More than half of Hong Kong residents who responded to a recent survey said their quality of life is worse than prior to 1997, when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule, according to poll results recently released by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In the survey of 878 Hong Kong citizens aged 18 or older, 52.1 percent of respondents said their lives are worse than before 1997, while only 17.5 percent said their lives had improved.
The results showed that 57.9 percent of respondents said Hong Kong’s economy is worse than when the British ruled Hong Kong, while 18.3 percent said the economy is better.
On the issue of government service, 66.2 percent of those polled said it is worse now than before 1997 and only 10.1 percent said it is better.
Under a “one country, two systems” model governing the return of the former British colony to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong was allowed to keep its capitalist economy and British Common Law tradition for 50 years, but Beijing controls all foreign and defense policy.
A researcher with the university’s Hong Kong Institute of Asia--Pacific Studies, which conducted the survey, said that since 1997, Hong Kong has experienced the Asian financial crisis, a flu epidemic, a SARS crisis and the global financial tsunami.
“These events have driven Hong Kong’s economy to historic lows, battering its real estate and stock markets, and causing widespread grievances among ordinary people,” the researcher said.
Although Hong Kong’s economy has improved in recent years, he said, some structural problems have emerged, such as the over-concentration of industries and the widening gap between rich and poor.
“As most people feel the government can do little about these problems, it is understandable that they would think their lives are not so good as before 1997,” he said.
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