Is Western Democracy Flunking Out?
If Hong Kong is a success and becomes the most prosperous city in China, then the Chinese government might ditch socialism for capitalism and the poor would be dammed, but it doesn't look like it's going to go that way.
Progressives wanted to build everyone in Hong Kong a home, but democracy stopped it. Those opposing the bill were concerned that the new houses might bring property prices down, and the 49% of the population who own homes didn't want that. Sounds like Britain!
Approaching the Trial Spot’s halfway point, Hong Kong’s stats resembles America’s and Britain’s: her GINI is 0.539 (zero indicates equality), the US is 0.415, and Singapore 0.4579. Hong Kong’s top ten percent have median incomes forty-four times the bottom ten percent and her lowest earners work three years and eight months to earn what the richest make in a month. Child poverty is twenty-three percent[1] and home ownership is forty-nine percent while, on the mainland, everyone will have a home, a job, plenty of food, education, safe streets, free health- and old age care by 2021[2].
If it weren’t for multiparty democracy, Hongkongers would all have homes. In 1997, Former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa wanted to build 85,000 flats per year but popular opinion–especially in the Legislative Council–made it impossible. “It was the same over the past few years: we tried to increase the land supply, but we could not get it passed because the opposition parties control whether the budget gets approved,” says Author Chris Wat Wing-yin. “Society generally believed the policy of supplying 85,000 flats per year made the property market plummet, and therefore the government cancelled the target under the pressure of public opinion, especially the opposition bloc in the Legislative Council, we couldn’t continue our push.”
Beijing’s completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the high-speed rail link (delayed by Hong Kong’s corruption and incompetence) are major setbacks for Washington and London in this ongoing battle for influence and explain the current political and media backlash from the US and the UK.
Unz Review
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