Strong government responses? Reflections on the management of COVID-19 in Hong Kong and Taiwan

Abstract

PurposeA debate emerged among members of public administration academia soon after COVID-19 appeared on the roles and measures that governments ought to deploy to prevent infection. One prevalent discourse is the strength of “strong government” in the fight against the virus—the administrative capacity to launch prompt, appropriate and effective actions that entail collaboration with citizens. A notable development in governance is that new public management (NPM) principles, such as the value of money and the pluralisation of service delivery, are gradually put aside when governments urgently need to curb the spread of infection. The roles of bureaucracy and centralised action are re-emphasised in the policymaking and implementation of anti-epidemic measures. Such a trend allows us to examine if the COVID-19 public health crisis has fundamentally reversed the trend of government retreat in public service within neoliberal regimes since the 1980s.Design/methodology/approachFor this research, the authors selected two “strong governments” in Asia—Hong Kong and Taiwan—by showing how administrators outline their anti-pandemic strategies, examining the role of government in coordinating responses and how bureaucracy interacts with the other two key domains of the governance mechanism: civil society and the market. These two offshore Chinese capitalist economies and pluralistic societies are perceived to have “strong government capacity” in the fight against COVID-19, presumably as a key attribute to their success confining the spread of infection during the early stages of the first outbreak. Both societies reported low infection rates and low mortality rates until September 2020. The authors browsed databases developed by scholars (Cheng et al., 2020; Hale et al., 2020) and referred to two “rubrics” to assess and compare government actions in both places in response to COVID-19. The authors itemised, categorised and counted the policy actions in both places according to the rubrics, noticed that the policy footprint appeared in over two-thirds of indicators of proactive government interventions and identified double-digit counts in nearly half of the categories.FindingsThe authors found that both governments attempted to establish strong stewardship and quick measures to contain the infection. The pattern of “strong government” is, however, not the same as that superficially exhibited. Taiwan took limited steps to regulate business activities but proactively intervened and coordinated the supply of hygienic utilities. Hong Kong launched aggressive attempts to reduce human mobility but remained non-active despite the “face mask run” in society. The “strong government” aspect also received divergent reactions from society. There was extensive cross-sectoral collaboration under the centralised “National Team” advocacy in Taiwan, and there has been no record of local infection for over 10 months. The Hong Kong government was repeatedly doubted for its undesirable stewardship in anti-epidemic measures, the effectiveness of policy interventions and the impartiality of law enforcement. Spontaneous actions during the health crisis from civil societies and private markets were noted, but they seemed uncoordinated with official attempts.Originality/valueThe initial findings enable us to rethink correlations between state capacity and legitimacy in the fight against the virus and its development post-COVID-19. Apparently, Taiwan and Hong Kong demonstrated a “re-expansion” of their public sector during the public health crisis, but not in the same format. This can be understood based on their varying regime values and administrative systems. The pandemic has been a catalyst, pushing both regimes back to their original track of public administration establishments. The concept of “path dependence” might explain the initial development and project the longer-term transformation of the public sector in both places.

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“…The government has heavily relied on civil society organizations and the private sector for delivering social services, such as voluntary medical insurance schemes and elder care services. The government took the COVID‐19 pandemic opportunity to recentralize public services through technology (N. W. M. Wong et al, 2022 ). Access to these technology‐related services must be carefully examined, and the population must be well informed about their benefits, during the crisis.…”

“…Antipandemic policies included the quarantine for inbound returnees and infected/close contacts personnel; tracking the potential virus carriers in different premises; disseminating the pandemic information and laws via publicity; distributing masks and personal protective equipments; arranging vaccinations and virus testing; and working out the strategy to recover the economy as quickly as possible. These measures in response to the pandemic push us to rethink some fundamental questions on public policy: the roles of government in services delivery, ways to arrange services, and prioritization of beneficiaries (N. W. M. Wong et al, 2022 ). Scholars have studied the model of antipandemic strategies in Asia (Choi, 2020 ; Hartley & Jarvis, 2020 ; Ho & Chan, 2021 ; Hsieh et al, 2021 ; Huang, 2020 ; Wan et al, 2020 ; Woo, 2020 ; Yuen et al, 2021 ); the antagonism between pandemic control and individual rights (the use of big data and information technology for the surveillance of potential virus carriers); challenges in policing and public accountability (the extraordinary policing tasks of enforcing lockdowns and social distancing legislation by police officers); unemployment/underemployment problems (business suspensions and closures); family and mental health issues (prolonged class suspensions, work‐from‐home arrangements, home quarantines, bans of intra/interfamily gatherings and border closures), and so on (Alcadipani et al, 2020 ; Brooks & Lopez, 2020 ; Chan et al, 2021 ; Farrow, 2020 ; Ho et al, 2020 ; Kyprianides et al, 2021 ).…”

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“…A notable fact in governance is that the principles of new governance, such as the value of money and the pluralization of service delivery, are being put aside when governments urgently need to stop the spread of infection. 10 …”

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“…The paper by Wong et al (2022), Strong government responses? Reflections on the management of COVID-19 in Hong Kong and Taiwan , reflects on the role of the state in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.…”