Opinion | How John Lee can secure his legacy beyond national security legislation

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu will deliver the third of his scheduled five policy addresses next month. Given the time needed to turn new initiatives into completed actions, it is probably the last chance for him to make his mark in history for something other than enactment of national security legislation.

I have a suggestion about what Lee’s next major target should be – tackling subdivided flats. But before we get into that, I will urge Lee to first be completely frank about Hong Kong’s economic prospects in the next few years.

According to some commentators, including former Singapore diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, the coming decades will be dominated by the clash between the United States and China. That means the squeeze on this country – by way of trade barriers, obstructions to investment, normal business and technology dealings – is going to be a fact of economic life for the foreseeable future.

As China’s international financial hub and primary business bridge to the rest of the world, Hong Kong is in the middle of the bullseye. There is no sense in sugarcoating the situation. Hongkongers are knowledgeable – they see the monthly retail sales statistics and the boarded-up shops – but they are also resilient.

They can handle the truth and have no patience for flimflam. Our recovery from the 2019 social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic has been slow, and our gross domestic product is only just getting back to 2018 levels. Future growth is also likely to be modest as it is constrained by US measures.

Paradoxically, this is precisely the time we must back away from the “wolf warrior” vocabulary that has come to dominate recent official statements. Terms such as “shameless”, “smear” and “slander” might well be true, but that kind of language is counterproductive. They are like water off a duck’s back to our opponents while alienating our potential friends. They make us sound like unruly teenagers squabbling in the schoolyard.