In a speech delivered at the ceremony celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, on July 1, 2022, President Xi Jinping put forward “four proposals” for Hong Kong to improve its governance, while emphasizing that “to promote the development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, it is of urgency to improve Hong Kong’s governance system, governance capacity, and governance efficacy”.
After much effort, the current-term SAR government established the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit (CEPU) in December 2022 to enhance the government’s capabilities in research and advocacy on long-term and strategic issues, in order to address the needs of Hong Kong arising from the development and reforms under “one country, two systems” and strengthen the institutional research capability on public policy to better fulfill the expectations of President Xi. I was honored to be appointed by the chief executive as a member of the Research Strategy Expert Group under the CEPU last year, and reappointed in May. In this article, I would like to talk about the functions and work of the Expert Group members, and share with the community how we have been maintaining positive and efficient interactions with the responsible people of the CEPU for taking forward and implementing some of the policies and measures.
The thinking functions of a ‘think tank’
The CEPU, as its name suggests, is the “think tank” of the chief executive and the SAR government. In addition to conducting in-depth studies and assessments on the latest developments and situation in Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and overseas with a view to formulating viable measures in response, the CEPU also takes the public pulse and grasps public sentiments and opinions through web-based data analytics and networking with different stakeholders (including Expert Group members and think tanks) to develop practical policies and measures for the reference of the chief executive and various bureaus. As for the role played by Expert Group members, we are required to regularly analyze and examine specific issues in our respective expert areas with the responsible people of the CEPU. In the process, the CEPU can fully take into account the expert views of related sectors, and this will enhance the applicability of policies in their entirety and facilitate the smooth operation of the government.
For instance, the higher education sector has been urging the government for years to remove the enrollment ceiling of nonlocal students imposed on publicly funded universities and self-financing institutions. (In the past, the cap on nonlocal undergraduate enrollment of a publicly funded university was equivalent to 20 percent of its local student body, which was said to be an “additional 20 percent” enrollment of nonlocal students. Taking a local undergraduate student population of 15,000, for example, the maximum number of nonlocal students, including those from the mainland and overseas, to be admitted by the eight publicly funded universities would be 3,000. The restriction imposed on self-financing institutions was even more stringent, with most of them admitting no more than an “additional 10 percent” of nonlocal students from the mainland, Macao and Taiwan.) Removing the restriction can enable us to capitalize on our quality education resources to polish Hong Kong’s brand of quality education, facilitating the development of Hong Kong into an international education hub. This can also help attract quality talent from the mainland and overseas to study and work in Hong Kong amid the general trend of low fertility. At the chief executive’s interactive exchange question-and-answer session held on May 18, 2023, I got the chance to mention the above situation to the chief executive and suggested measures on relaxing the quota for nonlocal students, which were highly valued by the chief executive. Subsequently, the chief executive and Stephen Wong Yuen-shan, head of the CEPU, invited me to submit a detailed proposal in writing, indicating that the SAR government attached great importance to related views and their viability.
Carrying out in-depth research, offering advice and suggestions
To urge the SAR government to put the policy of developing Hong Kong into an international education hub high on its agenda, I immediately assembled a research team to work on a report. After an in-depth study, we completed a research report, which was divided into three parts; namely, “Learning from the Experiences of Others (including the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Macao SAR)”, “Current Situation in Hong Kong”, and “Recommendations”. The 99-page report begins with an account of the strategies taken by other advanced economies in pursuing the development of an international education hub, which is followed by an analysis of the problems facing Hong Kong at the moment. The last part of the report proposes a number of initiatives, including relaxing the admission quota for nonlocal students, increasing the quota of scholarships, and improving the supply of hostel facilities.
“Expert Group members give full play to their professional capacities while the CEPU humbly accepts good advice.” This description can be interpreted as the mode of interaction between the two. During the research process, the CEPU arranged a dedicated contact person for me to facilitate discussion of problems and formulation of solutions, and to help address any doubts or misgivings whenever necessary. With this arrangement, we were able to refine the details of our proposals, making sure that the recommendations were feasible and practical. Upon completion and publication, the report was immediately delivered to the chief executive, the CEPU, and relevant bureaus.
I remembered that immediately following the release of the report, there were heated debates in the community over recommendations such as the relaxation of the admission quota for nonlocal students, which caused much concern to the public. To seek public support and understanding, I gave a number of interviews to explain publicly the recommendations so as to clear up any misunderstandings and minimize controversies as far as possible.
Making things happen with convictions and persistence
In the end, the chief executive and the CEPU captured the essence of the research report, and nearly half of the recommendations therein were incorporated into the education initiatives of the 2023 Policy Address, which clearly set out the goal of developing Hong Kong into an international hub for postsecondary education. Specific measures to this end include expanding the admission quota of nonlocal students to government-funded postsecondary institutions to an “additional 40 percent”, increasing the quota of the Belt and Road Scholarship by 50 percent, and taking forward the development of postsecondary education in the Northern Metropolis.
Hong Kong is now at the stage of gradually advancing from stability to prosperity. I am delighted to see that the SAR government is making progress in improving its policy research work, with the CEPU conducting various internal discussions that help the government formulate forward-looking policies that keep abreast of the times. Having served as a member of the Expert Group for a year, I have found that it is not easy to make things happen. That said, the whole process, especially when liaising and communicating with the responsible people of the CEPU, makes me firmly believe that one can make things happen given conviction and persistence.
I hope that the CEPU will continue to strengthen its interactions with the Expert Group members in the future so that we can come up with more brilliant ideas to start more new chapters for Hong Kong together.
The author is a member of the Legislative Council, a member of the Research Strategy Expert Group under the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit, and a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
