A PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY OF THE ROLE OF RHETORIC IN THE GARBAGE-CAN POLICY PROCESS: THE CASE OF HONG KONG'S POSITIVE NON-INTERVENTIONISM

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A PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY OF THE ROLEOF RHETORIC IN THE GARBAGE-CAN POLICYPROCESS: THE CASE OF HONG KONG'S POSITIVENON-INTERVENTIONISMKim-ming Lee a; Jack Wai-chik Yue aa Division of Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, HongKong

Online Publication Date: 30 June 2001To cite this Article: Lee, Kim-ming and Yue, Jack Wai-chik (2001) 'A

PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY OF THE ROLE OF RHETORIC IN THE GARBAGE-CAN POLICY PROCESS: THECASE OF HONG KONG'S POSITIVE NON-INTERVENTIONISM', International Journal of Public Administration, 24:9, 887- 907To link to this article: DOI: 10.1081/PAD-100104778URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1081/PAD-100104778

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A PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY

OF THE ROLE OF RHETORIC IN THE

GARBAGE-CAN POLICY PROCESS:

THE CASE OF HONG KONG’S POSITIVE

NON-INTERVENTIONISM

Kim-ming Lee and Jack Wai-chik Yue

Division of Social Studies, City Universityof Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong,

Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the Hong Kong government’s policy-making process from the garbage-can perspective. Despite theofficial claim that the principle of positive non-intervention-ism has been consistently adhered to, Hong Kong policymakers have been strategically employing positive non-interventionism as rhetoric in legitimizing what they chooseto do or not to do in an ad-hoc manner. As a result, be itunder colonial rule or Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong hasbeen governed like an ‘‘organized anarchy.’’ Indeed, playingwith the rhetoric of positive non-interventionism has becomethe identity of Hong Kong policy makers. This argument isillustrated with a review of Hong Kong’s industrial policy-making from the pre-war period to the present.

Copyright # 2001 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. www.dekker.com

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INT’L. J. OF PUBLIC ADMIN., 24(9), 887–907 (2001)

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INTRODUCTION

It is axiomatic that Hong Kong’s economic success since the late 1970shas been attributed largely to the government’s insistence on upholdingthe principle of positive non-interventionism.(1) This principle has beenreiterated by Hong Kong’s financial secretaries in almost every annualbudget speech. Prominent academics, both local and foreign, including theChicago school economist Milton Friedman, have added their voices to thechorus of praise.(2) As a result, the principle of positive non-interventionismhas become the accepted norm of governance in Hong Kong. It is nowregarded as underpinning all public policy activities, not just those inrelation to economic development. And, by dint of its omnipresence, theprinciple plays the role of a meta-value in Hong Kong’s public policymaking process.

This article is not intended to justify or nullify the value of positivenon-interventionism to Hong Kong. Instead, we try to provide another,more valid, narrative account of how Hong Kong policy makers have beentrying to assert and manipulate the value of positive non-interventionism instriving for better governance. The authors adopt a garbage-can perspectiveto elucidate governance in terms of an organized anarchy. The ‘‘anarchy’’dimension points to the garbage-can policymaking process whereas the‘‘organized’’ dimension underlies the role of rhetoric in that process. Weargue that because it is devoid of concrete meaning and clear parameters,the positive non-interventionism principle is a type of rhetoric. Whether it isbreached or honored, the principle stands as it is. The principle is adhered toout of political expediency, not philosophical commitment. Paradoxically,however, its high level of abstraction fits in well with the policy makers’pragmatic orientation, and equips them with great flexibility in the garbage-can like process of governance. This argument will be illustrated with areview of the Hong Kong government’s industrial policy before the SecondWorld War.

CONVENTIONAL DEBATE: THE ROLE OF RATIONALITY

Among the many criticisms leveled against the way Hong Kong wasgoverned during most of the colonial period, one major argument runs thatin the 1980s the policy making process was too incremental,(3) both in termsof the pace and scale of policy change. As the primary reference point incolonial governance, the status quo was presumed by colonial policy makersto be largely satisfactory. The existing power distribution among differentsocio-political forces was depicted as in a state of market equilibrium.

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Large-scale revolutionary change in policy content was unwarranted andexcluded.(4) The government, therefore, reacted rather slowly to unforeseenproblems. Devising policy in a conservative manner served to avoid lastingmistakes, which a non-interventionist Hong Kong government could hardlyafford to make.(5) Many more resources were thus devoted to ensuringefficient implementation of the existing policies rather than comprehensiveformulation of new ones.(6) The key to successful governance lay withprudent financial management. Public spending on all fronts was to beincreased only marginally across the years to avoid instigating unrealisticexpectations from society.

Obviously this conventional line of criticism focuses on the degree ofrationality, i.e. goal-orientation. It is still couched in terms of the dialectic ofrationalism-vs-incrementalism.(7) Measured by pure rationality, the HongKong government was not sufficiently goal-oriented. The incremental-stylefailed, it is argued, to provide strong leadership in the 1980s when HongKong society was clearly undergoing rapid social changes and turbulentpolitical transformations at an unprecedented rate.(8) The problem ofgovernance lay with the incremental style, not with the principled ground ofthis style, i.e. positive non-interventionism.

At best, this criticism is simply truistic. The seemingly inadequacy interms of policy making rationality is never considered negatively by theHong Kong government. It is a logical, inevitable corollary of upholding theguiding principle of positive non-interventionism. Thus, by definition, thereis no problem of governance. At worst, the criticism is misleading. Itwrongly assumes that the principle of positive non-interventionism is alwaysthere, existent and functioning at the meta-policy making level. Even worse,the criticism is self-defeating. Governance in Hong Kong does have a goal:namely, to perpetuate the principle of positive non-interventionism. Whatthis conventional criticism fails to address is the possibility that governancein Hong Kong is not purposive at all. Public policy making cannot beconsidered a goal-implementing activity.

ALTERNATIVE UNDERSTANDING: THE ROLE

OF RHETORIC

Cohen, March and Olsen pointed out cogently in the early 1970s thatpublic policy making is a ‘‘garbage can’’ process.(9) Under conditions of ahigh level of information ambiguity, technological uncertainty, valueconflicts and fluid participation, it is impossible for policy makers toformulate clear policy goals and develop comprehensive policy programs.This is especially true in a relatively open, mobile, and pluralistic society.

RHETORIC AND GARBAGE-CAN POLICY 889

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Policy can never be conceptualized as a ‘‘fix’’ in tangible configurationderived from some foundational principles at the meta-level. Instead, it ismore often ‘‘an analytical category,’’(10) consisting of a mixture of roughly-furnished solutions and vaguely-defined problems successfully coupledthrough an anarchistic, and random process, manifesting ‘‘the attributesof timing.’’ The complex policy contingencies simply go far beyond theircognitive-cum-evaluative capabilities. There can be no pre-determined,scientific, objective formulae available which policy makers can resort to inapplying the principles in solving policy problems and justifying their policychoices thereafter. To organize governance in such an anarchistic situationcalls for strategic action rather than principled purposive action.(11) WhatCohen, March and Olsen’s description left out is the compelling dynamics ofthe random process. Specifically, how is strategic action or random behaviorpracticed?

This paper argues that rhetoric is the key to understanding theorganizing of strategic policy action. Rhetoric refers to ‘‘the quality ofspeaking and writing, the interplay of media and messages, (and) thejudgment of evidence and arguments.’’(12) It provides the cue to sense-making beneath a policy-relevant interpretive discourse. It helps put theabstract ‘‘senses’’ into motion and makes people ‘‘feel the force of argumentrather than helping them understand it.’’(13) Public policy needs to beconfigured and explained, strategically, in terms that are acceptable tosociety. In realpolitik, ‘‘style, elegance of expression, and novel modes ofcommunication’’ do count.(14) The requisite elements of rational action,such as data, evidence, and theories, albeit all representing the potent forceof scientism and objectivism, need be subject to rhetorical manipulation toachieve political weight in the policy process.(15) Rhetoric is employedprimarily to consolidate existing power coalitions and ward off attempts todisrupt the existing balance of power. On some occasions, however, policymakers may even find it necessary to give the rhetoric some moral weight.

Governing an anarchistic situation calls for legitimation. But legiti-mization is not ‘‘a discovery process’’ whereby the truth, i.e. the principledpolicy goal in rationalism, can be identified and safeguarded.(16) Absolutevaluative schema is not available ‘‘out there’’ for them to legitimize theirjudgments. Instead, policy choices entailing valuative judgments can belegitimized only in a linguistic fashion to create strong moral appeal. Suchmoral absolutes as rights, fairness, and equality which are often employed ina democratic society to justify value-laden policy choices at pre-decisionor post-decision stages, do not by themselves provide adequate moralappeal.(17) They are values susceptible to different interpretations, not as‘‘absolute’’ as the term per se suggests. Opposing policy actors in the policymaking process may champion them simultaneously but in different

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competing ways, and they may use them strategically in varied, sometimeseven contradictory, fashions in encountering ever-changing contingencies.In other words, these moral absolutes are often rhetorically maneuvered,especially when large numbers of people need to be mobilized to raiseemotion and spur policy action.(18) Thus, in the actual policy making arena,these moral absolutes are but ‘‘moral rhetoric’’—rhetoric grounded in goodterms. A garbage-can policy maker is a ‘‘producer of policy arguments’’through rhetorical practices.(19) It is upon this basis that an ‘‘anarchy’’ is‘‘organized.’’

JUSTIFYING GOVERNMENT (NON-) INTERVENTION:

FPRINCIPLES OR RHETORIC?

The 1980s witnessed the miraculous economic development of theNewly Industrializing Countries (NICs) in Asia, Hong Kong being one ofthe most remarkable. Despite far from being the common denominator, thegovernment’s minimal intervention in the economy is often enumerated toexplain the episodic success. Benefiting from historical hindsight, however,positive non-interventionism as the meta-value of governance did notcommence with self-awareness on the part of Hong Kong policy makers. Itsformal inception in the 1960s and 1970s was conspicuously found in thebudgetary practice of the financial secretaries, such as Arthur Clarke (1958–62) and Sir John Cowperthwaite (1962–71), who never elaborated on itsmeaning and parameters. ‘‘Laissez faire’’ was the common term employedby most economists as well as ordinary people in describing the Hong Kongeconomy, a la Milton Friedman. Not until the late 1970s and early 1980s,the time when the Hong Kong economy encountered intense competitionfrom other developing countries where governments played a significant rolein propelling export-led growth, was ‘‘positive non-interventionism’’officially coined and thereafter ascribed with the status of ‘‘moral absolute.’’

The first official attempt to meticulously elucidate the policymanifestations of positive non-interventionism was made by Sir PhilipHaddon-Cave, financial secretary during the period 1971–1981. In hiswords, positive non-interventionism ‘‘involves taking the view that, in thegreat majority of circumstances, it is futile and damaging to the growth rateof the economy for attempts to be made to plan the allocation of resourcesavailable to the private sector and to frustrate the operation of marketforces which, in an open economy, are difficult enough to predict, let aloneto control.’’(20) The central idea is that the government will intervenepositively, if there is proven to be market failure. Obviously, the governmentwould like society to believe that what the government does, or does not do,


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can be squarely warranted on some objective, principled grounds, mainlydrawn from classical economic theory, and that on these grounds HongKong policy makers are invariably obliged to act. In Haddon-Cave’s words,there is ‘‘a coherent philosophy (that) dictates the Hong Kong government’sapproach when formulating and implementing economic, budgetary andfiscal policies.(21) This paper argues otherwise.

Haddon-Cave’s idea was built upon the pantheon of academiceconomists who disagreed among themselves on the grounds, scope andmethods of government intervention. Whereas the very existence ofinefficient conditions is imperative for different forms of public policy,their existence or non-existence can never be objectively determined. InHong Kong, instead of following Haddon-Cave’s seemingly ‘‘absolutist’’tone of interpretation, in the early 1990s Financial Secretary HamishMacleod, admitted frankly that ‘‘there is no formula—we are prag-matic.’’(22) In response to criticism raised by legislator Dr. Lam Kui-chunas to whether the government had changed its policy from non-interventionism to minimum interference, Macleod reiterated the govern-ment’s commitment to ‘‘a free market,’’ but this time argued ‘‘We are happyto look at whatever case that can be made for intervention. But there is noway I can define where the balance gets tipped in favor of interventionbeyond that sort of general description.’’(23) In other words, he starklyproposed a more sophisticated strategic employment of positive non-interventionism—‘‘we intervene when it is necessary.’’(24)

At the end of July 1998, the government spent more than one HK$1billion intervening in the stocks and futures market to combat thespeculative attacks of a number of hedge funds. The move attractedwidespread criticism from the international financial community, academics,and local politicians in the democratic camp. The critics considered thegovernment’s intervention a violation of the ‘‘non-interventionist’’ philoso-phy and against the principles of the free market. In justifying theintervention, the Monetary Authority Chief Executive, Joseph Yam, foundit necessary to resort to Haddon-Cave’s philosophy. Despite his emphasison ‘‘no departure from the long established policy of positive non-interventionism,’’ Yam chose this time to decipher a market that may‘‘panic and overshoot.’’(25) Whilst asking society to ‘‘refresh themselves ofwhat this policy means,’’ Yam declined to recognize that Haddon-Cave’spositive non-interventionism stipulated no clear formulae for his followersin the government or society to make a true claim on verifying or justifyingthe (non-) existence of ‘‘panic and overshoot.’’ For our analytical purpose,his speech and lengthy quotation of Haddon-Cave’s philosophy are merelyanother rhetorical use to rationalize, ad hoc, the Hong Kong government’sintervention in rectifying ‘‘market imperfections.’’ Despite his confession of

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being ‘‘in no position to judge whether or not there has been overshootingand, if so, the extent of overshooting,’’ Yam strategically stated, withoutelaboration, that markets can overshoot ‘‘badly and uncontrollably.’’(26) Inreferring to other countries in the region, Yam also failed to specify the basisupon which he could judge ‘‘the extent of (their economic) meltdown.’’ InHong Kong, there is more strategic application than a ‘‘true meaning’’ ofpositive non-interventionism.

ILLUSTRATION: HONG KONG’S INDUSTRIAL

POLICYMAKING

The role of rhetoric in the garbage-can policy process can best beillustrated by Hong Kong’s industrial policymaking. Hong Kong wasrenowned for its nonintervention in industrial policy. The conventionalinterpretation was that despite local industrialists’ recurrent demands for amore active government role in industrial development, colonial officialsrepeatedly asserted the stance of not targeting and subsidizing particularindustries. And this de facto lack of industrial policy contributed,purposively, to the growth of the local economy. However, this view hasbeen challenged recently.

As alluded to above, the decision not to intervene in Hong Kong’sindustrial development actually resembles an ‘‘organized anarchy.’’ The‘‘anarchy’’ underlies a garbage can process characterized by ambiguity, interms of policy goals, and fluidity in terms of participation.(27) However, inorder to ‘‘organize’’ different interests to facilitate efficient governance, thecolonial government found it necessary to rationalize its decisions through astrategic use of non-interventionist rhetoric. The ‘‘anarchistic’’ dimensionand the ‘‘organized’’ dimensions will be examined next.

Firstly, Hong Kong government officials do not possess adequateknowledge or information for formulating clear policy goals for industrialdevelopment. The colonial government deliberately nurtured a British-stylecivil service system, with all decision making power vested in the hands of asmall group of generalists, namely, the administrative officers. As most ofthem joined the government immediately after graduating from universityand, thereafter being subjected to frequent reshuffling between differentgovernment departments, they lacked the requisite specialized knowledgeregarding the operation of particular industries. Today, although there arequite a number of specialists working in the government, main policydecision-making posts are still occupied by generalists. In addition,communication between specialists and generalists on policy matters isnearly always inadequate. Consequently, as Scott observed; ‘‘the final policy


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decision may often seem, from the professional or departmental officer’sstandpoint, at best arbitrary, and at worse irresponsible.’’(28) Evenspecialists lack training opportunities to acquire policy-making andmanagerial skills.(29) This further undermines the intervening capability ofthe Hong Kong government. As a result, top officials in Hong Kong simplyhave no capacity to know whether an active industrial policy can effectivelyyield desirable effects. The insistence on non-intervention is simply acorollary of these officials’ risk-averse attitude.

Secondly, the economic policy of the Hong Kong government, if thereis one, is typically an outgrowth of different consultative committees, wherefluid participation is in evidence. For instance, there are a number ofadvisory boards, statutory bodies and non-governmental associations thatgive advice, recommendations, and suggestions on the government’seconomic policy making. The Industry Development Board and the TradeAdvisory Board are the main consultative bodies which give advice on tradeand industrial affairs. Nevertheless, some statutory bodies, such as the HongKong Productivity Council and the Hong Kong Trade DevelopmentCouncil, as well as non-governmental associations, such as the Hong KongGeneral Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Hong KongIndustries, also actively participate in the consultative process in formulat-ing trade and industrial policies. In general, the time and efforts given bycommittee members vary depending upon the specific decision in questionand the length of the consultation period. In particular, this variation iscoupled with a high degree of fluidity by dint of the appointment system.Members of the consultative committees are appointed by the government.Politics looms large in the process of member selection because consultativecommittees are an integral part of the government’s strategy of co-optingthe local elite to facilitate the executive-led governance. The decision makingprocess in the consultative committees thus inevitably involves balancing thedifferent interests of the local elites, though the administration retains thefinal say. As groups within the elite have different power at different periodsof time, the rise and fall of a particular group in the committees mayproduce changes in policy direction. More importantly, the direction of anypolicy is greatly influenced by the orientations of Hong Kong’s leader—thecolonial governor before 1997 and the chief executive thereafter.

Chiu traces the origin of Hong Kong’s economic non-interventionismback to the pre-war entrepot period.(30) He argues that the policy was madeby dint of the limited financial capacity of the colonial government. Twohistorical factors can be identified in limiting the financial capacity of thegovernment. First, the decision to annex Hong Kong as a crown colony wasmade by the British government in strategic response to the demands ofBritish free traders who wanted to promote trade with China in the 19th

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Century. With trade as the overriding concern, the Hong Kong-basedBritish merchants strove to produce strong volition in the politicalmachinery to protect and enhance their business interests. These interestswere embedded heavily in the banking, commercial and property marketsand were induced and accumulated by an ever-growing entrepot trade.These interests were gradually consolidated into a strong finance-tradingcomplex, an institutionalized coalition attempting to assure that thefinancial and commercial interests could be properly incorporated in thecolonial government’s decision-making process. The complex lobbiedagainst tax increases and ‘‘unnecessary’’ expenditure that was not directlyconducive to trading activities. Consequently, the colonial governmentdetermined to control its budget tightly and kept taxation as low and simpleas possible.

Second, the British government lacked a commitment to developHong Kong other than as an entrepot. As early as 1849, the then BritishColonial Secretary, Lord Grey, exerted pressure on the colony to meet itsown expenditure and avoid burdening British tax-payers.(31) This furtherreinforced the Hong Kong government’s reluctance to deviate from aconservative fiscal policy. Ngo goes so far as to argue that the laissez-fairepolicy not only served the trade-related interests, but also prevented colonialindustrialization from competing directly with British industry.(32) Benefit-ing from historical hindsight, the Hong Kong manufacturing sector wasvery vibrant in the pre-war period.(33) The government denied, however, thesignificance of the pre-war industrial activities in contributing to both pre-war and the post-war economic development because the sector was mainlyin the hands of small Chinese entrepreneurs. Hong Kong policy makers atthat time rarely reached out to the local Chinese population. Under theguise of its limited financial capacity and the constraints imposed by thefinance-trading complex, the colonial government deliberately downplayedthe importance of the industrial sector predominantly carried out by smallChinese firms. The colonial government did not even attempt to collectinformation about the actual number of manufacturing firms in theterritory, and did not understand their functioning, never mind renderingthem technical or financial support. For political reasons, therefore, whatthe officials knew was partial, incomplete and biased.

The above discussion serves to highlight how the socio-politicalconfiguration in which the colonial government was embedded significantlyshaped the ‘‘social learning’’ of the government. As Hugh Heclo noted:‘‘Politics finds its sources not only in power but also in uncertainty—mencollectively wondering what to do. . . Government not only ‘power. . . ’ theyalso puzzle. Policy-making is a form of collective puzzlement on society’sbehalf. . .Much political interaction has constituted a process of social


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learning expressed through policy.’’(34) If public policymaking is a kind of‘‘social learning,’’(35) then the Hong Kong government’s policy bias againstindustries during the pre-war period should leave undeletable traces uponthe post-war industrial policy.

Policymaking after the Second World War was still in the hands of therelatively autonomous colonial government, assisted by part-time advisersappointed from the finance-trading complex. The ‘‘social learning’’ in thiscoalition was inevitably biased against industrial development. It does notmean that the colonial government did nothing to promote the manufactur-ing sector. The point is that Hong Kong’s so-called industrial policy wasindeed trade-oriented and emphasized the one-sided interests of thedominant power complex. Most important of all, the garbage-can processmanifested itself most remarkably in the post-war period, the developmentof which was characterized by a high level of uncertainty in the domestic-cum-international field of trade and industry.

The government’s bias against industry was reflected in its firstcomprehensive review of the Hong Kong economy. Facing a tough time inthe aftermath of the Great Depression, in 1934 the colonial governmentappointed a high power commission to study the economic prospects ofHong Kong. The commission’s report discussed the relative importance oftrade development vis-a-vis industrial development, and provided justifica-tion for the adherence to a policy of free trade, no tariffs, and no industrialpromotion. Subsequently, the report formed the basis of the government’spolicy towards trade and industry. As the first post-war Governor SirAlexander Grantham pointed out in his memoirs; ‘‘Hong Kong had alwayslived by entrepot trade. . . Stop that flow, and Hong Kong would die.’’(36)

Industry was never thought as an alternative in the 1950s.The Hong Kong government did not follow in the footsteps of other

East Asian countries where the benefits of industry were recognised andtherefore officially aided as the engine of growth in the post-war period.Immediately after the United States-led embargo in the early 1950s, theimportance of a booming Hong Kong economy to the relatively isolated,backward Mainland Chinese economy became too costly to be ignored.Given this favorable historical contingency, a lucrative market available inthe hinterland, Hong Kong’s transition from an entrepot to an industria-lized city was quite smooth. Any economic disruption in the territory wouldnullify the raison d’etre of Hong Kong’s colonial status. Whether desirableor not, colonial government officials simply did not find it necessary to riskinitiating a more interventionist industrial policy whose tangible andintangible benefits could never be ascertained. Moreover, the colonialgovernment, being small and minimal within the whole pre-war period, didnot have the administrative capacity to intervene effectively in the economy.

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This administrative weakness was well demonstrated in the immediate post-war years, when temporary trade controls were imposed to maintain socio-political stability. Although strict measures were introduced in rationingrice, the colonial government did not have sufficient staff to properly policethe rice shops.(37) As Buckley remarked; ‘‘Officialdom disliked the veryobvious price gauging that shortages inevitably encouraged and yet knew, asthe government price controller admitted in January 1951, that an activesystem would be met by ‘widespread attempts at evasion and obstruction onthe part of local merchants’.’’(38) As the other Asian Tigers (South Korea,Taiwan, and Singapore) demonstrated, effective industrial policy makingdepends upon the information-collecting and monitoring capacity of thegovernment. Only with strong administrative support can economicplanning agents formulate policy problems and devise industrial solutions.That the colonial government in the 1950s and 1960s actually knew verylittle about the industrial economy can be evidenced, for example, in thefinal speech of Financial Secretary A. G. Clarke, who predicted on 1 March1961 that his successor,

. . .will underestimate his revenue, because, like me, like manyothers, he will never be able to comprehend how new and successfulindustries can be created overnight out of nothing, in face of everypossible handicap; how new trade can suddenly start up in someway that has never been thought before. . . .(39)

Given the inexperience of the government in industry, a legacy of thepre-war period, it did not pay for the colonial government to put mucheffort into a historically-conditioned industrialization process. Under a highlevel of uncertainty in making ‘‘new’’ policies in the early stages of industrialdevelopment, the safest way for the colonial government was to perpetuateits policy orientation which had existed for a hundred years. Neither the(non-)intervention is the corollary of incremental status-quo analysis, nor isit the resultant policy derived from rational cost-benefit assessment. Thegovernment merely bounces along historical contingency characterized withrandom chances.

In the 1960s, the colonial government had two good opportunities tohelp manufacturing industry by providing cheap industrial land andestablishing an industrial bank. These opportunities were not pursued,however, because industrial interests were marginalized and not wellrepresented in the government’s decision-making process.(40) For example,the textile industry was the major engine of growth in the early stages ofHong Kong’s industrialization. However, the members of the majorconsultative committee of this industry, the influential Textile AdvisoryBoard, were co-opted not merely from the textile industry, but also from


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banking and trade.(41) Instead of directly helping industrial interests, thegovernment set up three statutory bodies to promote industrialization: theTrade Development Council, the Hong Kong Export Credit InsuranceCorporation, and the Hong Kong Productivity Council. The first two wereactually trade-related. Whereas their effects on upgrading Hong Kong’smanufacturing technology were quite limited, the effects on promotion oftrade were quite obvious. Even though more and more industrialists hadbeen recruited into the government’s consultative networks because of swiftindustrialization, it was not until the mid-1970s that the governmentformally recognized the solution of providing cheap industrial land. TheHong Kong Industrial Estates Corporation was established in 1977. Landwas sold at concessionary prices to high-technology industries, which couldnot operate in multi-story buildings. Moreover, industrial estates in Tai Po,Yuen Long, Fo Tan and Siu Lik Yuen were subsequently built. Even so,some legislators demanded greater government intervention. Commentingon the 1977 budget speech, Lydia Dunn asked: ‘‘But have we not reachedthe stage in our economic development when the government shouldexercise more influence on market forces, especially when they affect thecompetitiveness of our external trade?’’(42) The voices of governmentintervention in the late 1970s, unlike those in the 1960s, did reveal problemsabout the role of government in industrial development. As a result, in 1977the government appointed a high-level commission, the Advisory Com-mittee on Diversification (ACD), chaired by the then Financial Secretary,Sir Philip Haddon-Cave, to study the possibility of future industrialdevelopment.

The more active role taken by the colonial government from the late1970s can be best explained in terms of the garbage can model. In the late1970s, Hong Kong’s textile and clothing industries were encounteringincreasing protectionism. This situation created an opportunity in which the‘‘stream’’ of relatively more interventionist solutions could receive morepolitical appeal, then go through policy barriers and into the policy makers’action agenda. As the ACD admitted, its raison d’etre stemmed from variousdebates in the Legislative Council and elsewhere in the territory beginningin the early 1960s about the role the government should play in theeconomy.(43)

The policy recommendations suggested by the ACD were implementedin subsequent years. As noted by Ho,(44) industrial land and long-termfinancing issues for industry, which had been hotly debated in the 1960s,were again discussed in the 1979 Diversification Report. However, events inMainland China overtook these deliberations. The ‘‘opening of China’’ andits ‘‘four modernizations’’ program were forging ahead in the 1980s. Therelocation of Hong Kong’s manufacturing firms to southern China took

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place in the mid-1980s. This prompted a shift in the colonial government’sattention away from industrial diversification back to trading and finance.As a consequence, the technological ‘‘roadmap’’ laid down by the ACD wasput aside. Ironically, twenty years later, a Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology research team, in its consultation report on Hong Kongindustries, remarked that many of the issues identified by the ACDremained unresolved, and many of the ACD’s recommendations anticipatedthe team’s own recommendations.(45) With the increase in the re-exporttrade, the real estate and financial sectors developed impressively. The taskof upgrading industrial technological capacity was, again, removed from thegovernment’s agenda from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, despite persistentdemands from industrialists. For example, in a Legislative Council motiondebate in 1995, the then acting Financial Secretary, Tak-hay Chau, statedclearly that the government would continue to pursue an economic policy ofminimum intervention, balanced by a commitment to maintain a business-friendly environment.(46) He also rejected an interventionist strategy asimpracticable upon an examination of different ‘‘tools’’ that the governmentcould use: interest rates, subsidies, imported labor, public spending, and taxconcessions. One major reason why the colonial government in the first halfof the 1990s was not interested in upgrading industries is that GovernorChris Patten was preoccupied with his political reform package. Non-intervention in industrial development was seemingly upheld owing less toits inherent merits than to the government’s preoccupation with a moreimportant political agenda at a time when the colonial period was nearing itsend. And for the same political and strategic considerations, the Pattengovernment could do the very contrary, that is, to intervene in the propertymarket in 1994.

However, immediately after the handover of sovereignty in July 1997,the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) governmentadopted a more interventionist industrial policy. The first Chief Executive,Tung Chee-hwa, announced a modest industrial policy with a view toupgrading the technological capability of industry in Hong Kong. UnlikePatten, Tung does not see political reform as his prime policy goal. Instead,with his frequent warnings of the ‘‘over-politicization’’ of society, economicdevelopment and welfare issues have been given top priority in thepolicymaking agenda. Perceiving the soaring property and stock marketsas indicators of a bubble economy rather than manifestations of a healthycompetitive market, Tung has opted for an alternative developmentstrategy. Industrial upgrading again has sought its way as a solution toTung’s problem. Developing hi-tech and high value-added industrialproducts was deemed a major way of preserving Hong Kong’s internationalcompetitiveness. To accomplish this task, an apparent reversal of industry


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policy is evident: establishing an Applied Science and Technology ResearchInstitute, setting up an Innovation and Technology Fund with an injectionof HK$5 billion, setting up a HK$100 million Film Development Fund,establishing a HK$2.5 billion Special Finance Scheme to help small-and-medium scale enterprises,(47) and most recently, developing a HK$13 billion‘‘Cyberport’’ to provide essential infrastructure for the formation of astrategic cluster of information services companies.(48) The Asian financialcrisis of 1997–1998 simply reinforced Tung’s pro-active interventionistpolicy orientation, although the same rhetorical argument for non-interventionism delivered by the government is still heard.

INTERPRETATION: ORGANIZING ANARCHISTIC

POLICIES BY RHETORIC

It has been argued above that industrial policymaking in post-warHong Kong has been ad hoc, inconsistent, and discontinuous in nature. Inother words, there has been no grand design on rational policy grounds–whether it is called positive nonintervention, laissez-faire or free marketprinciples–behind the government’s industrial policymaking. Whereasbusiness interests, political bargaining, and the changing of key policymakers all shape the direction of industrial policy, the process of howthese different factors interact is pre-configured, to a large extent, byhistorical contingency, non-susceptible to policymakers’ deliberation andmanipulation.

In industrial development, the government needs to organize itsgovernance by inventing rhetorical rationales to strategically camouflage itsfluctuating policies; otherwise, its legitimacy is at stake. Legitimationdemands ‘‘organizing’’ in the sense that the government needs to craft itspolicies in terms of a coherent system of interests, beliefs and values towhich both dominant and subordinate interest groups, and both governingelite and counter-elite, unswervingly subscribe. As Ngo argues, the policy oflaissez-faire originally served only a few sectoral interests but became apublic-interest tool to stabilize and legitimize colonial governance.(49)

In Hong Kong, government officials have come to learn that theeconomic-cum-trade related value of Hong Kong to its political master—beit Great Britain or the People’s Republic of China—remains one they areill equipped to engineer pro-actively. However, Hong Kong still needs to begoverned in such a way that different interests in society can be arranged orre-arranged to champion the cause of economic prosperity. Whether theHong Kong government chose to subsidize industrial development or not,those interests, like Chinese manufacturers’, not being served need be

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confronted with an indisputable policy principle and be tranquilized withthe argument that the choice was rationalized. Out of political expediency, asemblance of legitimate governance was fostered to neutralize, if not tosuppress in toto, political discontent that, once accumulated and erupted,could have destroyed Hong Kong’s economic raison d’etre. Positive non-interventionism gives stronger moral weight to the government’s choice sothat policy claims derived from both interests being served and those notbeing served could be out-weighted in the policy process. It was employedprimarily to serve this function of rhetorical rationalization. For whateverresult ensuing from the development of industrial economy, be it boom orslump, colonial governance under the cloak of non-interventionism wouldnot be questioned with the support of the finance-trading complex.

Chinese political leaders have been among the first to appreciate theutility of rhetoric and therefore have reiterated since the 1980s the key toHong Kong’s success in terms of ‘‘stability and prosperity.’’ It underliestheir endorsement to organize governance by economics-related rhetoric. Itcomes therefore as no surprise that even the present HKSAR governmentstill employs the same rhetoric to rationalize its more interventionistindustrial policies. For example, in his first policy address, Tung Chee-hwaclaimed, ‘‘it is impractical to attempt to maintain competitiveness by drivingdown incomes. This would not protect our overall interests. The invisiblehand of market forces has already pointed out that the way forward is todevelop high value-added industries and services.’’(50) To organize thisinterventionist stance strategically, he argued, ‘‘Hong Kong’s developmentstrategy will be based on two principles, a free market economy and aprudent fiscal policy. . . Together with our emphasis on adding value, theseprinciples will uphold Hong Kong’s competitiveness. . . ’’(51) Rhetoric stillreigns supreme after 1997.

Tung’s strategic attempt to chart another path of development forHong Kong does not only manifest itself in the economy. The annual targetof providing a minimum of 85,000 flats for sale in the market announced inTung’s first policy address represented a clear divergence in social policyfrom Haddon-Cave’s philosophy. The more interventionist Tung’s admin-istration is, however, the more imperative it may find to resort to a moreparadoxical use of non-intervention rhetoric. And in this play of rhetoric,Tung has demonstrated close continuity with his colonial predecessors. Thecontinuity is a logical corollary of the ‘‘through-train’’ arrangement for aHong Kong civil service thoroughly socialized to governance with rhetoric.The only difference remains: whereas colonial rulers before 1997 used therhetoric of non-intervention to claim credit for economic success, Tungneeds to employ it after 1997 to protect Hong Kong from the economicdownturn caused by the Asian financial crisis.


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REFLECTION

Donald Schon once remarked that ‘‘our bias in favor of the rational,the ‘‘scientific,’’ the well-informed and the retrospective causes us todisregard the less visible process and to accept the ideas underlying publicconflict over policy as mysteriously given.’’(52) In Hong Kong, the ‘‘lessvisible process’’ refers to the strategic use of rhetoric, and the ‘‘mysteriouslygiven’’ denotes the godly nature of the rhetoric. In general, Hong Kong’spolicy process can be deemed analogous to a garbage can where anarchisticgovernance is organized by the strategic use of the rhetoric of positive non-interventionism.

Couched in moral tones, positive non-interventionism in HongKong has become a ‘‘culture of decision making,’’ especially for such‘‘big decisions’’ as industrial development.(53) In other cases like rescuinginsolvent banks, damping speculation in the property market, andwarding off plunderers in the stock and futures market, each strategicpractice of the rhetoric of non-intervention gives the Hong Kong civilservice, by self-learning and self-reinforcing, a better handle on thepolicymaking world. It vindicates ‘‘a system of action and meaning thatencompasses the world and that accounts for itself, assigning roles andstatuses, and providing prescribed and proscribed ways of being.’’(54) Inshort, be it under past colonial rule or the present HKSAR government,the rhetoric is the identity of Hong Kong civil servants.

Unlike rationalism or incrementalism, the garbage-can perspectiveuniquely serves to depict the ‘‘less invisible process’’ of Hong Kong’spublic policy making as an ‘‘expressive activity’’(55) whereby Hong Kongcivil servants are strategically employing rhetoric to search, affirm,consolidate, and legitimize their roles and duties. In its cultural origin,the garbage-can model shares the same critique as ‘‘postmodernism’’ thatboth the rationalists’ ‘‘reality,’’ i.e. justification by meta-narratives likepositive non-interventionism, and the incrementalists’ ‘‘existence,’’ i.e. thestatus quo distribution of power and resources among groups, are not‘‘real.’’ Instead, policy making is ‘‘symbolically mediated.’’(56) In HongKong, positive non-interventionism is a self-referential sign serving thefunction of legitimation. To appreciate the strength of the garbage-cannarration of Hong Kong’s policy making process requires us to shiftintellectual concern from a politics of truth justification or a politics ofpartisan mutual adjustment to a postmodern ‘‘politics of sign’’ orsymbolic politics.

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REFERENCES

1. See, for example, Lau, S.K.; Kuan, H.C. Public Attitude towardLaissez Faire in Hong Kong. Asian Survey 1990, 30, 766-81; and Chiu,S.W.K. The Politics of Laissez-faire: Hong Kong’s Strategy ofIndustrialization in Historical Perspective; Occasional Paper No. 40.Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies: The Chinese Universityof Hong Kong, November 1994.

2. See Friedman, M.; Friedman, R. Free to Choose; Penguin: Harmonds-worth, 1980; and Friedman, M. The Role of Government in a FreeSociety. In Private Wants and Public Needs; Phelps, E.S. Ed.; Rev. Ed.;W.W. Norton & Co.: NY, 1965; 104-117.

3. Scott, Ian. Policy-making in a Turbulent Environment: The Case ofHong Kong. International Review of Administrative Sciences 1986, 52,447-469.

4. Lindblom, Charles E. The Science of Muddling Through. PublicAdministration Review 1959, 19, 79-88.

5. Lindblom, Charles E. The Science of Muddling Through. PublicAdministration Review 1959, 19, 79-88.

6. Scott, Ian. Policy Implementation in Hong Kong. Southeast AsianJournal of Social Science 1987, 15. Scott called it an ‘‘implementationmentality.’’ In the literature of policy implementation, this mentalityoften underlies a ‘‘top-down’’ model of implementation, which seldomworks effectively in policy environment characterized with a high levelof uncertainty.

7. Camhis, M. Planning Theory and Philosophy; Tavistock Publications:New York, 1979, Chapters 1 & 2.

8. Scott, Ian. Policy-making in a Turbulent Environment: The Case ofHong Kong. International Review of Administrative Sciences 1986, 52,447-469.

9. Cohen, Michael, D.; March, James, G.; Olsen, Johan, P. Garbage CanModel of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly1972, 17, 1-25.

10. The term is coined by Hugh Heclo, whose analysis of the meanings ofpolicy can be found in Hogwood, Brian, W.; Gunn, Lewis, A. PolicyAnalysis for the Real World; Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1984,Chapter 2. Specifically, Hogwood and Gunn argue that policystatements ‘‘represent the ‘rhetoric’ rather than the reality of policy’’(p. 14).

11. Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1;Polity Press: Cambridge, 1984, 285. Habermas contrasted ‘‘purposive-rational action’’ with strategic action,’’ arguing that whereas both are


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‘‘oriented to success’’ the former is ‘‘nonsocial’’ and the latter is socialin terms of the action situation.

12. McGee, M.C.; Lyne, J.R. What are Nice Folks Like You Doing in aPlace Like This? Some Entailments of Treating Knowledge ClaimsRhetorically. In The Rhetoric of Human Sciences: Language andArgument in Scholarship and Public Affairs, Nelson, J.S.; Megill, A.;McCloskey, D.N. Eds.; University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1991;381-406.

13. Roberts, A. Civic Discovery as a Rhetorical Strategy. Journal of PolicyAnalysis and Management 1995, 14, 321.

14. Majone, Giandomenico. Evidence, Argument, & Persuasion in thePolicy Process; Yale University: New Haven, 1989; 37.

15. Drysek, John, S. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and PoliticalScience; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1990.

16. Brennan, Geoffrey; Buchanan, James, M. The Reasons of Rule:Constitutional Political Economy; Cambridge University Press: Cam-bridge, 1986, Chapter 1. As the Nobel prize winner of Economics in1986, James Buchanan represents the public choice approach thatconceptualizes ‘‘politics as process’’ whereby different interests insociety are discovered and exchanged efficiently without appealing to‘‘supra-individual’’ values available out-there. Charles W. Andersonalso proposes to conceptualize policymaking as ‘‘a process of reasoneddeliberation, argument, and criticism rather than a pragmatic calculus’’(p. 406); see Anderson, Charles W. The Place of Principles in PolicyAnalysis. In The Moral Dimensions of Public Policy Choice; Gillroy,John, M.; Wade, M. Maurice, Eds.; University of Pittsburg Press:Pittsburg, Pa., 1992; 387-409.

17. Jasper, James, M. The Politics of Abstractions: Instrumental andMoralist Rhetorics in Public Debate. Social Research 1992, 59, 319.

18. Jasper, James, M. The Politics of Abstractions: Instrumental andMoralist Rhetorics in Public Debate. Social Research 1992, 59, 339.

19. Majone, Giandomenico. Evidence, Argument, & Persuasion in thePolicy Process; Yale University: New Haven, 1989; 21.

20. Sir Haddon-Cave, Philip. The Making of Some Aspects of Public Policyin Hong Kong. In The Business Environment in Hong Kong; Lethbridge,David, Ed.; Oxford University Press: Hong Kong, 1980, xii.

21. Sir Haddon-Cave, Philip. The Making of Some Aspects of PublicPolicy in Hong Kong. In The Business Environment in Hong Kong;Lethbridge, David, Ed.; Oxford University Press: Hong Kong, 1980,xi; italics are our own.

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22. Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Hansard: Reports of the Sittingsof the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Government Printer: HongKong, 1993, 1915.



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Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly1972, 17, 1-25. For a more detailed discussion of the fluid participationdelineated in the garbage-can model, see, for example, Magjuka, R.Garbage Can Theory of Organizational Decision Making: A Review.Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 6, JAI Press:Greenwich, 225-259.

28. Scott, Ian. Generalists and Specialists. In The Hong Kong Civil Serviceand Its Future; Scott, I.; Burns, J.P. Eds.; Oxford University Press:Hong Kong, 1988, 41.

29. Scott, Ian. Generalists and Specialists. In The Hong Kong Civil Serviceand Its Future; Scott, Ian; Burns, J.P. Eds.; Oxford University Press:Hong Kong, 1988, 42.

30. Chiu, S.W.K. The Politics of Laissez-faire: Hong Kong’s Strategy ofIndustrialization in Historical Perspective; Occasional Paper No. 40.Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies: The Chinese Universityof Hong Kong, November 1994.

31. Welsh, Frank. A History of Hong Kong; Harper Collins: Glasgow,1993, 188.

32. Ngo, Tak-Wing. The Legend of A Colony: Political Rule andHistoriography in Hong Kong. China Information (Summer=Autumn1997), 12, 150-151.

33. Leeming, F. The Earlier Industrialization of Hong Kong. ModernAsian Studies 1975, 9; and Ngo, Tak-Wing. The Legend of A Colony:Political Rule and Historiography in Hong Kong. China Information(Summer=Autumn 1997), 12; 150-151.

34. Helco as quoted in Hall, Peter. Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, andthe State: the Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain. ComparativePolitics 1993, 25, 275-276.


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35. Hall, Peter. Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: the Caseof Economic Policymaking in Britain. Comparative Politics 1993, 25,277-278.

36. Quoted in Buckley, Roger. Hong Kong: the Road to 1997; CambridgeUniversity Press: Cambridge, 1997; 47.

37. Buckley, Roger. Hong Kong: the Road to 1997; Cambridge UniversityPress: Cambridge, 1997; 32-33.

38. Buckley, Roger. Hong Kong: the Road to 1997; Cambridge UniversityPress: Cambridge, 1997; 34-35.

39. Quoted in Buckley, Roger. Hong Kong: the Road to 1997; CambridgeUniversity Press: Cambridge, 1997; 54.

40. Chiu, S.W.K. The Politics of Laissez-faire: Hong Kong’s Strategy ofIndustrialization in Historical Perspective; Occasional Paper No. 40.Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies: The Chinese Universityof Hong Kong, November 1994; and Choi, Alex H.K. The PoliticalEconomy of Hong Kong’s Industrial Upgrading: A Lost Opportunity.China Information (Summer=Autumn 1997), 12.

41. Riedel, James. The Industrialization of Hong Kong; Institut furWeltwirtschaft an der Universitat Kiel: Tubingen, 1974; 131.

42. Hong Kong Hansard, 1976-1977; 746.43. Hong Kong Government Secretariat, 1979; 3-7.44. Cheng, Joseph, Y.S. Eds. Hong Kong in Transition, Oxford University

Press: Hong Kong, 1986, 190-198.45. Berger, Suzanne; Lester, Richard, K. Made By Hong Kong; Oxford

University Press: Hong Kong, 1997, 21.46. Hong Kong Government. Reports of the Sittings of the Legislative

Council of Hong Kong; Government Printer: Hong Kong, 1995, 4518-4525.

47. Governor’s Policy Address, 1998.48. Budget Speech 1999–2000.49. Ngo, Tak-Wing. The Legend of A Colony: Political Rule and

Historiography in Hong Kong. China Information (Summer=Autumn1997), 12; 151.

50. Governor’s Policy Address, 1997; 5.51. Governor’s Policy Address, 1997; 8.52. Schon, Donald, A. Beyond the Stable State; Norton: NY, 1971; 123.53. Krieger, M.H. Big Decisions and a Culture of Decision-making.

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 1986, 5, 786.54. Krieger, M.H. Big Decisions and a Culture of Decision-making.

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 1986, 5, 787.

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55. Gortner, Harold, F.; Mahler; Julianne; Nicholson and Jeanne Bell.Organization Theory: A Public Perspective; Wadsworth Inc.: Cali-fornia, 1989, 263.

56. Fox, Charles J.; Miller, Hugh T. Postmodern Public Administration:Towards Discourse; Sage: California, 1995, 65.


Documents

A PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY OF THE ROLE OF RHETORIC IN THE GARBAGE-CAN POLICY PROCESS: THE CASE OF HONG KONG'S POSITIVE NON-INTERVENTIONISM