Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor delivered her fourth Policy Address on Wednesday (November 25), and the pollster “Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion” subsequently released a poll on people’s appraisal of the Policy Address, which showed that 64% of the people were dissatisfied with the Address, with a rating of only 27.2, a record low. Meanwhile, Carrie Lam’s popularity rating has also dropped by 4.1 marks from the beginning of this month to 26.8 marks.
After the announcement of the Policy Address, the Hong Kong Public Opinion Institute (HKPOI) successfully interviewed 713 Hong Kong citizens to gauge their satisfaction with the Policy Address, through a random telephone survey and an online survey. Excluding respondents who were not clear about the Policy Address, 19% said they were satisfied with the Address, but 64% said they were dissatisfied, giving a net satisfaction score of negative 46 percentage points. On a scale of 0 to 100, the average rating was only 27.2 marks, the worst since the instant poll was conducted in 1999.
As for CE Carrie Lam, her popularity has dropped significantly after the Policy Address. Her latest rating stands at 26.8 marks, with an approval rate of 16% and disapproval rate of 74%, giving a net popularity of negative 57 percentage points. Excluding those who were not clear about the contents of the Policy Address, 17% said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong has increased after the Address, 16% remained unchanged, while 63% said their confidence in the future has decreased, giving a net effect of negative 46 percentage points. The instant survey shows people’s immediate reaction to the Policy Address, while the subsequent reaction remains to be seen.
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Chairman and Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion, told reporters that all these figures are rather negative, and to a certain extent, they reflect Hong Kong people’s stable public sentiment.
In response to Carrie Lam’s comment that she was not concerned about her own popularity figures, and that she was being “demonized,” during her appearance on a radio program earlier this month, Robert Chung said, “It is because Lam does not care about popularity and opinion polls that we are in this situation today. He said that he did not expect Lin Zheng or other officials to care about popularity, but public opinion polls are the voice of the people, the people’s voice.
According to social scientist and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Public Opinion Research Institute, this year’s Policy Address is unique in that the government did not listen to a wide range of stakeholders from different sectors during the gestation period, as usual. He believes that the change in consultation protocol may be a reflection that the government did not want to connect this year’s Policy Address with the public from the very beginning.
The report may not be written for the people of Hong Kong, but for Beijing, said Mr. Chung. If the government doesn’t address what has happened over the past year or so and implement initiatives to turn things around, he said, it will be difficult for the SAR government to govern. “If the government does not address the root causes of the problem, it will be difficult for the public to be impressed by the government’s own words.”
In this case, the percentage of respondents who said their confidence in the future of Hong Kong has decreased is higher than last year’s 61%, does this reflect that Hong Kong people have no confidence in the Greater Bay Area?
If these values can be maintained under one country, two systems, it will make Hong Kong’s window usable, and can boost the development of the original “Pearl River Delta”,” Robert Chung said in response to a question from a Voice of America reporter. “Today’s “Greater Bay Area” is in line with international standards. However, the big picture now seems to have become a “small Hong Kong” into the “motherland”. He said: “I dare not say how the world situation will develop one year or two years from now, but I think it’s a pity that the concept of the Pearl River Delta is replaced by the concept of the Greater Bay Area, and then positioned as an integration between China and Hong Kong.
In the past, he was also convinced that Hong Kong and China would gradually integrate with the transfer of sovereignty, and that if Hong Kong could continue to bring its strengths to bear to bring Chinese society closer to civilization, or if Chinese civilization one day overtook Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s integration would be a good thing and would not be resisted.
“But the problem now is that you’re twisting the Basic Law to deny one country, two systems, or even to undermine one country, two systems. The current approach is integration, which is to swallow Hong Kong whole, using the same system as the mainland. This is a typical case of bad money driving out good money. You are an inferior system, the rule of law is not manifest, freedom is not guaranteed, you are said at every turn to incite, you are said at every turn to subvert, with such a system to stifle Hong Kong’s international, and Hong Kong should have, after more than a hundred years of colonial history to build up the mechanism of civilization, I think this is really putting the cart before the horse.”
He said Carrie Lam’s policy address reflects that the Hong Kong government has thrown up its hands in surrender and is completely in tune with this trend. “We don’t blindly reject integration, nor do we resist the Greater Bay Area, but don’t use this as a way to stifle Hong Kong and undermine one country, two systems, this is the most important thing.”
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