A Critical View of the CE's Policy Address

Here is veteran journalist Philip Bowring's take on the Chief Executive's Policy Address from the Asia Sentinel website. Bowring, a longtime Hong Kong resident and the former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, argues that Donald Tsang "made no significant steps to address the two most evident local problems, pollution and the income gap. Indeed, other measures he announced could make them worse." He goes on:

"As for initiatives to enhance Hong Kong’s role as an international centre they were thin on the ground. Years after Islamic finance became significant and long after London and other non-Islamic centers had rules governing it, Hong Kong’s myopic bureaucrats have just discovered it.

Indeed, Tsang seems to have almost abandoned the idea that Hong Kong should be an international city on its own account. Eager now to pander to Beijing as he once pandered to his colonial masters and to the Pope, he now urges Hong Kong to see its future in terms of capitalizing on the strength of the motherland as though there were not a vast number of businesses, particularly in the high value added services, which owe little or nothing to dealings with the mainland.

In short the Policy Address makes depressing reading for those hoping to see Hong Kong modernize its thinking and its leadership, and reduce the collusion between government and big business at the expense of the community. This is neither a blueprint for the 'harmonious society' goal of President Hu nor a city in the forefront of the world."

Fair criticism? What do you think?