new crown epidemic in recent years, the central government has also noticed that there is a problem of insufficient governance in all aspects of Hong Kong, so it puts the "hope" of "improving the governance level" on the Hong Kong government.

At the beginning of Xi Jinping's speech, he said that the central government's "comprehensive governance" and the "high degree of autonomy" of the SAR are guaranteed. "Only by doing this can the SAR be managed well." The overtone is probably accusing Hong Kong of not being able to "govern well" in the past. .

However, in recent days, many Hong Kong government officials and even members of the pro-establishment faction have quoted Xi Jinping's recent remarks and thought that they understood the demands of the Chinese Communist Party. They even used it as a slogan to package their respective policy initiatives, and they will reform the civil service evaluation mechanism or department-level officials at every turn. Leading working groups and other projects involves the proposition of "governance".

These measures are certainly helpful in promoting good governance in Hong Kong, but it is obviously inappropriate to say that they represent "governance".

Most Hong Kong people regard "governance" as a synonym for "governance" and even "management", but in fact "governance" is a higher state.

In Xi Jinping's speech to Macau three years ago, "improving the effectiveness of government governance" was only a part of "promoting the modernization of the governance system and governance capacity"; in his speech to Hong Kong last week, "strengthening government management", using Talents with "outstanding governance ability" are only part of the work content of "improving governance level".

It can be seen from this that in order to truly understand the connotation of the so-called "governance" of the central government, it is impossible to start only with "governance" or "management" of specific governance areas.

The next Chief Executive and his governing team are about to take office. I hope they can learn from the hard lessons of their predecessors, and begin to truly "unite society" and "build consensus with peers" after 25 years of reunification.

(Photo by Luo Junhao)

System capabilities complement each other to be effective

Looking back at the central government's emphasis on "governance", it started with the "Decision on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform" adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in 2013.

At that time, Xi Jinping's speech during the meeting clearly pointed out that "the national governance system and governance capacity are the concentrated expression of a country's system and system implementation capacity... Only with a good national governance system can the governance capacity be improved, and only by improving the national governance capacity can the national governance be fully exerted. The effectiveness of the system", that is, the "governance system" and "governance capability" need to complement each other to lead to the "governance effectiveness".

Designing good systems can "improve the governance system", and citing outstanding talents can "improve governance capabilities", and then the two can go hand in hand to "enhance governance effectiveness", but when we talk about "efficiency", we must also set "governance" The goal that the mainland pursues is "upholding and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics", solving social conflicts by advancing development, and realizing the people's yearning for a better life.

Under "one country, two systems", Hong Kong may not need to follow the same set of "governance" as the mainland, but those who govern Hong Kong do not necessarily have similar pursuits at all, and even condone various social conflicts. Therefore, even if there are good systems and talents, only It can stay at the stage of "governance" and "management", not to mention "governance".

Xi Jinping specifically asked the Hong Kong government to "change its governance concept, grasp the relationship between the government and the market, and better combine a promising government with an efficient market." This is exactly the crux of the problem, but many officials and lawmakers still seem to have not caught it. This point.

Looking at Hong Kong from a governance mindset

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2022-07-06

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-20T12:42:19.235Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.