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)

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.

Ranking Hong Kong

Here are links to some of the rankings I put on the screen during last week's lecture:

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?ID=HongKong

http://www.weforum.org/en/fp/gcr_2006-07_highlights/index.htm

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/TravelandTourismReport/CompetitivenessIndex/index.htm

http://www.quazen.com/Science/Social-Sciences/World-Happiness-Rankings.5398

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0708/

http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2006

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres07_e/pr472_e.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

http://www.dataranking.com/country.cgi?LG=e&CO=111

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/hk/Top-Rankings

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.

Remember to Sign Up!

POLI0019 students, please remember to sign up for a tutorial session through the PPA Department homepage at hku.hk/ppaweb. Just follow the links.

The first tutorials will meet on Wednesday, 19 September, starting at 2.00 pm.

Mike Rowse, Hong Kong's Investment Promotion Czar

I have asked the Faculty of Business and Economics to invite students and faculty to Mike Rowse's presentation on Tuesday. If you know any MBA students who might be interested in attending, please let them know the details. Thanks!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Keys to Success: How Hong Kong Stays Globally
Competitive"

Speaker: Mike Rowse, Director-General of Investment
Promotion, InvestHK, HKSARG

Time: 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Venue: Theatre 6, Meng Wah Complex, University of Hong
Kong

Hong Kong consistently ranks as one of the world's
most competitive economies - and for more than a
decade has been recognized by the Heritage Foundation
as the world's freest economy. In 2006, the flow of
foreign direct investment into the SAR amounted to
US$42.7 billion, up 28% from the year before. Ten
years after the handover, Hong Kong remains a highly
attractive place in which to do business. What have
been the keys to the SAR's success? And how will Hong
Kong continue to be globally competitive? Mike Rowse,
Hong Kong's investment promotion chief, will discuss
Hong Kong's global competitiveness and the investment
outlook for the SAR.

This event will be conducted in English.

Note: This event is a special lecture-discussion session for
the course POLI0019/POLI0068 "Hong Kong and the World" offered
this semester by the Department of Politics and Public
Administration, University of Hong Kong. The course usually
meets on Wednesdays from 9.30 am to 11.30 am in Theatre 5,
Meng Wah Complex.

Update on Readings - and the Power of Cities

Here are links to two of the readings for this week.

Anson Chan speech to the Asia Society:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd9nk9p8_2d8qpr3

Donald Tsang speech to the Asia Society:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd9nk

These and many of the readings are available on the WebCT POLI0019 course site, but the site is still configured for last year's course. I'm sorry for this. I cannot yet make any changes due to technical issues. To find the readings, look into the "Learning Modules" section and then click into the various modules and you will find a number of the readings posted.

I have put the William Overholt article on Hong Kong/Shanghai, Chun Yang's article on Hong Kong/Shenzhen, and Michael Davis's paper on Chinese Federalism on reserve in the PPA Department office, room 622, Meng Wah Complex.

In many cases, I have provided a URL to access readings available online. If any links don't work, please let me know.

For any other readings, please try the Library.

For this week, btw, I suggested books by Prof. Saskia Sassen who is now at Columbia University. She has been at the forefront of scholarship on the concept of the "global city" and the role of the city in the global economy. She was in Hong Kong in August to give a lecture. Last year, she wrote about Hong Kong in Newsweek magazine. I should have included this essay as required reading. You might also check out another article by Prof. Sassen on the power of big cities, also in Newsweek.

We will certainly talk more about cities and how they are becoming dynamic poles of growth. Effective and business-savvy leaders in cities across the world, from New York to Shanghai, from Denver to Dalian, are driving competition among them to attract investors and visitors. Hong Kong is in that race - and I am sure that Mike Rowse will talk about this on Tuesday.

PLEASE REMEMBER...

...There is NO lecture on Wednesday, 19 September, at 9.30 am-11.30 am. Instead, next week, the lecture will be on Tuesday, 18 September, from 3.30 pm -5.30 pm, in Theatre 6, Meng Wah Complex. The guest speaker will be Mike Rowse, the Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK, HKSARG. He will start speaking at around 4 pm.

Please note that the first tutorials for POLI0019 students will be on Wednesday, 19 September, as scheduled, starting at 2 pm. Sign-up is now available through the PPA homepage at hku.hk/ppaweb. Let me know if you have any problems.

There will be no tutorial for POLI0068 IBGM students on Wednesday, 19 September.

Course Syllabus and Lecture Schedule

Here are links to the course syllabus and lecture schedule:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd9nk9p8_07m98jz

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd9nk9p8_1dks3vn

Asia Society Event - 24 September

Thank you for your interest in attending the Asia Society luncheon talk with Ambassador Wu Jianmin. I have emailed the six who were quickest on the draw to let them know that I will book a place for them at the 24 September lunch. If any of those who are booked to go should not be able to make it, please let me know and I will then offer a place to others.

The Asia Society Hong Kong Centre will make available free seats to other events over the coming months, I expect. So stay tuned.

Update on WebCT Page

I understand from the IT folks that we will finally be backing up the old WebCT page for the course so I can finally update it. Please bear with us. Meanwhile, check this blog for any course-related communications. I apologize for the problems but we should have things sorted out this week.

Tutorial Sign-up

I will start the POLI0019 tutorial sign-up, which is done online through the HKU portal system, next week, after the lecture on Wednesday, 12 September. There will be five 50-minute sessions available on Wednesdays to be run by Mr Wong. The venue will be Meng Wah Complex, room 624. We expect about 10 people in each section. If you absolutely must get in a particular time slot and fail to do so, we should be able to work something out.

POLI0068 IBGM students will all be in one tutorial on Wednesdays from 11.40 am to 12.30 pm. The venue will be Theatre 5, though I may shift it if the theatre arrangement does not prove conducive to discussion.

Course Syllabus and Lecture Schedule

I've posted the course syllabus and lecture schedule below. I predated the postings so they would appear at the bottom of the blog. Please ignore the formatting errors. I will try to resolve those in due course.

Our WebCT Course Page, the Readings and Other Matters

Thanks for joining us this morning!

I understand that some students are wondering about accessing the WebCT page of the course and the readings available on it. There are some technical difficulties that we need to sort out. You may be able to access the POLI0019/POLI0068 WebCT course from last year (First Semester 2006). If so, a number of the readings are already posted there and available. We are trying to create a duplicate of the pages so we can keep the 2006 version intact but use it as a platform to create the 2007 version. The PPA Department's IT expert is trying to sort things out and we will let you know when everything is arranged.

Meanwhile, for the first two weeks, don't get too concerned about the readings. As I mentioned, I consider the lecture and guest speaker discussions, as well as the tutorials, to be of more importance. The readings will serve to give you some background on these issues, particularly if you are not from Hong Kong. For those of you who are new to Hong Kong, please take a look at some of the suggested readings for Week Two, as well as the Basic Law. For those who wish to prepare for the session with Dr Malik Peiris on SARS and the avian flu, I have asked the PPA Department (Room 622, Meng Wah Complex) to hold the relevant chapters on reserve. BTW, I added Chapter 14, which I neglected to include in the syllabus. If the reading gets too technical, don't worry about it. Again, I don't expect you to be so thorough with the readings. Consider them resources to help you be better prepared to approach a topic.

I should also note that the book East Asia and Globalization is available in the library.

Next Wednesday, I will again give an introduction to the course (a shorter one) before Dr Peiris and my other guest, Wayne Arnold of the New York Times, arrive. Meanwhile, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me - reyes@hkucc.hku.hk. I will be in Dalian for the rest of the week but will be checking email regularly.

I am posting the syllabus and lecture schedule on this blog. If for some reason, you don't see it and would like me to email them to you, please let me know.