Contenu du sommaire : Trust and the Smart City: Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area in International Focus

Based mainly on a Hong Kong-wide survey carried out in March-April 2021, while also drawing on a round of stakeholder interviews from July 2020 to December 2021, the article interprets the linked phenomena of trust and the smart city in the specific context of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. In the main body of the article, four angles are used to understand facets of trust-smart city relations, centred on characteristic trust, trust and technology, the role of intermediaries, and trust in government. The main findings of the survey centre around the data trust paradox (of high support for technology in a low-trust environment), the social impact of trust and mistrust (strongly correlated with age and political affiliation), and trust in the smart city as a weathervane of trust in government. Factors such as a digitally literate population, a decades-long investment in technology, and a substantial record of delivery provide solid reasons to believe that a strategic-technical narrative on the smart city might succeed where others have failed to convince.

Like many cities in advanced economies, Hong Kong has embraced the “smart city” agenda. In this article, we engage with a number of ethical issues surrounding smart city development. We assess the ethical implications of four different smart city initiatives in Hong Kong – the use of a facial recognition system, the Smart Lamppost Pilot Scheme, the Free-flow Tolling System, and Electronic Health Record.Sharing System – from the perspective of relational egalitarianism. Our analysis suggests that there are various moral risks – that a particular smart city initiative may fall short of some relevant normative requirements – depending on the levels of their voluntariness and transparency. Finally, we consider a number of strategies for mitigating these moral risks and maintaining socially egalitarian relationships among citizens of a smart city.

Hong Kong has an ambitious carbon neutral goal to meet by 2050. Achieving this goal requires a departure from a traditional city-scale centralised, fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure to a more decentralised, locally-generated renewable energy (RE) while expanding the regional intercity smart grid system to accommodate RE import in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Such energy transitions inevitably bring new social challenges, but how Hong Kong citizens perceive such transitions in the GBA context is not well studied. This study draws on quantitative and qualitative data derived from an online deliberative poll (DP) (N = 174) on smart energy transitions. We have four key findings. Firstly, citizens showed a low level of trust in the national, provincial, and city governments whilst a high level of trust towards the incumbent electricity companies. Secondly, citizens showed distrust to the governments, suspecting that the genuine motives of the governments were to prioritise regional RE import over local RE production. Thirdly, citizens raised concerns over five types of risks (price volatility risks, energy reliability risks, cost overrun risks, data privacy risks, and environmental risks) that contributed to new sources of public distrust in governments' competence. Fourthly, the public distrust toward multilevel governments was found to be underpinned by demographic factors (age group and family size) and a sociopolitical context of recent social movements against government policies. Our findings suggest that policymakers in the GBA need to give sufficient attention to enhancing public trust, and thereby the policy legitimacy of regional smart energy transitions.

Sebastian Heilmann has described the Chinese government's policy innovation and diffusion process as “experimentation under hierarchy,” and this concept has undoubtedly had a major influence in academic circles. Heilmann argues that “model experiments” (pilot projects) and “proceeding from point to surface” (diffusion) are the two key elements of China's reform model. This article proposes a third element, “nationwide coordinated work.” We find that the publication of a document on a particular reform policy by the central authorities gives local governments the green light to formulate relevant policies based on the centre's direction. The localities will then give feedback based on their experience so that the centre can amend its regulations accordingly. Under the overall control of “nationwide coordinated work,” an experimental policy undergoes a circular process of implementation and adaptation designed to make policies more specific and practical.

Oriented within political transnationalism, this paper examines emigrants' participation in homeland elections in the context of the institutional absence of an external voting system. Deploying a case study in a Taiwanese community in Vienna (Austria) and a mixed-methods design, it tackles the processes, actors, and practices of transnational electoral mobilisation during the 2020 presidential elections in Taiwan. Shaped by identity politics, the local Taiwanese community's organisational landscape facilitates direct and indirect electoral mobilisation. Associations serve as important entry points for politicians, and as platforms for individuals to rally political support. A sizeable share decided to return to Taiwan, time and financial costs notwithstanding. Though only indicative, data suggests that the presidential candidates mobilised more overseas voters than in the 2016 elections.

This study explores a distinct type of electoral intervention, which we call “harmonising intervention,” by the Chinese local state to achieve the goal of securing the joint post of the village Party secretary and Village Committee director. It involves mediating conflicts through electoral interventions and using elections to create harmony. The research finds that through such interventions, the local state simultaneously accomplishes the legitimisation, information collection, elite co-optation, and clout demonstration functions of authoritarian elections. “Harmonising interventions” have obvious power concentration effects and strengthen local state control rather than village self-governance.