Civil Service Reforms in Hong Kong After the Transfer of Sovereignty

FROM A BRITISH-STYLE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE TO A CHINESE-STYLE POLITICAL STATE: CIVIL SERVICE REFORMS IN HONG KONG AFTER THE TRANSFER OF SOVEREIGNTY Wilson Wong Visiting Fellow, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies The Brookings Institution 2002-2003 and Assistant Professor Department of Government and Public Administration The Chinese University of Hong Kong June 2003 From A British-Style Administrative State to A Chinese-Style Political State: Civil Service Reforms in Hong Kong After the Transfer of Sovereignty Abstract (146 words) Before its transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997, Hong Kong was a British-style pure administrative state in which the civil service, particularly the administrative grade, monopolized most of the political power. After the handover, however, through civil service reforms at both policy-making and bureaucracy levels, much of the power has shifted from the bureaucrats of the pure administrative state to the politicians of a new Chinese-style political state as the civil service ceases to be a powerful autonomous political institution. While economic and management values are the major stated goals, these reforms are actually political reforms in disguise. This regime shift should be enduring because it reconciles the political systemic incongruity between the old governance model and the new China-dominated political order. Due to its “Chinese characteristics,” however, the political state will impose more unpredictability, instability and ambiguity on the long-term governance of Hong Kong. From A British-Style Administrative State to A Chinese-Style Political State: Civil Service Reforms in Hong Kong After the Transfer of Sovereignty Introduction On July 1, 1997, Britain returned the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. British colonial rule of Hong Kong finally came to an end after over 150 years and the new government, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, began operating under Chinese sovereignty and the new constitutional framework set up by the Basic Law, the mini- constitution of Hong Kong. The year 1997 not only marks the change of sovereignty for Hong Kong, but also signifies the rise of a new political order (Kuan 1991; Ghai 1999; Lee 1999; Lau 2002; So and Chan 2002). However, when Hong Kong’s sovereignty changed, the mode of governance left by the British colonial legacy, the administrative state, under which civil servants serve not only as the backbone of government but also as major policy-makers, remained intact. The administrative state model of governance and its embedded power alignment are incongruent and in tension with the new political order of Hong Kong. It is also not fully consistent with the ideologies and values of the new political leaders, who have the China’s endorsement and trust and a strong pro-Beijing background. The British colonial legacy has shaped the Hong Kong civil service as an autonomous and powerful institution with high political legitimacy (Lau 1982; Harris 1988; Miners 1998; Cheung 2001; Lo 2001; Welch and Wong 2001). With the civil service acting as an independent institution, pro-Beijing politicians have often found it constraining their power, posing an obstacle to their leadership and a roadblock for their policies. Since the reversion, there have been disagreements and even some major rifts between the politicians and the civil service in many policy areas, ranging from language policy in high schools to the overall implementation of the “one country, two systems” principle in Hong Kong.1 Many of these disagreements and conflicts between the politicians and the bureaucrats are manifestations of the political systemic incongruity between the old governance model and its new China-dominated political order, as well as of the inner tensions within the “one country, two systems” policy (Chan, Fu and Ghai 2000; Lau 2002; So and Chan 2002). To Beijing and the pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong, reforming the British model of civil service governance has become an important and inevitable step in reconciling the systemic incongruity between the authority rested in the administrative apparatus and the new political 1 The disagreements are often characterized as personal differences between the leaders of the two groups: Mrs. Anson Chan, who was at that time Chief Secretary for Administration and head of the civil service, and Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa of the China-backed politicians. In the view of the politicians, the resistance of the civil service often compromises if not blocks their policies. For example, in the policy of adopting Chinese as the language of instruction in high schools, more than 100 high schools are exempted because of the pressure from the civil service. Chan and Tung also seem to share different views of the pace of democratization in Hong Kong. For example, Tung advocates a policy of “depoliticalization” to freeze or even reverse democratization in Hong Kong, and would like to delay the consultation of the political development of Hong Kong until 2004 or even later (See Wong, 2003). However, in contrast to Tung’s position, Chan has proposed a much earlier review of the democratic development. See Anson Chan, “Hong Kong Gear up for a World without Walls,” (Hong Kong Yearbook, 1999). 1 reality of the post-1997 era. Civil service reforms, often disguised as management and economic-oriented reforms, have become effective and useful political tools for shifting power from the civil service to China-backed politicians. The influence of the civil service has been dramatically reduced by disguised political reforms, which were implemented after 1997 at both the policy-making and bureaucratic levels. These reforms not only strip the top civil service of their main policy-making tools, but also make the civil service, a formerly powerful and autonomous institution, more permeable and vulnerable to influence from the new political leaders. This is transforming the British-style administrative state into a new regime with Chinese characteristics. This article examines the background, context and content of the civil service reforms during the post-1997 period in Hong Kong and discusses their major implications. The Administrative State of Hong Kong: An Ideal Type Before 1997, the political system in Hong Kong was best described as a “pure administrative state” (Lau 1982; Harris 1988; Miners 1998). In some sense, every developed country is an administrative state because a large and powerful bureaucracy has become a standard feature of modern states. But Hong Kong was a pure administrative state because its large and powerful bureaucracy existed in the absence of a democratic context. Through monopolizing most of the political power, the pure administrative state in Hong Kong was a rare real-life ideal type of bureaucratic domination as described in the theories of Max Weber (Gerth and Mills 1958). In the model of bureaucracy developed by Weber, a German sociologist, it is the bureaucrats, owing to their administrative experience, expertise and permanency, who dominate the political system. Even with the presence of democracy, Weber maintains that this dominance can prevail since elected politicians must rely on the expertise of the bureaucrats to govern the modern state. During most of the over 150-year British rule over Hong Kong, political power was held mainly by the local bureaucracy. While other organizations did appear in the chart of Hong Kong’s constitutional design, they were mainly consultative in nature. Even if they had some statutory and constitutional power, like the Legislative Council, most of the power was granted by the bureaucracy and had to be exercised under its monitoring and approval (Harris 1988; Miners 1998). All governors, with the exception of Chris Patten, were members of either the British or the colonial bureaucracy. Regulation of the Hong Kong civil service ensured the high autonomy of the local bureaucracy against any extensive external influence by either the Governor or the British government. Many government functions, including budgetary and administrative powers, were decentralized to the Hong Kong administration and the Hong Kong government functioned as a de facto independent and self-governing state (Lau 1982). Not all bureaucrats were equal, however. As in Britain, generalist grade administrative officers were the most powerful and elite positions in the British civil service. Domination by the administrative grade was supported by a structural arrangement in which almost all top positions were reserved for the administrative grade only (Theakston 1995; Fry 1997). 2 Politicians, Bureaucrats and Images of the State Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman (1981) presented a very useful classification framework for understanding the nature of the administrative state in Hong Kong. They used a set of four images to classify the power and functional relationship between politicians and bureaucrats within the state: Policy / Administration (Image I) Fact / Interests (Image II) Energy / Equilibrium (Image III) Pure Hybrid (Image IV). In Image I, policy is made solely by politicians while the bureaucrats are only responsible for its administration. What Image I captures is no more than the traditional paradigm of politics-administration dichotomy as proposed by Woodrow Wilson (1887). Recognizing the unrealistic and simplified nature of Image I, Image II reflects the view that both politicians and bureaucrats are policy-making participants, but they play different roles. In

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