Contenu du sommaire : Hong Kong in the 2020s: Reset amidst Challenges

As different classes of residential dwellings, government-subsidised Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) housing and unsubsidised private housing are aimed at adjacent groups of households on the housing ladder in Hong Kong. Subsidised housing is in high demand, and one important way of meeting it is to have better-endowed HOS families move up by buying into the private market. The paper explores the differences in price trends between these two classes of properties and attempts to find some of their determinants. Empirical analysis of historical prices of HOS and private housing reveals higher volatility in HOS prices and a differing trend with private market prices, as well as many more HOS transactions after the implementation of the White Form Secondary Market (WSM) Scheme.

The pursuit of equitable education is key to a government's regulation and allocation of life-chances, which enables social integration. Yet, evidence of the diminishing returns of degrees and of the “skills mismatch” between higher education training and labour market requirements casts doubts on the role of higher educational institutions in facilitating social mobility. This paper draws upon the findings of 40 qualitative interviews with young people conducted in 2018 in Hong Kong to shed light on the micro-level processes in which higher education training is translated into graduate employment outcomes. Findings comparing two sets of higher education graduates' interview narratives are presented. Assumptions of the logic of human capital theory are questioned from the “positional” and the “processual” perspectives on graduate employability. The discussion unpacks the meanings of “skills mismatch” and “graduate employability,” and foregrounds the assumptions of the differential values assigned to skills and knowledges of different kinds in the local higher education system. With the insights drawn, this paper concludes with a reflection on the relevance of higher education to our understanding of social mobility and social integration in post-Covid-19 Hong Kong.

While previous research has explored Hong Kong's place branding, it focused on data prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and did not fully address the shifting geoeconomic and political contexts that define Hong Kong. The present paper aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive longitudinal analysis from 1997 to 2024. Applying discourse analysis on a corpus of official documents and policy addresses, our study uses a two-pronged framework that integrates place branding and critical juncture to comprehend the practices, politics, and consequences of Hong Kong's branding strategy. It argues that Hong Kong's current branding strategies are at a critical juncture, reflecting a devolution from an ambitious and holistic approach in the 2000s to consumption-driven promotional campaigns in the 2020s. The authors underscore the urgency and complexity of redefining a dynamic and adaptative branding strategy that can effectively showcase Hong Kong's strengths and values to the international community.

The Chinese government now considers the conservation and reuse of cultural heritage important in revitalising the countryside and narrowing the gap between urban and rural development. We highlight the development of a “new gentry” concept, arguing that in this process the government has appropriated and transformed the concept of “gentry” from the traditional Chinese farming society of the imperial period. Heritage conservation allows the new gentry group to act as official agents to reinforce grassroots management and establish an elitist and capital-oriented authorised heritage discourse while erasing the class narrative. We propose that this is not equivalent to a general “gentrification” process, but is a policy tacitly supported by officials with a clear agenda.

Recent changes in the relationship between the postponement of the statutory retirement age, pension participation, and the precariousness of employment in China may conceal the lasting negative effects on workers' current and ongoing welfare. Grounded on China's normalised precarious employment with individualisation, insecurity, and instability, and identifying the current Urban Employee Basic Pension (UEBP) as based on traditional industrialism, the empirical evidence from 68 workers in precarious employment shows how limited UEBP participation even extends working life. Under the institutionalised inequality of UEBP, and without long-term coworkers who can promote understanding of the system, the uncertainties of future livelihood and “voluntary” participation in the UEBP (re)shape the rationality of precarious workers towards minimum participation. Hence, raising the statutory retirement ages is unlikely to improve their UEBP participation, but rather lengthen the period of precarious employment.

This article contributes to discussions on why Chinese investments in Pakistan cover a wide variety of energy sectors, whereas capital allocation in Indonesia is concentrated in a narrow set of actors and energy sources (coal). While others have highlighted micro-, macro-, and meso-level dimensions, this research looks at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce's (MOFCOM) communication as a further factor to steer Chinese project financing. By exposing a set of 281 MOFCOM statements to quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis, my findings reveal that MOFCOM publications offer more incentives for private participation in Pakistan than in Indonesia, as represented by the greater number of actors and projects listed, as well as the types of public policy instruments deployed. Besides theoretical contributions to steering theory, the study offers practical suggestions on how China can diversify investments to create more sustainable energy outcomes along the Belt and Road.