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Proper maintenance can extend building life. Secondary students from Urban Renewal Authority's Youth Speak programme analyzed what policy problems are, learnt how to handle them, and practiced ways to balance stakeholder interests. Look forward to their proposals to encourage building rehabilitation from the aspects of policy review, planning, enforcement and education so that homeowners can preserve their wealth and residents can live safely and comfortably.

Imposing smoking ban is a global issue. We should complement Hong Kong having one of the world's lowest smoke prevalence. Joining a crime investigator from Customs and a psychiatrist, I discussed tobacco control in HK from a public administration perspective. The incumbent government forges ahead with a goal to eliminate damages of tobacco. To do so, it takes into account people's health awareness, the capacity of public healthcare system and social moral standard. However, problems such as economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, public order issues resulted by rising illicit trade, the right to choose in a free-market economy, have extended the impacts of tobacco policies to a widened spectrum. A government portrays a role to formulate rules with the premise of balancing interests within different parties and stakeholders. It should make full use of policy instruments such as regulations, public finance, administration and education to build a harmonious society.

Constitutional professors heard from us the latest development of HK's rule of law. Delegates include RUC's Han Dayuan, PKU's Chen Duanhong & Wang Lei, Wuhan's Qin Qianhong and SYSU's Yang Xiaonan. They are China's top advisors on the Basic Laws of HK and Macau. I hope this exchange helped them better understand viewpoints from HK.

The latest One Country Two Systems Index finds out enlarged discrepancy between growing local confidence and declining international perception. We shared with chief executive John Lee, director of CE office Carol Yip and head of CE Policy Unit Stephen Wong about key issues related to internal governance and overseas concerns. More work can be done to tell good stories of HK's rule of law, commerce and innotech!

Although personal charm is difficult to teach, there is always a speech behind every speaker. The trainees of the legislators practiced political speeches one by one, identified the audience and opponents, set the purpose of the speech, and chose their own core message. By using the Parliamentary Speech Worksheet, everyone can be well prepared to speak out to society.

For 7 years, Path of Democracy has been advocating pragmatism and rational politics in turbulent times. It's our honour to have 🇭🇰 CE John Lee, Chief Secretary KK Chan, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam and Hang Lung's Ronnie Chan joining our anniversary dinner. To go beyond our past success, we'll broaden our research scope to reach the international business community and tell Hong Kong's good stories to English-speaking audience.

China is reopening borders to bring its economy back to life after the devastation of COVID-19. The 19th Annual Conference of CUHK-Fudan Shanghai-Hong Kong Development Institute looks into this stage of revival from fiscal, financial and social perspectives. In addition to an open call for academic papers, distinguished scholars and young experts also exchange views on a post-pandemic future. With everything slowly returns to normal, we truly hope to meet international participants face-to-face later this year!

Before students met two LegCo councilors who shared their everyday life as a politician, we did a few exercises to find out strengths and limitations of different voting methods and constituencies in our legislature. "Who gets what, when, how" is a simple yet effective starting question to understand politics

Sharing stories about the history of One Country Two Systems 🇨🇳🇭🇰 and the birth of the Basic Law with students from a few secondary schools. We did a live poll about what fundamental rights they treasured most. All fell into the private sphere: protection of personal safety, equality before the Law and right to privacy. Next time they should get prepared for a Mencius' debate on righteousness and individualism.