Moving the goalposts won’t fix sources of Hong Kong poverty

Last week, Xia Baolong, Beijing’s point man on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, made a two-day trip to the city to review the Hong Kong government’s progress across many areas.Everything seems to have been orchestrated with precision. Ahead of Xia’s arrival, the government launched its two-month public consultation on the city’s first five-year plan. The day after Xia concluded his visit, the government released its 200-plus page report on the impact of its targeted poverty alleviation strategy.The same day, the International Institute for Management Development released the results of the latest World Competitiveness Ranking. Hong Kong has risen one place to the world’s second-most competitive economy. All this offered a timely reminder of what the administration had accomplished.