Bulletin Number Five 1983

perhaps explicable in view o f the fact that Hong Kong used to import technological and professional expertise just like fruits and cameras, the consideration in both cases being ready availability and cost-effectiveness. And indeed that must have been an effective strategy o f development for the educationally and economi­ cally backward city which Hong Kong was. However, that has long changed: having bu ilt up a considerable industrial and economic base, Hong Kong is now in a leading position among developing countries; and its institutions o f higher learning have also demonstrated that, given the resources, they are quite capable o f serious academic work. I f Hong Kong is to further expand its industrial base and maintain its momentum o f economic growth, surely it is now time for changing the policy and mentality o f almost total reliance on foreign technology and overseas professional training. What Hong Kong really needs today is rather a new generation o f well educated young men, who are professionally good and who would even in these rapidly changing times find a firm footing here in Hong Kong and make meaning for themselves out o f confusing events. To them, a higher education beyond the first degree is not a luxury but a necessity; to Hong Kong, such people are not just yet another option for finding manpower to do a job, but rather the key to its future. During the past several years I andmy colleagues have repeatedly appealed to the Government for adopting a more positive attitude towards research and postgraduate education in universities; we are now heartened to learn that several commissions appointed by the Government itself have also come to the same conclusion, and as amatter o f fact concrete proposals for significantly increasing financial support for research have already been submitted to the Govern­ ment. Your Excellency, you have in your recent Annual Address to the Legislative Council given considerable support to the expansion o f higher education; might we not also hope that you would find it possible to give equally strong support to these proposals for expanding research work? Ladies and Gentlemen, while it is true that I am by no means a banker, I would nevertheless be quite w illing to guarantee to you that to develop additional engineering education and to increase support for research w ill be two long-term investments in the future o f Hong Kong, which are absolutely safe and profitable. May I now turn to the future o f Hong Kong. I believe it is generally agreed that many pressing problems o f the day are really closely related to the prospects o f the future. It is therefore only when one takes a tru ly long view can the key to such problems be mastered. This is not to say that tomorrow's or next year's p ro fit margin and Hang Seng Index are unimportant; it is rather to say the following point is even more important: that is, Hong Kong must first change from a divided and lopsided society to a truly integrated modem society i f it is to broaden the base on which its prosperity and stability are bu ilt, and only then would it be possible for Hong Kong to create for itse lf those objective conditions under which it can have a more permanent existence and continue to thrive. This then is the key to the problems. In The Analects Confucius says, ‘the practice o f benevolence depends on oneself alone, and not on others', which refers to the right attitude for a man rather than a society, but is perhaps still not an inappropriate footnote to the key point I have just discussed. For Hong Kong to really become an integrated modem society, two policies are essential. The first is a familiar one: Hong Kong has long pursued a policy o f maintaining a free ， open society which is equally receptive to different cultures and ways o f thinking. This policy gives it a unique advantage over its com­ petitors, and this is the secret by which Hong Kong rapidly learns from other advanced countries and maintains its momentum o f progress. It would not be d ifficu lt for all o f us here to agree that, whether in the past or in future, whoever can lead Hong Kong must surely also be those who can tru ly comprehend the reason for that policy and continue to put it into practice. To fail to do so would soon throw Hong Kong out o f touch w ith its time, and also destroy the unique catalytic role which it has so successfully played between China and the rest o f the world. On the other hand, it is also my conviction that the future o f Hong Kong and its progress are in ­ separable from the education o f its people; and the education o f the five m illion Chinese in Hong Kong is in turn inseparable from the Chinese language and Chinese culture. This is because, apart from the pursuit o f economic growth, a tru ly modem society as such must to a considerable extent harmonize and integrate the diverse cultures, views and value systems o f its members. That is the requisite condition for cohesion to develop, for a sense o f belonging to its geographical locale to grow, and for the emergence o f common w ill and judgment whereby the community as a whole can rise to new challenges posed by changing circumstances. That is why the University has found it important to maintain its policy o f teaching mainly in Chinese; o f structuring and designing its course o f studies in such a way as to ensure that students would, irrespective o f speciality, have ample opportunities o f exploring and coming into contact w ith Chinese NEWS 9