The Transferability of Public Housing Policy Within Asia: Reflections from the Hong Kong-Mainland China Case Study

Abstract

The use of the terminology ‘public housing’ varies among Asian countries. Some refer to housing directly provided and funded under the aegis of the government, inclusive of rental and owner-occupier housing, e.g. in Hong Kong and Singapore. Some only refer to rental housing directly provided and produced with government subsidy and let to low income families or special population groups, e.g. in China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. To enable a more comprehensive discussion, this chapter adopts a wider definition of public housing as applied in Hong Kong and Singapore, that is, cheaper rental or owner-occupier housing provided by the government or developers involving public funding and public resources (e.g. land) not priced at market rates in the production process. Housing acquired with the support of consumer subsidy alone is excluded. This definition differs from the more embracing terminology of ‘protective housing’ (baozhangxing zhufang) used in China, which means guaranteed access to decent and affordable housing commensurate with the housing users’ socio-economic status, including controlled private housing, e.g. private housing projects subject to price control or size control. Simply put, as translated by the State Council, it refers to ‘affordable housing’.