CBRA's Review of "Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong"

Canadian Book Review Annual featured “Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong” as Editor’s Choice: Scholarly for the months of September and October 2007. Canadian Book Review Annual is an annual publication that provides the most comprehensive collection of authoritative reviews of English-language trade, scholarly and reference books published in Canada each year. The CBRA review can be found here.

The full review is as follows:-

4037 Poon, Alice. Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong. Richmond: Alice Poon, 2005. 162p. biblio. index. $23.50. ISBN 0-9738760-0-X. CCIP. DDC 333.33'7'095125.

"Oligopoly pays." That’s the chief lesson emerging from Alice Poon’s excellent survey of Hong Kong’s real estate and infrastructure economies. Although Hong Kong is often characterized as one of the world’s freest economies, it is in fact controlled by a handful of wealthy individuals and companies who stifle—rather than encourage—competition.

Poon dissects the sinews of Hong Kong "big money" and isolates its key components, those being legislative and legal sway over land and competitive policies. Hong Kong’s biggest fortunes owe their growth and security to dominance over a wide spectrum of businesses ranging from transport, public utilities, supermarkets, and food distribution to, most importantly, land development. Huge amounts of real estate are developed by a handful of large companies who control all aspects of supply, construction, and property management. Indeed, the usual hallmarks of classically defined competitive markets are nearly absent; instead, Hong Kong’s market structure suffers from steep barriers to entry and government policies that serve to bolster the market positions of a half dozen huge conglomerates.

The situation of near-anarchy for Hong Kong’s corporate heavyweights may make for impressive annual reports but does little to relieve Hong Kong’s mounting social and economic tensions. Poon carefully details how government "of the rich, by the rich, for the rich" in Hong Kong has damaged civil norms and deprived its population of economic security and well-being. Not surprisingly, articulate protest groups have lodged forceful criticism of "business as usual" and gained widespread support, proving that discontent is deep-seated and justified.

Poon’s concise, well-argued analysis is one of the few available English-language sources on Hong Kong’s predicament. While Hong Kong’s once-vigorous and argumentative press has lost its teeth following the takeover, new outlets such as blogs have assumed huge importance as a barricade for free expression and democratic principles. With Shanghai rapidly eclipsing Hong Kong as the banking and finance powerhouse for China’s breakneck growth, there’s a chance that competition may in fact re-emerge and make for the kind of "popular" entrepreneurship long absent in Hong Kong.

Gary Watson

Responses to A Tribute to My Primary School

Since the publishing of the post “A Tribute to My Primary School”, there have been many responses from our old school mates, some of which I would like to share. I have copied below messages from emails received. Please just note that I’m nowhere near what some of them made me out to be about writing…. From So Chun Hoi: “After reading the article of Alice, I think many of us are eager to meet our Math teacher Ng Sir at the coming event, but it is heard that he will not join this gathering, may I suggest every one of us to send him an email requesting him to come.” From Mak Sui Man (Rachel Poon): “Hi, all, I did not find time to read Poon Wai Han's blog until this wee hours of the day. and, once I read it, I got so excited and could not help responding though I was supposed to get up to rush through a few things.. I was in 6C and of course would not have a clue about 6B. Yet, Alice, you have helped me put into words of pictures the sweet memory I had for my beloved primary school. Thank you so much. I am so proud of having authors in our class of such calibre- you and Kan Mo Han who writes Chinese books.A few things of curiosity:1. I remember having the' fatal' exams all in one day. folks, pl share our memory bank2. I tried to guess the little five, are they Wong Woon Sing (which cannot be wrong), Fung Miu Han, Lee for Lee Tat Yee? , Chiu for Chiu Yat Sing? Have I got them all wrong?3. I wonder whether Ng Sir is reading our mail. If he had, he could not but feel our love and respect for him. (pl. note that I have deliberately deleted his address on this mail). Apparently not a regular user of the internet communication, he has been a very quiet reader if he had been reading. I do wonder how he felt about us. Actually I have been procrastinating about writing him a personal letter to thank him specially for being one of the most important persons to give me the 'magic wand' that cast a life-changing spell in my life.I do have a frantic idea to suggest, for those who shared the gratitude of Alice and me: could we each write a piece of our memory about him to make into a booklet or something and send to him. Wo and Winnie, I am not proposing this as part of the big event as you may feel it would make it look unfair on other teachers [that is why I tried to exclude other teachers on this mail too]. But I am curious of how Ng Sir touched the hearts of different students and do want to find a platform to share mine [and I do not have a blog]Btw, how I wish all these could reach a few of our classmates like Wong Hing!Also, anyone has contact with Chow Po Ching who is the Chinese teacher to 6C and possibly 5b?I really have to go now.” From Leung Sing Sze (Angela Fu): “Thanks for sharing a beautiful friendship story of the “Little Five”. Throughout primary school, I thought little boys were put on earth to annoy girls and I couldn’t wait to get to an all girls’ middle school. Was I narrow!!” From Wong Tai-chu (Sabina Chan): “I didn't know we have such a famous author (Alice poon) attended our old primary school. I live in Washington state, but I come up to Richmond (Vancouver) every weekend. Unfortunately I can't attend the reunion but would like to see photos. Somehow I really don't remember what year I graduated from EHR. I was graduated from high school in 1967, so I think I must belonged to the class of 1962 then. My triplet brothers, Wong tai-hang, tai-cheung, tai-kwan and my youngest brother, Wong tai-Kai, also graduated from EHR. may be one of you remembered us. I left HK in 1970 to attended the University of Washington and hate to say it, I totally don't remember the old school days and would like someone to fill me in.” From Rolland Lau Hoo-Kwan: “Hi Sabrina, Just trying to help filling you in. My name is Lau Hoo Kwan. I have a class photo to 62AM Class 6A but you are not in it. But I DO remember your name the names of your three brothers (They must have been quite famous back then being triplets.)So, I guess you are graduate of 62AM but not Class 6A.Hope this help. Sorry that you couldn't make the reunion.”

A Tribute to My Primary School

I had just finished tackling the mathematics exam that day, for which “Ng Sir”, as we used to call this caring and dedicated math teacher of ours, had prepared us by tirelessly giving after-school tutoring in the school hall for three evenings a week in the months leading up to the exam.. My mind was a total blank and my pent-up emotions just had to be given a cathartic release. When asked by a classmate how I did, I simply couldn’t react in any way but by letting go a profuse cascade of tears. I was so unnerved by the maths exam that I was not at all confident about my performance. On the bright side though, I felt pretty sure I would get high grades for the English and Chinese exams.

For a lot of primary 6 students who came from poor families like myself, the secondary school entrance examination was one big hurdle to cross in our young lives, as we had to compete for a very limited number of seats in much coveted well-known English secondary schools, whose selection criteria were invariably top grades in all of the three key subjects: Chinese, English and Mathematics. Being able to get into one of those few renowned schools was equivalent to being given a magic wand which could cast a life-changing spell on one’s teenage years and one’s future.

The subject of maths had always been my bete noire. What made matters worse was that the secondary school entrance exam was designed to not only test one’s arithmetic skills, but also one’s brain agility (a student had to answer 100 questions in a one-and-a-half- hour duration) and as such was an extremely stressful test for a primary 6 student. Mind you, those questions all required calculations to be done and were not multiple choice questions.

As much as it was a tension-filled 1-day examination, it was also the most competitive and stimulating task that we had ever attempted. Now in retrospect, it was probably the expected competition that had worked as a motivating force that pushed us to do the best we could and excel in all those three subjects, which helped to lay an essential foundation for our secondary and post-secondary education and to prepare us for our later challenges in life. After all, competition is omnipresent in the adult world, and the earlier you get trained for it, the better.

I have always felt that I owe deeply to my primary school headmaster and teachers not only for the solid primary education I received, but also for their ethical and moral teachings and the way they imparted their values on us by their own examples.

Our headmaster 容宜燕 was a gentle, compassionate and highly respected education professional, whose kind complexion always radiated warmth, intelligence, and paternal love for his students. Every week he would give a short inspiring speech before class to students lined up tidily in the school playground on the second level. The speeches were mostly touching anecdotes from which moral lessons could be drawn. Even the usually most unruly of students would behave and quietly listen from start to finish.

There were a total of 4 classes of primary 6 students (6A, 6B, 6C & 6D) and I was in class 6B. There were five of us in 6B who were Ng Sir’s favorites and we were called the “little five”, as we were of relatively small build and were all seated in the front row. Two of us were girls and the other three boys (girls – Fung & myself; boys - Lee, Wong and Chiu).

Ng Sir was the most hardworking of all teachers and gave generously of his own time to tutor students after school hours. He was well aware how daunting the secondary school entrance exam in maths was and wanted us to be well prepared and well trained in the subject. He made his tutoring sessions open to all four classes and always managed to make what appeared to some of us the most inscrutable subject a little easier to understand.

Our class mistress and English teacher was Mrs. Lee, a bespectacled, care-free, independent and outspoken personality. Considering we didn’t start to learn the 26 English letters until we were in primary 3, Mrs. Lee’s efforts to prepare us for the rigorous secondary school entrance exam were quite a feat, to say the least. Our Chinese teacher was Miss Tsui, who was a demure, soft-spoken and gracious lady, though she never had a problem commanding our total attention in class.

On one fateful day, the results of the secondary school entrance exam were announced. Happily the “little five” all got accepted into reputable English schools. Lee and Wong went on to St. Paul’s Co-ed College, Chiu got accepted by Wah Yan College, Fung went to Ying Wah Girls’ College and I went to St. Paul’s Convent School.

To this day, I am still in contact with Wong, Lee and Chiu (although we haven’t had a get-together for ages). Our greatest regret is that somehow we lost the contact of Fung many years ago.

In those days, the five of us used to play together during recesses on the school rooftop playground (which was reserved for primary 6 students). Our most favorite game was “acrobatic jumping on rubber-band string” which required great physical agility. Fung was the best at this game and always scored highest. During class times, we also used to help each other with our school work. Lee and Fung, who lived near me, used to stop by my home before the three of us trotted off to school together.

Our primary school, which saw us grow from childhood into adolescence, is named Eastern Hospital Road Government Primary School (東院道官立小學）and is located at the junction of Eastern Hospital Road (東院道) and Cotton Path (紅棉徑), near the So Kon Po Recreation Ground (掃桿埔運動場). The school was built atop a small hill in serene surroundings. What I remember most vividly are the flaming red cotton trees that we used to walk by on Cotton Path during spring time.

There was an access path, fenced on one side, that sloped down from the school entrance to the road level. The “little five” had a habit of leaning against the fence at the bottom of the slope, where we would wait for everybody to arrive before marching up together into the school hall, and while waiting, we used to chat while fixing our loving gaze at the school facade. In our heart, the school will always be a monument that we behold with affection and respect, just like when we were small.

PS I've just learned about the 50th anniversary commemorative event of Eastern Hospital Road Government Primary School to be held on December 1, 2007 and the alumni website: http://www.ehrgps.com/. I've also learned from this article that Ronny Tong used to be a student of this school.

Different Women, Different Fates

Like a lot of other teenagers from my generation who came from financially struggling families, my very first income-generating stint right after graduating from secondary school was tutoring. In those days of economic stringency, when newer handed-down clothes were already luxury items for me, a seventeen-year-old, the burden often fell squarely on the first-born child of cash-strapped families to find ways of contributing to the family coffer soonest possible, especially when the supposed breadwinner had never assumed the responsibility of feeding his offspring.

Anyway, even if one’s wish to find a tutoring job were urgent, whether one could quickly land an offer depended a lot on whether one had the right relations. I was fortunate to have a rich aunt (my father’s sister) who befriended a lot of rich tai-tais through mahjong playing, one of whom, through my aunt’s introduction, engaged me to tutor her nine-year old daughter for a monthly fee of HK$100. My mother used my first month’s income (I handed every cent of my income to my mum) to buy me my first ever new winter overcoat at the Dai Yuan department store (大元百貨公司) in Causeway Bay (situated at approximately where the Sogo department store now stands). It was a greenish-brown checkered knee-length woolen coat with fake-fur lining, bronze buckles and a hood and it was British made. I kept it for a long time.

Let’s turn back to my tutoring job. There was one particular episode that has distinctly stuck in my mind. One day when I showed up as usual at 3:00 pm at Mrs. C’s (my employer) residence, which was located at Fung Fai Terrace, Happy Valley (now redeveloped into Celeste Court), I discovered that the household had a TV taboo, which was whenever it showed any movie starring a certain Hong Kong actress (I’m not disclosing the name for obvious reasons), the TV set had to be turned off at once. As I entered the luxury apartment, I heard Mrs. C shout her command grouchily to the servant who was dusting the sofas, “Turn off the TV right now! Who turned it on?” Although I thought it strange at the time, wondering nonetheless what on earth could have made Mrs. C so mad, the matter slipped my mind until towards the end of my assignment, when I learned about the background story from my aunt.

It turned out that Mr. C, who was a very successful businessman, had been keeping the actress as his mistress in a separate residence with his wife’s knowledge. The actress was very famous too and had played the leading lady role in numerous Cantonese movies, opposite actors like 張英, 胡楓. It goes without saying that she was much younger and prettier than Mrs. C. In those days, rich men keeping concubines and mistresses was almost seen as a symbol of status in a male dominant society. There was little choice for the poor wives: they either had to play deaf and dumb or face the harsh reality of divorce, which, other than bringing on ignominy and disgrace, would mean the end of economic security and possibly being alienated from their own children. It was really not a choice for women who had practically no earning capacity. While I sympathized with Mrs. C, it also dawned on me that education of the self, through conventional or unconventional channels, is the sine qua non for females to gain their economic independence.

I guess Hong Kong women are lucky to have become liberated, having come a long way from those dark days of male chauvinism. However, this brings to mind the still lurid situation of many women in Southeast Asia, especially in the Philippines. Last night I happened to be watching a documentary made by CBC on the subject of prostitution in the Philippines, which made me sick to the stomach. Girls as young as twelve to fourteen are forced into prostitution by abject poverty. They are held in captivity in dirty cubicles and are made to “service” as many as fifteen customers a day. There is just no hope for them to be saved from the inhumane scourge of a wicked society that is bent on decimating females. They often die at a young age from AIDS or other diseases. Can such a society be called civilized, or even close?

Myanmar Near the Tipping Point?

Perhaps it’s no surprise that in the face of long-time political oppression and abject poverty, the Burmese people’s deep-seated anger has finally erupted in the form of street protests led by the monks. Everything happens for a reason. In Myanmar (current name for Burma), decades of gross social and economic inequalities under the rule of a repressive and corrupt military government are very near, if they have not already reached, a tipping point.

The only twist is that, according to Amy Chua’s “World on Fire”, since so-called market-oriented policies were introduced in 1989, reversing three decades of socialist central planning, ethnic Chinese who make up about 5 percent of Myanmar’s population, in collusion with the military generals, have been the impetus in worsening the society’s imbalances.

Here are some excerpts from the book that may help us understand better the background situation and underlying sentiments there:-

“Free markets are supposed to lift all boats, and indeed often do. But this is distinctly not the perception of Burma’s roughly 30 million ethnic Burman majority. In their view, markets and economic liberalization have led to the domination and looting of their country by a relative handful of ‘outsiders’, chiefly ethnic Chinese, in symbiotic alliance with SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council)……..”

“Meanwhile, just below the surface, anti-Chinese hostility seethes among the Burman majority. As hatred of SLORC intensifies, hatred for the Chinese intensifies as well, not without justification: Crony capitalistic relationships between SLORC generals and Chinese entrepreneurs, not to mention arms sales from China, have been critical in propping up Burma’s reviled ruling junta. But in the current reign of fear, there is no avenue for venting resentment, whether against SLORC, the rich Chinese, or the market-oriented policies that have allowed both of these groups to make hundreds of millions while indigenous Burmans become an increasingly subjugated underclass in their own country……”

“It is an understatement to say that, in terms of financial and human capital, the vast majority of indigenous Burmans, roughly 69 percent of the population, cannot compete with the country’s 5 percent Chinese minority. Three-quarters of the Burmans live in extreme rural poverty, typically engaging in paddy production or subsistence farming…….”

“….as ethnic Chinese developers in the nineties snapped up all the prime real estate in Mandalay – making fast fortunes as property values doubled and tripled in the chaotic new markets – indigenous Burmese Mandalayans were pushed further and further away from their native homes. (In 1990, SLORC had already forcibly relocated dissidents and Mandalayan monks.)………”

“Today, ethnic Chinese Burmese own nearly all of Mandalay’s shops, hotels, restaurants, and prime commercial and residential real estate. The same is more or less true in Rangoon……”

Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that the monks’ peaceful marches will not lead to violent clamp down by the rulers, yet again. It might be time for the Chinese living in Myanmar to do some soul-searching and hopefully such incidents might help them realize that happiness built upon others’ pain cannot last long.

Tea Time!

If Hong Kong people were asked what aspect of English culture had affected their personal lives most from the colonial days, I guess varied answers would pop up, depending on their own experiences. My own answer would be, apart from the English language which I love, the uniquely English habit to enjoy afternoon tea, which I had learned at a very tender age, although not directly from the English but from a distant uncle (a second cousin of my father’s) and aunt.

When I was a small kid, my mother used to take me and my two siblings to family gatherings on some weekends at the home of this uncle and aunt who lived in a spacious flat on Robinson Road with their adopted teenage son and a servant. The usual program would be: the grown-ups would play mahjong in the living room while the kids would watch self-made mock movies created by our cousin in a bedroom.

This uncle had been educated in England and worked as a lawyer in a well-known law firm in Central. He liked to wear the Chinese-style “cheong-sam” when he went to the office. As he had a lanky physique, it worked perfectly for him. When he was home though, he would opt for the more comfortable Chinese-style front-buttoned top and pants. His wife, my aunt, liked to wear “cheong-sam” even at home and was always softspoken and gracious. The furniture in their home was mostly made of red wood, and the walls were decorated with Chinese calligraphy and paintings.

My younger sister and brother and I always loved such gatherings, as we had the chance to play with our cousin who was obsessed with making mock movies and who never failed to surprise us with his new creations. Another reason was that this was the only household we knew then who served English-style afternoon tea.

Each time we were there, at four o’clock sharp, Ah Yuk (the servant) would call the kids to the dining room, where the table would be set for tea, complete with an English silver teapot, fine china tea cups and saucers, dessert plates, a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar, a big tin of English assorted biscuits and a plate of egg tarts and cakes. The adults would stop their mahjong playing and join us. While they would be busy chatting away, we, the kids, would raid the tin of biscuits with gusto. When competition became keen over one favorite sort, it would usually be resolved by way of “stone, paper, scissors”.

Those occasional treats for us ceased when I became a teenager. As Hong Kong’s economy was starting to improve, western-style restaurants sprang up everywhere. There was one in Wanchai, on the street (天樂里) that connected Leighton Road to Hennessy Road (on which Central-bound trams from Happy Valley run), that became my favorite in my high school years, although it was only on special occasions that I was taken there to have afternoon tea. It had nice western décor with dark blue carpets and upholstery (I can’t remember the name of the restaurant) and served an afternoon tea set that included English tea and waffles with butter and syrup.

These afternoon tea experiences left an indelible imprint on my memory. Throughout my adult life, nothing delights me more than the simple pleasure of having a nice cup of black tea with milk and sugar and some pastries in a lazy afternoon on weekends and holidays. Even the world-wide craze for Starbucks coffee and their fanciful drinks hasn’t been able to change this afternoon tea habit of mine!

Storm Looming

Recommended reading:

U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel
By Mike Whitney (Counterpunch)

An excerpt:-

"A more powerful tsunami is about to descend on the United States where many of the banks have been engaged in the same practices and are using the same business model as Northern Rock. Investors are no longer buying CDOs, MBSs, or anything else related to real estate. No one wants them, whether they’re subprime or not. That means that US banks will soon undergo the same type of economic gale that is battering the U.K right now. The only difference is that the U.S. economy is already listing from the downturn in housing and an increasingly jittery stock market. That’s why Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson rushed off to England yesterday to see if he could figure out a way to keep the contagion from spreading."

It must be pretty serious business if the U.K. bank run could incite the U.S. Treasury Secretary to take the trip there!

Food for Thought - The Irony of Capitalism

In this article, Frank Lin tells us about the lack of compassion of America’s middle class and wealthy for those left to destitution in the stratum of abject poverty.

Self interest and profit motive, the cornerstone of capitalism, while responsible for showering enviable wealth upon the American people in the last century, has not only brought about an unbridgeable chasm between the rich and the poor, but has also hardened the hearts of the more privileged.

Capitalism has always condoned merciless competition and survival of the fittest, and people embracing this conceptual system of economic organization have always been well aware of the inevitable outcome of inequalities under such a system. But even the staunchest of supporters would admit that whoever wins under this system does so because of a confluence of good skill, hard work and good luck. Men are hardly equal at birth, much less the shares of luck that they are destined to enjoy after birth.

The irony of capitalism is that while it rewards those hard-working risk-takers on the grounds that an individual is the rightful owner of the fruits of his labor (and a good deal of luck), it also abets inequalities in incomes and hence social stratification of individuals, which defeats the ideal of individual liberty that it promises.

Lin’s article reminds me of this observation by Paul Bowles, author of a new book titled “Capitalism”:-

“It is true that in responding to consumers’ material wants, wherever they come from, for the majority of the population in most countries, the capitalist system performs this function reasonably well, and particularly well for wealthy individuals with trivial desires. However, it fails miserably to fill the needs of those who have no demand because they have no income. The rise of homelessness on the streets of every Western city in the past 30 years and the permanence of food banks demonstrate that capitalism is failing to meet many people’s daily wants even in relatively rich societies.”

A Poem by Mr. Xin, a Metal Worker

One of the metal workers who went on strike in the last couple of weeks handed a Local Action member three poems, which have been posted by Chu Hoi Dick on the InmediaHK website.

The first one of the three poems is reconstructed from a famous lyrical poem called Man Jiang Hong (滿 江 紅) written by Yue Fei (岳 飛), who was a patriotic general of the Southern Song Dynasty, when he was 30 years old. The other two poems are also reconstructions of classical poems by famous poets. I find the first one to be the best of the three and have translated it below. Beneath my translation is a translation found on Wikipedia of the original poem for easy comparison.

My Translation of Mr. Xin’s Poem:

“My wrath is on government-business collusion,
As we laborers toil through sweltering heat and fierce rainstorms.
Our deeds are done on dusty sites and we often work right into the night.
Vile businessmen don’t have a conscience; they are beasts whose aim is to exploit.
Our humiliation of a decade is still not vindicated.
The pain of laborers will never be soothed.
Let us keep up the strike until we have our way.
Despite hunger and insult, we swear we will make businessmen pay.
Let us begin anew to recover our dignity, before we bundle rods.”

Wikipedia Translation of the Original Poem:

“My wrath bristles through my helmet, the rain stops as I stand by the rail.
I look up towards the sky and let loose a passionate roar.
At age thirty my deeds are nothing but dust, my journey has taken me over eight thousand li (里 – about ½ a kilometer).
So do not sit by idly, for young men will grow old in regret.
The humiliation of Jing Kang still lingers.
When will the pain of his subjects ever end?
Let us ride our chariots through the Helan Pass.
There we shall feast and drink barbarian flesh and blood.
Let us begin anew to recover our old empire, before paying tribute to the Emperor.”

Development and the Environment

In Ordinary Gweilo’s post “Out through the Window”, he says: “In Hong Kong (and large parts of China) that means designing buildings that can be kept cool in the summer without excessive use of air-conditioning. It's not happening, is it? Developers prefer to throw up apartments with thin walls and hardly any insulation. Even if you are sceptical about global warming, surely it has to be a good thing to be cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter without having to pay a small fortune to CLP or HK Electric?”

Another blogger Daai Tou Laam has a post “Government Listens to Elite, Masses Can Suck on a Tailpipe” where he delivers a news release about the Town Planning Board’s rejection of an application by the environmental group, Green Sense, to reduce the density of a West Kowloon site and to include a 10-meter wind corridor in the proposed development. The rejection apparently came through because of objections from the developer and owner of the site, Sun Hung Kai Properties, on grounds that the application infringes on their private property right and could threaten investor confidence.

Then there was Li Ka Shing’s comment on TV that if the density of a development site were reduced, it would adversely impact government’s treasury as well as citizens’ income.

Here are some observations:

Thin walls without any insulation means less quantities of concrete and would be a plus on cost-savings for developers. Air-conditioning charges would be the homeowners’ or tenants’ liability once the built apartments are sold, and thus are not the developers’ concern.

Lower density eats right into developers’ profits and is and must remain a taboo. Developers would naturally not want to comply with any of the environmentalists’ requests that would cost them more money, especially if market conditions do not allow them to pass on the additional cost to consumers.

Li was not wrong in pointing out that government would also stand to lose in terms of land revenue as lower density on sites would mean lower land premium receipts for government.

Can it be any clearer that from the developers’ standpoint, cost and profit concerns always trump environment concerns?

On the other hand, if there are no specific environmental regulations either in the building code or in the lease conditions, then a developer does not have any legal responsibility to comply. By the same token, based on the concept of the rule of law, government is also contractually obliged to let a developer build to whatever density ratio that is written in the Conditions of Sale (i.e. lease conditions) of a site and under current building and planning regulations once that site is sold (as in the above case).

All in all, the above situation and incidence suggest there is an urgent need for a revamp, with public input, of existing land development policy, building and planning regulations in light of the growing social demand for greater efforts on environmental protection and more livable neighborhoods. It may also be time for government to review the sustainability of a land revenue-reliant fiscal structure.

Hong Kong Mental Health Volunteer Group

I've almost forgotten all about a request from one of my readers, Benita Chick, to help promote her website which was set up to help mental health patients and their family members and friends.

Here is a link to that website: http://hkmentalhealthsupport.org/

I hope this would help a little. Benita, keep up the good work!

Why Did Financial Markets Crumble?

Last week, we saw a panicky meltdown of global stock markets (with the exception of those in China) with the U.S. Federal Reserve, European and Japanese Central banks all scrambling to pour money into their respective financial systems in an attempt to avert potential credit crunches. What on earth is happening?

Philip Bowring in his Asia Sentinel article tries to identify the proximate causes, which lie with the structuring and shady operation of the global financial markets, while Max Wolff at The Huffington Post helps us understand in his blogpost the ultimate causes, which emanated from the United States’ build-up of the housing bubble along with unmanageable sub-prime debt.