POP Express Vol. 11 From the Editor - The Transferral of Sovereignty, 1997Back

The first day of July 1997 marks a new era. All the "hustle and puzzles" surrounding the transferral of sovereignty are finally over, as Hong Kong embarks on its new course under "one country two systems".

Needless to say, a new era means new changes and new concern. However, under the "one country two systems" formulation, Hong Kong's way of life is supposed to remain unchanged. So change or no change? Already the entire legislature has changed, so has the top executive body, but many things have remained unchanged. This dilemma of change versus stability, continuity versus discontinuity, will characterize the development of Hong Kong as we move into the Twenty-first Century.

To the general public, this may not be a major issue. Even when the handover was marked by extravagant celebrations and fireworks, the people of Hong Kong were just enjoying it like an ordinary holiday, under very bad weather though.

For the POP Team, however, it means extra work for every member. Throughout the handover period, we monitored the public mood and published our results on a day-to-day basis. Between 26 June and 3 July 1997, we have altogether released eight POP EXPRESS EXTRAS, which are all reproduced in this issue.

The purpose of publishing these POP EXPRESS EXTRAS is to disseminate public opinion data for public consumption as soon as they are available. This as one of our changes straddling 1997. Our other changes include re-structuring our regular tracking polls both in terms of content and frequency, expanding our rating exercise of familiar Chinese leaders to cover those in Taiwan, and compiling multi-dimensional indicators for the Hong Kong society. Needless to say, Chris Patten and the British government no longer appear in our regular polls, and our rating of the Legislative Council members has been replaced by that of the Provisional Legislative Assembly members.

In this issue, we have summarised our previous data on Chris Patten and various governments, on a user-friendly format, for public consumption. Users should, of course, quote them with proper citations.

Whatever changes are happening around us, we will be trying our best to render a useful service. And this commitment would remain unchanged.

Chung Ting-yiu Robert