Hong Kong, 29 March 2023: It takes about 10 minutes to walk briskly from our office building in Queen’s Road East to the Wanchai waterfront. You must cross several busy roads, either at traffic lights or via footbridges, before reaching the promenade by the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where you can admire this city’s iconic harbour.
Some 150 years ago, our spot on Queen’s Road East WAS the waterfront. A clue can be found in the name of nearby Ship Street, which was originally the site of a dockyard. The first land reclamations began in the late 1800s to relieve the densely populated area and create better infrastructure. Even in my extended stay in this city – 41 years and counting – the Wanchai shoreline has been pushed back a couple of hundred metres. To be clear, land reclamation has played a major role in transforming Hong Kong from sleepy fishing village to vast, dynamic city. Around a third of our citizens reside on land where there used to be water.
So, reclamation in space-starved Hong Kong is hardly new, but it’s still a hot topic. Senior government advisor Regina Ip has this week raised eyebrows by questioning the cost of building three artificial islands in this city’s western waters for housing and commercial purposes. She says the HK$580 billion (US$78 billion) price tag for the hugely ambitious Lantau Tomorrow Vision project – which aims to contain 210,000 new flats and create the city’s third business district – is “very preliminary”. The grand plan, announced by former Chief Executive Carrie Lam in her 2018 policy address, is controversial not only due to budget concerns but also its environmental impact.
Regina, a Legislative Councillor who is also Convenor of the Executive Council – Chief Executive John Lee’s de facto cabinet – would prefer her government colleagues to focus on the less contentious Northern Metropolis development (another Carrie special, unveiled 18 months ago) close to the mainland border, which will span more than 300 sq km and accommodate some 2.5 million people. She questions whether there is enough cash in the coffers to push ahead with both projects.
The Development Bureau, mindful of Regina’s clout, says it is grateful for her suggestions, in stark contrast to its scathing response to recent criticisms of the Lantau plan by NGOs Greenpeace and Liber Research Community, which it dismissed as “alarmist and fallacious”. Amid the angst and argument generated by these mega-projects, development expert Ng Mee Kam, Director of the Urban Studies Programme at Chinese University, politely offers some advice for our leaders: “Instead of just criticising, the government should list all its responses clearly.” Quite.
A prominent lawmaker openly questioning government policy is rather old fashioned in Hong Kong these days. After all, 89 of the Legislative Council’s 90 members are pro-establishment. Regina’s remarks have prompted a flurry of opinions and insights from commentators, questioning if she has placed the government in an awkward position. Rather appropriately, given that she’s concerned about the cost of digging and moving huge quantities of earth, such media speculation appears to be making a mountain out of a molehill.
No worries, John Lee assures us. He reiterates that work on both projects will proceed simultaneously and points to Hong Kong’s need to be competitive on the international stage: “I hope our vision can be far-reaching and we should look at the bigger picture, rather than getting narrower and smaller.”
A key attraction of the Northern Metropolis, of course, is its proximity to the Mainland. The area will include up to seven border crossing points to further integrate our city with the Greater Bay Area economic hub. This is clearly a good thing, although we now have Hong Kong citizens complaining about “poor quality” tour groups from the north interrupting their idyll. We are told Mainland visitors are crowding venues, making too much noise and – shock, horror – eating on the streets. Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung has pledged to work with the travel industry to restore order. Nice timing! The kerfuffle comes just after Equal Opportunities Chairperson Ricky Chu’s pledge to better protect Mainlanders – whether residents, tourists or students – from racial discrimination.
It goes without saying that members of Hong Kong’s vast domestic worker community know all about prejudice, an issue exacerbated during the pandemic: advised by the government to stay home on their rest day; summoned for mandatory testing when their employers were not; and segregated into their own designated quarantine hotels, to highlight just a few examples. Hence, it was an absolute pleasure to host Cynthia Tellez, General Manager of the Mission For Migrant Workers, on our latest Law & More podcast to talk about the fantastic work carried out by her organisation.
In finishing, I should highlight a notable event last Sunday: Hong Kong’s first officially authorised protest in almost three years. True, police insisted on tight security measures, but it was still a rare show of dissent. And what were residents demonstrating against? Dig this, my friends, land reclamation.
Until next time, everybody!
Colin Cohen
Senior Partner
Boase Cohen & Collins
