English Quiz 170

(English Quiz 170)

1. The key point about Hong Kong's election is not about the contest, even though this is the first time an incumbent has been taken on. Nor is it about the result, which is not in doubt. What Hong Kong's people want to know is whether Tsang and his team can address the many challenges faced by one of the world's truly great cities. On the surface, Hong Kong is doing just fine, thank you. The economy is humming along—gdp growth was 6.8% in 2006 and is forecast to be at least a respectable 4.5% this year, not bad at all for a mature, first-world city. The stock market has dipped in recent weeks because of the global slump in equities, but is still up about 20% against a year ago. Real estate—a key and much-watched variable in Hong Kong—is robust again, and retail sales rose 7.3% in 2006 from the previous year's figure. It's not just car fumes in the air, but the smell of money. Yet this year, as Hong Kong marks the 10th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule and the start of its existence as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, the city is perhaps in a greater state of uncertainty than ever before. Tsang himself compares Hong Kong to New York and London. "As an international financial center, [they are the only] two global benchmarks for Hong Kong," he says. "Other places cannot compare with us." But Hong Kong does not have some God-given right to be a success; others would like some of its wealth. Though the World Economic Forum last year rated the territory as the world's 11th most competitive economy, Hong Kong is in a race for global business not just with obvious local rivals such as Tokyo and Singapore, but with cities from Shanghai to Dubai who are seeking to benefit from globalization.

Q: 試翻 "The key point ... has been taken on."

2. Compared to others, Hong Kong can look less than exemplary. For a developed economy, the gap between rich and poor is high. Air pollution remains atrocious, making greener Singapore and Sydney more appealing to expatriate executives. The standard of English, especially among youths, is deteriorating, threatening to undermine Hong Kong's aspiration to be a global financial center. "At the moment, we're still pretty competitive," Anson Chan, a senior official in both the British and post-'97 administrations, told TIME. "But it's not something we can take for granted. People don't realize that our competitive edge comes from the rights and freedoms we enjoy." In that context, Hong Kong's political status is a problem. The territory is stuck in a halfway house of confusing, semi-democratic electoral procedures that do not do justice to its well-educated and sophisticated citizenry. While Hong Kong's sense of economic confidence today is palpable, many residents also believe the city has to move on—the reason why Leong was able to win enough nominations in the Election Committee to run in the first place. Hong Kong, for all its strengths, needs some fixing.

Q: 試翻 "Compared to others, Hong Kong can look less than exemplary."

Q: 試翻 "Hong Kong, for all its strengths, needs some fixing."

3.His political opponents say that Tsang has not yet shown the kind of world-class leadership Hong Kong needs and deserves. A former civil servant, Tsang was Financial Secretary under Britain's last Hong Kong Governor, Chris Patten, and No. 2 in the administration of Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's first Chief Executive after the 1997 handover to China. Tung—who came from a Shanghainese family rather than from Hong Kong or its neighboring province, Guangdong—was never wildly popular and proved ineffectual, unable to meet the challenges of either a downturn in the economy or of the SARS epidemic that hit Hong Kong in 2003. In March 2005 Tung stepped down. Tsang became acting Chief Executive, and was confirmed in the job by the Election Committee in June that year (there was no other candidate then). If only because he was not Tung—and because he was a local boy made good—Tsang came into office with much goodwill. But his first two years as Chief Executive were marked more by what he could not accomplish than what he did. In 2005, he was unable to push through a limited set of political reforms that would have increased the size of the body that picks the Chief Executive and added 10 seats to the legislature. The proposals were blocked by democratic lawmakers who felt the changes didn't go far enough and who objected, also, to the fact that Tsang's plan did not have a clear timetable for a transition to full democracy. "People wanted it; there was majority support for it," Tsang says of his plan. "Some bloody-minded politicians wouldn't allow it through in the Legislative Council—against the people's wishes."

Q: 試翻 "But in his first ... what he did."