Under existing policies, when the government wants to acquire land for development, only indigenous villagers are offered compensation, while non-indigenous residents are offered public-housing flats if they can pass a means test.

Now a group of about 50 tenant farmers in Tsoi Yuen Tsuen in a northern part of the New Territories are resisting efforts to move them to a nearby area to make way for the cross-border express link.

The farmers claimed they did not want compensation, and they just want to stay put and carry on with their lives. Some sympathetic NGOs teamed up with them to protest. The villagers submitted a plan to the government, urging it to move an emergency rescue station and a depot planned for the village site to a nearby open-storage area, which officials claimed would affect even more people.

Now a deadlock has ensued. These villagers do not have a case, and should they have their way, they would set a precedent which could lead to sweeping changes in land policy. Moreover, this is also another very dangerous precedent proving that no matter how untenable your position may be, if you could shout loudly enough, the government will bend over backwards to please you. It was similar bad precedents in the past that prompted an incident like this to take place today. Should this be allowed to go on, Hong Kong simply will become ungovernable.

But judging from the reaction of our government to recent events such as school-based drug tests, these farmers will most likely get their way. More than that, now some of the NGOs attracted by the villagers want to stop building the complete railway altogether. They cited whatever reasons you can imagine just to stop it. The real reason: they do not want Hong Kong to link up so closely and so quickly with the mainland.

Because Hong Kong has been procrastinating, we are now a full two years behind Shenzhen in linking up with the high speed national railway system. Our retarded connectivity with the fast growing hinterland is going to carry a price. Delaying the project any longer raises the risk of marginalisation and the decline of Hong Kong’s position in the country. Stopping the express link is bound to be disastrous. Our government should show us the will to govern and some guts in saying no to outrageous demands, for the public interest.