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Hong Kong political discourse has been dominated by an exaggerated insistence on the importance of confrontation and difference between Hong Kong people and mainlanders.迷你倉 The preoccupation with the binary simplicity of difference is not only a disservice to the comprehension of our pressing social problems, but also misrepresents their root causes, and, ultimately, misidentifies “the best path” by which the problems could be sorted out.A case in point is an advertisement recently placed in three newspapers including The Liberty Times, a Taiwanese pro-independence mouthpiece, calling for the Chief Executive, Leung Chun-ying, to step down. Leung’s detractors, such as Claudia Mo Man-ching, Gary Fan Kwok-wai and Roy Tam Hoi-pong, lambasted him for failing to stem the tide of mass immigration and tourists from the Chinese mainland, arguing that with the one-way permits enacted in 1997, the influx of mainlanders — more than 700,000 in number — has led to the problem of the housing shortage. Tam has thus proposed that the HKSAR government reformulate the immigration policy in a bid to decrease the number of mainland immigrants. Does the immigration from the mainland really contribute to our housing shortage?There are a number of reasons for the housing shortage. Yet, I would argue that there is little correlation between immigration and it. Rather, the current housing problems and shortage of land supply to a great extent stemmed from the illicit use of vast tracts of the New Territories by indigenous inhabitants and, above all, the fallout of the small-house policy. Last year, one government minister showed willingness to rethink the continuity of the small-house policy in the hope of increasing land supply. However, daunted by a ferocious outcry from thousands of self-centered indigenous habitants, she immediately backed off and turned silent. So far, the government has demonstrated scant fortitude to stand up to Heung Yee Kuk, a staunch defender of the small-house policy.Likewise, the conversion of government sites to residential use in Kowloon is very often thwarted by some narrow-minded and self-seeking district councillors. A few years ago, the authorities sensibly proposed building a public estate on the seaside of Sham Shui Po to alleviate the housing problem in Kowloon. Sadly, to pander to their middle-class voters with “not in my backyard” syndrome, some Sham Shui Po district councillors strongly disapproved of the plan. Bowing to immense pressure from the district council, the authorities were woefully compelled to shelve a desi儲存倉able housing plan.Interestingly, some opposition lawmakers have also taken the view that our housing shortage has nothing to do with immigration. The lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung, for instance, has been reluctant to endorse the advertisement placed by Mo, Fan and Tam, protesting that it is discriminatory to new immigrants from the mainland.Nothing is more tenable than Cheung’s position. It is common knowledge that Hong Kong is a city of immigration. If Hong Kong turned inward-looking and relentlessly curtailed immigration as Tam suggested, there would be damaging consequences for Hong Kong’s economy and social-welfare system. This is because Hong Kong is one of the Asian cities with fertility rates too low to maintain sufficient workforce. In the 1980s, with around 80,000 babies born per year, Hong Kong had a relatively high fertility rate. Unfortunately, recently less than 50,000 babies were born in Hong Kong every year.Even with current levels of immigration, Hong Kong can still barely beef-up its workforce in the years to come. Given that Hong Kong is aging and facing the burden of providing for older generations, immigration from the mainland seems be the only way to increase the number of taxpayers who will fund our social welfare. But, our social welfare would be eventually unsustainable if the anti-mainland sentiment fanned by Beijing-bashers like Tam compelled a change in immigration policy, and if our workforce continued to diminish.Yes, disquiet over the effect of immigration on our society has existed since colonial days. Equally true, more Hongkongers have been skeptical about immigration from the mainland than have been sympathetic to it over the past decade. It is, however, noisome that, in conjunction with a Taiwanese pro-independence newspaper, some Hong Kong secessionists such as Mo, Fan and Tam have played on our growing angst, putting forth a specious notion that the influx of mainlanders has been a main factor in our housing shortage.To be sure, the facile dichotomy between Hong Kong people and mainlanders, a virtuous “us” and an evil “them”, tells us more about the overweening pride of the pro-independence politicians than the complexity of our social problems.The author is a lecturer at the College of Professional and Continuing Education at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. To be sure, the facile dichotomy between Hong Kong people and mainlanders, a virtuous ‘us’ and an evil ‘them’, tells us more about the overweening pride of the pro-independence politicians than the complexity of our social problems.”迷你倉價錢