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A telephone survey was conducted from 18 to 25 August 2017 by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views about the Co-Location Arrangement (CLA) plan recently proposed by HKSAR government.  724 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 38.2%.  The sampling error is + or –3.64% at a confidence level of 95%. 

Major findings are summarized as follows: 

In this survey, while more than half (55.0%) of the respondents supported the current plan, 29.0% opposed it and 7.2% reported “in-between”.  Among the supporters, the main reasons mentioned for supporting include “It is the fastest and most convenient way” (43.5%), “It will be a waste if not supporting this plan as the Express Rail Link will be finished soon” (32.7%), “No other feasible/better plan” (23.9%) and “It is the most favorable way to benefit the development of Hong Kong economy” (10.8%).  For those who opposed the plan, the main reasons stated are “The plan violates the Basic Law/destroys ‘One Country, Two Systems’” (32.4%), “Hong Kong does not need Express Rail Link at all/The HK Express Rail Link will lose money” (24.3%), “There are other better plans” (16.2%) and “Don’t want Mainland law enforcement officers to enforce law in Hong Kong” (15.2%). 

If the current plan is implemented, nearly half (48.7%) of the respondents believed that it will not have any impact on the “One Country, Two Systems”.  30.4% thought it will have a negative impact while almost 8.0% believed that there would be positive impact. 36.2% of the respondents felt the plan did not violate the Basic Law and 29.8% took the opposite stance.  About one-third (34.0%) said “Don’t know/Hard to say”. 

With regard to the opinion that if the current CLA plan could not be implemented in West Kowloon, the traffic efficiency and economic benefits of Express Rail Link would be greatly reduced, 42.3% of the respondents agreed while 25.9% disagreed.  Concerning the opinion that if the plan is passed, the HKSAR government could transfer jurisdiction in other areas of Hong Kong to the Mainland law enforcement officers in the future, nearly half (48.0%) of the respondents said they are worried about this scenario while 36.6% said they are not.  Regarding the performance of current government officials dealing with the CLA plan, about one-third (32.2%) of the respondents were not satisfied and 19.4% said they were satisfied while around 38.3% aid “in-between”. 

Our survey also shows that if the Express Rail Link is completed and starts operation, about one quarter (25.3%) of the respondents do not have interest to use it.  Over 60% expressed a certain level of interest (28.9%, 17.3% and 15.2% of the respondents respectively replied that they were somewhat interested, fairly interested and very interested).  The survey also asked whether the respondents had utilized the CLA in Shenzhen Bay port to go through customs.  More than one quarter (26.0%) reported they had while 69.2% said no.  Statistical analysis on those two subgroups shows that the percentage of supporting the CLA plan for Express Railway Link is significantly higher among those with experience of utilizing Shenzhen Bay port (70.1%) than those without (48.6%).