Warning signal about overhauling indigenous inhabitants of New Territories｜CEO Ching

“Houses are built for inhabitation, not speculation.” This is one of the guiding principles of how a real estate market is run iterated by President Xi Jinping for years in China, which is usually abbreviated to “live, not speculate in houses”, deriving measures to restrict transactions in various provinces. The saying is, however, getting more and more grating to the Heung Yee Kuk(a statutory advisory body representing establishment interests in the New Territories).

On March 7, when Han Zheng, Vice Premier of the State Council, was having a meeting with the delegates to the National People’s Congress from Hong Kong, he made a request as usual that political problems of Hong Kong be resolved, as well as unusually pointing out the extraordinary disparity between the rich and the poor: “the society has to be stabilized, the housing problem has to be resolved, and long-term planning and social consensus are needed.”

Having dissidents silenced by the Central over the past year, the Hong Kong government have had the power centralized, with very little room, if any, left for the officials to dodge the housing issue. On March 12, not even a week after the remarks made by Han, 24 people, including founder of Wong and Poon Solicitors Wong Kwong-wing and his son Wong Wai-shun, suspected to engage in “ding rights”(small house concessionary rights granted to indigenous male villagers in building a house in the colonial era by law) fraud, were arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for allegedly being involved in a plot to gain profit by buying “small houses” rights of indigenous inhabitants of Yuen Long at prices ranging from tens to hundreds of thousand dollars, then developing them into a large-scale property project.

The apprehension by the ICAC, an organ directly commissioned by the Chief Executive, was miraculously timely. Taking a broader view of what the Central has said thus far, one will find that it is probable for the interest group comprising indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories, which is not inferior to the interest group comprising land developers, to be overhauled.

Ding rights for inhabitation, not speculation

The reaction from the Heung Yee Kuk was way more low-profile than it had been expected. In his response, Kenneth Lau Ip-keung, head of the Kuk, said the lawful traditional ding rights are protected by the Basic Law, yet numerous restrictions of house building under the indigenous inhabitants’ ding rights since 1997 have been “misleading inhabitants into committing offences by mistake, which I feel sorry about”.

Beijing was convinced in the past that quite a number of youngsters resorted to violence because of their incapability of buying a house as compared with the indigenous male dings who are born with the right to possess a village house worth ten million dollars. Isn’t it what Han named as the Hong Kong housing problem? In fact, ding rights have since always been incongruous with the universal modern social values in Hong Kong.

In response to Han Zheng’s remarks, Lau Ip-keung said New Territories inhabitants “won’t pull out from supporting development”, and cited building of about 1,000 ding houses approved annually to prop up his saying that “it is supposed to be helping the housing supply”. Yet, the number is outrageously ironical. To resolve the housing problem in Hong Kong, enforcing a ban on ding rights, actually privileged rights”, is the first step. More youngsters might be able to buy a house if the land for building “1,000 ding houses annually” is replanned and redeveloped.

Now that an order has been given by the Central, Carrie Lam won’t be afraid of giving it a shot. “Ding rights were devised for inhabitation, not speculation.” When the government incrementally calls in ding rights one step at a time to spare a broad expanse of land in the New Territories for development, how is the Heung Yee Kuk going to take it in?

( CEO Ching, fb.com/IFC89 )

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