Stephen Vines

The View | Hong Kong’s decision to shut out Mong Kok street performers shows government-business relations are a mess

Stephen Vines says the closing of the Sai Yeung Choi Street South pedestrian zone shows that Hong Kong’s ‘pro-business’ politicians clearly favour some types of business over others

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Street performers and passers-by throng the Mong Kok pedestrian zone, days before district councillors voted to shut it down. Photo: Winson Wong

Stephen Vines

Published: 1:44pm, 30 May 2018Updated: 10:36pm, 30 May 2018

Rarely does an event occur that so perfectly tells us so much about the role of government, the role of business and how they impact citizens caught in the middle.

Members of the Yau Tsim Mong District Council almost certainly did not intend to provide us with an opportunity to contemplate this nexus, but should be thanked all the same.

About two weeks ago, they voted to shut down the pedestrian zone in the busy shopping area of Mong Kok’s Sai Yeung Choi Street South. They voted to do this to facilitate the removal of street entertainers whose activities have given rise to numerous complaints about noise and obstruction.

This hardly sounds as though it raises earth-shaking issues but, as ever, the big stuff is often hidden in the little stuff.

It should be noted that in Hong Kong government, district councils have no power to implement policies; they can only recommend measures that are then passed up to the central bureaucracy.

From left, Yau Tsim Mong district councillor Wong Kin-san, James Wong of the Transport Department, district councilor Chan Siu-tong and district coucil vice-chair Wong Shu-ming attend a council meeting on closing the Sai Yeung Choi Street pedestrian zone at the Mong Kok government offices. Photo: Dickson Lee