31 rof. Cheung started the topic “Giving Hope to Young People: What Matters and How?” by quoting President Xi Jinping in his major address on the HKSAR’s 25th Anniversary “We must pay special attention to and care for young people. Hong Kong will prosper only when its young people thrive!” and the Hong Kong Government’s good intention to “provide young people with an enabling environment to cherish hope for the future, to strive for continuous growth, so that they can unleash their full potential in society and contribute to Hong Kong, the country and the world.” In the Youth Development Blueprint, Prof. Cheung pointed out that to address youth issues well, we should first understand youth issues well. Recalling how radical youth in 2019’s extradition protest forced the government’s hand and 40% of the arrested were students (with 20% of the arrested below the age of 18), Prof. Cheung remarked the youth of Hong Kong belong to “3D” generation, i.e. dispossessed, disenfranchised, disillusioned, the reality we are facing is a generation of youth torn between idealism and fatalism, that is having a great passion for Hong Kong, but pessimistic about the city’s future, acknowledging that the youth in Hong Kong care not only about material achievement and success in terms of study, employment, entrepreneurship, and home ownership, but they also have a vision in building a fair and progressive society that they can be proud of. By referring to Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, Prof. Cheung elaborated that the youth need not just hygiene factors in material terms, but also need motivating factors in the forms of a sense of self-worth and self-actualization. The Public Policy Dialogue Series on 7 January 2023, jointly organized by the Department of Asian and Policy Studies, the Academy of Hong Kong Studies in the Education University of Hong Kong, and the Division of Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, invited Prof. Anthony B.L. CHEUNG, Prof. Tai-lok LUI, and Mr. Brian WONG to discuss whether the Hong Kong government’s initiative on boosting the morale of Hong Kong youth is a promising policy. Giving Hope to Young People: What Matters and How? P The structural problems Hong Kong confronts today are numerous that include foundational stagnation, growing socioeconomic inequalities, and deep uncertainty over the political future as a city. HKUST PPOL | Newsletter Spring 2023 Public Policy Dialogue Series
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk5Njg=