ICAC Vs ICAC

Recently got quite disturbed by a piece of news in Hong Kong. The ex-head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong Timothy Tong Hin Ming was reported to have involved in corruptive acts while he was still on the job. Reports have it that he was spending public money to hold and invite Chinese officials to banquets and providing them with expensive gifts. Also involved in this was his partner, who was also using the ICAC money to attend these functions. It was revealed that during his office Timothy Tong had hosted more than 20 lavish banquets for top office holders in China and spent over HK$200,000 on expensive gifts to these Chinese officials.

At the time of writing the Timothy Ton had gone into “hiding” and still has not come out to explain his actions nor was there an official inquiry to this whole mess. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong Leung Chun-Ying seems to be unwilling to get involved at this stage claiming that the ICAC should complete their own investigation before other public inquiry should be carried out. There were also ex-ICAC officials coming out trying to salvage the now tattered image of ICAC claiming that Timothy Tong does not represent ICAC and so people should not judge the operation of ICAC according to the behaviour of this person. At the same time other ex-ICAC officials have started a petition for a public enquiry into this whole saga.

There are several things that troubled me in relation to this whole thing.

Firstly, The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Leung Chun Ying did not come out to make a statement immediately. His first public statement was only made two weeks after the news broke. Yes he might want to have more information before making a formal statement but then as a responsible Chief Executive, two weeks is too much considering that this is not a trivial issue – corruption claims against the body set up to fight against corruption. There are members of the Legislative Council who criticised Leung for trivialising this matter, which I do not blame them for their frustration and anger. Seriously, does Leung think that announcing no National Day fireworks is more important than making a statement and stand on the corruption claims on Timothy Tong? As the head of Hong Kong, it really baffles me about his ability to prioritise work.

The other thing that worried me was that so far there wasn’t a list of those Chinese officials that Tong was “building relationship” with. I do not know whether such a list exists but then it would be important for the public to know who these people are so that transparency could be achieved when it comes to a fullscale investigation. Who these people are could help to reflect Tong’s motivation to shower these people with gifts and inviting them to lavish banquets. I supposed maybe it is hard to obtain such a list as this would get the Chinese Government involved, but two weeks on the lack of transparency on the Chinese side was quite astounding in my opinion, especially the new head of state had publicly announced that he was determined to fight corruption in the Chinese Government.

Thirdly, Timothy Tong was still not “invited for coffee” (this is the local slang for being investigated by ICAC) and is still hiding from the public. Although there were reiterations that ICAC will conduct an internal investigation on this matter, but the fact is under such circumstance whether an internal investigation could help to rebuild the image of ICAC that was destroyed by Timothy Tong. An investigation might be an established procedure but the fact is we should assess the impact of this matter. Timothy Tony is not just any official he was the head of ICAC, a public person representing ICAC when he was in the office. Under such circumstance I personally do not think that an established internal investigative process would be sufficient to rescue what is left of ICAC after two weeks of intensive negative press.

This whole saga makes me really think about how serious is the current Hong Kong Government when it comes to fighting corruption in the territory. Or is it that now Hong Kong is part of China the new Chief Executive just thinks that Hong Kong should “blend in”? It pains me to see that while the press is following this matter intensively, the Hong Kong Government just sits there and waits it out. If that is the attitude of Leung Chun Ying about this matter, what is left for doing “clean business” in Hong Kong? Hong Kong spent decades to build up a clean business image to achieve it success today, does Leung Chun Ying still care about it or is he just happy to have the position of Chief Executive of Hong Kong on his CV and cares about nothing else? That is the question I have.

Culturally Challenged? The Future Cultural Policy of Sydney

Went to a forum held by the Belvoir Street Theatre the other night. It is an open discussion of what the future cultural policy of Sydney should be like. At the forum Rachel Healy, the Executive Cultural Manager was there to understand the concerns and to answer some questions. The current discussion paper was to develop a more cultural Sydney, and in order to develop a more cultural Sydney the voice of the artists must be heard. I am glad that Belvoir Street Theatre held this forum, as I think nothing is better for the officials to hear the voice directly from the artists.

I kicked off the forum with my own questions. I queried about how does the City of Sydney define the culture of Sydney? What is the culture of Sydney made up of? I pointed out that Sydney is a truly multicultural city but was that reflected in the culture of Sydney? Cultural activities for ethnic groups are more compartmentalised and despite they were seen, they could hardly be considered as being part of the culture of Sydney. They look exotic as flavours of the month but did Sydney take advantage of its cultural diversity and integrate this unique element into the greater culture of Sydney? I pointed out that non-Anglo performers especially actors are having hard times looking for work and the situation has not improved with some of the major players in the field. Is the greater Sydney culture ready to recognise multiculturalism as part of it, or multiculturalism is still going to be restricted as individual events on the calendar? If we could have fusion food, why the culture of Sydney cannot be a “fusion culture” that integrates elements of all cultures that built up the city?

Another point I raised was the fact that bureaucracy is working against developing a culturally rich Sydney. While we understand that even as artists we need to be responsible, but when you spent three weeks putting together a grant proposal and only after three months you were informed that you did not get it because it was given to a more experienced applicant, the first thing you would have in mind is, so how could I improve and what did I learn from this experience? I raised that currently there is no mechanism to guide and help new artists and applicants about how to approach the behemoth of that application proposal and if feedback was not given, people won’t be able to learn from the experience and would feel frustrated after all the time and efforts that were put in. There needs to be bigger transparency and assistance for artists to apply for funding so that they could truly help to build a more cultured Sydney. In response to that there were other artists in the room that raised similar concerns and issues. The general understanding was it is too hard to acquire funding and as most artists are not well off, that discourages artists to put out work and continue to develop.  There were recommendations such as doing fund matching when a project could kick off the ground through social fund raising platforms such as Pozible and Kick Start, providing low cost space for artists to get together to develop their art forms, and fully utilise long term deserted space through policy making etc.

For me, I personally think that in order to have a viable cultural policy for Sydney, the most important thing is to have a culturally educated or open-minded bureaucracy. As it was pointed out during the forum, the State Government is willing to invest a lot of money into sports but when it comes to cultural events or performing arts, they became the unwanted kids. There will be little bit of funding to keep them alive so they could not be condemned of child abuse, but then whether it is enough for them to develop healthily that is another question. I am not saying that sport is not part of Sydney’s culture but the truth is that there are more to it. A culturally educated bureaucracy could provide a stronger understanding and support from the artists’ point of view through understanding their concerns better.  Then when it comes to funding decisions and policy making, these concerns are thoroughly considered in an informed manner. Crafting a cultural policy is more than just holding individual events during the year. A culture is a deep-rooted ideology that materialised through the efforts of the people who built it. You may not be aware of it in daily life but then when it was mentioned, everyone notices and agrees with it.  At the moment, if the officials at the City of Sydney could not even understand the cultural significance of the rainbow crossing on Oxford Street, I personally think that there is still a long way to go for Sydney to build its own unique flavour of culture that people would identify to.

I will have another thorough read of the discussion paper and put in my response further in writing. In the mean time if you want to have your say on this subject too go to: http://sydneyyoursay.com.au/, have a read of the discussion paper and respond to it.

June 4 Incident, History and Education

Just read from today’s Hong Kong newspaper that in this year’s public university entry examination, for the first time, the June 4 Incident came up as a subject for discussion in the general education paper. Some students were worried that how they answer the question would affect their scores and thus their chances of entering the university. There were anxieties about whether they should put their views forward honestly or avoid using words such as “suppression” or “massacre” that might not deem to be appropriate by the marking authorities.

Since the raising of these concerns, representatives of the Examination Authority have come out and asked students not to worry about how they argue the question as long as they could support their arguments with facts they think appropriate. They also asked students not to apply any sense of self-censorship because that is not the intention of the question. The purpose of the question was to encourage students’ critical thinking about current affairs that matters, and under the current “One Country Two Systems” governing model, there is no reason for students to feel pressured about aligning themselves with any authority to score higher marks.

I personally applaud the Examination Authority’s response to the matter. I also feel very comforted that individual thinking is still being promoted in the Hong Kong education system. A few years ago, some people were worrying about the Chinese government trying to brainwash the new generation Hong Kong students to achieve a “real unification”. The outlook was particularly dire a few years ago when the Government tried push forward a “national studies” curriculum that seemed to be nothing but sucking up to the mainland authorities. At that time a lot of people and educators were up in arms. Eventually the policy was scrapped, well kind of scrapped, because instead of making the “national education” subject compulsory, it became optional with a huge flexibility in what individual schools want to teach. At that time, the person behind this said it was about “helping students to understand their country and national identity better”. But for me and a lot of the people the subliminal messages behind this were otherwise.

Growing up as a colonial kid I received a very different education as compared to my cousins in the mainland. This is particularly true when I went to a British school where most of my teachers were expatriates or educators returned from overseas. I was trained thoroughly in independent and critical thinking. I do not know what is being taught in Hong Kong schools right now since I have moved overseas for a long period of time, but from this matter, I am glad to see that individual thinking is still being promoted. Does that make a person less patriotic when for example, one comments on sensitive issues such as the “June 4 Incident” and commands a different view from the authorities? Certainly not! For me the purpose of studying history, which the “June 4 Incident” is now a historical event, is to understand what was done correctly and learn from the past. If independent thinking is not encouraged when studying history, there is no point of even covering the subject. History is not just about the facts but how we understand the facts and then learn to appreciate or debate these historical issues.  

The “June 4 Incident” had happened and it will never go away because it is part the modern Chinese history now. So I do agree with the Examination Authority’s move to include this as a subject of discussion in the exam papers because avoiding the subject would do nobody good. It is an unfortunate and massive event, so there bound to be different views on this issue – should it be seen as a suppression or just a clearance operation, there are still many years for everyone to decide and there would never be a unanimous answer. However I believe the only way to understand this better is to continue to investigate and discuss about this, which I think is what the Examination Authority is trying to do.

The late Deng Xioaping promised the late Margaret Thatcher that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for at least 50 years under the newly crafted “One Country Two Systems” governing model. So I am glad that within certain context this is still happening and I look forward to see this Pearl of the Orient continues to shine through this unique freedom established by two the major political players of the time.

To Build or Not to Build? The NBN Debate in Australia

The National Broadband Network (NBN) has been a hot topic of debate for many years now. Under the Labor Government, the gears are finally working and implementation has been underway slowly. So slowly that now it is already nearly 9 months behind schedule. The reason for this delay was according to the responsible party a lengthy negotiation period with Telstra to use their current infrastructure to lay the fibre optics network. Nonetheless, it seems that Kiama, a small town120km south of Sydney, finally tastes the first fruit from this ambitious project. The first trial of this network was very promising as the Internet connection speed is proved to be much higher than the current ADSL network that most Australians are using.

There is no doubt that there is a cost blow out here. This is just kind of typical with most Australian infrastructure projects even after considering the inflation costs. It is at this point that the Liberal Coalition comes out with a “better solution” to deal with the situation. According to the Coalition plan, instead of wiring the whole network with fibre optics to 93% of households in Australia, they would create fibre optics nodes and then through these nodes deliver higher speed connection to households using existing copper wires. With this change, they could save up to $10 billion and also have the infrastructure completed much earlier than the Labor Government’s current plan.

This kind of proposal was jarring indeed. First of all, Australia is already quite behind from other parts of the world in terms of Internet connection speed and Internet services. I have personally tried the fibre optics network when I visited my parents in Hong Kong earlier this year. The experience was exceptionally smooth, fast and stable. This is what fibre optics could offer and this is exactly what Australia needs if we want to stay relevant in this more and more tech savvy business world. The Coalition’s proposal of using nodes, while still feasible would still be determined by how much data copper wires could transmit and at the same time how many people are connecting to the nodes using the Internet at the same time. The end result could still be dropping out and much slower Internet connection. The situation would be like they built a great bullet train network to get people home quickly from the CBD but there is a catch – the bullet trains only serves suburbs within 10km from the CBD and people who want to go further will need to change over to lower capacity buses that comes at irregular intervals depending on the road traffic. There is still a timetable but buses may not come on time because the traffic is busy. And of course nobody would be responsible for this slow down because one can never predict traffic situation precisely. In other words, the whole “bullet train bringing people home quicker” is just an empty promise with nobody responsible for the end results because “traffic is never predictable”.

I personally do not know how much does the Coalition care about the future of Australia. They claimed to be the future of Australia but all I could see is they are living in the past. If Australia wants to stay competitive a much-needed improvement in Internet connection is required. The world will not wait around for Australia to one day wake up and found out they are at the ass of the world – both geographically and technologically. The Coalition’s “vision” for me is a very short term, inconsiderate and extremely selfish. Certainly Tony Abbott wants to be the Prime Minister direly. There is no doubt about that. But putting Australia’s future on the line while painting a fake picture that he does not need to be responsible for in the future to achieve this goal for me shows how selfish he is even as a politician. This is what I feel most disgusted about. Not the lack of vision and understanding in this plan, but the guts he has to propose this at the expense of Australia’s future to gamble for his Prime Ministership.

The Coalition plan might fix things in a short-term manner – lower cost and earlier completion, but then in the long run how could Australia compete when the Internet requires greater and great amount of data transfer within a shorter period of time just to operate normally? The Internet will only be more data demanding and developers would not be waiting for Australia to be able to do so to further enhance their web pages, analytical tools and transfer of information. What is left for Australia when those good old copper wires could no longer handle such a data-demanding monster called the Internet? Probably Tony Abbott does not care because probably by that time he might have had his taste of Prime Ministership and have this job as an item on his CV. At the end of the day, it would be again the general Australians who suffered – and that includes both the private and business sectors.

So the question now is – should we continue to wait for the slow pace implementation of the NBN or should we buy the Coalition’s new proposal for short-term and quick fix? For me I would still opt for the first choice knowing the pain of Labor’s usual snail pace implementation history for most projects. As a responsible Australian I do care about Australia’s future and this is what I believe in.