“Hong Kong must recognise that creating more space for community groups to respond to crises is not a threat to government legitimacy,” Hartley said. “The best but probably hardest thing the Hong Kong government can do to enhance its crisis response capacity is to go about the difficult work of regaining trust among large segments of the population.”
“The government has put itself in a difficult position by creating a tense atmosphere for social mobilisation and community groups – particularly by stifling dissent among members of society,” said Kris Hartley, an assistant professor at Education University who studied policymaking in a low-trust society during the pandemic. “This has led to an environment of growing suspicion, secrecy and distrust.”
Education University’s Hartley said the real issue was whether the government had calculated that it could not afford a further erosion of public trust and credibility by going ahead with the controversial mass testing. He added that in any society, the government alone could not be present in all spaces of social service delivery. He said the 2019 social unrest showed that Hong Kong was able to develop community capacity, something that was also seen during the 2003 Sars epidemic.