Putting the People First
By Steve Tsang
In the last days of British rule of Hong Kong, many Chinese in the territory took pictures of their young children in front of colonial coats of arms adorning the exterior of government buildings. No doubt most did so to capture a snapshot of history that would shortly disappear. But some, I dare say, were paying their final respects to a departing, father-like symbol they would remember with fondness and admiration.
Why so? As Hong Kong marks the 10th anniversary of its return to China, and ponders the nature of its future relationship with the mainland, it's worth recalling one of Britain's most important legacies to the city: good governance, possibly the best experienced by any colony ruled by any power at any time. Despite the absence of democracy, and the accountability and transparency democracy engenders and encourages, by the early 1980s the British administration in Hong Kong had proven itself essentially honest and effective in meeting the demands of its citizens.
British Hong Kong was not always well governed. Indeed, the first two decades of colonial rule were awful. That period was marked by petty infighting among senior officials, corruption reaching nearly the very top, administrative inefficiency and gross discrimination against local Chinese. As John Bowring, Hong Kong's Governor in the 1850s, admitted: "We rule in ignorance; they obey in blindness."
But a break from this dismal state of affairs occurred in 1862, when three young graduates of British public schools and of Cambridge University—Walter Meredith Deane, Cecil Clementi Smith and Malcolm Struan Tonnochy—were appointed on the basis of merit rather than patronage to serve as cadets in the colonial administration. Such cadets, who gained the modern title of administrative officers (AOs) at the end of the 1950s, were well educated, generously remunerated, and meant to be put on the fast track for promotion to
high office after they had learned Cantonese. Some rose to be Governors, either of Hong Kong or other British colonies. These early gentlemen administrators laid the foundation for a modern civil service based on merit, a concept that had been accepted in Britain itself only seven years earlier. They created an esprit de corps that took on any task, saw corruption as beneath them, and made decisions on the basis of what in their own conscience and judgment were in the best interests of the colony—a concept that slowly evolved from focusing on the needs of the tiny expatriate community to the welfare of the majority Chinese population.
While AOs were able officials, they were not necessarily the brightest or most imaginative of individuals. Many were also arrogant. Yet they did not simply serve themselves, their superiors or specific sectors in Hong Kong. The AOs saw their worth and achievement as being measured by what good they were able to do collectively for the colony. For example, when Hong Kong built its first cross-harbor tunnel in the late 1960s, then Governor David Trench, a former AO, insisted on two tubes of four lanes, overruling the engineers' cheaper one-tube blueprint, which, he rightly concluded, the city would quickly outgrow.
Hong Kong's current Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, says that, unlike in the colonial era, today's officials need to be less élitist and more responsive to public opinion and needs. As a onetime AO himself, Tsang should know better—he's not giving his former British colleagues due credit. If anything, Tsang needs to make his own appointed ministers, who oversee the civil service, more accountable. The way to do that is to force them to face elections. That's the essence of the Westminster model, which is part of Hong Kong's heritage as a former crown colony: elected ministers, nonpartisan civil servants, all working for the people. It is no longer politically correct to say or think so, but to shape its future, Hong Kong should draw from its past. With reporting by Steve Tsang is Louis Cha Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford University, and author of the forthcoming book Governing Hong Kong

把亲民
由史蒂夫曾荫权
在过去几天的英国统治的香港，许多中国人在境内拍摄了他们幼小的孩子在前面的殖民地大衣的武器装饰外墙的政府建筑物。毫无疑问，大多数这样做是为了捕捉一个写照，历史上会在短期内消失。但还有一些，我敢说，支付他们的最后敬意离境的，父亲般的象征，他们会记得与喜爱和钦佩。
为什么会这样呢？由于香港已进入第十个年头，其返回中国，和歇息的性质，其未来与内地的关系，这是值得回味的一个英国最重要的遗赠给城市：善治，可能是最好的经历任何殖民地统治的任何权力，在任何时候。尽管缺乏民主和问责性和透明度，民主产生，并鼓励，由八十年代初期，港英政府已经证明它基本上是诚实的，并能满足要求其公民。
港英并不总是有良好的管治。事实上，前两个20年的殖民统治可怕的。这一时期的标志是零用内讧高级官员，贪污达近十分最高，行政效率低下和严重歧视当地华人。正如约翰宝灵，香港的总督，在1850年也承认： "我们的规则的无知;他们听从盲目性。 "
但脱离这种恶劣的事情发生在1862年，当3名年轻毕业生的英国公学和剑桥大学的大学-沃尔特伟迪狄尔尼，塞西尔金文泰史密斯和马尔科姆struan杜老志-被任命为在此基础上的好处，而不是乘客服务作为学员，在殖民地政府。这样的学员，他们获得了现代称号行政干事（ aos ） ，在1950年代末，受过良好教育，慷慨的报酬，并意味着可以提上了快车道，为促进
高级职务后，他们学会了广东话。一些起立予以省长，无论是香港或其他英国殖民地。这些早期的君子管理者奠定了基础，为一个现代化的公务员制度的基础上择优的原则，这一概念已被接受，在英国自己只早了七年。他们创造了一种团队精神，兵团发生任何任务，看到反腐败斗争作为下方它们，并作出了决定，在此基础上的是什么，在自己的良心和判断人的最佳利益为依归的殖民地-一个概念，慢慢地演变，从侧重于需要小小的外籍社会福利，大多数中国人的人口。
而aos的人能够官员，他们并不一定是最亮的或最具创意的个人。许多人还嚣张。然而，他们不是简单地服务于自己，自己的上司或特定的香港各界人士。隔离看到了自己的价值和成绩作为衡量有什么好处，他们能够做的统称为殖民地。举例来说，当香港建造了该国第一跨港隧道，在上世纪60年代末，当时的总督戴麟趾，前敖，坚持两管四车道，推翻工程师'便宜一管蓝图，其中，他正确地得出结论，纽约市将很快不敷支。
香港现行的行政长官曾荫权，他说，不像在殖民地时代，今天的官员要少élitist更顺应民意的需要。作为一次性敖本人，曾荫权应该知道好他的不给他的英国前同事因信用。若有的话，他需要做出自己任命的部长，他负责监督公务员队伍，更负责任。该办法是，以迫使他们面对选举。这是本质的威斯敏斯特模式，这是一部分，香港的文物，作为前英国殖民地：当选部长，无党派的公务员，一切工作为了人民。它已不再是政治上正确地说或这样想，而是要塑造其未来，香港应吸取过去的。与报告，由史蒂夫曾是路易茶同胞在圣安东尼学院，牛津大学，以及作者对即将举行的该书治港