Three Lessons of the Airport Fiasco for Smug Hong Kong
International Herald Tribune
July 14, 1998
Philip Bowring

Hubris has claimed another victim. The fiasco of Hong Kong's new airport opening is more than just bad public relations, or a question of hundreds of millions of dollars of rotting cargo and lost business. It is not even just an issue of the damage to Hong Kong's reputation as Asia's premier hub of commerce.

It is too soon to point fingers at individuals or apportion blame precisely. However, the fiasco does send messages about three Hong Kong weaknesses that go well beyond this specific issue.

First, it says much about the pretensions of a paternalistic colonial-style bureaucracy that is often regarded as one of the territory's strengths but is no more a paragon than Japan's once praised men from the ministries.

It is clear that the failures were primarily those of coordination and management, in which the bureaucracy played the pivotal role, rather than of the contractors who built the airport or the companies which operate its commercial components.

The Hong Kong civil service is almost the highest paid in the world, despite a boast that its defining creed is, in the words of a former chief secretary, "positive noninterventionism." It has tended to believe that its competence rather than its low profile lay behind Hong Kong's prosperity, and that its leading figures were highly trained managers. In fact, they do small things competently.

Second is a mainland style of government by political fiat. Commerce may normally be in command in Hong Kong, but on this occasion politics was the key to the timing of the opening of Chep Lap Kok. It was also behind the decision to switch to the new airport overnight rather than adopt a phased transfer. July 1 was the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. What better way to commemorate it than with a visit by President Jiang Zemin, who could open the airport and leave from it in time for President Bill Clinton to fly in?

Whether or not messages came from Beijing about the timing of the opening, it would be in the style of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa to give importance to political symbols. Perhaps China's leaders believed that Hong Kong was such a clever place that it could easily cope with the practical problems of a premature opening.

That brings us to the third lesson. The new Kuala Lumpur International Airport opened a few days before Chek Lap Kok. Hong Kong laughed patronizingly at the flight delays, missing baggage and unconnected phones.

Chinese and expatriates joined in enjoying Mahathir bin Mohamad's discomfort and assuming Malay managerial incompetence. It has been a rude shock to find that KLIA's snags have proved minor compared with those in Hong Kong.

Official reference here to the problems that all new airports face provide little comfort. Yes, there was the Denver disaster. But what about Hong Kong's main rival, Singapore's Changi? Its teething problems were minor.

Soon Hong Kong will have to contend with more new international airports in the region — Shanghai and Seoul. They will be another challenge to Hong Kong.

At least the Chep Lap Kok fiasco has wiped off one more layer of Hong Kong smugness. How many more have to go before the city-state is in competitive trim again?

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