2007-09-20

Still Questioning...

The "Question of the Week" on Hong Kong's competitiveness is still open for comment. If you haven't read them yet, check out the four great comments from your colleagues. I'll hold off posting a second question until next week since there are no classes until 3 October.

Daniel Fung on the Rule of Law

On Tuesday, I didn't have time to tee up the next lecture which isn't until 3 October. Our guest will be Daniel Fung, SC, senior barrister and former solicitor-general of Hong Kong. Check out his bio here. He will be discussing the rule of law in Hong Kong, which Mr Rowse mentioned as one of Hong Kong's core competitive advantages. For those who haven't yet read the Basic Law, in advance of the class, you might want to check out the sections relating to the Judiciary.

Mike Rowse on YouTube

As you will recall, Mike Rowse mentioned that you can now watch him on YouTube. Here are links to his two clips. The first part is about 10 minutes long and the second takes about three minutes to view.

Lecture Two: Summary - Dr Malik Peiris

Key points from the discussion with Dr Malik Peiris:
  • Hong Kong is at the doorstep of a region that has long been a cauldron for infectious diseases.
  • Hong Kong plays a role in spreading these diseases AND in combating them.
  • The lack of communication and cooperation between mainland and Hong Kong officials led to a slow response to the outbreaks.
  • Communications and cooperation (between HK and the mainland, international) have improved on the human health side, but are not where they should be when it comes to animal health. There is a commercial aspect to animal health issues.
  • In contrast to Singapore, Hong Kong’s response to SARS could not be as draconian.
  • Hong Kong research has been integral to the fight against infectious diseases.
  • Public health threats must be viewed as threats to business, to competitiveness.
  • What are Hong Kong’s responsibilities? Hong Kong should spend more on scientific research and the fight against infectious diseases.

Question of the Week: What Makes Hong Kong Competitive?

In anticipation of the presentation by our guest speaker on Tuesday, Mike Rowse, the Hong Kong government's point man for investment promotion, I thought I would pose the following two (okay, three) questions:
  • What are the core reasons for Hong Kong's global competitiveness? (Remember the World Economic Forum ranking that I put on the screen in class - It might be interesting to look at the sub-rankings to determine exactly what Hong Kong's strengths and weaknesses are, according to the study. What exactly do we mean when we say an economy is "competitive"?)
  • What are the key threats to the SAR's competitiveness? (In other words, what could topple the apple cart?) And should we be concerned?
I mentioned before this article on Hong Kong by Columbia University Professor Saskia Sassen, which appeared in Newsweek magazine last year. She makes some interesting points which I am sure will be echoed by Mike Rowse on Tuesday. Check it out.

What do you think?

Reactions, comments and more questions are welcome! Remember to include your name on any posting - or at least some way to let us know who you are!

(Mr Wong, who is handling the POLI0019 tutorials, may take up this discussion thread in the section meetings on Wednesday, 19 September.)

Update on Guest Speakers



We have had a flurry of confirmations from additional speakers. I already mentioned that Legislative Councillor and former journalist Emily Lau Wai-hing (far left) will be our guest on 24 October, while Jimmy Lai Chee-ying (left), the Chairman of Next Media and the founder of Giordano and Apple Daily, will be with us on 28 November.

I am now pleased to let you know that Teresa Au, Head of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability for the Asia Pacific Region at HSBC, will join us on 14 November. On that day, we will have two guests! Our other speaker will be, as announced, Dr Olaf Unteroberdoerster, the Resident Representative of the IMF. They will appear separately.

I am also happy to announce that on 31 October we will also have a second guest. Xu Sitao, one of China's leading economists (he was formerly chief economist for ICBC Asia) and Chief Representative in China for the Economist Group, will join us. As you know former Hong Kong secretary of security Regina Ip is scheduled for that day. We will have both speakers one after the other.

While 31 October and 14 November will certainly be jampacked, I think that the additional speakers will provide valuable insights that will help us put Hong Kong's role in the world in proper perspective.

Finally, the more astute will have noticed that last week I had two guests on the schedule but only one - Dr Peiris - showed up. For completeness sake, I should mention that my other guest, Wayne Arnold, the correspondent for the New York Times in Singapore, who was going to provide insight into how Singapore has handled SARS and other public health crises, had a mini-health crisis of his own. He ate some bad uni (sea urchin) sushi at a restaurant the night before and therefore could not come to class. My fault - since I picked the restaurant!

Current Issues in Sino-Japanese Relations

For those who were unable to get the free places to the Asia Society lunch on 24 September (or if any of the six who are going want to hear him speak twice on the same day), you may want to know that Amb. Wu will be at the University next week to speak on Sino-Japanese relations:

6:00 pm September 24, 2007 (Monday), Council Chamber, 8/F, Meng Wah Complex, HKU

Ambassador Wu Jianmin, President of China Foreign Affairs University, President of International Bureau of Expositions (BIE).

Professor Ian Holliday, Dean of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, is pleased to invite you to a public lecture to be delivered by Ambassador Wu Jian-min, President of China Foreign Affairs University. Ambassador Wu's detailed biography can be viewed via http://www.hku.hk/socsc/jmwu.

The lecture will be conducted in English and is free of charge. Interested parties can register on-line at http://www.hku.hk/socsc/jmwu on or before September 24, 2007. Registration is on a first-come-first-served basis. Please bring along the confirmation print-out and present it to the reception desk for admission.

Tentative programme:
5:45pm Registration
6:00pm Public Lecture by Ambassador Wu Jianmin
Moderator: Professor James Tang, Department of Politics and Public Administration
6:45pm Open Discussion

Enquires:
Miss Petty Lee (Tel: 2241 5541 / Email: pettylee@hkucc.hku.hk)

2007-09-18

Thanks - and Tomorrow's Tutorials

Thanks very much for coming to the special lecture. I appreciate that you attended the lecture and discussion outside our normally scheduled period.

A reminder: The first tutorials for POLI0019 students will meet tomorrow, 19 September, starting at 2 pm. As I mentioned, if you have a problem signing up, ie the time slot you need to be in is fully booked, please just go to the section which you can attend and let Mr Wong know of your problem. I think we should be able to accommodate clear cases of students who can only attend a particular tutorial. We don't want to overload any particular section, but we do want to make sure you can fit the tutorial into your schedule. After tomorrow's tutorials, I will confer with Mr Wong and we should be able to adjust the sign-up to meet the demand. But if you can make a tutorial that still has open places, please help us out by sticking to that section.

BTW, I should note at this time that we will have a lecture and tutorials on 17 October, the Wednesday of the reading week. The reason for this is that I will have no lecture on 21 November so I am using the reading week to make up for that.

2007-09-16

Update on Readings

I hope you have had a good weekend.

I just uploaded some of the readings for this week to the WebCT page - the articles by Bill Overholt, Chun Yang, and Michael Davis, as well as the Donald Tsang and Anson Chan speeches to the Asia Society. I'll try to upload more as soon as possible, but after the back-up of the old course site was made and the course site reset, the new course site no longer has on file the readings that Dr Cummings had used so I will need to upload those again. I will try to do this as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.