Update: HK government continues to destroy files

May 5, 2014

by Doreen Weisenhaus with contributions by Rick Glofcheski and Yan Mei Ning (Expanded Second Edition, Hong Kong University Press 2014)


Calls for an archival law have been heightened after it was revealed that two government bureaus (Food and Health Bureau and Labour and Welfare Bureau) have not stored a single file in the government archives for at least three years. Government replies to lawmakers’ questions on the budget also showed that from 2011 to 2014, more than 1.3 million files from all 12 policy bureaus were destroyed, compared to only 80,054 files that were sent to government storage. (This development updates references on pages 129, 137-138 of the book.)

“Bureaus still destroy more files than they keep,” South China Morning Post, 5 May 2014.