The Environmental Challenge for Engineers A Hong Kong Perspective

I have been prompted, perhaps because of the geographic location of the Institution of which I was privileged to be President, to address "the effect of variation in expectation due to ethnic origin" in relation to the Environmental Challenge to engineers. A challenge in itself. Let me therefore bring an Asian, or rather a Far Eastern, perspective to this fundamental relationship between Man and Nature, the Environmental Challenge and the role of the engineer and engineering institutions.

The cultural history of China and Japan is interlinked. A harmonious relationship between man and nature is fundamental to the two great philosophies of China, Taoism and Confucianism, is central to Japan's Shintoism and is one of the underlying principles of Buddhism which pervaded both China and Japan. Of these Taoism is the most fundamental, requiring that man should passively "swim with the tide of Nature". Confucianism promotes interaction between man and nature, provided a harmonious balance is achieved.