Hong Kong is set to allow its public universities to double the number of non-local undergraduate admissions in the forthcoming Policy Address, local media reported citing government sources on Tuesday.

Sing Tao reported that the 2023 Policy Address – scheduled to be delivered by Chief Executive John Lee next Wednesday – will see the ceiling of non-local undergraduate intake be raised from 20 per cent of publicly-funded places to 40 per cent. The new proposal aims to make the city “an international higher educational hub,” the newspaper’s source said.

Under the current admission scheme, eight public universities in Hong Kong offer a total of 15,000 first-year degree places to local students. The proposal would allow universities to admit up to 6,000 non-local undergraduates.

HKFP has reached out to the Education Bureau for comment.

According to data from the University Grants Committee (UGC), an advisory body responsible for funding higher education institutions, Hong Kong had a total of 21,709 non-local student enrolments for the 2022-23 academic year. Among them, 74.8 per cent were from mainland China, and 21.6 per cent were from other parts of Asia.

The upcoming Policy Address will also encourage universities to step up efforts to recruit students from Belt and Road countries and from member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Sing Tao reported.

In June, the city’s education minister, Choi Yuk-lin, hinted that the limits would be raised: “Ensuring the quality of education and the proper use of taxpayer’s money, we will gradually lift the cap of non-local admissions to University Grants Committee funded programs.. to effectively address the need of Hong Kong’s talent development,” Choi said in Cantonese during a panel at the city’s legislature.

Lawmaker Chow Man-kong said the cap on the non-local student intake could be raised to 50 per cent, whilst local universities would have to make plans to accommodate the increase in students.

“There have been new academic buildings at different universities over the past five years, they [local universities] could handle a rise in numbers,” Chow, who is also the associate vice-president of the Education University of Hong Kong, said in Cantonese.

HKFP has also reached out to Chow for comment.

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A Hong Kong court has handed a victory to the LGBTQ community by rejecting two appeals from the Housing Authority relating to the public housing rights of same-sex couples.

The Court of Appeal on Tuesday upheld two lower court decisions that the spousal policies of the city’s Public Rental Housing scheme and Home Ownership Scheme were unlawful and unconstitutional. The administrative measures breached the Basic Law provision that all Hong Kong residents shall be equal before the law, the court reaffirmed.

The appeals stemmed from two separate judicial reviews filed in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Nick Infinger launched his legal bid in 2018 after his application for public rental housing was declined by the government. The authorities had said his relationship with his partner, whom he married in Canada in 2018, fell outside the ordinary understanding of “husband” and “wife” as adopted by the Housing Authority.

Infinger argued that the policy was illegal and unconstitutional, as they constituted unjustified discrimination against him and his partner on the basis of sexual orientation.

See also: Explainer: LGBTQ rights in Hong Kong – breakthroughs and bitter court battles against discriminatory laws

The other judicial review was lodged in 2019 by Edgar Ng, who later took his own life in 2020. Ng had challenged the Housing Authority’s refusal to recognise same-sex spouses as “spouses,” or other “family members” of subsidised flat owners who married overseas.

Ng and his partner Henry Li had lived together in a public rental housing unit shortly after they got married in the UK in 2017. But their living situation was reported to the Housing Authority via anonymous letters that Li was residing in a flat leased by Ng, and Li failed to register as an authorised applicant of the public housing flat owing to the Housing Authority’s policy.

The pair subsequently decided to jointly purchase a flat under the Home Ownership Scheme. But the Housing Authority refused to allow Ng to make the purchase with Li as a same-sex spouse, nor did it consider Li as a family member of Ng.

The couple argued that the spousal policy was “unlawful and unconstitutional, and amounted to an “unjustified restriction” of their rights.

Summarising the respectively rulings by then-Court of First Instance judge Anderson Chow, who oversaw both judicial reviews, a three-judge appeal panel said on Tuesday that the court decided that married same-sex couples should be treated as equal to heterosexual couples in the provision of public or subsidised housing.

“Their need for affordable housing and a home to live together as a family and their wish to achieve home ownership on a joint basis are not intrinsically different. In the premises, there is differential treatment based on the prohibited ground of sexual orientation,” Justice of Appeal Thomas Au wrote on behalf of Chief Judge of the High Court Jeremy Poon and Justice of Appeal Aarif Barma in a 102-page English judgement handed down on Tuesday.

The Housing Authority argued that Chow failed to give “heavy weight” to the Basic Law provisions on religious freedom and personal freedom. The judge also failed to attach weight to the article stipulating that the Hong Kong government shall formulate policies on the development and improvement of the social welfare system based on economic conditions and social needs, it contested.

The government body also argued that the spousal policies in question only involved indirect discrimination. There was less need for the Housing Authority to justify why there was a differential treatment, it said.

By making this argument, the appeal panel said the Housing Authority in effect admitted that its policy “specifically targeted same‑sex couples for ‘deterrence,’” as in to deter them from purchasing a HOS flat. Judge Chow was therefore “clearly correct” to adopt a higher standard in reviewing the two judicial reviews.

The appeal judges eventually rejected all grounds of appeal.

In a statement released through his lawyers, Li said he was “grateful” for Tuesday’s judgement, but it “reminded [him] painfully” that his husband and the original judicial review applicant was no longer around to witness the victory.

The couple simply wanted to be able to live together in their own home lawfully, a “humble wish” shared by many couples in the city, he said. But such wish was “cruelly denied” by the Housing Authority on the basis of sexual orientation, he said.

“It has been more than 4 years since this court case started. I sincerely hope that upon thoughtful consideration, the Housing Authority would not appeal and let this matter rest, and at last let Edgar rest in peace,” Li said in an English statement released by law firm Daly & Associates.

HKFP has reached out to the Housing Authority for comment.

Tuesday’s judgement reaffirmed the principles that public policies should protect all individuals from discrimination and unfair treatment based on their sexual orientation, Advocacy group HK Marriage Equality said in a Chinese statement issued on Tuesday.

The NGO called on the government to work with relevant stakeholders to design a comprehensive framework for recognising same-sex relationships.

“To avoid unnecessary and costly litigation, the government should not handle the recognition of same-sex relationships in a piecemeal manner,” it said.

In September, the city’s top court handed down handed a partial victory to LGBTQ advocate Jimmy Sham, ruling that the government has not fulfilled its constitutional duty to provide any legal framework for same-sex relationships to be recognised.

The government was given two years to develop a mechanism that recognises same-sex relationships before the court could say the government was in breach of the law.

Correction 18/10/23: Owing to a typo, a previous version of this article referred to the Hospital Authority, rather than the Housing Authority. We regret the error.

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Hong Kong’s leader has instructed the Education Bureau to safeguard students’ education after a secondary school announced it is to close in 2026. Incumbent students had publicly pleaded with the government to intervene.

The Dominican Missions, which sponsors the operation of the Rosaryhill School, announced last month that the secondary school would close after the 2025-26 academic year, and new students would not be admitted from the following year. Senior students would be able to complete their studies, but junior students would be transferred to other schools after Form Three.

In a letter dated September, 15, the school’s supervisor, He Yousun – a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong – announced the news, citing declining student enrolment and changing government regulations.

Chief Executive John Lee told reporters on Monday that he has instructed the city’s education chief Choi Yuk-lin to “properly handle the matter.”

“This is not what the Education Bureau would wish for,” he said in Cantonese of the school closure. “[I] have given the Education Bureau several principles: One, to safeguard students’ education; Two, the sponsoring body should communicate with students and parents to find suitable solutions; Three, any measures should be conducted steadily; Four, the bureau should fully assist any affected students for transfer.”

Lee’s remarks came after a short-lived video was posted on the school’s public social media channels last week, in which dozens of Rosaryhill students in their uniforms openly pleaded to Lee and the Education Bureau to step in: “As president Xi said, ‘when there is a future for the youth, there is a future for Hong Kong,'” a student representative said in the video, referring to the speech made by Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his visit to the city last year.

“We hope the Chief Executive will be concerned about our future, and give us a chance,” he said in Cantonese.

They asked the authorities to pay attention to the 400-odd existing students and provide them with a new campus, “so that we can pursue our education in a familiar setting, under the guidance of our familiar teachers,” the student representative added.

But the video was soon removed. In a response written in Chinese on Monday, a spokesperson from the Education Bureau told HKFP that it was “deeply concerned” about the matter and urged the school’s sponsoring body to maintain close communication with stakeholders, and to pay attention to student needs.

The spokesperson said school campuses were distributed according to an established mechanism, with eligible sponsoring bodies invited to bid. Regarding the situation at Rosaryhill, the Education Bureau said it would assist parents and students with transfers.

School closure

Last month, Kentville Kindergarten, which called itself “one of the city’s highly respected and regarded private kindergartens,” announced it would close down in three years.

“All-time low birth rates” and the “emigration of young families” were among the challenges the school faced, according to a statement released last Friday.

There were 27,996 fewer students at the start of the last academic year compared to 2021, according to HKFP’s calculations in July based on the Education Bureau’s annual enrolment statistics report.

Chief Executive John Lee said in July that the decline in student enrolment was a “structural problem” linked to population flow. It was also a result of the city’s low birth rate, he said.

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Hong Kong, long plagued by sky-high property prices, was judged the world’s least affordable housing market for the 13th consecutive year this March. Yet a Yau Tong site which could accommodate thousands of homes has been lying idle for almost three decades.

Big developers and the government have repeatedly failed to agree on a land premium which landowners must pay before construction. With the developers currently hit by a 14-year high in interest rates and a property market slump, some experts say the site should be partially rezoned for public, rather than private, housing.

One developer has managed to sell all of its units on a small portion of the Yau Tong waterfront, but only after price cuts to levels last seen seven years ago.

Flats at Coast Line II were sold in August at an average of 15 per cent below the market rate -prices equivalent to the cost of a government-subsidised apartment. The cheapest flat was a studio apartment measuring 210 square feet, offered for HK$2.9 million, or HK$13,810 per sq ft – an 18 per cent reduction on the market rate.

The private homes, which have yet to be completed, are among the first of a proposed 12,000 flats scheduled to be built under a large-scale development project just a short walk downhill from Yau Tong’s mainly working-class neighbourhood.

Most of the seaview site spanning just under 14 hectares – made up of Yau Tong Bay and an adjacent industrial area – has been left idle for close to three decades. With the city’s housing market in a rut, it seems the wait will last even longer.

30 years idle

The Coast Line properties have been developed by CK Asset, the flagship developer of Hong Kong’s richest man – Li Ka-shing – and are part of a proposed large-scale private development project in the Yau Tong Industrial Area. It was once known as the “the ulcer of Victoria Harbour” for its heavy pollution before the government eventually rezoned it for residential and comprehensive development in 1998.

The adjacent Yau Tong Bay was originally part of the industrial estate and populated with shipyards and sawmills in the 1950s. The U-shaped plot, created by reclamation, was rezoned for comprehensive development in 1993 when the colonial government was still in power.

To Chan Kim-ching of development policy think-tank Liber Research Community, the Yau Tong “privatopia” illustrates the problem with private land development in Hong Kong.

For years, real estate oligarchs have been accused of hoarding existing land resources in the city. Developers are currently sitting on more than 1,000 hectares of agricultural land alone – not to mention urban land resources such as the Yau Tong plot. No taxes are imposed on land hoarding in Hong Kong.

Echoing Beijing’s characterisation of Hong Kong’s housing crisis as a “deep-rooted problem,” the Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) Xia Baolong has said he hoped the city would eradicate its infamous subdivided flats and cage homes by 2049.

“This reflects another side of Hong Kong’s land problem,” Chan said. “People always say there’s no land in Hong Kong, but the Yau Tong plot has been left idle for 20, 30 years.”

Land premiums

By the time construction for the Coast Line flats finishes in late 2025, less than a tenth of the 12,000 flats will be complete. Chan said private developers’ unwillingness to pay hefty land premiums was to blame.

In an interview with HKFP, the researcher said developers had repeatedly rejected land premium offers set by the Lands Department.

Henderson Land Development’s executive director Augustine Wong told reporters last month that the consortium in charge of the Yau Tong Bay project – consisting of Henderson, Sun Hung Kai Properties, New World Development, Hang Lung Properties, China State Construction, and Wheelock Properties – had refused to accept the latest deal.

The HK$24.5 billion premium was calculated at an average of HK$6,000 per square foot for the project’s 4.01 million square feet of buildable gross floor area.

Chan said the developers were appealing to the government to reduce the figure because the property market was falling faster than the premium. The consortium had previously turned down another offer in March 2021, also citing exorbitant costs.

The head of the Real Estate Developers Association (REDA) Stewart Leung has said in an interview with the Hong Kong Economic Journal that “there has never been a redevelopment so repetitive” and that the developers in the consortium each had their own interests to consider.

Norey Tsang, an assistant associate director at Midland Realty, said developers did not have hopes of making a big profit at Yau Tong and wanted merely to reduce the premium by around 20-30 per cent, to a level commensurate with the prices of the finished flats.

New World Development’s net gearing ratio – a metric of how much of a developer’s operations are funded by debt – stands at 46.9 per cent, while Henderson’s was 24 per cent, according to their latest interim financial reports. And with interest rates at a 14-year high, developers are wary, Tsang told HKFP in a phone interview.

“There’s no pressing need for them to take that [land premium] price,” he said. “They can afford to slow down the pace of development.”

Louis Loong, lawmaker for the real estate sector who is also secretary general of the developers association, declined to speak with HKFP, with his assistant saying he had no comment on matters regarding the Yau Tong development.

Gov’t intervention and market forces

The decades-long wait should have been enough to dispel the commonly-held belief that private developers are more efficient than the government, said Chan of Liber Research, arguing that the government’s “blind faith” in market forces had significant implications for future private development initiatives.

That would include development projects on proposed artificial islands to be created east of Lantau and envisaged as the city’s third business district, after Central on Hong Kong island and Kai Tak in Kowloon. Kai Tak was hit the hardest when Midland Realty recorded a cumulative 20,513 unsold flats in August.

That figure has been on the rise for months, with Centaline Property reporting 19,085 unsold flats as of the second quarter of 2023.

Chan said the idle Yau Tong plot could have been put to better use as a site for transitional housing for residents waiting for a public housing flat, or for flats under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) – the government’s subsidised-sale housing programme.

Flats under the scheme are considered public housing, as are subsidised flats built by private developers introduced under a new pilot scheme that the government says could help kickstart development on existing land.

In 2018, the government set a 10-year target to bring the proportion of public housing up to 70 per cent, with the remaining 30 per cent for private housing. That has become a holdover policy goal for Chief Executive John Lee’s administration.

Chan said zoning half of Yau Tong Bay as HOS flats would create a “sense of urgency” and speed up private development. “They [developers] will realise that they might lose their hold on the development project if the delays persist,” Chan said. “Why can’t the government take the lead and do what this city needs the most, which is to build public housing or subsidised flats?”

But rezoning the land at the Yau Tong waterfront would “change the rules of the game,” said Cody Chow, another researcher at Liber. “It would only be a last resort for the government.” A land hoarding tax, he added, would similarly be out of the question.

Ng Mee-kam, director of Urban Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the government could take a more proactive role in better utilising land resources, if it chose to do so. “They can rezone the land. They can ask [the Urban Renewal Authority] to work on it, and they can initiate a public-private partnership,” she told HKFP.

Yau Tong West district councillor Lui Tung-hai, meanwhile, said the Yau Tong Bay project had been stuck in the pipeline for too long. “Drawing out the development doesn’t do any favours for residents,” he said.

Lui said residents and the council were both largely supportive of the development plan, but also hoped that there would be height and density limitations in place to ensure that the sea view was still visible to other residents.

While he supported the government’s push for more public housing, Lui had no hopes for government flats on the the harbourfront site. “Most of Kwun Tong district is public housing anyway,” he said.

Other than proposed major developments off Lantau and in the New Territories, site rezoning was listed as one of the methods for increasing housing supply in Lee’s maiden policy address last year. He also cited New Development Areas, brownfield and factory estate development, and major infrastructure projects.

In a reply to HKFP, the Development Bureau said zoning the Yau Tong sites for private development would “maximise development potential” to meet development needs.

“While the Government may not have control over the pace of these market-led redevelopment projects and the original use at these sites continues to exist before redevelopment, we consider this as a necessary process of urban renewal to replace old with new,” a spokesperson for the bureau said.

Homes or investments?

Midland’s Tsang, however, said building government flats at Yau Tong Bay would only cause the investment value of the area to fall, and negatively impact developers’ enthusiasm. He compared Liber’s suggestion to the situation at Kai Tak, where home prices plunged after private residents voiced concerns about a short-term public housing initiative that would block their sea views.

Even the current zoning plan could jeopardise property values. The Planning Department acknowledges that “interface problems” may arise while Yau Tong Bay is transformed into a residential area.

Chow said the area’s “Residential (Group E)” zoning bans “new industrial developments” but allows existing industrial buildings to remain until they are replaced by high-rise apartment complexes. This would make for “incompatible” land use over the course of Yau Tong Bay’s gradual transformation into a private housing enclave.

Right next to the Coast Line II complex, just several feet away from the lower floors, are two concrete batching plants that remain operational even though operator China Concrete Company faces 26 prosecutions from the Environmental Protection Department (EPD).

The operator has been refused licence renewals for both plants on several occasions since April 2021 for failing to limit air pollution, and the High Court this January rejected a legal bid to challenge the government’s decision. Just last month, the city’s Ombudsman found that the EPD had properly fulfilled its duties “from an administrative perspective.”

Ailing property market

Suggestions that stamp duty may be cut, a decade after it was increased to curb a property market bubble at the time, have fuelled speculation that home sales and prices could rebound.

As of October 11, after finance minister Paul Chan hinted last month that the measures would be scaled back, Henderson shares had surged 5.8 per cent to HK$21, Sun Hung Kai had risen 7.4 per cent to HK$85.25, and New World 3.9 per cent to HK$15.06. Yet it could be years before developers feel the tangible effects of relaxing what were once dubbed the “spicy measures.”

Meanwhile, disappointing land sales indicate that developers are still cautious. Only two of the 18 plots earmarked for sale in the current fiscal year have been sold so far, raising HK$10 billion in premiums.

Originally, the government hoped to raise HK$85 billion via the programme by the end of the fiscal year in March 2024, which would equate to some 13 per cent of its total expected revenue. It also hoped to rake in the same amount from stamp duties.

For the government, which faces an overall deficit potentially larger than the HK$54.4 billion it had originally forecast earlier this year, land sales are a significant source of revenue for funding infrastructure projects.

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By Amber Wang in Taoyuan, Taiwan

Dressed in a robe fringed with beaded tassels, traditional Taiwanese opera singer Jen Chieh-li applies the final touches to her heavily painted face as she prepares to take the stage.

The 34-year-old is a member of Jing Sheng Opera, one of a handful of troupes in Taiwan still staging traditional dramas in the Hakka language — a dialect that is not widely spoken on the island because of its dwindling ethnic population.

Taiwan’s traditional Hakka opera, usually performed at religious festivals, dates back to the late Qing Dynasty and was brought to the island by migrants from mainland China.

Even as its popularity dwindles, Jen, who has trained at a drama school since the age of 12, said she would not give up the fading art.

“I could find a regular job but it would be a waste of all the time and effort I have devoted to studying and performing Hakka opera,” she told AFP.

That sweltering night in northern Taoyuan county, Jen was performing “Legend of the White Snake”, a famous Chinese folk tale about a romance between a man and a serpent spirit.

Around 100 people, mostly elderly, sat on plastic stools to watch the show on a makeshift stage outside a temple in a reflection of Hakka opera’s struggle to capture the attention of a shrinking audience.

“It is a niche performance art as many people don’t even understand the language,” said Chiang Yu-ling, who founded the Jing Sheng Opera with her husband 19 years ago.

There are only eight Hakka troupes in Taiwan that can keep regular staff, albeit with financial support from the government and private sponsors, according to Chiang.

She is counting on new blood, such as Jen, who is studying for a master’s degree in performance art, to help bring in more and younger audiences.

“My husband and I are in our 50s and we have limited ideas. We hope to get more young people on board… to make Hakka opera more different,” Chiang told AFP.

People are nostalgic

Hakka shares similarities with Peking opera, the most dominant form of traditional Chinese opera that has UNESCO heritage recognition, but language is one of the main reasons for its flagging popularity.

In Taiwan, where Mandarin is widely spoken, Hakka people make up less than 20 percent of its 23 million population, and even those within the community are no longer fluent in the dialect.

“My father’s generation speak mostly Mandarin already and I speak very little Hakka,” said Louis Lo, 30, who was accompanying his elderly relatives to the show.

“The opera doesn’t appeal to young people due to the language barrier,” he told AFP.

To attract more fans, Jing Sheng’s troupe has incorporated modern elements into traditional performances.

One example is their update of a Chinese folk drama involving a dragon princess and her human lover, which now includes street dance sequences, fire acts and acrobatics.

“We are getting the audiences to know Hakka opera through more innovative performances and hopefully they would also want to watch the traditional ones,” Jen said.

Despite their dwindling audience numbers, fellow performer Shih Yu-tsen, 31, said the art form “definitely won’t vanish”.

“There may be fewer Hakka operas but people are nostalgic,” she told AFP.

“They will recall the past all of a sudden and they will want to watch it.”

Besides, Jen said, a show ticket costs as little as $200 Taiwan dollars (US$6.30) with student discounts.

“We often say it just takes the same amount of money to buy a Starbucks to support traditional art, to keep it alive,” she said.

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In the heart of Cheung Chau, a cultural park bearing the name of Cheung Chau Cinema has opened to the public. But the movie theatre itself – a Grade III historic building dating back to 1931 and one of Hong Kong’s two remaining pre-war cinemas – remains fenced off.

Since its closure in 1997, the 555-seat cinema has been largely abandoned and left to decay, but will be transformed into a restaurant while retaining its original structure, according to the developer.

Passers-by peeped curiously into the recently opened park when an HKFP reporter visited the dumbbell-shaped island southwest of central Hong Kong in mid-September, but were hesitant to enter. Some said they had not been consulted about the privately-run restoration project while others welcomed the plan, hoping it would bring back some life – and tourists – to the venue that existed only in their childhood memories.

“[The Cheung Chau Cinema] illustrates why it’s important to focus on conservation but not preservation,” conservationist Fredo Cheung told HKFP in Cantonese. “Its abandonment was due to its failure to meet the needs of the community. By introducing a new purpose, it can serve the community again… while being retained as much as possible.”

HKFP talked to Cheung Chau residents and experts to understand the challenges facing such cultural heritage projects and their connection to the collective memory of the community.

26 years of decay

“The last film I watched [at the Cheung Chau Cinema] was Stephen Chow’s Hail the Judge,” Kong, an island resident for over 40 years, told HKFP in Cantonese. Hail the Judge was a 1994 comedy starring Stephen Chow and directed by Wong Jing.

Throughout its six decades in operation, the Cheung Chau Cinema was one of the island’s few entertainment venues. “There were only two cinemas on Cheung Chau back then, and the other one closed even earlier… [so] many people liked to watch films here,” Cheung, an indigenous resident, said in Cantonese.

According to Hong Kong Memories, a digital archive that documents the city’s history and culture, Cheung Chau Cinema’s only rival, the Golden Dragon Theatre, brought down the curtain in the 1980s, and the site was used for a residential complex.

“I loved to go there as a kid… [the Cheung Chau Cinema] would screen Wuxia films starring Walter Tso and Yam Kim-fai, and I would trail behind the adults to sneak inside, standing in the aisle to watch,” said local resident Cheung, now aged 76.

Tso and Yam were both household names and Chinese opera film icons in the mid-20th century.

After the cinema closed down, the building was neglected for years; projectors and theatre seats became tarnished as nature gradually reclaimed the site. Kong, who ran a photo studio opposite the cinema in the 1990s, said residents were unclear about its future back then.

“Its roof collapsed! Roots grew into the walls and windows were broken,” Kong said. “I personally would like it to have been developed sooner.”

A decade of revitalisation plans

Things began to change after the government classified the cinema as a Grade III historic building in 2011.

Under Hong Kong’s three-level grading system, Grade I is the highest, meaning the structure could potentially become a declared monument protected by the law, Fredo Cheung, chief director of the Conservancy Association Centre for Heritage, told HKFP.

“But being Grade III doesn’t mean it’s less valuable, and the Cheung Chau Cinema has great historical and social value,” he said.

The difficulty in conserving Grade III historic buildings lies in the fact that many were private properties, and often the owners could not afford to conserve them, Fredo Cheung said. Demolition and redevelopment would almost certainly yield greater commercial value.

“From the perspective of a private property owner, having [the cinema] left idle for so long is like burning money,” Wendy Ng, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Architectural Conservationists (HKICON), told HKFP in Cantonese.

Local media reported in 2012 that an application to build an 11-condominium complex at the site was withdrawn. Plans to develop a shopping mall were also retracted.

In 2015, the now defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily reported that the former cinema may be transformed into a restaurant while minimising alterations to its structure.

According to Cheung Chau Culture Company, which is managing the revitalisation, historical artefacts dating back 5,000 years were unearthed during the restoration process. This discovery led to a three-year exploration, further delaying redevelopment.

In August, when the company opened the first phase of the revitalisation plan – an information centre, a piazza, and a studio offering activities such as film screenings and concerts – CEO Eric Chiang told media that the whole project had cost an undisclosed nine-digit sum.

As for the actual cinema building, which remains inaccessible, its main block will be turned into a “Chinese-themed restaurant.” It is expected to launch in 2025, according to the company’s plan.

‘Manage change, not prevent change’

When asked how he felt about the revitalisation plan, Kong said he welcomed a new restaurant in the neighbourhood. “I could hang out with my friends, and it’s one more option for the tourists,” he said, his wife nodding beside him.

But asked whether residents would like the cinema to retain its original function, Kong – and other locals who spoke with HKFP – said they had no say in the project.

“For private heritage owners, the top priority is inevitably to sustain its properties,” Ng of HKICON said. “If it remained a cinema, would enough moviegoers visit? The fact that it closed in the first place implies the opposite. If changing its function could sustain the historic building, it is already meaningful from a conservationist point of view.”

Ng added that the government could increase assistance to private heritage owners, including streamlining the application process for funding schemes.

“Heritage is not just about the building itself,” Fredo Cheung said, “and Hong Kong is still using a rudimentary approach to heritage conservation that sometimes overlooks the contextual values of a building in its community.”

He said he hoped that the “most important features” of the Cheung Chau Cinema would be conserved, but said there should be some leeway for it to adapt to new uses.

“We should manage change, not prevent change.”

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Michael Brock was a sympathetic and thoughtful teacher who guided me through 19th century English politics. I always tried to follow his example when I became a teacher myself.

But the most important thing he taught me was not about English politics but about university politics. We were discussing some obviously fatuous decision of the University Senate, and I expressed bewilderment that so many people who in their academic work were dispassionate and logical, could be so prejudiced and irrational when running the university in which they worked.

This was an error, Mr Brock said in his gentle way. The fact that people could think dispassionately and logically in their work did not mean they would think dispassionately and logically about anything else.

We had stumbled across what is now a commonplace of psychology: mental habits are, as they now put it, domain-dependent. Habits and processes from one area will not necessarily influence others.

So we find that there are university professors who believe in fairies, cold-eyed financial analysts who carry lucky rabbits’ feet, and so on. This problem afflicts even the most eminent scientists. Linus Pauling is a good example. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, and the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in global politics. He spent much of the later part of his life campaigning, in defiance of any serious evidence, for the idea that massive doses of vitamin C could cure the common cold, and cancer.

Mention of the Nobel Prize brings us to the local example which brought this matter into my head. I have been following, from a safe distance, the small scandal which has arisen at Hong Kong University, where a whistleblower, or possibly whistleblowers, have alleged that the President and Vice Chancellor has been violating some bureaucratic rules on the spending of money.

I know no more of this than we can read in the newspapers and nothing in this item should be interpreted as implying any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the P and VC, Zhang Xiang.

As often happens on these occasions some interesting snippets emerged into the light of day. One of the matters in dispute concerns a project to refurbish the private dining rooms reserved for senior staff. There are three of them. Am I alone in thinking three is perhaps a bit excessive?

Anyway the P and VC deployed lawyers and a private PR company, the University Council set up a small committee to look into the matter, and into this bubbling brew stepped Professor Fraser Stoddart, alias Sir James Fraser Stoddart, a global authority on the structure of molecules, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2016 and a freshly minted Chair Professor at HKU.

Apart from musings on international academic culture which I shall not visit, Prof Stoddart made two points in an open letter. The first one concerned one of the whistleblown complaints: that President Zhang had hired a headhunting company to look for a new vice president and medical dean, without going through the usual tendering process.

“I think organisations often have small windows to attract top talent and if they follow the rules and use Google Search they may lose the desired individuals,” the prof was reported as saying. “Speed is of the essence. It has to happen literally in hours. It has to happen in hours. Not days, not weeks, not months. It has to happen in hours and things are not at HKU.”

University administrators all over Hong Kong then had to pick themselves off the floor on which they had been rolling while laughing. This is just not the way these things are done in Hong Kong and it probably shouldn’t be. The appointment of a vice president usually takes up to a year involving what is called a “global search.”

It must be said that the results of the global search are often disappointing. Since there is an unofficial expectation that the successful candidate will have a Chinese name and already be doing a similar job elsewhere, the list of serious candidates often comes down to a few people who are already vice presidents or similar in US universities, or even a Hong Kong one.

Still, administrative cultures vary; it is not uncommon for people used to the way things are done in other places to find Hong Kong procedures frustrating. I happily plead guilty to occasional bursts of barely suppressed rage. But it is the way things are done here.

I suspect the underlying problem here may be that Profs Zhang and Stoddart are used to the way things are done in America. Hong Kong organisations generally – not just the universities – tend to have elaborate procedures, often adopted on the advice of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), intended to banish any whiff of nepotism, favouritism or corruption. This is an objective to which most Hong Kong people subscribe with enthusiasm. I hope the rules were followed. If they were not, the council is quite right to take the matter seriously.

Prof Stoddart’s other point was about whistleblowing. He said the complaints should be ignored because “Anonymous letters and emails are not worth listening to, much of which are probably fabricated.”

This is not good enough. Of course people who wish to complain about the P and VC of their university are going to do so anonymously. Hong Kong’s protections for whistleblowers are very sketchy and in any local institution presidential enthusiasm for frank public discussion of alleged errors is limited.

If complaints cannot be made anonymously and investigated properly on that basis they will not be made at all. The police and ICAC accept anonymous complaints for similar reasons. University councils should do the same.

I see Prof Stoddart was only appointed by HKU on September 3 of this year. A bit early, perhaps, to be participating in this sort of affair?

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Applications for jobs in Hong Kong’s civil service rose sharply during this year’s recruitment period, Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung has said, with around 20,900 received.

Yeung said in a Facebook post on Thursday that the Civil Service Bureau received around 12,500 applications for Administrative Officer posts – a 34 per cent increase from last year’s recruitment. Some 18,400 applications – a 38 per cent hike – were received for Executive Officer posts. Some people applied for both.

The government aims to recruit 50 Administrative Officers and 220 Executive Officers (Grade II). The application period ran from September 16 to October 6.

Spike in resignations

The city has seen a marked increase in resignations from the public service in recent years. There were 3,743 resignations in the 2021-2022 year, up from 1,863 the previous year, according to a Legislative Council document.

From June 1, the government began allowing undergraduate and graduate students to apply for civil service roles up to two years before they finish their courses. The city currently employs 173,643 civil servants.

“I feel encouraged by the number of applications received, which reflects the interest of many people, including fresh graduates and third-year university students, in joining the civil service and serving the public,” Yeung wrote.

“It is important to stay updated on current affairs and deepen the understanding of public policies in different fields, as well as major international political and economic developments,” Yeung added, addressing the candidates.

She also emphasised analytical and writing abilities as well as time management skills. Qualified applicants will be invited to take part in a recruitment examination on December 2, she added.

Yeung also earlier said “persistent non-performers” would be sacked under a system aimed at maintaining the service’s efficiency, in a move that drew criticism from the employee union. Chairman of the Federation of Civil Service Unions Leung Chau-ting said the system could deter potential applicants from joining the service.

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Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing party has suggested cutting the stamp duty on residents’ purchases of second properties from 15 per cent to six per cent, in an attempt to stimulate the economy.

Speaking on an RTHK programme on Wednesday, Holden Chow, vice-chair of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the decade-old “spicy measures” – originally imposed to curb soaring prices – should “keep up with the times.”

He said the economic environment in which the government imposed measures to curb demand and rampant speculation was greatly different from the current situation.

“The international economy and Hong Kong’s economy are not the same as they were ten years ago” Chow said, suggesting that buyers’ stamp duty on second property purchases should be cut by more than half, down to six per cent.

“I believe that there’s a large demand, so this would alleviate buyers’ tax burden,” he added.

Imported talent

Chow also proposed exempting professionals who have settled in Hong Kong via various talent schemes from paying stamp duty when purchasing properties.

They would only have to pay if they leave the city and sell their homes without fulfilling the permanent residency requirement of seven years’ residence.

Cutting those taxes would incentivise professionals to settle in Hong Kong, buy homes, and stimulate the economy, he added.

Finance minister Paul Chan earlier this week said he would be “pragmatic” in deciding whether to curb stamp duty, as recommended by embattled property developers: “We will consider this pragmatically, with reference to market conditions and the environment in which the policy was formulated.”

He added that corporate taxes would make up for the expected shortfall in government revenue, and the city’s economy would remain stable in the medium to long term.

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Seventeen-year-old Matthew Tsang, who went missing for a week and sparked a massive search in a Hong Kong country park, survived “solely by drinking stream water” and did not eat anything, his mother has said on Facebook.

“It’s God’s miracle that even though he didn’t eat, he still lives, ” Amy Chan said early Thursday, adding that her son is now in hospital and “his physical and mental conditions are stable.”

It was unclear why Tsang went missing. The mother said he was “lost and stuck in the woods. ” She told local media previously that her son had recently been experiencing academic pressure and stress.

Tsang, a student at Diocesan Boys’ School, was reported missing on Wednesday last week after leaving school at noon. He left his mobile phone at school, taking only a wallet and Octopus card with him.

According to police, the boy exited Shek Mun MTR station and was last seen at Siu Lek Yuen heading in the direction of the 29-square km Ma On Shan Country Park at around 2:30pm that day.

The rescue team found the boy in bushes near a stream on Wednesday afternoon. Chow Cheuk Fung, Station Commander of Sha Tin Fire Station, told media on Wednesday evening that Tsang was found conscious and not wearing any clothes.

He was given warm clothes and energy drinks at the scene and taken to hospital by helicopter.

Amy Chan said the boy had been “thoroughly soaked” by Typhoon Koinu last weekend and took off his wet clothes to avoid getting sick. He sheltered in the bushes from the rain and wind.

A joint force of Fire Services Department, Police, Civil Aid Service, alumni of Diocesan Boys’ School and several civilian rescue teams were deployed to search the country park.

Chow said searchers had used multiple methods including search and rescue dogs. They also took over 10,000 pictures of the park from drones and analysed them using artificial intelligence.

He said his department had deployed 28 fire trucks, nine ambulances, 112 firefighters and 24 paramedics, including a mountain rescue team, and finally narrowed down the search to places near bushes and streams.

Anson, founder of a civilian rescue team called The Hong Kong Guardians, told Ming Pao on Thursday that eight team members took part in the operation, searching overnight from around 9pm until 6am the next morning in addition to doing their day jobs.

Anson said many teammates had had to go to work immediately after their overnight search, adding he was happy that the boy was finally found.

Although parts of Hong Kong are densely developed, almost 40 per cent has been designated as country park. Hikers occasionally go missing in the rugged and mountainous terrain.

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Seventeen-year-old Matthew Tsang Hin-chit has been found alive by rescue teams in Hong Kong’s Ma On Shan Country Park after being reported missing seven days ago.

The case caught the city’s attention as the boy’s mother, Amy Chan, repeatedly sought help finding her child on Facebook. Alumni of Diocesan Boys’ School – where Tsang was a student – police, Fire Services Department, Civil Aid Service, and civilian rescue teams, had been searching the country park and adjacent areas over the past week.

Ma On Shan Country Park covers 28.8 square kilometres, which is equal to around 151 Victoria Parks. According to the police, Tsang was found in a bush near a stream on Wednesday.

It was unclear that whether Tsang had spent the past week in the country park, and how he survived the heavy rainfall and high winds brought by Typhoon Koinu on Sunday and Monday.

In a joint press conference held by the police and the Fire Services Department on Wednesday evening, Chow Cheuk-fung, Station Commander of Sha Tin Fire Station, said Tsang was found conscious and not wearing any clothes.

“We gave him warm clothes and energy drinks. After assessment, we thought it best to send the boy to hospital by helicopter,” Chow said in Cantonese. Tsang is currently receiving treatment at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital.

Chow added that rescue teams had used multiple ways to search for Tsang, including hiking with search and rescue dogs, and using drones to take pictures of the country park and analysing those pictures using artificial intelligence.

Twenty-eight fire trucks, nine ambulances, 112 firefighters and 24 paramedics, including a mountain rescue team, were deployed over the past seven days, searching an area of 10 square kilometres.

“Today we further narrowed down our search area to a place called Mouse Farm Stream,” Chow said, “We searched along the stream and found Matthew after my colleagues pushed aside the bushes.”

The commander said the rescue teams did not enquire as to why the boy went missing, nor about his experience over the past week. “We will try and find out more when his condition is stable,” Chow said.

Tsang went missing last Wednesday after leaving school at noon and exiting the Shek Mun MTR station in New Territories at around 1.30 pm. Tsang’s parents reported him missing to the police later that evening.

According to his mother, Tsang was last seen wearing his school uniform before going missing. He left his mobile phone at school, taking only a wallet with him.

Police last Saturday that Tsang had last been seen on Hang Shin Link in Siu Lek Yuen going in the direction of Ma On Shan Country Park. Rescue forces have since focused their attention on searching the vast country park.

It was unclear that why Tsang went missing. His mother told local media that Tsang had been experiencing academic pressure and stress recently.

“Daddy and mommy love you very much. We missed you. We are proud to have you as our son. Please come home and we will face everything together,” Tsang’s parents said in a missing person poster.

Chan posted on Facebook on Wednesday afternoon that her son had been found: “Thanks be to God! We have found Matthew, and he’s alive! We will announce details later. Thanks to everyone!”

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The University of Hong Kong (HKU)’s governing body has convened a panel to probe misconduct complaints against the institution’s president, who has continued to denounce “rumour-mongers” and the allegations made.

The HKU Council held a meeting on Monday to discuss anonymous email complaints against president and vice-chancellor Zhang Xiang. The governing body said a five-member taskforce would be formed to investigate per the university’s “whistle-blowing” policy and procedures.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, council chairperson Priscilla Wong said the panel would be led by council member and lawmaker Jimmy Ng. The other four on the panel will include council members Brian Stevenson and Jason Chiu, as well as two non-council members who will be appointed in due course.

“Following the law and the procedures, [the panel] will restore and analyse the truth in a fair and impartial manner, and will submit a report to the council for follow-up,” Wong said in Cantonese.

The panel is expected to report to the council within 12 weeks and follow-up action will be considered if necessary, Wong said.

She declined to say whether the report would be made public, despite calls from university alumni for an open investigation.

Wong also said that Zhang Xiang would remain the university’s head in the meantime.

“[Zhang] is still our president. For now, we do not have any assumptions. We will handle the complaints carefully. And we will take action only when we have discovered the truth,” Wong said.

Whistle-blower accusations

The formation of the panel is the latest development relating to an ongoing saga at HKU, where the institution’s head is facing allegations of misconduct and mismanagement. The claims were made in anonymous emails sent to members of the HKU Council last month.

Zhang was said to have mishandled a donation from a mainland Chinese corporation, recruited a US head-hunter without following procurement procedures to hire a medical dean and a vice-president, and misappropriated school funds for renovation work.

The Chinese-American physicist – who was appointed as the university’s president and vice-chancellor in 2018 – has denied the claims and slammed “rumour-mongers” of leaking confidential information and distorting the truth.

Zhang attended the meeting in HKU’s Knowles Building on Monday with his lawyers, Ming Pao reported. The meeting was pushed back from last week, when he sent a lawyer’s letter requesting a postponement. That letter was leaked to the media shortly after.

In a bilingual statement issued after the meeting, Zhang expressed disappointment that his communication with the council was made public. He also raised concerns over the ability of the council to handle the accusations against him in a “fair and impartial manner.”

“The fact that our confidential communication was leaked immediately raises concerns about potential unauthorized disclosure by certain members of the Council and its potential connection to the rumourmongers,” Zhang said in his statement.

Under the council’s code of practice, members are banned from disclosing any council information without the permission of it and its chair.

Zhang urged the panel to handle the matter in a “fair and just manner.”

He also said his lawyers had that all the accusations were “baseless and maliciously fabricated” after reviewing the documents, analysing the facts, and examining HKU’s policies and relevant laws.

“I have a solid legal basis to pursue defamation lawsuits against the rumourmongers,” Zhang wrote, but added that the anonymity of the whistle blowers had made it difficult to do so.

Zhang’s statement was released by an external public relations agency, instead of via the HKU Communications and Public Affairs Office.

Charles Li, a council member and the former CEO of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, said he was saddened by the recent saga involving the leaders of HKU. Li, whose term in the governing body will end this month, said he supported a “serious and just” investigation into the matter.

“We need to make sure whatever is done to the great name of this university does not become permanent,” he said.

But he also urged the upholding of the presumption of innocence, and said people should not “rush to judgment.”

“What I am worried about, while the process is running for the next few weeks and months, maybe longer, the university should not be put in a permanent political infight, conflict, and disputes.”

“If we find something wrong with what is alleged, or we prove that to be the case, then we deal with it decisively,” Li said.

Speaking to reporters ahead of Tuesday’s regular Executive Council meeting, Chief Executive John Lee said that it was in everybody’s interest that the matter be handled in a fair and impartial manner.

“Speculations and otherwise accusations which are based on individual feelings will not help the whole matter,” Lee said.

Zhang succeeded Peter Mathieson, who resigned after four years in office, in 2018. Since assuming the role, he has faced controversy over the alleged suppression of academic freedom and nepotism, including when his ex-colleagues from UC Berkeley were appointed as vice-presidents of HKU in 2020.

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Hong Kong has issued around 100,000 working visas in the first nine months of the year, around 2.5 times more than the total number granted in 2022.

The surge was led by the new Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS), launched last year to attract talent amid a brain drain.

“As General Secretary Xi Jinping has said, ‘the competition of national strength ultimately comes down to a competition of talent,'” Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in Mandarin at a forum on Monday, quoting a speech made by the Chinese leader at a major congress meeting last year.

“Currently, different economies are all striving for high-quality talent and professionals,” he said, adding that Hong Kong and “its brother cities” in the Greater Bay Area needed to stand out internationally to sustain “high-quality development.”

The 100,000 working visas granted from January to September this year were significantly more than the 38,559 issued last year. Travel restrictions were in effect for most of 2022 as the city maintained strict Covid-19 rules.

According to Chan and labour chief Chris Sun, who also attended the forum, around 39,000 people were approved via the TTPS by September 30.

Introduced during Chief Executive John Lee’s maiden Policy Address last year, the TTPS attracts graduates from the world’s top universities – or who earn an annual income of more than HK$2.5 million – to come to Hong Kong. Applicants do not need to have secured a job offer in advance.

Most TTPS holders were from mainland China. In response to HKFP, the Immigration Department said that 30,183 people had received visas as of July 31, of whom 94.6 per cent of applications came from mainland China.

One per cent of the talent visa holders came from the US, while another one per cent from Canada.

Sun, the labour chief, said in Mandarin that the TTPS served “as a major driving force for our efforts in competing for talent,” adding that the city should provide housing and education support for the families of the visa holders.

Over 80 per cent of the TTPS visa holders were graduates from top universities, while the rest were high earners, according to the Immigration Department.

According to local outlet The Collective, which interviewed visa holders and migrant agents, some who had been approved under the TTPS did not plan to settle in Hong Kong. Instead, they wished to secure the visa as a back-up plan for the future.

Visas relaxed

In the Policy Address 2022, the city’s leader John Lee unveiled a series of measures to “snatch talent.” He said the local workforce had dropped by 140,000 from the second quarter of 2020 to the same period that year.

Apart from launching the TTPS, the authorities also extended the limit of stay from one year to two years for non-local graduates, suspended the annual quota under the Quality Migrants Admission Scheme (QMAS), and eased requirements for three other schemes.

The number of new visa holders has increased following the relaxations. The Immigration Department’s figures showed that 7,022 people have obtained visas under QMAS in the first half year of 2023, of which 98.3 per cent came from mainland China.

In 2022, only 2,845 people were granted the QMAS visas.

Mass exodus

Hong Kong has seen an exodus of local families and expatriates in recent years amid strict Covid-19 restrictions and a national security law imposed by Beijing.

According to a survey of 107 Hong Kong professionals released by a global recruitment consultancy in October, over half considered leaving the city within five years. Among them, 51 per cent were aged between 27 and 42.

Meanwhile, the UK said in February that some 144,500 people had left Hong Kong and moved to Britain in the two years since it launched a visa route for holders of British National (Overseas) passports (BNO) in early 2021.

Among the BNO visa holders, 69 per cent had university degrees, the UK’s Home Office revealed in a survey released last February. Almost 40 per cent were classified as having a “professional occupation.”

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The Hong Kong government may face a larger deficit than expected this year, finance minister Paul Chan has said, citing poor land sales amid a struggling property market.

Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme on Sunday, Chan attributed the shortfall to weak land sales, totalling only HK$10 billion during this financial year thus far. Originally, Hong Kong had hoped to reach HK$85 billion in land sales and land premiums by the end of the financial year in March 2024.

But he added that the city’s financial situation will remain stable in the mid to long-term.

Land sales

Chan’s remarks came after the government announced it will only auction one plot of land this quarter. Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn said the 1.9-hectare Lantau Island site is expected to accommodate 110 private homes.

In February, Chan forecast a deficit of HK$54.4 billion for the 2023-24 financial year. He also projected that fiscal reserves would decrease to HK$762.9 billion – the equivalent of 12 months of government expenditure.

The finance chief said he would be “pragmatic” in deciding whether to rein in “spicy measures” introduced a decade ago to combat rampant property speculation — a move that struggling property developers have been calling for.

“We will consider this pragmatically, with reference to market conditions and the environment in which the policy was formulated,” he said.

Tourism still behind

Chan was speaking just days after the National Day “Golden Week,” which saw some 1.1 million visitors come to Hong Kong from mainland China. But tourism figures are still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels, Chan said.

He said that tourism figures were still at 70 to 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, while retail sales had rebounded to 90 per cent.

Chan added that large scale events such as the Hong Kong Fintech Week and International Financial Week would help drive tourism: “If people think that Hong Kong is fun, has good food, is a good place to make money, and safe, they will come.”

Corporate taxes

Chan said corporate taxes would make up for the shortfall in land sales revenue and help ease the government’s financial woes, adding that the authorities would collect HK$15 billion from “strategic enterprises” every year, starting from 2026 or 2027.

About 30 of those enterprises have expressed interest in settling in Hong Kong, Chan said, adding that they were among about 200 companies that the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises has reached out to since the dedicated office was established last December.

“It’s the first step that’s the hardest,” he said.

Firms long established in Hong Kong were among the 30 “strategic enterprises” that Chan said were attracted to the city following the government’s move to draw international Innovation and Technology (I&T) companies. Most of them came from mainland China.

Those companies are in various fields including medical technology, financial technology and artificial intelligence, Chan said. He said that some of them were planning to hold events in the city – a move that showed their confidence in investing locally.

Hong Kong’s economy also continued to be affected by “external factors” such as high interest rates imposed by the US federal reserve, he said.

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Taiwan celebrated its 112^th National Day — also known as “Double Ten Day” — with annual military flypast, honorary guard parades and street performances on Tuesday.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen delivered a National Day speech during the ceremony. She said that democracy had thrived on the island despite increased Chinese pressure, and vowed that its people would remain “free for generations.”

Appearing to strike a conciliatory tone with Beijing, Tsai said Taiwan seeks “peaceful co-existence, with free, unrestricted, and unburdened interactions between people across the strait.”

Taiwan will hold national elections in January, but Tsai is unable to run for president again due to the island’s two-term limit. Tsai’s deputy Lai Ching-te will represent the Democratic Progressive Party and run for the election instead.

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Hong Kong lawmakers and those hoping to have candidates run in the upcoming “patriots-only” District Council election have criticised authorities’ refusal to disclose the contact details of committee members responsible for nominating candidates.

Under the recently overhauled electoral system, to be eligible to run for one of 88 directly-elected seats on the local-level advisory bodies – down from 452 in the 2019 election – candidates must receive at least three nominations from government-appointed committees: the Area Committees, District Fight Crime Committees, and District Fire Safety Committees.

Democratic Party chair Lo Kin-hei, who in September revealed that eight party members had been endorsed to run in the December 10 race, said that he had reached out to the Home Affairs Department (HAD) for the contact details of committee members to begin seeking their nominations. However, according to Ming Pao, the HAD said it could only forward the request to the committees.

Citing “the privacy of personal data,” the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) said in a statement last Thursday that it was not authorised to make such information available to the general public.

Another pro-democracy party, the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL), had also raised concerns over difficulties surrounding seeking nominations.

“The democratic camp has less advantage than pro-establishment figures in terms of securing nominations from committee members,” Kwok Wai-shing, general director of the ADPL, said in Cantonese in September on CableTV.

“According to member lists of the three committees, many come from pro-establishment parties… it’s hard for us to reach out.”

The HAD website shows the emails of committees and names of their members, but does not reveal personal contact details.

‘Self-contradicting’

Responding to Ming Pao, the HAD said it had requested members of the three committees to provide their contact information at the beginning of the year to allow the public to access it for “council-related matters.”

However, the contact information could not be disclosed to those hoping to run in the District Council race because by the time members had agreed to provide their contacts, the new electoral system had not been approved, HAD said.

Tik Chi-yuen, the one self-proclaimed non-establishment lawmaker in the legislature, told Ming Pao that the authorities were “being inconsistent and self-contradictory.” While they cited data privacy as a reason for not disclosing members’ contact details, they had also requested the committees to disclose members’ personal data, he said.

Executive Councillor Ronny Tong said in early October that the government should provide at least one way for prospective candidates to contact members of the three committees. He added that the situation could potentially hinder people from running and even result in a legal challenge being launched against the government.

In an editorial last Wednesday, Ming Pao said the EAC had a responsibility to disclose committee members’ contacts, to offer election candidates a clear path to securing nominations, and to run the overhauled election in a fair and transparent way.

It also said that privacy of personal data should not be used as an excuse, as elections were linked to public affairs and should be exempted from the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.

Plans to overhaul the District Council elections were unveiled in May 2023 to ensure only “patriots” are elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019. The number of seats chosen democratically by the public will be slashed to around 20 per cent, with the rest chosen by the city’s leader, government-appointed committees and officials.

Constituency boundaries will be redrawn and each local council will be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates will undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.

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The Observatory replaced the T9 storm signal with the T8 warning at 11:50 pm on Sunday, as Typhoon Koinu began to weaken.

The Observatory said that intense rain bands were still affecting the region: “Locally, more than 100 millimetres of rainfall were recorded over most parts of the territory since midnight, and rainfall even exceeded 200 millimetres over the urban areas, Tseung Kwan O and Lantau Island.”

It issued the black rainstorm warning at 4 am, meaning rainfall exceeding 70 millimetres in an hour had fallen, or was expected to fall.

The T3 Strong Wind Signal will replace the T8 signal at 11.40 am, it added.

In a Monday press release, the government said that 25 people had sought medical treatment at emergency rooms during the typhoon period. There have been nine reports of fallen trees, two confirmed flooding cases, and one report of a landslide. 286 people have sought refuge at temporary shelters.

Schools, courts, sports centres, all child care centres, elderly services centres and day rehabilitation units, as well as other government services will remain closed on Monday morning. Ferries to outlying islands will remain suspended.

The MTR was running a limited service on Monday morning, after hundreds were left stranded at the airport in the early hours.

Around 90 flights had been cancelled, the Airport Authority said. It added that passengers were asked to remain at the terminal for safety reasons.

Travellers waited hours for taxis, as the Airport Express rail line was halted. However, it reopened from around midnight to 3 am to clear the backlog.

Typhoon Koinu’s arrival comes a month after the city was battered by extreme weather events that experts have said are linked to the climate crisis.

Hong Kong saw its first T10 storm signal since 2018 in early September as Super Typhoon Saola brought strong winds to the territory. A week later, the city was hit by record-breaking rainfall that saw cars stranded on flooded roads and an entire MTR station exit submerged underwater. The city has also seen its hottest summer on record.

The weather will improve mid-week, with a sunny weekend in store.

Typhoon Signal 8

When the No. 8 signal is issued, gale or storm force winds are affecting, or expected to affect, Hong Kong.

• The Hong Kong Observatory will make a special announcement within two hours before the signal is hoisted. Most offices and businesses will then close and people without special reasons for staying out are expected to go home.
• All school classes and most government services will halt.
• Ferry services will give notice as to when they will stop running, while most bus routes will halt within two hours after the signal is issued.
• MTR trains will run normally unless weather conditions worsen.
• Citizens should return home or stay in a safe place, and avoid low-lying areas likely to be flooded.
• Temporary shelters will be opened in government buildings for people with no safe refuge.

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Hong Kong’s Observatory raised the T8 storm signal at 12:40 pm on Sunday, as Typhoon Koinu skirted within 100km south of the territory.

“Currently, strong winds are prevailing over many places of the territory. Gale winds are affecting offshore and high ground occasionally. With Koinu further edging closer, winds will strength gradually locally,” the Observatory said.

Cool temperatures, strong winds and heavy showers are expected into Sunday evening, though the weather is set to improve by the end of the coming week.

“With Koinu departing and weakening, the weather will improve over the coast of Guangdong in the middle part of this week. Under the influence of a dry northeast monsoon, it will be mainly fine over southern China in the middle and latter parts of this week,” the Observatory added.

Schools have been suspended. Ferry services to outlying islands will be suspended from mid-afternoon.

The Security Bureau said on Facebook that it had arranged a meeting with 14 policy bureaus and departments in light of the typhoon.

Meanwhile, the “Waterfront Carnival” at Wan Chai harbourfront and the “K-Farm Night Market” at the Belcher Bay Promenade, Kennedy Town, have been cancelled. Both were set to take place on Sunday as part of the government’s “Night Vibes” campaign.

Typhoon Signal 8

When the No. 8 signal is issued, gale or storm force winds are affecting, or expected to affect, Hong Kong.

• The Hong Kong Observatory will make a special announcement within two hours before the signal is hoisted. Most offices and businesses will then close and people without special reasons for staying out are expected to go home.
• All school classes and most government services will halt.
• Ferry services will give notice as to when they will stop running, while most bus routes will halt within two hours after the signal is issued.
• MTR trains will run normally unless weather conditions worsen.
• Citizens should return home or stay in a safe place, and avoid low-lying areas likely to be flooded.
• Temporary shelters will be opened in government buildings for people with no safe refuge.

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Like much else in Hong Kong, the media landscape has changed dramatically since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the city in 2020, with outlets closed and journalists put on trial.

As a result, self-censorship is increasingly inevitable, says journalism scholar Francis Lee – but that should not be seen as surrender, particularly for those who strive to maintain space for professional journalism.

Lee, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, has spoken extensively to journalists in the city about how they “manage risk” amid increasing legal and political uncertainty.

“To simply avoid risk is not risk management,” Lee told HKFP in an interview conducted in Cantonese after his findings were published in July. “To manage risk is to take risks when necessary.”

The emergent “risk culture” in the city was not limited to those in the media, he added. “Today, anyone who is still involved in the public sphere in Hong Kong will constantly assess and manage risks,” Lee said. That also applied to him. 

As a scholar specialising in journalism and social movements, Lee has played an active role in the city’s public sphere. He was an expert witness for the defence in the city’s first national security trial, when he presented research on the controversial “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” protest slogan.

The court later ruled that the phrase was capable of inciting secession, one of four crimes listed under the national security law. Since its implementation, the legislation has been criticised internationally for its broad definitions and alleged overuse, while the government maintains it has helped restore order in the city.

Unlike many public intellectuals who have chosen to keep a low profile or leave the city, Lee has stayed, and continues to study civil society and give talks on press freedom in Hong Kong. This summer, he published a Chinese-language book on how to read the news, covering topics such as media funding, political affiliation, professionalism, and disinformation. 

“When there is something you really want to do, you just have to try it. You know things may be different in Hong Kong today, and you might feel a bit worried or scared, but in the end you just have to give it a go,” Lee said.

‘Typhoon protection measures‘ 

While academia often lags behind social changes because of the time it takes for researchers to secure funding, Lee has tried to keep pace, closely following Hong Kong’s changing political landscape. He has studied the media’s role in a mass protest in 2003, the public memory of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and the internet’s role in more recent movements.

“You just try to study things as they happen. Big-scale surveys and telephone interviews do cost a lot, but just going to the scene and doing interviews is affordable,” Lee said. “Sometimes, [we] need to pay for it ourselves first and consider funding applications later.”

At the height of the 2019 protests and unrest, Lee and three other scholars conducted a series of onsite surveys about participants’ motivations.

When the national security law reached the media sector – resulting in the closure of the city’s largest pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and independent online media outlets, Stand News and Citizen News – Lee felt he should follow the resulting changes. 

Apple Daily and Stand News stopped operations on June 24, 2021, and December 29, 2021, respectively, following police raids on their newsrooms and the arrests of editors and management staff.

In the wake of these events, Lee’s research team conducted 43 in-depth interviews with journalists and editors from 12 media outlets in the first half of 2022. Amid a rise in self-censorship – once a taboo newsroom topic that is now more openly discussed and debated – Lee also identified a strong sense of resilience. 

Journalists have developed various ways of assessing risks, such as studying the law and relevant court cases, staying alert to everyday “signals,” and evaluating situations based upon knowledge of mainland China’ s political system and how it has handled dissidents. 

Some journalists said they had made a “conscious choice” to reduce risk through minimal or “acceptable” self-censorship, Lee said. That might include carefully selecting which words to use when reporting on more sensitive topics, or incorporating soft news to show “the outlet did not confront the government all the time.”

One journalist told the research team that his outlet used the term “typhoon protection measures” to describe procedures employed when covering the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. For example, when covering activists’ speeches, they would choose neutral terms to avoid being perceived as advocating on anyone’s behalf.  

For decades, Hong Kong was the only place on Chinese soil where events to honour those killed when the People’s Liberation Army dispersed protesters in Beijing on June 4, 1989, were allowed. However, the annual candlelight vigil in Causeway Bay was not permitted amid the Covid pandemic, and monuments to commemorate the victims have been removed from university campuses. This year passed without any formal observances.

“What we can see is an ongoing negotiation through which journalists try to reconcile the pressure to self-censor with their sense of professionalism,” Lee wrote in the paper published in July, arguing that this process was essential in “preventing risk management from becoming sheer risk avoidance.”

Sometimes media outlets did take risks even after assessing the pressures. One editor told the research team that their outlet had considered taking down some articles after authorities accused Stand News of sedition; during the trial opinion pieces, profiles and articles – 17 items in total – were identified as evidence of “seditious” materials.

In the end, editors of the outlet decided against removing any content. “Because they did not want to send the wrong signal and exacerbate the trend of society-wide self-censorship,” according to the research paper.  

Hanging in the balance

Hong Kong has seen a drastic decline in press freedom, according to an international index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. It dropped to 148th in 2022 from 80th in 2021 before rising eight places to 140th in 2023 – still near the bottom. 

Separately, the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s Press Freedom Index dropped to new lows last year, with journalists saying they were hesitant to criticise the central government.

While freedom of the media was low, Lee said the situation had “reached a balance” this year as there had been no new legal cases launched against media organisations or reporters. Additionally, independent media outlet The Collective was launched and existing ones, such as InMedia, remained in operation.  

“Every authoritarian country tries to reach a balance in the end. Through suppressing some voices to [what authorities see as] an acceptable level, other voices and media, which do not have great influence, can exist for a while,” Lee said. “That’s what already happened in Hong Kong.”

“But looking into the future, questions remain over whether space [for freedom] will continue to shrink. And this is something you can’t anticipate,” Lee said. “Just like whether there will be a war with Taiwan, it is subject to the nation’s policy, and the changing international landscape.”

‘Earned through actions’

In a process typical of Hong Kong families in the 1990s, Lee moved with his parents to Canada, before returning in 2003 after obtaining a PhD in political communications from Stanford University in the US.

“Things just unfolded naturally,” Lee said. That year, he witnessed around 500,000 Hongkongers rally against Article 23 – Hong Kong’s own national security law – and became interested in studying civil society, social movements and their interactions with the media. 

He did not anticipate the surge in protest movements over the 20 years that followed, as more people began to pay attention to public affairs. 

Over time, he began giving frequent interviews and sharing his findings with the press. Since 2014, he has been a regular Ming Pao contributor, and even with public debate muted, Lee speaks. 

He told local media that the city could no longer tolerate satire after a long-running political cartoon strip by Zunzi was axed by Ming Pao in May. In August, he appeared on an online radio show hosted by democrat Emily Lau, saying: “it is normal and reasonable for journalists to ask critical questions. That’s their responsibility.”

Lee said he could not turn down interview requests linked to press freedom and media development because those were his professional areas of expertise and interest. “I just can’t honestly say this is none of my business,” Lee told HKFP. 

He is frequently asked if he intends to leave Hong Kong in the near future. His answer is always the same: “never say never.” Currently some of his family have settled in the UK while some remain in Canada. 

But he still feels he “can do something“ in Hong Kong, at least for now. 

When a publisher approached him about writing a book to promote journalism to the public, Lee said yes without hesitation. While he did not see any risk in sharing his findings in a book, when it came to giving a talk at the Hong Kong Book Fair in July, Lee said he started to worry. 

“It’s an open venue and you just can’t control what questions will be thrown at you. Later, I decided to give it a try.”

The risk paid off, and the event went smoothly. 

“You can’t always completely eliminate concerns or worries. But if you don’t go ahead and do something, you won’t do anything. So you just have to try and be careful.” 

This year he has visited universities in Denmark and Japan to talk about the state of press freedom in Hong Kong. He has also taken a sabbatical, travelling between Taipei, Vancouver and Hong Kong.

At a bookstore in Taiwan’s capital, he recently shared his observations and findings on Hong Kong’s media landscape.

When prompted, he introduces himself as “a scholar supporting democratic movements.”

“But you have to be careful with your words, avoiding any chance of being mistaken as linked to Hong Kong independence, and never answering questions such as: ‘what can we do overseas [to support Hong Kong]?’” 

Ultimately, the space to speak out shifts constantly, he wrote in his book.

“When reports on certain genres and topics disappeared, we know that some space no longer exists. When a reporter published a serious piece, we saw space for journalism. Profession and liberty are things earned through actions.”

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The gentle purlieus of Hong Kong’s Anglican cathedral resounded to unaccustomed dissent last Sunday. The innovation which had some of the devout pouting in their pews was the addition of the national flag – I hope I do not need to say that this means China’s flag – to the usual ecclesiastical adornments.

The flag was not exactly flown. It hung rather limply from a pole, but in a prominent position in front of the pulpit. The idea apparently came from one of our legislative puppets – I beg your pardon, poppets – Peter Koon, who combines the service of an avowedly atheist regime with a position of some consequence in local Anglican circles.

Bishop Matthias Der, presiding, was reported as saying that “We are here to pray for the country, and the flag is here to commemorate [National Day],” which could be considered a bit of an innovation.

Koon later said during the service: “If we were to display the British flag before 1997, would there be the same volume of debate online?… mainly it’s because we have some misunderstanding of our country.” But this opens up an interesting question. As far as we know the cathedral did not display the British flag before 1997. Why not?

After all the Anglican church has not exactly been known for taking a critical look at the powers that be. In fact ever since it was founded by Henry VIII as a contrivance for getting his royal paws on Anne Boleyn’s knickers, it has been notably willing to go along with whatever regime was running the country.

This stellar record of conformity is even celebrated in a satirical song, The Vicar of Bray, which can be found in a reasonably modern version, with subtitles, here. An interesting summary of the way the Book of Common Prayer has sought divine help for the ruling monarch and the British royal family here.

We must, in fairness, note that there is some biblical justification for this flexibility. The founding Christian said we should “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” The early influencer later known as St Paul wrote that “the powers that be are ordained of God.”

We must also note that the Anglicans are not the only denomination with political problems. My father’s enthusiasm for Catholicism evaporated during World War II when he noticed that young men on both sides were being urged to kill each other by the same church.

But having accepted all these points in mitigation we are still left with the question: are there some places where it is not appropriate to wave the national flag and is perhaps a Christian church one of them?

This is not a matter of misunderstanding the country concerned. As Koon so delicately put it: “There is a period in every country that, if held to the scrutiny of modern standards, would require improvement.”

We do not choose our country. We have to try to cherish the one we are issued.

In most contexts there is nothing controversial about flying the national flag. Outside a government building it is, in many places, expected. I am afraid I was raised in a comparatively flag-free environment, where flags appeared only outside embassies and international hotels, but one gets used to local variations in this matter.

Some Americans take pride in raising and lowering the national flag in their front garden every day. German cities offer a confusing medley of flags because there is usually one for the city, one for the state and possibly one for the region, as well as the national effort.

We must recognise, however, that although many of us may not take it very seriously, the flying of the flag is not a mere municipal adornment; it wordlessly communicates something. That is why loyalists who would like to see more people agree with them are encouraging places which did not previously display the flag to get the banner manner going.

Patriotism is a legitimate sentiment – we will leave Samuel Johnson out of this – but it is not a part of religion, and nor is it a part of rationality.

I felt some unease at reports that the Chinese University of Hong Kong was proposing not only to fly the flag on its buildings – an acceptable token of respect for the people who pay for them – but to have a flag guard. This was billed as part of the university’s effort to inculcate patriotism and other worthy urges in its students.

I understand that this particular university has been under some pressure because of the perception in left-wing circles that it is not entirely committed to the new regime and the version of history which goes with it. Still, all this seems dangerously at variance with what should be the university’s primary mission, which is the pursuit of truth through the use of reason. This is not compatible with having a body of doctrine which students are expected to adopt uncritically and without question.

You have to wonder, also, whether now that national education is cropping up everywhere from kindergarten to high school there is really a need to inflict it on university students as well. Surely they will have got the message, if they are ever going to get it?

Flying the flag from a cathedral pulpit raises similar questions. I hesitate to write anything about religion, which is not one of my hobbies, but surely people do not go to church to pray for the country, though they may throw in prayers for a variety of worthy causes while the call is in progress, as it were.

People go to church to pray for salvation and forgiveness, I would have thought, to worship and to share the hope of eternal life and other unlikely eventualities.

Clergy members who wish to offer spiritual guidance need to know where their boundaries are. We may all need instruction in the comparative merits of various national histories. But this had better not come from them.

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Authorities are investigating frozen chicken wings imported from a Japanese prefecture near Fukushima, after they were suspected of violating import control measures implemented after the Fukushima nuclear plant was damaged in an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Under the bans, vegetables, fruits, milk, milk beverages, and dried milk produced in Fukushima are not allowed to be imported to Hong Kong. These foods, as well as frozen meat, poultry, and poultry eggs, however are permitted to be imported from the four prefectures surrounding Fukushima, providing they have a radiation certificate and an exporter certificate issued by Japanese authorities.

The frozen chicken wings, which came from Ibaraki prefecture, did not carry a  radiation certificate, the Centre for food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said in a statement on Friday. Ibaraki is among the four prefectures bordering Fukushima.

“The product concerned has been marked and sealed by the CFS and has not entered the market,” CFS has said in the statement.

The import bans imposed on Japan were expanded in August when Japan began releasing treated nuclear wastewater from the damaged nuclear plant.

The expanded bans prevent imports of all aquatic products “harvested, manufactured, processed, or packed” in Tokyo, Fukushima, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, and Saitama to Hong Kong.

Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said in August that the ban would be indefinite  and the authorities would continue to monitor radiation levels to determine how long the ban will last. “At this point in time, we do not have a timetable of how long the prohibition will last,” Tse said.

Tse asserted that the city had no plans to lift the import bans in the immediate future on Wednesday, ahead of the second phase of the release of treated wastewater from Fukushima.

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in July that Japan’s move was in line with international standards, while the plant operator has also said the radioactivity levels of samples was well within safe limits.

CFS has been regularly testing the radiation levels of Japanese food imports since August 24. As of Friday, all 7,223 samples tested have all returned satisfactory results.

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Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has warned the public against WhatsApp account hijacking after receiving several reports of data breaches within the past month.

The incidents, involving five social welfare services groups and schools, resulted in the exposure of 900 people’s personal data, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) said in a statement on Thursday. Among the details disclosed were the names and mobile numbers of service users, as well as those of students, students’ parents, and staff.

Ada Chung, privacy commissioner for personal data, said on RTHK on Friday that scammers were randomly selecting WhatsApp accounts to hijack, adding that the public should be more cautious when receiving messages from strangers and take measures to secure the privacy of their online accounts.

According to the PCPD, swindlers will often pose as a WhatsApp user’s friend or relative and ask them to forward the registration codes of their WhatsApp accounts.

They also use use fake WhatsApp websites to obtain mobile phone numbers and WhatsApp registration codes.

A new scamming technique called “SEO poisoning” has also emerged, police said on their Cyber Defender social media page. By improving search engine optimisation (SEO) or paying for advertising, scammers are able to get fake WhatsApp websites to the top of search results. If people scan the QR codes from these websites, their data will be breached.

The police warned the public to be aware of sponsored posts that appear at the top of search results, and to always call the person involved to confirm their identity if they receive messages from friends or relatives asking to borrow money.

Following incidents of WhatsApp account hijacking, PCPD suggested enabling two-factor authentication, regularly checking linked devices in WhatsApp settings, and logging out of any devices that are no longer in use.

Fraud-related crime surged

Hong Kong has seen 58,453 crime cases in the first eight months of this year, a 34.6 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.

The security chief Chris Tang said in late September that the rise was attributed to a 52.2 per cent year-on-year spike in fraud-related crime, including e-commerce and phone scams.

Phone fraud rose by 73.6 per cent compared with the same period last year, averaging 272 cases per month, Tang said.

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Hong Kong’s largest pro-establishment party has urged the government to enact policies to promote childbirth, suggesting a one-off HK$10,000 subsidy for families and tax deductions to hire domestic workers may help encourage couples to have kids.

Addressing reporters on Thursday, five lawmakers from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) proposed around two dozen suggestions to combat the city’s low birth rate. They said the party had passed their recommendations to Chief Executive John Lee ahead of his Policy Address at the end of the month.

According to figures cited by the party, Hong Kong’s birth rate reached a 60-year low in 2020, with 43,000 babies born. In 2021, the figure fell further to 37,000.

Lawmaker Stanley Li said the government should offer families HK$10,000 to encourage them to have children, as well as HK$2,000 in yearly medical care vouchers to subsidise children’s healthcare expenditure.

In addition, Li said the government should provide tax deductions to families hiring domestic workers to reduce their financial burden.

“The tax deduction amount could be based on [domestic workers’] minimum monthly wage. Taking 2022 as an example, the amount that is tax deductible could be HK$55,560,” Li said in Cantonese, referring to last year’s minimum monthly wage of HK$4,630 multiplied by 12 months.

Hong Kong is home to around 340,000 domestic workers who typically take on household and childcare duties. Their contributions free up time for parents, allowing them to enter the workforce and earn more money to support the family.

Breastfeeding, IVF support

Besides financial subsidies, the party also suggested offering greater support to breastfeeding mothers, making work hours flexible, and measures related to egg freezing and in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Lawmaker Nixie Lam, who gave birth to her first child in June, said Hong Kong was backwards globally when it came to supporting breastfeeding.

“Actually the government does advocate breastfeeding, and there are some committees that promote this. But in the community, it’s quite rare to see mothers breastfeed in certain places,” Lam said in Cantonese.

Amid the prevalence of late marriage in Hong Kong, the government could also provide more support for reproductive services, the party said.

As of 2021, the latest year that information was available for, the average age of marriage for men and women was 32.2 and 30.6, respectively.

Legislator Elizabeth Quat said many women tended to put family plans on hold to focus on their career, and by the time they were married and settled down, they could be in their late 30s. At that age, it could be difficult for them to get pregnant, Quat said.

“Fertility improvement technology is expensive and has a long wait time [at public hospitals],” Quat said in Cantonese.

Treatment at private clinics, Quat said, could be upwards of HK$100,000, a prohibitive cost for many families.

She said the government could consider countries like Israel, which she said subsidised IVF until families had two children. Other countries, she added, provided partial subsidies.

Quat also said the government should raise the maximum storage period of eggs to 55 years. Under Hong Kong law, the maximum storage period is 10 years unless the woman is freezing her eggs for a medical reason, such as an illness.

Calls from pro-establishment parties for the government to enact measures to encourage childbirth are not new. The Liberal Party said in August that the government should encourage “middle-class families” to have children by offering education vouchers to parents enrolling their children in international schools.

The New People’s Party said ahead of last year’s Policy Address that the government should give new parents a one-off HK$20,000 subsidy to incentivise them to have children.

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Pingtung, Taiwan

Typhoon Koinu left at least one person dead on Thursday as it grazed Taiwan’s southern tip, lashing the island with the strongest winds it has ever recorded and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes.

Koinu made landfall on the island’s southernmost Cape Eluanbi Thursday morning and had weakened as it moved into the Taiwan Strait by 3:00 pm (0700 GMT), according to the Central Weather Administration.

Authorities said an 84-year-old woman died in her home in Taichung city after she was injured by glass shattered due to the gales.

Pan Huang Kui-chun, a 68-year-old temple keeper in southern Pingtung county — the typhoon’s epicentre — said it was “terrifying” watching powerful winds bring down power poles.

“It nearly dismantled my house. I had to move all my deities to the side,” he told AFP.

“This time, the typhoon was especially big. Really big. The wind was really strong. And it blew for a very long time. It took a long time for it to pass.”

Overnight, the eastern volcanic islet of Orchid Island — home mostly to fishermen and farmers — experienced wind gusts equivalent to 342.72 kilometres per hour (212 miles per hour) as Koinu moved west, according to the weather administration.

“The maximum wind gusts of 95.2 metres per second measured in Orchid Island last night is a new record in Taiwan,” a forecaster told AFP.

Local media said around 2,400 homes on Orchid Island were without power, while the classrooms of an elementary school were damaged by the powerful gales.

Authorities had closed schools and offices on Thursday in anticipation of Koinu’s impact.

Taiwan experiences frequent tropical storms from May to November.

Experts say climate change has made the paths of tropical storms harder to forecast while increasing their intensity — leading to heavy rains, flash floods and strong gusts.

Downed power lines

Rain-drenched streets were deserted Thursday in Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties, with strong winds knocking over street signs and tearing off metal roofing.

More than 350 people were injured, the government said without providing any further details. Local media said some injuries were caused by falling trees.

Across Taiwan, nearly 330,000 homes temporarily lost power.

Downed electricity lines littered the roadside in Pingtung as work crews attempted to bring in fresh poles by truck. A supervisor told AFP it would take at least two days to restore all power.

More than 200 international and domestic flights were cancelled, while nearly 3,000 people in mostly mountainous regions were evacuated as a precaution.

Koinu comes about a month after Taiwan suffered its first direct hit in four years as Typhoon Haikui forced nearly 8,000 people to evacuate from their homes.

Koinu is expected to weaken as it moves towards the coastal waters of China’s eastern Guangdong province, according to the weather observatory in nearby Hong Kong.

The Chinese city, which was skirted by a typhoon last month before days later being flooded by the heaviest rainfall in 140 years, issued its lowest typhoon signal.

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The top governing body of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) will handle complaints “seriously,” its chairperson has said, amid reports of alleged misconduct levelled against the school’s president.

Priscilla Wong, chair of the HKU council, issued a statement on Wednesday evening saying that council members had received anonymous emails containing allegations, and that a special meeting will be held to discuss the matter on Monday.

“The Council will adhere to university policy and procedures… to deal with all complaints in a fair, impartial, and serious manner,” Wong said in the Chinese-language statement.

While no names were mentioned in Wong’s statement, her comments came after an earlier statement by HKU president and vice-chancellor Zhang Xiang, in which he denied what he called “extremely serious allegations” made against him and said he had sought legal advice.

Local media reported earlier this week that whistle-blowers had accused Zhang of mishandling of a donation, intervening in the hiring process of senior positions at the university, and misappropriating funds.

Wong said all 25 council members – including Zhang, who is an ex-officio member of the body – had received anonymous emails last Wednesday. A special meeting to discuss the matter was called off last Friday.

“The accused may exercise their rights, including to seek legal advice,” Wong’s statement added.

Calls for open investigation

Wong’s statement also came after calls from university alumni and an undergraduate representative for an open and independent investigation into the accusations against Zhang.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, 10 members of a body that oversees the administration of HKU urged the university council to formally address media coverage of the allegations against Zhang.

The statement said that details of the accusations against Zhang were only made public by the media.

“This has created a strong impression of governance turmoil without any effective leadership,” the statement read, adding that the lack of clarity has damaged the university’s reputation.

The council was urged to lift confidentiality restrictions to make public the relevant documents related to the accusations against Zhang, as well as establish an independent committee to investigate into the matter through public hearings.

All signatories of the statement were members of the HKU Convocation, the school’s alumni council.

Casey Chik, an undergraduate representative of the council, also said he supported asking the council to lift confidentiality rules.

“It would be unfair to the President & Vice-Chancellor himself for letting the allegations be disseminated, and delaying the process would be further detrimental to the interests of the University. Only a fair, impartial and open investigation can bring the matter to light,” Chik said on social media on Tuesday.

Under the council’s code of practice, members are banned from disclosing any council information without the permission of it and its chair.

Legal advice sought

Zhang Xiang was alleged to have intervened in the hiring process of a medical dean and a vice-president, mishandled a donation from a mainland Chinese corporation, and misappropriated school funds for renovation work, Ming Pao reported on Monday, citing unnamed council members.

In response, Zhang accused “rumour-mongers” of leaking confidential HKU information, distorting facts and taking words out of context to direct attacks towards the school and himself.

“As these allegations might involve unlawful acts and amount to serious defamation against me, I have decided to hire a lawyer and seek legal advice,” Zhang wrote in Chinese.

In an emailed response to HKFP, an HKU spokesperson said that the university had followed procurement procedures in the hiring process of the two positions.

The spokesperson said that the donation in question originated from a mainland Chinese enterprise last year and the donation process adhered to both Hong Kong and mainland laws, rejecting any allegation of money laundering.

On the matters of school renovation work, HKU said that such work was carried out in 2021 in the Senior Common Room – a social venue for senior members of the university – and was in line with its tendering procedures.

Zhang’s office has not responded to a request for comment.

Zhang, a 59 year-old Chinese-American physicist, was appointed as the vice-chancellor of HKU in 2018. He succeeded Peter Mathieson who resigned after four years in office.

Since assuming the role, Zhang has faced controversies over the alleged suppression of academic freedom and nepotism, including when his ex-colleagues from UC Berkeley were appointed as vice-presidents of HKU in 2020.

In response to the issue, Chief Executive John Lee said on Tuesday he believed HKU management could resolve the matter internally, adding that university management should align with public expectations.

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More than half of Hong Kong professionals have considered leaving the city in the near future, a survey conducted by a global recruitment consultancy has found.

The survey, which was conducted by consultancy Robert Walters, found that 52.3 per cent of professionals were considering leaving Hong Kong. More than 15 per cent of respondents planned to “leave as soon as possible,” while 36.7 per cent were considering a move within three to five years.

Among those who expressed an interest in working overseas, 51 per cent were millennials aged 27 to 42.

“The desire to work overseas and gain international experience is not new, especially among young people, but it’s concerning to see such a large percentage of Hong Kong professionals considering leaving the city,” John Mullally, managing director at Robert Walters Hong Kong said in a press release issued last Friday.

Mullally also said that Hong Kong employers should ensure they were “doing everything [they] can” to retain talent.

According to the survey, among those considering leaving the city, 96 per cent had already taken steps to prepare for work abroad. Forty per cent said they had applied for overseas roles, while 27 per cent had looked for internal transfer opportunities.

The survey interviewed 107 professionals in Hong Kong across various industries, including tech, finance, and construction.

Mullally said employers should better understand workers’ expectations to retain talent, especially in times of economic uncertainty.

“Moving abroad is not an easy decision,” Mullally said. “If what professionals want is to gain international experience for career growth or broaden their minds, there are employers that can facilitate this.”

Over the past three years, Hong Kong has seen exodus of local families and expats amid strict Covid-19 restrictions and following the establishment of national security law.

According to the 2022 policy address, the local workforce dropped by 140,000 from the second quarter of 2020 to the same period in 2022.

Responding to a lawmaker’s questions last November, Secretary for Labour and Social Welfare Chris Sun, said that most people leaving the local workforce were aged 25 to 39. Associate professionals, service and sales workers, and professionals experienced the greatest losses of manpower.

“One of the major reasons for the decline in local labour force over the past two years is the significant reduction in people inflow caused by the global epidemic,” the labour chief said. At the time, Covid-19 restrictions remained in place.

According to Britain’s Home Office, as of February, some 144,500 people had left Hong Kong and moved to the UK in the two years since London launched a visa route for holders of British National (Overseas) passports (BNO) in the wake of the national security law.

Among the BNO visa holders, 69 per cent were educated to degree-level or higher, and 39 per cent were professionals, the Home Office revealed in a survey released last February.

Most ‘top talent’ from mainland China

To try and plug growing gaps in Hong Kong’s shrinking local workforce, leader John Lee introduced a series of schemes to attract talent in his maiden Policy Address last year, including a new visa under the Top Talent Pass Scheme to attract top university graduates and high earners.

Launched on December 28 last year, the scheme had received over 41,000 applications as of July 31, among which 30,183 people have been granted visas, the Immigration Department told HKFP on Wednesday.

Ninety-five per cent of top talent visa holders were mainland Chinese, while only 1 per cent were from Canada and 1 per cent from the US.

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Hong Kong’s universities will review extracurricular orientation activities and implement measures aimed at enhancing “moral education,” after two men were arrested over alleged sexual harassment at induction camps for two separate institutions.

In a Legislative Council paper published on Tuesday, the Education Bureau (EDB) said it had collected information from the city’s eight public universities on their existing policies relating to the student-led orientation activities and their plans to enhance the management of such events.

“As individual incidents of the orientation activities of the current academic year have given rise to wide concern in society, many universities have indicated that they will review the management of the orientation activities and put forward improvement measures,” the EDB wrote.

Two men were arrested in late August and early September over separate allegations of sexual assault at orientation camps for students at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Education University of Hong Kong (EduHK).

According to the legislative document, City University of Hong Kong will require students to complete “online tutorials on preventing sexual harassment” every year. The university will also seek feedback from students that joined orientation activities.

The EduHK and Hong Kong Polytechnic University said they had set up, or planned to introduce, committees to enhance monitoring of orientation camps. In particular, EduHK said it would introduce mandatory training on “safety, diversity and equal opportunity, sexual harassment, and moral behaviours” for student organisers and participants ahead of orientation camps.

HKU said only that it “regularly reviews” policies relating to student-led activities.

“Regarding moral education, HKU will remain sensitive to the needs and expectations of the changing societal landscape and [be] swift in making necessary and appropriate updates to our policies and curricula that are most beneficial to our students,” the paper read.

Lawmakers will discuss the matter at a Panel of Education meeting on Friday.

Orientation camp arrests

Orientation camps, typically referred to as “o camps” and organised by student clubs, are widely attended by first-year university students ahead of the start of term. Many are overnight camps where students sleep in campus dormitories. The camps are led by students rather than university staff.

Last month, police launched an investigation after allegations of sexual harassment at a three-day camp for HKU’s nursing society surfaced. An 20-year-old student from the university was arrested on suspicion of indecent assault.

Less than a week later, police arrested a 28-year-old man who attended six orientation camps for EduHK students in July and August. At least four women came forward to accuse him of sexual assault, police said.

He was suspected of rape, indecent assault and voyeurism. Police said he had previously been arrested over a suspected sexual harassment incident that was not related to orientation camps.

The 20-year-old was charged with two counts of indecent assault, and was granted bail on conditions that he does not leave Hong Kong and report to the police station twice a week.

The 28-year-old was charged with one count of voyeurism and two counts of indecent assault. He was denied bail and was placed on remand.

Often seen as a rite of passage for university students, orientation camps have come under criticism before, with accusations that they involve older students humiliating and bullying younger students.

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Hong Kong students have been told to look after their eyesight and participate in an annual health assessment as the number of youngsters needing glasses increased by 4 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Students’ vision has deteriorated in recent years, particularly among lower-grade primary students, the Department of Health said on Tuesday citing data reviewed by the Student Health Service.

Between the 2015/16 school year and 2019/20, the percentage of Primary One students who wore glasses remained at 11 per cent. It rose to 15 per cent in 2020/21, after Hong Kong was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and stayed the same for the 2022/23 school year, the department said.

The overall percentage of primary and secondary students who were referred to government optometry services also increased from 9.4 per cent in 2018/19 to 16.7 per cent in 2020/21, before dropping slightly to 13.2 per cent in 2022/23.

“During the Covid-19 epidemic, students had less participation in outdoor activities and spent more time online with electronic screen products, leading to a marked increase in screen time in primary and secondary students,” the department said in an English language statement.

Face-to-face classes were frequently interrupted throughout Covid, leaving students no choice but to learn remotely using electronic devices. The resumption of full-day in-person classes was later subject to vaccination requirements, before the city eased other Covid-19 policies.

The Department of Health also pointed to the proportion of primary school students who spent at least two hours per day on the internet or in front of screens for non-schoolwork purposes, which stood at 50.1 per cent in 2021/22. It marked a significant increase from 32.2 percent in 2018/19 and 25.8 per cent in 2015/16.

Similarly, the Student Health Services found that 81.2 per cent of the secondary students who attended its centres used the internet for at least two hours a day for purposes other than school assignments. The figure stood at 65 per cent in 2015/16.

Students should use proper lighting and keep a proper distance when viewing screens, the department said. They should also take breaks from time to time,, blink frequently, and get their eyes checked regularly, it said.

In August, a study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Medicine revealed that there had been a “myopia boom” in children aged six to eight, with near-sightedness reaching a record high in Hong Kong following the pandemic.

Results showed that myopia prevalence among the 20,527 children whose vision was examined before, during and after the pandemic increased by half on average after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, reaching a record high of 36 per cent.

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The University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) governing council reportedly cancelled a special meeting on Tuesday that was set to discuss accusations against the school’s head over his conduct.

Zhang Xiang, president and vice-chancellor of HKU, has denied what he called “extremely serious allegations.” He requested a postponement of the meeting via a legal representative on Monday, citing insufficient time for preparation having been given one day’s notice.

In an email sent to the HKU Council, Zhang’s lawyers also indicated that they will be present in future meetings concerning Zhang’s conduct, Ming Pao reported, having obtained a copy of the email.

In a statement issued in the early hours of Tuesday, Zhang accused “rumour-mongers” of leaking confidential HKU information, distorting facts and taking words out of context to direct attacks towards the school and himself. “I believe these accusations are organised and deliberate acts. As these allegations might involve unlawful acts and amount to serious defamation against me, I have decided to hire a lawyer and seek legal advice,” Zhang wrote in Chinese.

Zhang added that he “deeply regretted” that his email – which was supposedly received only by council members – was leaked to the media within an hour.

The HKU Council did not immediately respond to HKFP as to whether the meeting, originally scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday, had been cancelled or postponed.

Whistle-blowers accusations

Tuesday’s meeting came after multiple HKU Council members reportedly received emails from whistle-blowers raising accusations against Zhang.

The vice-chancellor was alleged to have intervened in the hiring process of a medical dean and a vice-president, as well as mishandling donations from a mainland Chinese corporation, and inappropriately using school funds for renovation work, Ming Pao reported, citing unnamed council members.

In an email response to HKFP, an HKU spokesperson said that the university had followed procurement procedures in the hiring process of the two positions.

The spokesperson also said that the donation in question originated from a mainland Chinese enterprise last year and the donation process adhered to both Hong Kong and mainland laws, rejecting any allegation of money laundering.

On the matters of school renovation work, HKU said that such work was carried out in 2021 in the Senior Common Room – a social venue for senior members of the university – and was in line with its tendering procedures.

HKFP has also reached out to Zhang’s office, and Priscilla Wong, the chairperson of the HKU Council, for comment.

‘Internal affair’

When asked about his opinions on the saga, Chief Executive John Lee said that he was aware of the allegations, but that it was a matter for HKU management. Lee, as the leader of Hong Kong, is the chancellor of the city’s public universities.

“What is important is that things should be handled in accordance with laid down procedures and any matter should be dealt with in a fair and impartial manner,” Lee told reporters ahead of the Tuesday Executive Council meeting.

He added that university management should be in line with public expectations.

Zhang, a 59 year-old Chinese-American physicist, was appointed as the vice-chancellor of HKU in 2018, after his predecessor Peter Mathieson resigned prematurely after four years in office.

Since assuming the role, Zhang has faced controversies over the alleged suppression of academic freedom and nepotism, including when his ex-colleagues at UC Berkeley were appointed as vice-presidents of HKU in 2020.

HKU dropped four places from 31st to 35th in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings last Wednesday.

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More than 98 per cent of the submissions received by Hong Kong authorities were opposed to a controversial plan to build public housing on part of the Fanling golf course, the Town Planning Board (TPB) has said, as the Hong Kong Golf Club cited the city’s Asian Games wins in golf events as a reason to preserve the site.

The board revealed at a meeting on Tuesday that only 23 of the 1,903 valid submissions it received from the public were in support of the housing drive. The board previously called for the public to share their views on the plan to build public developments to address the city’s housing crisis on part of the Hong Kong Golf Club’s Fanling site.

The proposal has attracted criticism from the club’s supporters who say the course is a world-class facility that should be preserved.

The Environmental Protection Department in May conditionally approved a plan to build subsidised housing for 33,600 residents on a 9.5-hectare plot of the Fanling course.

But the plan hit a snag in August, when a court decided to extend the suspension of the approval of an environmental impact report that may allow the construction. A judge cited a risk of “irreversible” environmental damage and the course’s “important cultural heritage.”

The TPB meetings will continue on Thursday and Friday.

Leader vows golf support

Tuesday’s meeting came as Hong Kong’s golfing team saw a historic performance at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, with golfer Taichi Kho bagging the city’s first Asian Games gold medal in golf.

Asked at a regular Tuesday press conference about whether Kho’s achievements would prompt the government to reconsider the plan, Chief Executive John Lee firstly congratulated the athlete.

He said the authorities had “made a promise” to lend part of the plot taken back by the government in September to event organisers.

“Competition events can happen and there will be no problem with it, because we have promised we will give assistance including giving sufficient preparation time,” he said, without commenting on whether the government would press ahead with the public housing development plan.

Lee had said earlier this June that the government’s resumption plan would not affect international golf tournaments slated to be held in the city.

Asian Games wins

Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Hong Kong Golf Club Captain Andy Kwok said Hong Kong had the potential to make further achievements in golf, and asked the government to provide more support to the Hong Kong team by preserving the Fanling course as a “world-class” golfing facility.

Kwok said the team’s training time had been cut by 20 per cent since the government took back part of the course last month, adding that golfers were not supported by the Hong Kong Sports Institute, and instead relied on the club to provide funding and training.

“The greatest gift for the Hong Kong team would be to designate the eight holes as training grounds, and not for anything else,” he said, according to local media.

The club, which had previously lobbied its members to air their views on the housing plan, was one of the bodies that voiced opposition to the plan on Tuesday. The Heung Yee Kuk – a powerful rural body – was also among those who opposed the housing drive.

Judicial review pending

Several grounds were cited for opposing the housing plan, according to the brief for Tuesday’s meeting, including environmental, cultural conservation, and sports development concerns.

Among the grounds for opposition was the High Court’s interim order to put the government’s approval of the environmental impact report on hold pending a judicial review.

In response, the TPB said the court’s decision would in the meantime allow the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) to review the public housing plan in terms of the layout design, building height and development density.

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