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Chapter 646: People's Livelihood Issues

This celebration of Xingfu Investment is actually a double blessing, because the group's global headquarters building is just completed, and Hong Kong and here are worthy of good luck, so the celebration location is naturally held in Xingfu Investment Building located in Sky Star City. After several years of rapid construction, the construction of Sky Star City has come to an end. Except for the Star Picking Tower, which has a total height of more than 1,000 meters, which will occupy the world's highest skyline in the next seven or eight years, because the construction is difficult and a lot of high-tech technologies are adopted, it will take another two years to complete.

The research building with a combination of flying saucers on the ground was first put into use last year, while the skyscrapers in which the "Ten Directions Destroy" are located will be completed and put into use in the next two years. These buildings are all from the world's top design firms, with an alternative and ostentatious style but memorable. Yang Xing made a decision but wanted to turn them into Hong Kong landmarks, just like the Sydney Opera House and the Paris Tower.

Among them, Xingfu Investment Building, as the wealth manager of Zhongxing Group, has an exterior of a disc building covered with light golden glass, with a slightly convex middle of the disc. Many people in the company jokingly call it a large Oreo sandwich biscuit. But more viewers were inspired by the dazzling golden light emitted by the rising sun of Victoria Bay to the surface of the building every day, and suddenly realized: "It turns out that this is a big gold coin!" Hong Kong media has agreed to call it "big gold coin".

That night, the Xingfu Investment Celebration Celebration Conference, which had just completed the opening of its headquarters in the "Big Gold Coins", gathered all the high-ranking officials from Hong Kong's upper class, and many dignitaries raised their glasses to congratulate Yang Xing. In this case, Chief Executive Bao Haisheng and other officials came to visit him, which seemed less eye-catching. Moreover, the Cen brothers were also inviting guests to attend, and it felt very embarrassing to squeeze into such an up-class occasion. Yang Xing also wanted to take the opportunity to talk to them about the black market boxing competition later.

Of course, the guests who attended the celebration meeting were the Chief Executive, and Bao Haisheng also entered the Three Treasures Hall without any trouble. He had no opponent recently elected the Chief Executive, and used the accountability system of senior officials to squeeze the old opponent's Secretary for Administration and regain the rights he thought should belong to him. According to reason, it was a time when he was full of complacent and prosperous. However, when Yang Xing saw him today, he found that he was making a laugh and casually perfunctorily dealing with many people who were close to him. He pulled Yang Xing to talk alone, and obviously encountered a lot of trouble again.

He and Yang Xing are also old, and they don’t shyly say that this time he shot himself in the foot. A series of mistakes have only been in a few months in his new term. (._《》》) made the central government hinted that he was dissatisfied with him. Not long ago, someone from the mainland vaguely stated that if the Hong Kong government considers selling its shares in Zhongxing Group, it can help him relieve some pressure.

Bao Haisheng's first term of office can be said to have achieved brilliant economic achievements. In his previous life, the Hong Kong economy was unable to find a direction of development for a long time and wasted time. The "Cyberport" and "Silicon Port" were famous. It was not worthy of being criticized. In this life, he calmed down and vigorously developed infrastructure investment and high-tech manufacturing industry at Yang Xing's suggestion, and increased economic ties with the mainland. He signed the CEPA and free travel agreements to Hong Kong, making the tourism, finance and other service industries the growth point of Hong Kong's new economic growth in recent years. Hong Kong's economic growth rate has been very gratifying in recent years.

However, economic achievements do not represent political advantages. Before Hong Kong's return in 1997, the Hong Kong and British government made small moves and came up with some political reform plans. As a result, the central government saw through it and slapped it to death. However, as a colony under the jurisdiction of Britain for more than 100 years, Hong Kong's civil service and political system were deeply penetrated by British culture. When the regime was handed over, due to the need for stability, many senior officials from the Hong Kong and British governments were left in the SAR government. At that time, the left-wing media in Hong Kong raised concerns that they would become "Hong Kong and British aspirations" and cooperated with many Hong Kong politicians who only like to be foreigners to make trouble.

During the Hong Kong and British government, the Chief Secretary was established, and his leadership position was second only to the Hong Kong Governor. He was truly one person and above ten thousand people. Adhering to the principle of using China to control China, the Chief Secretary was appointed by a Chinese. After Hong Kong handed over, he became the right-hand man of the new Chief Executive. However, it was obvious that the Hong Kong man who changed his position to Chief Secretary for Administration was a wonderful move left by the British. He was in Cao's camp and was in Han. Not only did he often have friction with Bao Haisheng, but he also had close contacts with the US and UK consulates in Hong Kong. Some government policies were often exposed by Hong Kong's democratic media in advance, and the democratic parties took the opportunity to boycott and delayed many government policies.

Therefore, when he was running for Chief Executive this time, Bao Haisheng, who could not bear it, proposed to learn from the accountability system of senior US officials and change all the positions of director and director who were originally appointed by the civil service system to be directly appointed by the Chief Executive. The role of the Secretary for Administration in charge of all civil servants was removed, and the Chief Executive took full control of the authority, and the directors of accountability policies were directly responsible to Bao Haisheng.

But he underestimated the ability of the Secretary for Administration. Bao Haisheng, who thought he was in power, wanted to let go of his hands, but encountered many constraints from the civil service. It turned out that the Hong Kong civil service had already formed its own bureaucratic system and internal interest groups. He only knew the orders of the Secretary for Administration without taking the Chief Executive seriously. Bao Haisheng attempted to undermine the Secretary for Administration, but he turned around to take the army. The directors acted independently, but the power division of some policy bureaus was not as ideal as expected. Some had too heavy responsibilities and some were too light, which led to many contradictions in the implementation of good policies.

To make matters worse, the struggle between the two sides quickly caused major accidents. In August this year, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange issued a consulting document suggesting that the stocks of main board listed companies with stock prices below 50 cents for 30 consecutive trading days were delisted, causing the market to sell these stocks in panic. The Hong Kong stock market commonly calls stocks less than one yuan "small stocks" and "sincere stocks". This incident is called the "sincere stock incident". Due to the heavy losses of a large number of retail investors, the president of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was forced to resign.

At that time, the democratic lawmakers proposed to hold the head of the Financial Affairs and the Treasury Director accountable. Due to Bao Haisheng's efforts to protect the situation, the senior executive accountability system was ridiculed as "asking but not being responsible" and almost gave up halfway. At the same time, during Bao Haisheng's first term, he vigorously promoted the integration of Chinese cultural and mother tongue education and improved people's livelihood. The 85,000 residential houses who had made house plans and the application for the Hong Kong rights to settle the law, were also brought up old accounts. Many people believed that he was arbitrary and had to launch these plans without extensive soliciting opinions from citizens. Now he had to reconsider it, and huge controversy broke out in the entire society.

Many citizens pointed out that mother tongue teaching is considered to weaken English learning ability and is Hong Kong's self-deprecation in international competition; the plan for residents to have their own houses is regarded as the culprit that has caused the slump in Hong Kong's housing prices during the financial crisis and has not recovered until now. Not long ago, there was a scandal about short houses and more than 100 people being arrested; and the applicant's general interpretation of the law is considered to be a detriment to Hong Kong's legal system and judicial system. As a result, parents of students, citizens and lawyers all took to the streets to march, causing a big wave.

The most embarrassing thing is that on July 7 this year, Bao Haisheng had just taken office. This day was his birthday again, but tens of thousands of civil servants took to the streets to protest against government policies, which made Bao Haisheng very worried and unable to come to Taiwan.

The cause of the incident was that in 2000, Hong Kong introduced a mandatory provident fund policy. The government forced all employees in Hong Kong to establish investment funds. Employers and employees had to pay part of their salary to the trust fund contribution every month. However, the MPF management fee was too high and lacked transparency, and employees could not choose investment trust institutions freely. However, employers could use the MPF employer contribution to offset long-term service funds or severance expenses. This clause has been widely criticized, and the Hong Kong government civil servants who have the greatest influence are naturally angry.

The fiscal budget just issued by the Financial Secretary proposed that the Hong Kong government has too many civil servants and people are overdoing their affairs. If job cuts cannot be easily laid off, they should consider reducing wages to alleviate the government's finances. This is tantamount to adding fuel to the fire.

This series of demonstrations on the streets made Bao Haisheng lose face, but also attracted the attention of the central government. After all, a government that even his subordinates could not control his going to the streets was really worrying. So this time he was anxious to find Yang Xing, the little Zhuge, and asked him for advice.

The idea that Yang Xing gave after pondering for a long time really disappointed Bao Haisheng. "You should pay attention to people's livelihood issues." But Yang Xing's next words made him think. "Old Bao, you did a good job in your first term. Many people predicted that the British could do well, and the Chinese would definitely not do well. Now they proved that they were very wrong. But in this term, your eyes fell too much on wealthy people like me. Although driving the economy is the top priority, we must not forget that most of the more than 6 million citizens in Hong Kong are promoted to the common people, and the economic growth benefits must always fall on them."

"You are not happy with the democrats, but some of their demands make sense. Since ancient times, those who win the hearts of the people will win the world. If you want to rule smoothly, you must take care of the needs of the general public. Although Hong Kong's economy is developed, there are many people living under the poverty line. I heard that the government wants to cancel the plan for residents to have their own houses, so I am not optimistic about it. The promotion of the construction of 85,000 houses per year was the highlight of your governance. The poor implementation was mainly due to the sharp drop in housing prices in Hong Kong due to the Asian financial crisis, and many people have become negative assets."

"But now the Hong Kong housing market has gradually recovered. Especially after the recent release of mainland wealthy people coming to Hong Kong to invest in real estate, housing prices have soared. However, many Hong Kong locals do not have a house to live in. How can they feel happy? This residential plan for the house is a good weapon to alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor in Hong Kong residents' housing."

"In recent years, several major sovereign investment funds in Hong Kong have made some money. Now it is time to use it for the people. Since civil servants are dissatisfied with salary cuts, it is better to let residents across the city evaluate whether they should be reduced. Many people in the opposition are lawyers and businessmen, and they can also let them highlight their family background together. At the same time, they compare the poor citizens in the city with comprehensive assistance, linking the salary reduction of civil servants with increased coverage of comprehensive assistance. Should the government's investment income be given to civil servants or citizens receiving comprehensive assistance? The government is doing well, so there is no need to go on the street to march?"

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