Bridging the Communication Gap

Bridging the Communication Gap

Author: Mrs. Regina Ip (Member of Legislative Council, Chairperson of Savantas Policy Institute)


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Whether it be a seasoned politician or an appointed minister, keeping in touch with the people is never easy. In the US, critics complain from time to time about the “White House bubble” and the “perception gap” between the President and the people. In colonial Hong Kong, the late David Jeaffreson (who retired as head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption), started in the 1980s to ask the Civil service Branch to post local officers to the secretive Security Branch, moaning that the Colonial Secretariat was “like a citadel”. What is it about being in power which makes communicating with the people so difficult?

Communication involves both listening and speaking, but neither comes easily to those in power. Unfortunately, a survey of the all the building blocks of public communication shows that the government falls short on every one - ranging from the most basic and indispensable written or spoken word, to face-to-face contact, and the new digital media. Despite the pervasiveness of new digital tools, the importance of the written or the spoken word cannot be over-emphasized. The ascent to power of US President Barack Obama is a case in point. A rookie senator and a relative unknown even after his election to the US Senate in 2004, Mr. Obama was catapulted to nation-wide celebrity status thanks to a series of televised, stirring speeches, starting with his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. At various critical junctures in his Presidential quest, candidate Obama saved his campaign by moving the public with inspiring speeches which speak to higher values and confront unresolved conflicts. After his campaign was set back by his long-time pastor Jeremiah Wright’s “God damn America” sermon, candidate Obama bounced back with his famous speech on “a more perfect union” in Philadelphia in March 2008. Powerful words again saved the day.

A quick scan of historical leaders shows that few great leaders have not been remembered for their powerful speeches or memorable quotes. An obvious example is China’s Chairman Mao Zedong, whose poetry and quotations remain influential up to the present day. In the West, British leader Sir Winston Churchill won widespread admiration for the numerous inspiring wartime speeches he made. Many of his most unforgettable phrases - “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”, and “men will say (of the British Empire and the Commonwealth), “This was their finest hour” “, and “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” - continue to be quoted or adapted for use in different contexts around the world. The gift of words is so important that modern Chinese leaders, albeit hailing from a radically different political tradition from the West, never cease to impress with their pithy summaries of party or national policies, poetic quotes or passionate appeals which seek to provide emotional leadership and connect with the people.

The performance of the Hong Kong SAR government is much less impressive on this score. A handful of bureau secretaries try hard to speak spontaneously in LegCo debates, responding to points raised by legislators and the media. Yet such qualities seem lacking at the highest level. More often than not, our leaders have provided the public with soundbites which rub people the wrong way, such as “Hitler was elected by a democracy”, “Hong Kong stands or falls on financial services”, or “Shanghai can never catch up with Hong Kong”. Alternatively, some would take the easy way out by regurgitating bland, official lines to take. Since 1997, no Hong Kong leader has made any indelible, positive impact on the collective psyche of the people with the words they spoke. Speech-writing remains a core weakness of the civil service conditioned to writing anodyne papers in standard format. The addition of the politically appointed under-secretaries and political assistants has not so far yielded any significant improvements in this respect.

The communication deficit can be pinned down to a number of reasons: a lack of personal talent, vision and courage, as many have pointed out. It has also to do with the shallow education and the bureaucratic background of most Hong Kong leaders: the increasingly short-term oriented education system which does not put enough emphasis on cultivating the humanity of the students, and a bureaucratic training which is the antithesis of developing a personal voice and persona. Tough luck for bureaucrats seeking to transform themselves into political high-flyers.