'ONE COUNTRY TWO SYSTEMS' INDEX

At the 20th Anniversary of Hong Kong SAR, Path of Democracy released its first report on its attempt to calibrate the current state of ‘One Country Two Systems’ (henceforth 1C2S). The Index serves anyone who is interested in the progress of 1C2S.

 

The 1C2S Index is developed based on a public opinion survey in Hong Kong on 1C2S, and also international indices that compare Hong Kong with other countries and territories in relation to human rights, various freedoms and democracy.

 

To complement our public opinion survey on 1C2S, we also introduced a 1C2S Mass Media Index (MMI) by making use of big-data to measure the sentiment of Hong Kong newspapers towards 1C2S since 1998 as news sentiment has very significant influences on public opinion.

 

It should be stressed that public opinion, international perception, and MMI are determined by perception and may or may not reflect the reality. Even so, changes in perceptions of 1C2S of the HK public, of international think tanks, and of the HK press are nevertheless important. We will analyse the reasons for the changes in these perceptions as they are crucial for the implementation of 1C2S.

Latest Report
13th Report (2023 H2)1C2S Data Portal
Previous Reports
12th Report (2023 H1)11th Report (2022 H2)10th Report (2022 H1)9TH REPORT (JAN 2022)8TH REPORT (AUG 2021)7TH REPORT (MAR 2021)6TH REPORT (AUG 2020)5TH REPORT (FEB 2020)4TH REPORT (FEB 2019)3RD REPORT (AUG 2018)2ND REPORT (FEB 2018)1ST REPORT (Aug 2017)
Survey Results: Frequency and Percentage Distribution
16TH ROUND (2023 H2)15TH ROUND (2023 H1)14TH ROUND (2022 H2)13TH ROUND (2022 H1)12TH ROUND (2022.1)11TH ROUND (2021.7)10TH ROUND (2021.1)9TH ROUND (2020.6)8TH ROUND (2019.12)7TH ROUND (2019.10)6TH ROUND (2019.8)5TH ROUND (2019.6)4TH ROUND (2018.12)3RD ROUND (2018.6)2ND ROUND (2017.12)1ST ROUND (2017.6)
List of Significant Events
List of Events (2017 H2-2023 H2)

Summary (2023 H2)

Index score

The performance of 1C2S implementation stands at:

6.04 (+0.02)

 

1) Public Opinion

The latest reading is 6.04 in February 2024. Compared to last round in August 2023, the index increased by 0.3%. Of all the sub-pillar scores, the largest increases are in “Democratic Development” and “Freedom of Speech, Association, and Assembly” , while the largest decreases are in “Maintaining Long-term Prosperity and Stability” and “Self-conduct of Administrative Affairs”.

 

2) International Perspective

The score continued to rise from the estimate of 6.82 in 2023 H1 to 6.87 in 2023 H2. Due to time lag in the compilation of international indices, further decline at the international level is anticipated given the perceived deterioration in rule of law, freedom of association and freedom of expression.

 

3) 1C2S Mass Media Index (1C2S MMI)

Despite foreign concerns regarding the city’s political landscape and human rights development, MMI continued to soar as a new development plan for synergistic growth of Shenzhen and Hong Kong’s innovative and technology sector and the completed election and appointment of new District Council members gathered hopeful news. Consequently, MMI recovered to 155.3 in 2023 Q4.

 

Methodological Notes

1C2S Index is the average of public opinion and international perception.

The three pillars on public opinion, namely ‘high degree of autonomy’, ‘human rights and freedom’ and ‘Hong Kong-Mainland relationship’ are the evaluation by Hong Kong public on different dimensions of 1C2S.

The three pillars on international perception, namely ‘economic openness’, ‘civil liberty’ and ‘democratic development’, are the evaluation by international think tanks on various aspects of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.

1C2S MMI measures daily net sentiment of media reports from television and radio stations, daily newspapers and online-only media that were published since 1998.