The Participation of Youth in Hong Kong’s Political Development By: John Ashton Intern (July-August 2004)
In a society such as Hong Kong in which a drive exists towards constitutional reform for greater democratic governance, the significance of the involvement of young people must not be underestimated. Over the last twenty years, youth participation in the processes by which influential social decisions are made and resources are allocated has been increasingly recognized as both important and necessary, especially as their attitudes at this stage will have major implications for Hong Kong’s governance in the coming decades. The purpose of this assessment is to consider the extent of the political awareness and involvement of young people in Hong Kong, to attempt to identify some of the factors contributing to the political participation of youth and some of the challenges that inhibit it, and to suggest ways by which youth participation might be enhanced and such challenges overcome.
The Importance of Youth Participation There is already a considerable and increasing understanding of why youth must play such a vital role in social and political development. If the UN definition of youth is used, that youth fall in the 15 to 24 age range, we see that young people constitute approximately 20% of the population of the Asia-Pacific region. A wider understanding of “youth” to include those below this range increases this figure even further; those below 15 alone constitute almost 16% of Hong Kong’s population.1 The contribution that young people in Hong Kong could make to the city’s development is essential if progress is to reach its full potential, and if the common conception that young people are “the future” is taken as accurate, it is especially important that the younger generations of Hong Kong become actively aware of the unalienable rights that membership of Hong Kong society entitles them to, and of the responsibilities to the rights of others that it obliges them to fulfil. This is of the greatest benefit both to young people in itself, and to the evolution of the values that Hong Kong’s development as a twenty-first century metropolis has always and will always depend upon.
The Current Situation There is little doubt that huge potential for a greater youth role in Hong Kong’s political development does currently exist. According to the UN’s Human Development Index 2004, Hong Kong had a youth literacy rate of 99.4% in 2001 (age group 15-24), higher than its adult literacy rate of 93.5%.2 There has been a significant number of studies conducted in recent years into the awareness, attitudes and contributions of youth to the political process, which on the whole indicate a generally high level of political awareness and enthusiasm that nevertheless has not reached its full potential. Opinion polls have given mixed messages: in 1997, the Commission on Youth’s statistical profile indicated that in a survey of 1,660 people aged between 15 and 24 conducted in 1996, only 66.7% of respondents could name the Chief Secretary, 5.5% knew the number of District Boards, 10.4% knew the number of Legislative Council seats, and only an astonishing 7.4% knew what ‘two systems’ meant in the concept of ‘one country, two systems’.3 On the other hand, the Youth Research Centre of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups conducted in 2000 a telephone survey of 756 people aged 18 to 29 and three focused group interviews, investigating their participation in the Legislative Council elections that year. They found that a ‘vast majority’ of the registered voters they surveyed expressed that they would vote in the elections, believing that it was important as a way to express opinions, exert influence, and support the electoral system. The report claimed that ‘the culture of electoral
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United Nations Development Programme: Human Development Report 2004. Ibid. 3 Commission on Youth: ‘Youth in Hong Kong: A Statistical Profile 1997’. 2
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participation is already rooted deeply in their mind’, and advised that ‘the role of young people in social participation is not negligible and should therefore receive greater attention’.44 The Youth Research Centre has also been carrying out youth opinion surveys since 1993, into a wide variety of topical civic and political issues. These studies appear to be generally more valid than the questions asked by the Commission on Youth surveys as indicators of youth awareness and attitudes, considering wider issues rather than basing their conclusions upon relatively narrow and specific questions. For example, a territory-wide survey conducted in April 2002 found that 85% of respondents were aware of the introduction of the Principle Officials Accountability System, of which around half were in support and believed that it would improve government efficiency. Most respondents believed that it would mean that Principal Officials (i.e. ministers) could now be held responsible for their mistakes, and expressed that the main drawback would be the excessive power of the Chief Executive. Another poll in December 2002 asked the question ‘What is the Way Out of the Budget Deficit?’ and found that 83% of respondents expressed that everyone had some responsibility in solving the deficit, and more than half claimed to have experienced its effects in their daily lives, and to have started to spend less as a result. 51.7% said that revitalising the economy was the priority for getting out of the deficit, by looking for foreign investment, developing local industries, and encouraging local tourism; another 25% advocated cuts in public spending and streamlining the civil service, with another 15% finding importance in looking for alternative sources of revenue. Over 112 such polls have been conducted by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups since 1993, and they suggest that, on the whole, young people in Hong Kong indeed take an interest in the civic and political issues of the day and feel affected by them.5 So it is clearly apparent that there is a significant general political awareness and enthusiasm to contribute amongst young people in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, this enthusiasm is neither suitably recognised nor given enough opportunity for influence in the political development process, and more must be done to enable youth participation to reach its full potential.
Developing Youth Participation In order to achieve this, the first step must be to identify the factors that either generate interest and awareness or inhibit youth participation, so that the former can be improved and the latter can be overcome. What drives young people towards the political stage is naturally a complex question, the answers to which will vary for every individual. A young person will undoubtedly be influenced in his or her level of political activity by the nature of his or her daily exposure, and the attitudes and activity of figures such as parents, colleagues and friends are likely to have a notable effect. In the Federation of Youth Groups’ survey of the participation of youth in the 2000 Legco elections, it was suggested that membership of certain organisations made participation more likely, namely ‘student unions, church organizations, groups organized by youth centres, trade unions, professional organizations and volunteer service teams’. The report advised that membership of such groups served to ‘nurture an interest in participation’, and that therefore ‘opening up more affiliation channels’ would be effective in increasing youth participation in the political process. The report also noted the significance of parents as role models, as well as the importance of youth awareness of the connection between the work of the Legislative Council and their own lives.6 It would therefore be of a lot of benefit to increase the amount of exposure to social and political affairs available to young people in Hong Kong, fostering an awareness of the direct practical consequences of political choices, decisions and achievements to them and their futures. However, it is also vitally important to eliminate factors that currently act to reduce youth interest in such matters. In a recent paper, the Executive Director of the Federation of Youth Groups discussed the seriousness of the necessity of youth participation and identified 4
Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups: Youth Research Centre, Youth Study Series No.22: ‘A Study on the Participation of Hong Kong Youth in Legislative Council Elections’, September 2000. 5 Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups: Youth Research Centre, Youth Opinion Polls Series. 6 Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups: Youth Research Centre, Youth Study Series No.22: ‘A Study on the Participation of Hong Kong Youth in Legislative Council Elections’, September 2000.
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six major challenges facing its enhancement that have particular pertinence to Hong Kong: the conception of youth as ‘the future’ leading to a reduction of opportunities for young people in ‘the present’; the unsatisfactory understanding of ‘participation’ and the risk of ‘tokenism’; the conception of youth as just another “problem”; youth attitudes themselves; the pressure for results from youth who do get participation opportunities, limiting ‘learning from mistakes’ and the development of their capacity to participate; and an overemphasis on nurturing “elites” among youth at the expense of the majority of Hong Kong’s young people.7 It is always important to chiefly target the underlying factors, and we see that several of these obstacles, primarily those of the unhelpful conceptions that prevent current, genuine, longterm and fully inclusive youth involvement, are problems that are rooted in the general mindset of Hong Kong’s society today. Changing such attitudes would be the single most important step towards greater youth participation, as doing so would create the conditions necessary both for young people to develop a greater interest in the political development process, and for the necessary opportunities to be provided for them to get involved in it. Unless all sectors of society and government can recognise the importance of greater youth participation and its beneficial effects for Hong Kong’s subsequent generations and for the development of the city itself, any measures to enhance interest and provide opportunities will only send young people into a constrictive membrane of counterproductive social attitudes that will corrode their faith and interest in the political process and drain the integrity out of any opportunities for involvement that might be provided for them. In order to remove this membrane, the driving force of appropriate government motives, in cooperation with the work of non-governmental institutions, is essential. If the vigour seen in the public awareness and action campaigns relating to legislative election participation, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), road accidents, dengue fever, and general Hong Kong development issues is applied to a new movement to generate healthy and progressive social and political attitudes towards youth participation, there is no reason why it should not be successful in creating the required social atmosphere for considerably greater youth involvement, especially in as socially fibrous a community as Hong Kong. Following that, the focus should be applied to the provision of genuine opportunities for young people to participate in the political process, keeping in mind that this is often a long-term, learning experience rather than a one-off endeavour resulting in success or failure. Constructing frameworks to provide opportunities should be done before allocating considerable resources to improving youth attitudes themselves, as the latter will be more successful with the facility to provide opportunities already in place, and while the provision of opportunities can always be easily controlled once the appropriate frameworks have been constructed, favourable youth attitudes are much more of a trial to sustain without opportunities for them to be exercised in practice, and will be much harder to restore following any initial failed attempt to encourage them.
Conclusion In conclusion, therefore, youth awareness of social and political affairs in Hong Kong, although developing steadily, suffers to a certain extent from social attitudes towards young people that hinder their potential to make contributions to Hong Kong’s political development and benefit greatly thereby. In order to resolve this, it is most important at the present stage to target this general social mindset, reshaping it into a recognition that youth must be able to participate in the present rather than just the future, in ways that enable them to make genuine contributions and that are accessible to them all. It must be seen that this would be advantageous to everyone, to all generations of Hong Kong society in both the present and the future. Once the correct mentality has been developed, young people will be able to participate fully in Hong Kong’s social and political development as equal and respected citizens with as much right and duty as anyone else in Hong Kong to contribute to it. I say that then, and only then, will Hong Kong’s development as a twenty-first century world city, socially and politically as well as economically, have a chance of getting securely on the road to success and prosperity.
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Dr. Rosanna Wong Yick-ming, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups: ‘Youth Participation in Hong Kong: Ensuring Sustainability’.
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