Stand Up for Our Way of Life - Anthony Cheung

A group of professionals and intellectuals have come together to urge local individuals and organisations to stand up and defend Hong Kong's core values. Their action arises from a deep concern over what they see as a steady deterioration in governance, social cohesion and the public's confidence in the future. The appeal, which will appear in newspapers next Monday, has been endorsed by close to 300 leading professionals, academics, business executives and non-governmental organisation figures.

The campaign's significance lies in the fact that it is yet another attempt by the increasingly restless middle class to make its voice heard. Middle class social activism has, since July 1 last year, been a new feature of the local scene. For example, legal professionals are prominent in the Article 45 Concern Group, which champions the cause of universal suffrage and has, within less than a year, become the most popular political group in the city. Lawyers, engineers, doctors and academics were key members of the campaign to protect the harbour that forced the government to rethink its reclamation policy.

Last month, some 40 professionals from nine functional constituencies jointly issued an appeal to their fellow men and women to choose as legislative representatives those who would look beyond narrow sectoral interests and take to heart wider community concerns. This is a new brand of collective action, unlike traditional pressure-group mobilisation. Clearly, the middle class is no longer satisfied with just watching things happen. People do not hesitate to take proactive steps to influence the course of events.

Constitutional reform and freedom of expression are hot issues today, but these are not the only ones causing anxiety among the middle class. Instead, they mark the tip of the iceberg, beneath which is the perceived weakening of the Hong Kong system (institutions, processes and preferred values) that has now rung alarm bells within the wider community.

Irrespective of Hong Kong's existing shortfalls (for example, some critics see society as too geared towards material improvement and money power, resulting in an imbalanced development), one cannot deny the claim that the city has made tremendous progress in the past few decades. It has succeeded in building into its modus operandi the respect for freedom, human rights, the rule of law, integrity, knowledge and fair play. In recent years, transparency, accountability and participation have also come to be recognised as core values that most people aspire to, in order to make Hong Kong a better society in which to live. The growth of the middle class has been in tandem with Hong Kong's transformation. Any erosion of these core values is tantamount to taking away Hong Kong's raison d'etre.

Deng Xiaoping once held Hong Kong as a role model for the rest of China. What makes this city a role model is ultimately not its economic growth and affluence, but its institutional strength and liberal environment that has been conducive to free speech, new ideas, fair competition and entrepreneurship.

An awareness-raising campaign about core values is particularly pertinent just when some of the city's foundations are being called into question. Defending the core values is not just about preserving a way of life; it also contributes towards the modernisation of the Chinese nation as a whole at this crucial juncture of history.

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung is a professor in public administration at City University of Hong Kong and chairman of SynergyNet, a policy think-tank.

Originally published on 5 June, 2004, SCMP