Time to redefine the 'Lion Rock Spirit' for a new era

Chief Executive-designate Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on a radio talk show on April 1, the day after she was officially appointed by the central government in Beijing, that Hong Kong is at a crossroad and the greatest difficulty it faces is lack of public confidence in, and popular trust for, the special administrative region government.

In response to this view of the CE-designate, some people asked a rhetorical question: "Why don't Hong Kong people rekindle the 'Lion Rock Spirit'?"

The "Lion Rock Spirit" is derived from a canto-pop song written by James Wong - Below the Lion Rock - first sung and made famous by Roman Tam Pak-sin in 1979. In the song Wong implored, "Though at land's end, let's overcome the treacherous path hand in hand and write the eternal name that is Hong Kong with blood and sweat." Since then the "Lion Rock Spirit" has come to stand for the fighting spirit of Hong Kong residents.

In those years the British Hong Kong government's economic policy was basically "let it be". In that sense the "Lion Rock Spirit" tells the story of Hong Kong people writing a page of history on their own without government dictation.

Another characteristic of the "Lion Rock Spirit" is its "uprooted" beginning in the 1950s, when the Cold War was raging and erected an ideological "wall", as well as a physical fence, between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. By the late 1970s and early 1980s Hong Kong had turned from a transshipment port to a regional international financial center, a trade hub and a shipping center. The "Lion Rock Spirit" was born against that unnatural backdrop and, like the "traditional core values" imported from the West at roughly the same time, lacked an important element - the sense of belonging with the motherland.

Since the turn of the century the essence and characteristics of the "Lion Rock Spirit" have been severely challenged by the fast-changing new century. When the "Lion Rock Spirit" came about, Hong Kong's labor-intensive manufacturing industry managed to develop with little help from the government and Hong Kong people could not only make a living but also climb up the social ladder. Today Hong Kong cannot develop the innovation and technology industry or transform into a knowledge-driven economy without incentives from, and pushing by, the government.

Beginning in the mid-1980s Hong Kong's manufacturing sector relocated to Guangdong en masse almost overnight. In June 2003 Hong Kong signed the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) with the mainland and began the economic integration that is still going on today. In recent years, as the economic integration expanded and deepened, the political differences between Hong Kong and the mainland became more pronounced almost by the day while the absence of national identity and uprooted "Lion Rock Spirit" manifested more strongly than ever.

It is not fair to blame Hong Kong people for losing the "Lion Rock Spirit" or ask bluntly where it has gone. The correct way to describe the situation is that the "Lion Rock Spirit" is undergoing the test of changing times.

With that in mind it is easy to understand why many Hong Kong residents lack confidence in and trust for the government. It is because neither the government nor society is helping them when they need assistance; because they do not understand the co-relation between "One Country" and "Two Systems"; and because the government has not come up with an effective way to ease the conflict between economic integration and the difference between Hong Kong's and the mainland's political systems.

Material problems demand material solutions. The needs of Hong Kong residents, especially young people, for employment, enterprise, career, upward social mobility and home-ownership all require the government to come up with practical policies to address them. For the same reason spiritual inadequacies require spiritual remedies. The government needs to update the definition of the "Lion Rock Spirit" with current ideas, such as the desire for social inclusiveness; willingness to address the inadequacies of individual efforts with collective thinking and cooperation/collaboration; advocating the sense of belonging compatible with Hong Kong's constitutional status and driving home the truth that Hong Kong is no longer a "borrowed place on borrowed time" of Britain's and its fate is in the hands of the whole Chinese nation.

Hong Kong achieved an economic miracle with the "Lion Rock Spirit" in the 20th century. Now it needs a new goal to aim for in the 21st century and that is the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area city cluster, which is well beyond the reach of the original "Lion Rock Spirit". I trust the next-term SAR government will do its best to address the major issues of Hong Kong society by remedying spiritual inadequacies arising from unsatisfied material needs.

(HK Edition 04/26/2017 page8)