Po-san Wan

The Bases of Political Trust in six Asian Societies: Institutional and Cultural Explanations Compared

Political trust reflects people’s evaluative orientation toward the polity and is thus vital to regime stability. Based on data drawn from a cross-national social survey, this article examines the level of political trust in six Asian societies and the possible effects of a series of institutional and cultural factors on political trust. It finds that institutional factors, particularly the economic and political performance of government, are powerful determinants of political trust, whereas the effects of such cultural factors as post-materialism, traditionalism, and authoritarianism are either insignificant or weak. The superiority of the institutional approach over the cultural approach is reconfirmed.

Comparing Political Trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan: Levels, Determinants, and Implications

Political trust is a cornerstone of political survival and development. This paper makes use of data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey to examine the level of political trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It finds that the people of Hong Kong have a high level of trust in their government and judiciary, but a relatively low level of trust in their legislature. In contrast, the Taiwan people have a lower level of trust in all of their executive, judicial, and legislative branches, reflecting a serious problem with political confidence in Taiwan. A further analysis shows that institutional factors such as ratings of government performance, life satisfaction, and satisfaction with democratic rights and freedoms, and cultural factors such as interpersonal trust, post-materialism, and traditionalism have varying degrees of effect on the different domains of political trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but institutional factors appear to be more powerful than cultural factors in explaining the experiences of both societies.

Public perceptions of income inequality in Hong Kong : trends, causes and implications

This article examines the patterns and changes in public perceptions of domestic income inequality in Hong Kong in the past two decades and explains individual variations in these perceptions. It found that the perceived seriousness of income disparities had been persistently high, while the perceived unjustness of income disparities showed a fluctuating trend. Our findings lent partial support to the structural position thesis that the privileged groups are less likely than the underprivileged groups to consider existing income disparities to be serious and unjust. Nonetheless, the popular understanding of poverty is still biased towards ‘individual’ explanations, and this perhaps explains why the government is less willing to tackle the economic and political foundations of poverty in Hong Kong.

The Impact of Cross-border Integration with Mainland China on Hong Kong's Local Politics: The Individual Visit Scheme as a Double-edged Sword for Political Trust in Hong Kong

Using official statistics and a pooled dataset of longitudinal surveys, the aim of this article is to examine the impact of the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) on political trust in Hong Kong. Our multilevel analysis found that the gradual inflow of IVS visitors (mostly overnight visitors) increased political trust in the first few years, but that this trust rapidly diminished in later years, especially after the introduction of the one-year multiple-entry IVS endorsement (which attracted mostly same-day visitors). The main reason for the reduction in the positive impact of the IVS scheme is that the growth in the number of same-day visitors has contributed less to Hong Kongs economy than has the increase in the number of overnight visitors, and has exacerbated several social problems. The impact of mainland visitors has varied across groups with different levels of education. The political trust of people with a senior secondary education has been enhanced more by the increase in overnight visitors and reduced less by the increase in same-day visitors than that of people with a tertiary level of education or a junior secondary education or below.

National/Regional Integration and Local Development

Macao’s gambling industry would not prosper without patrons from outside Macao’s borders. This was the case not only in the past, but remains true in the present and will remain true in the future. The attractiveness and competitiveness of Macao’s gambling industry not only depends on Macao’s gambling products, promotion strategy, transportation networks, and so on, but also on the gambling policies of its neighbours. To be specific, if gambling were to be made lawful in a close neighbour, for example Hong Kong or Guangdong province, Macao could suffer a tremendous decline in business. Since the policies of its neighbours are beyond Macao’s control, Macao’s top government officials must always keep in mind how to maintain a harmonious relationship with all of them—and must convince its neighbours, as well as the Beijing government, that it is in their interests not to make gambling lawful within their boundaries.

Macao and Globalization: A Gambling Perspective

Macao (in English spelling) or Macau (in Portuguese spelling) is situated on the coast of southern China or, to be specific, on the southwestern margin of the Pearl River Delta adjacent to Zhuhai, Guangdong province (Fig. 2.1). It is believed to be the first city in China to have been occupied by Europeans and also the first Chinese city to embrace globalization through the development of worldwide trading routes. In addition, Macao witnessed the earliest and longest-lasting encounters between China and the West, and is praised to this day as being a unique blend of Western culture and Chinese civilization. In a number of recent surveys on world cities, Macao ranked at the very top of the list in terms of per capita GDP and attractiveness to young artists (Clark and Moonen 2011, p. 45; Flavorwire 2011; McKinsey Global Institute 2011, p. 3). Whatever the indicator, it is certain that Macao is an extraordinary city that is worthy of more in-depth study.

Gambling Expansion and Social Change

In the past and even today, as the general public believes that casinos are inherently pernicious, legalizing gambling is usually criticized as a move that will aggravate all kinds of social evils such as crime, prostitution, money laundering, pathological gambling, family strife, alcoholism, drug abuse, triad activity, corruption, juvenile delinquency, and so on. Since Macao had made gambling legal for over one and a half centuries, few protested when the Macao SAR government voiced plans to liberalize the industry by introducing competition. Later, however, when the liberalization policy was put into practice and casinos sprang up like mushrooms, worries were expressed that social stability could be undermined. However, the issue that has attracted the greatest public attention and concern is why some people have received less, or why other people have gained more, than others.

Gambling and Society: A Theoretical Revisiting of the Issue

In Shakespeare’s longest play, Hamlet, the following monologue spoken by Prince Hamlet to a pair of courtiers, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, is frequently quoted to illustrate the paradoxical and tragic nature of human beings:

The Return to Chinese Sovereignty: A Historical Turning Point

In Macao’s history, three important years—1557, 1849, and 1999—should not be forgotten. These years signify three historical turning points. The year 1557 marked the beginning of Portuguese settlement in Macao with the consent of the Ming court and the development of Macao as an international maritime trading port. Around three centuries later, in 1849, Macao was seized as a Portuguese colony, and gambling was made legal (in 1847) to generate income for the government as well as to boost the local economy. One and a half centuries later, Macao returned to the motherland as a SAR of China under the framework of “one country, two systems”, involving “a high degree of autonomy” and “Macao people governing Macao”. In other words, Macao’s previous capitalist system and way of life—with a legalized gambling industry as the pillar of the economy—remained unchanged after the return of sovereignty.

Gambling Expansion and Economic Growth

Having reviewed the theoretical background to gambling and also the history and development of Macao’s casino industry, in the subsequent chapters attention will shift to addressing the socio-economic-political impact of gambling after the implementation of the liberalization policy in 2002. In the past, objective indicators were overwhelmingly used to illustrate socio-economic-political developments. However, in the last decades, both academics and policy-makers have come to believe that social progress instead of economic growth should be the ultimate policy concern; that information concerning the state of affairs and social needs plays a vital role in societal monitoring, social accounting, and social planning; that official information and statistics need to be checked and enriched by information from alternative sources; and that the complexity of a society needs to be understood through a systematic and longitudinal examination of the inter-relationships among social phenomena. Various types of subjective data have been gathered and have proven to be of use in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of public policy, by identifying unintended policy impacts, measuring social costs, and discovering how these costs are distributed. Such research-based information also helps to enhance social consensus on the difficult trade-offs to be made under resource constraints and multiple demands, and assists policy-makers in establishing development priorities. Therefore, in order to obtain a comprehensive view of recent developments in gambling, both objective and subjective indicators will be cited for reference in the subsequent four chapters.