Does "innovation and technology" make sense for Hong Kong? 福地的宿命
Chief Executive CY Leung, supported by local lawmakers in the technology sector, made repeated attempts to establish a new Innovation and Technology Bureau. While the idea was still blocked by a few filibustering lawmakers, the Chief Executive has set to bypass the LegCo by appointing a de facto bureau head as his personal consultant who would, under limited legitimacy, implement the undisclosed technology-packaged policy. So far, Hong Kong has not been successful in developing innovative technologies or products, compared to Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, although we were never short of funds and relevant manpower. Our universities are among the best in the world, and our city has always been filled with active investors. In the 1970s we were on the top of Asian's four little dragons. But now, Taiwan and South Korean are way ahead of us in terms of innovation and technology in some selected areas. Of course, reasons for our failure can always be conjectured by academics and economists who identify apparent correlations with deficiency in our education and technology policy that has led to our current passive state of innovation and creativity. While these correlations do illuminate our inherent weaknesses in breeding innovation (see related blog*), they can't be the gist of the problem if we acknowledge our success in the 1970s.
What has happened since the 1980s? Hong Kong has been a lucky city, and we have benefited tremendously from China's economic reform with apparently disproportionately small effort. Industries began to move to the north. We earned more money, with less effort! There was no reason to do anything risky. Incentives to innovate got tapered off rapidly. The get-quick-money mindset had proven to work, and only got reinforced in the 1990s. The Asian financial turmoil after 1997 had only a short-term negative impact on us, as we recovered quickly and continued to enjoy the benefits brought by the tremendous momentum in China's economic growth. We did enter another short-term recession in 2003 when SARS hit our city, but we weren't hurt to any significant extent as a new CEPA arrangement, a gift from Beijing, quickly resuscitated the city's dying economy. Again, we earned more money, with less effort! Then, in the past 10 years, the number of mainland tourists escalated at an exponential rate, and investors surely knew where to place their sure-win bet, and they did make a huge fortune almost effortlessly.
However, the question is who in Hong Kong have actually profited the most in this process? Apart from the retail and service industry that generates quick cash, what else do we have? Real-estate developers and landlords have always been the ultimate winners. We still, of course, have a bunch of enthusiastic and staunch industrialists, as well as innovative engineers, but they are far from the needed critical mass to drive our hi-tech industry to the same success level of our South Korean or Taiwanese counterparts. On the other hand, Hong Kong's real-estate developers and landlords are forever blessed, and their efforts are mostly and amusingly spent in collecting and counting cash! Disparity of wealth has widened in our society. What kind of jobs do we still offer to our young school leavers? Would investors be interested in technology which is comparatively risky, if they could secure 2000% growth within 5 years investing in the retail or service industry (targeting mainland tourists)? It is therefore not difficult to understand why we are what we are! For Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, developing innovative technology and the exploitation of talents and manpower are their only way out. They got no choice!
Can we, or do we want to, break this fatalistic impasse? Only when we can no longer rely on quick cash, we will be forced to seriously find our way out, work hard to create opportunities, and "begin again" to understand the importance of developing an industry that would secure real and continual prosperity of our future. But those who are currently being benefited are having strong influence on our policies, if not already in the administration, and surely they will fiercely reject any move to diminish reliance on the quick-cash economic structure that we have secured since China opened its door in the 1980s. That's pretty much the fate of this lucky city! If we continue to be blessed with quick cash, we can forget about innovation and technology, which is "too risky" and makes no sense.
Solution inspired by Chinese idiom: 破釜沉舟 "Break the caldrons (破釜) and sink the boats (沉舟)"
When there are easier options available to you, it makes no sense to go for a more difficult path. But if you had burnt your boat, you would have to take the best option, however difficult, that optimizes your chance of survival. We are surely capable of developing an innovative technology industry, as we already possess the ingredients and have met the prerequisite (money and people), but what hinders us is the luck of earning easy money that "we" won't want to give up. Our businessmen already yelled and screamed when they saw a mere few percent drop in sales (not even reducing the size of their 釜 to any significant extent, let alone 破釜) in their pharmacy, cosmetics, jewellery and luxurious fashion stores during Occupy last year, while they had pretended to forget about the burgeoning rate at which their businesses grew in the past 5 years. Our policy makers are inherently short-sighted, as they have to look after the short-term interests of investors. The same kind of 釜 will continue to get bigger and benefit those who have the privilege to own or control them. Society will continue to be divided and the gap will only get wider. Jobs will continue to be offered around these narrow kinds of 釜, and our young people will see no new opportunities. The problem is simply fundamental but the solution is bound to be complex as it would involve breaking the existing 釜 of the privileged. But if we succeed, we will be building a new, stronger and more lasting 釜 that will benefit the entire population.