The environment has become the primary concern for Hong Kong.
This time, even the usually indifferent business sector is getting worried
because a number of recent surveys have cited the deteriorating environment as a
major contributor to Hong Kong's declining attractiveness to expatriate managers
and professionals.
This fall in ratings is particularly worrisome when set against the rising
popularity of Shanghai and a few other Chinese mainland cities.
The fear of an irreversible drain of expatriate talent, especially in the
banking and other service sectors, seems real enough. Many commentators have
taken the latest immigration figures, which pointed to a slowdown in the inflow
of expatriates, as a flashing red light calling for immediate attention.
Indeed, the ever -thickening layer of haze hanging in the air has moved Chief
Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Donald Tsang to lament
recently that he was seeing less and less of a blue sky. Tsang, who named
bird-watching among his hobbies, is no doubt a fitting standard bearer of the
campaign to improve Hong Kong's environment.
Success will have to depend much on the Hong Kong government's ability to
forge a united front with the authorities of the Pearl River Delta area to
control the emission and waste generated by the factories there. Many of those
factories are either owned by or manufacturing under contracts to Hong Kong
exporters.
The process, understandably, is going to be long and arduous. It takes
patience and political will to resolve the many conflicts between economic
growth and environmental protection. But Hong Kong can take some comfort in the
fact that the central government has shown great determination in addressing the
various environmental issues.
It is unfair for Hong Kong to blame all of its environmental woes on its
neighbours. Worsening air quality is only one of the many manifestations of
environmental neglect. Hong Kongers began seeing less and less of a blue sky
long before the haze began to drift in. Many Hong Kongers cannot see the sky,
blue or grey, from their apartments unless they stick their heads out of the
windows and take a look straight up. They are the people who live in the lower
floors of high-rise buildings surrounded on all sides by many more skyscrapers.
City planning has never been a forte of the Hong Kong government. Huge chunks
of green hillsides are excavated and the harbour is filled in the name of
progress.
No hill in Hong Kong is safe from being marred by blocks of high-rise
apartment that look pretty much the same. Blending with nature has never been an
attribute that can be ascribed to any form of architectural design in Hong Kong.
Happy Valley, where I grew up, used to be a quiet residential haven
surrounded on three sides by undulating green hills. Those hills, of course, are
still there. But the view is destroyed by a solitary tall building of glass and
steel that sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. I wonder who in his or her
right mind would want to spend tens of millions of dollars for the privilege of
calling that monstrosity home.
Not far away, a bird sanctuary was completely obliterated to make way for the
construction of a huge luxury apartment complex. Now, no bird sings. All that
can be heard is the grunting of cars and buses climbing up the steep road.
Tsang must have felt a sense of loss, perhaps deeper than ours.
Email: jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 05/16/2006 page4)
