Flying Sand | Why Hong Kong needs a brand new police force for a 21st century China
As the last expats in the city’s law enforcement head for the exit, Niall Fraser asks if Hong Kong requires a policing revolution to create a lean and keen crime-fighting force
Given that the name of my local pub in Sai Kung is The Duke of York, it is perhaps not surprising that a British tourist on his maiden visit to Hong Kong engaged me in conversation as I sat at the bar nursing a contemplative beer.
He was full of all the usual questions, which I answered dutifully but with barely disguised boredom hoping he would take the hint and leave me alone. But no, this one had been at the front of the queue when the persistence pills were dished out.
Sensing my irritation at being dragged into his quest to discover what makes today’s Hong Kong tick, he went for broke: “OK, OK … if this place was a bloke you know quite well, how would you sum up his personality?”
Straight away and with a confidence only three or four pints provides, I said: “He’s the sort of bloke who could start a fight in an empty house.”
And with that he drained his pint, shook my hand and moved on to his next victim, who, it quickly became clear, was less accommodating. It wasn’t long before I had to pull them apart as nose-to-nose finger jabbing threatened to escalate into physical violence.
In more than 25 years of determined socialising I can count on the fingers of one hand such flare-ups I have witnessed in this city of seven million or so souls, solid evidence that Hong Kong is – as we are regularly told by the authorities – one of the safest cities in the world.
