Analysis: Serving the citizens, really?

For years we have complained that the policy address was a mere exercise in shortsightedness resting on a catalogue of administrative measures, mostly expressed in quantitative terms. Quality, so it seems, was always less of a concern as long as targets were announced as having been met and social sweeteners were on the rise: the wealth-partaking scheme basically doubled since its inception in 2008.

A somewhat complete review, let alone an effective and courageous assessment of past deeds, has always been absent or so cosmetic that it boiled down to complacent bragging. Pending issues, delayed policy-making or blunt failures are never discussed, and the “looking back” (huigu) part of the policy address was always, and is still very much, narrowly understood and defined.

We have argued time and time again that without any form of critical thinking, convincing the mind and winning the heart of the people would prove impossible. All these businessmen-turned-politicians who govern us should know better: business textbooks are full of half-baked recipes to turn managers into leaders, control freaks into inspirational visionaries, plumbers into architects.

Clearly, family-run businesses striving because of oligopolistic positions and privileged access to land do not abide by the same rules, but they can read, right? If they want to stay on the pragmatic side, they can simply follow the advice of Sir Winston Churchill, who aptly remarked, “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” Reality does bite, and sweeping pressing issues under the rug will only translate into distracting tactics.

But they could also go for more heavy-lifting reading, as both Li Keqiang and Wang Qishan, respectively China’s premier and vice-president, are said to have recommended to communist cadres the study of de Tocqueville’s “The Old Regime and the Revolution.” The point being that reform is needed if revolution is to be avoided, but that deciding what and how to reform are the key questions, something even democratic governments around the world, obsessed with procedures and plagued by elite reproduction, had somehow forgotten to prioritize.

In today’s China, reforming so-called “mass organizations”—the engagement with society—has indeed become a priority given the regime wants to fully capitalize on the effective gains of popularity derived from the sweeping and far-reaching war against corruption. Getting rid of corrupt officials does create expectations: from now on, things are going to be different; and if they are not, what’s the point? I wonder if the Macau representatives at the National’s People Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference are really doing their homework when they visit Beijing in March every year.

To be fair, in his first genuine policy address—the one delivered in November 2010 and not earlier in March, necessarily more in the continuity of his predecessor—Chui Sai On did announce quite a radical break from the past. These were still the years in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 global financial crisis, and thus the idea of recovery was shaping the rationales. Moreover, the official motto in Hu Jintao’s China was to develop a “society of moderate prosperity,” one in which inequalities would be the focus of policy- making and redistributive measures would take the lead.

No wonder, then, that Chui insisted on caring for the ones in need at the bottom as well as nurturing the majority in the middle. The very idea of not antagonizing the middle-class, which had grown not only in number but also in skills—wanting more say in the political decisions that were made in their name—derived from a precise analysis of the latest demographic trends. Hence the new fad around “political consultations,” the perfect substitute to effective democratic changes.

Promoting the former secretary for culture and social affairs indeed made perfect sense, even more so because Chui had been associated with “social concerns” since 1992, the year he became legislator for the first time.

Besides, the measures that were to be taken had a renewed ambition: they would take place in a corruption-free environment—the previous administration had been irremediably tainted by the Ao Man Long scandal—and would be based on carefully weighted initiatives. The claim to scientificity was not new, but the framing was novel: we were to have a “sunshine government” (yanguang zhengfu), and “scientific decision-making” (kexue juece) would preside over the government’s decisions. That sounded awfully close to the jargon used in the first system, but for the first (and unique) time the wealth-partaking scheme went down by MOP1,000 for permanent residents. In many respects it was both a courageous and reasonable move to make. People get used to receiving sweeteners, even though this is in total contradiction to means-tested policies that aim at correcting social inequalities.

Unfortunately, corruption was not wiped out – far from it: former Prosecutor General Ho Chio-meng (15 years in the job!) was arrested in February 2016 and one year later sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment on multiple accounts of fraud, abuse and trafficking of power, money laundering, etc. Prior to that, the Perks’ Bill, which was eventually ditched in May 2014 after 20,000 people had taken to the streets, had shown in crude light that policy-making, far from being scientifically grounded, could be construed as the exclusive playing field for a small coterie that moreover considered itself impervious to supervision. At the time, I used the word “kleptocracy” to characterize the form of government Macau was enjoying.

The whole lot of governmental secretaries was replaced in December 2014, and promises were made in the policy address that cronies and traditional patrons would have to lay low for a while, not being able to concurrently hold more than three advising positions to the government and for no more than two terms. That corresponded to the time when the economy was ailing—gross gaming revenues had started their decline in June that year and would continue their nosedive up until the summer of 2016. Old habits die hard: nothing much changed as far as governance was concerned—except for security—and in the wake of the disastrous management of deadly typhoon Hato, Chui’s team became the least popular government ever in the short history of the Macau SAR!

Today, we have a longer time frame for policies to be implemented step-by-step, thanks to the SAR’s five-year development plan (2016-2020), and all seems to be going fine: last year, the Chief Executive announced that 80 percent of the overall plan had already been achieved and this year the percentage stands at 92 percent. Fiscal reserves have reached a whooping MOP555 billion: that’s close to five years budgeted public expenditures! And Macao is set to become the richest place per capita by 2020! But then of course, the median salary is only MOP16,000 per month, three times what it was in 2000, whereas GDP has grown almost sixfold in the same period!

Ignorance is bliss though: the last time we had a Gini Index was in 2013! And then, do you really feel like you’re in New York, Berlin or Tokyo when walking the streets of Macau? Is the public hospital in the SAR on par with the one in Singapore? Is the skyline comparable to Doha? And then let’s not mention the elephant in the room: what about democratic reform? Is the “+2+2+100” the only steps that could be taken in 20 long years? And then why was the latest UN Universal Periodic Review so critical regarding Macau’s discriminatory practices? Core principles (Macau people governing Macau and a high degree of autonomy) have value only if they are incorporated into a vision that will in turn translate into reality.

Published in Macau Daily Times on November 23, 2018

Kapok: The art of irrelevance

Let’s be honest, mumbling half-hearted speeches full of empty promises year after year borders on art. More so when you happen to be an accidental leader with absolutely no talent for public encounters. Even more so when you know that nobody will really pay attention, that this will be your last policy address and that you will never be held accountable for anything. There is a Samuel Beckett-esque dimension to it, like “Waiting for Godot” in politics: it is absurd and surreal at the same time, and yet it impacts people’s lives, and it even allows human beings to die under your watch because you have been standing by instead of acting.

The absence of human empathy in the whole exercise is truly striking. Last year when Typhoon Hato had just devastated the city and killed 10 people less than three months before, the 2018 policy address started with the exhilarating words: “In accordance with the Basic Law…” (this is also true in Chinese). But clearly, last year’s circumstances were not to be blamed as the 2016 incipit was even worse — “In accordance with Article 65 of the Basic Law of Macao…” Mind you, this was not always the case. Back in March 2010, Chief Executive (CE)  Chui Sai On’s first-ever policy address started with the words “Spring is in the air…” 春暖花開，萬物欣欣向榮之際. Should we always have policy addresses delivered in early spring then?

Irony aside, something was broken between the CE and the citizens along the way, something that we can date back to the early months of Chui’s second term. The attempt at mending things now appears crude when compared to the first entry on Chui’s brand new blog posted in May 2015 and the latest one pinned two weeks ago in mid-October: we went from “Serene and calm, he wisely observes the course of the world” to “Integrating into the Greater Bay and initiating a new development”! A failed poetic attempt will always be better than repetitive gobbledygook. Chui did hit rock-bottom popularity in December 2017 when, for the first time ever, a CE’s approval rating went below the symbolic 50% line. This could thus explain the attempt at humbleness, despite the absolute dullness of the phrasing: we went from “Development Plan in Progress for Building a Perfect Home” (the official translation!) in November 2016 to “Be pragmatic yet enterprising, and share the fruits of development” in November 2017.

What will really be at stake on Nov. 15 and in the following days has not much to do with either the title or the substance of the address. We now have a five-year plan and its yearly rate of execution will certainly be close to the one announced last year — 80 percent or more! Then, the whole first part of the address will consist of sweeteners, among which the wealth partaking scheme will play an essential role. Actually, given that Chui’s reputation will never be salvaged and that he will soon be gone, I would suggest that now is the perfect time to suppress what was introduced by Edmund Ho in 2008: the wealth partaking scheme, from a purely rational point of view, is both inefficient and unfair.

No, what will really matter in two weeks’ time is the positioning of the political heavyweights for next year’s (s)election. If tradition prevails, Ho Iat Seng will be given the nod and criticisms directed at the government will be loud and persistent. If capacity — who is credited for taking the right steps in preventing another disaster when Typhoon Mangkhut blasted the city in September? — and political rectitude triumph, Secretary Wong Sio Chak will have the upper hand, and patriotic family politics, along with incompetence will be severely and durably crippled.

And if there should be no room for the king’s jester to maneuver— Secretary Tam — let’s recall that accidents do happen in Macao, with or without depressive subjects!

Published in Macau Daily Times on November 2, 2018

Kapok: Political will

Back in December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was designed as an international agreement — no less — that was supposed to bind 192 parties (191 states) in committing to reduce emissions of the six main greenhouse gases, all deemed the main culprits of global warming.

The treaty, signed under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, came into force in 2005 and the first phase of commitments was to run from 2008 to 2012 on the basis of “common but differentiated responsibilities”: contracting parties had a few years to prepare themselves and the reduction of emissions (the reference year being 1990) would affect differently each signatory, with the European Union (made up of 15 members at the time) agreeing to reduce the most (-8% to be redistributed among its members).

The intention was commendable, but right from the start the process was derailed by the non-ratification of the treaty by the United States of America. Reasons were numerous, starting with the traditional reluctance of the USA to have things imposed from the outside, the fact that the Clinton administration could not secure a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and because the American main negotiator, Vice-President Al Gore, had pushed for an even greater reduction effort than the one initially envisioned — going from -5% to -7%.

In effect, what was supposed to be binding was hollowed out by the defaulting of the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases at the time and the weak penalties imposed on non-compliant parties, which could in the end entirely escape their responsibilities as demonstrated by Canada when it withdrew from the protocol in 2011. With the Doha amendment put in place in 2012 and preparing the second stage of commitments (ending in 2020), the protocol went from Charybdis to Scylla, and as of today, the amendment has not gathered enough signatures to become effective.

Thus, it was decided during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris that instead of going for a treaty with binding obligations and a mechanism of sanctions for non-compliance that proved ultimately unenforceable, contracting parties would sign a general “accord”, one based on voluntary commitments with a common goal for members to reduce their carbon emissions “as soon as possible” and ensure that global warming would be kept over the century “well below 2ºC” above pre-industrial levels. Now, even with American President Donald Trump deciding not to honor his predecessor’s pledge, 16 states in the USA and Puerto Rico have formed the United States Climate Alliance to uphold the goals set by the Paris agreement, thus bypassing the federal withdrawal. As of now, volition is thus proving more effective than obligation, despite the initial scorn for norms that would be devoid of might.

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body providing governments with the scientific basis to develop climate-related public policies, released its latest special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5ºC — not 2ºC — above pre-industrial levels. Predictions are bleak, to say the least.

The main conclusion is pretty simple: “global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.” And this will amplify the impacts of heat-waves, destabilize marine ice sheet in Antarctica and provoke the irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet, and global mean sea level rise (relative to 1986-2005) will range from 0.26 to 0.77m by 2100. Any increase beyond 1.5ºC would amplify the impacts on terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal ecosystems and affect negatively their benefits to humans.

For the experts, in order to limit the rise to “only” 1.5ºC one would have to reduce the emissions of CO2 by about 45% by 2030 and reach net zero — reaching carbon neutrality — by 2050. If we were to take absolutely no action to limit greenhouse gases emissions, the temperature would then rise by 5.5ºC by 2100!

In the words of one of the scientists participating in the Panel, the report points out “the enormous benefits of keeping to 1.5ºC” and that moreover “this can be done within laws of physics and chemistry.” Political will is thus the only requirement!

Published in Macau Daily Times on October 19, 2018

Kapok: Not so fantastic anymore

One of my fellow columnists with the Times has made the fight against the abusive usage of plastic an all-out effort, very often taking a very personal tone. Contrary to the French song [I originally and mistakenly wrote Belgium...], plastic is not that fantastic anymore and we should actually be considering totally banning it from our life. If Plastic Free July is such a great initiative, it is so not only because it strikingly demonstrates that we can “easily” do without the convenience of organic polymers — cheap, malleable and resistant, and yet awfully and irremediably polluting — but that recycling is not enough and what needs to change is our social and economic behavior at large.

In a ground-breaking study published in Sciences Advances in July 2017, a group of researchers was able to estimate that humanity had produced some 6,3 billion metric tons of plastic waste since 1950, and that only 9% of these had effectively been recycled, 12% incinerated, and no less than a staggering 79% accumulated in landfills or the natural environment. By 2025, the cumulative recycling rate should amount to 20%, and projecting the current global waste management trends, even though we will be able to recycle some 44% of our plastic waste by 2050, by then we will have also accumulated some 12 billion metric tons of discarded plastic waste scattered in the midst of mother nature!

The image of a straw stuck in the nose of a turtle might provide a terrific imagination grabber targeted at five-year-olds and their hurried parents — our era oscillates between the empathy for the cute and the indifference to barbarity — but as a more politicized journalist recently remarked: “Coca Cola produces on its own some 128 billion plastic bottles per year! When put one on top of the other, these bottles amount to one hundred times the distance from the Earth to the Moon…” Even though some countries are doing better than others — Norway already recycles 43.4% of its plastic waste — it is indisputable that the ability to recycle everything we manufacture is everything but a chimeric dream. Sorry for all the new evangelists of circular economy, but the future lies in reducing the amount of filth we are dropping on the green planet!

I was thus very proud when on October 2 the French National Assembly approved the law banning single-usage plastic “cutlery, meat picks, box covers, trays, ice-cream pots, salad cups, boxes and stirrers” by January 1 2020. This list complements the cotton sticks and single usage plastic glasses, cups and plates which were already destined to be axed by that date. Fifty micron thick plastic bags had already been removed from cashiers as well as fruits and vegetables stalls respectively in 2016 and 2017. But then, France only recycles 22.2% of its plastic waste and one could argue that being an advanced economy, it had had plenty of time to pollute without really caring.

However, I just came back from India, and guess what? Twenty-five out the country’s twenty-nine states have already put in place various bans on the manufacture, supply, storage and use of plastics! India’s Environment Minister has already announced that by 2022, his country would “eliminate all single use plastics.” In Mumbai, 225 municipal civil servants dressed in purple have been tracking offenders to the law since June 2018, and if this does not sound almighty in a city of 21 million dwellers, those confronted to fines ranging from Rs5,000 (half a median monthly salary) to Rs25,000 for recidivists seem to be taking the scheme seriously, be them manufacturers, distributors or consumers. In Goa, the manufacturing of 50 micron and thinner plastic bags has actually been prohibited by law since 2016, and even political parties have been made responsible for managing the waste generated by their campaign activities! 

In Macao, civic groups are mobilizing and taking stock of the filthy wasteful habits registered in the SAR, but why would the territory be left to the goodwill of a few casinos, even with the best of intentions? Is a gold-plated plastic landfill our only horizon?

Published in Macau Daily Times on October 5 2018

Kapok: Ethics?

Max Weber’s famous 1918 lecture entitled “Politics as a vocation” is usually remembered for the very performative definition it gives of the modern state as being “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Physical force here means the capacity to maintain law and order, thus protecting the citizens who have willingly renounced the use of force to exercise justice on their own. The legitimate bit has to do with the legality as well as acceptance by society, meaning that the use of force is prescribed and henceforth limited by law, so as to make sure that the state has the means to protect its citizens while making sure that it does not abuse its power.

In the recent debate surrounding the possible passing of a Civil Protection Basic Law that would put civil protection regulations on steroids, most of the attention has focused on the extensive powers the authorities would be given to “ensure efficient dissemination of important information by the authorities” and “prevent the spread of false rumors in society” in times of crisis.

The worry is thus that the Macao government could easily become a plain and simple “police state” in which only government-sanctioned information would be allowed and any alternative source could be characterized (preventively) as dangerous for law and order.

Because it conflicts with at least two core values enshrined in the Basic Law — “freedom of speech and of the press” on the one hand and “protection of privacy” on the other — this is seen as opening the gates wide for repetitive and unsanctioned abuse of power. In simple terms, the use of force could easily become illegitimate. And here, I am sparing you the additional concern we could have regarding the “given territory” as Mr Wong Sio Chak, the Secretary for Security, appears to have a few difficulties in fixing the right physical “boundaries”.

Weber’s text is also enlightening when the sociologist starts exploring the source of power from which politicians derived their authority. He identifies three, as legitimizing the citizens’ obedience: “tradition”, “charisma” and “legality” — none existing as pure types in reality.

Traditional domination is exercised by patriarchs, what Weber also calls the “patrimonial” princes. In Macao, if you think Ho, Choi and Ma, you soon realize that we have not really left the burden of tradition.

Charismatic domination, meaning “the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace”, we have had little in our SAR: some for sure under Edmund Ho’s first term, and for certain none in Chui’s two terms put together. Yet, too charismatic a leader can easily turn into a demagogue, so maybe we should not complain after all!

In the end, what we have had mostly has been a domination by virtue of “legality”, legitimized by legal statute and supposedly “functional competence based on rationally created rules”. Twisted legality (elections without choice illustrates the twisted part), we have had plenty, and regarding competence, we have remained forever hopeful, even after December 2014.

Finally, the text suggests that professional politicians should cultivate two sets of ethical virtues: the ethic of conviction on the one hand and the ethic of responsibility on the other. I was recently reminded of that distinction when France’s very charismatic Minister of Ecological Transition and long-time green activist Nicolas Hulot resigned abruptly at the end of August during a radio show, to denounce the lack of paradigm change in the overall perspective presiding over public policy design, the overpowering influence of the lobbies and the fact that small measures taken in the past year would be in vain if the whole mindset did not change. He did not want to be a cosmetic alibi anymore. Did he do it because his policies conflicted with his core beliefs or because he could no longer assume full responsibility for his acts as a sitting-minister?

When I see Cheong U roaming the world as a light- hearted tourist, then I ask myself: do these values even make sense in Macao?

Published in Macau Daily Times on September 7, 2018