Xi arrives in HK to cement Beijing’s control
President to mark 25 years since handover
HONG KONG: President Xi Jinping said Hong Kong had been reborn after facing one “challenge” after another since he last visited five years ago, as he returned to the city to mark its 25th anniversary of Chinese rule.
The Chinese leader said the city’s “one country, two systems” governance formula would ensure its prosperity and stability, as the finance hub contributed to China’s “great reunification”, in a short speech delivered at West Kowloon Station yesterday afternoon.
Mr Xi arrived with his wife, Peng Liyuan, to crowds of schoolchildren waving flags and a traditional lion dance, after taking the city’s high-speed rail link from mainland China. Outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam was at the reception, along with her successor John Lee, former city leader Leung Chun-ying and Zheng Yanxiong, head of the secretive agency China created to implement its controversial security law.
China hasn’t released Mr Xi’s itinerary, but he is expected to stay overnight in the neighbouring Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen, as Hong Kong experiences it worst Covid surge since April with some 2,000 cases on Wednesday. A banquet hosted by Ms Lam that Mr Xi was expected to attend yesterday evening was cancelled due to virus concerns, the Sing Tao newspaper reported. The Chinese leader will return today to swear in her successor as Hong Kong chief executive, John Lee, a former police official and security minister.
The trip is Mr Xi’s first to the city since overseeing twin crackdowns on political dissent and Covid-19 that risked the former British colony’s future as an international centre of commerce. It is also his first outside mainland China in almost 900 days, after his Zero Covid policy restricted his travel to domestic engagements. Mr Xi’s unprecedented decision to set foot in a city openly operating with thousands of community virus cases is evidence of Mr Xi’s determination to signal China’s firm of control of the once free-wheeling former British colony.
The July 1 celebrations mark the halfway point of China’s 50-year promise to maintain Hong Kong’s liberal institutions and capitalist markets until at least 2047 under a framework called “one country, two systems”. The UK has accused China of violating their handover agreement, a claim backed up by the US, which has imposed sanctions on Ms Lam, Mr Lee and senior Chinese officials for their roles in cracking down on the local opposition.
“It means a lot symbolically that the president of China is coming to Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary,” Tommy Wu, lead China economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s Hong Kong and China telling the rest of the world that Hong Kong is a major international, financial and business centre in Asia, with the backing of the Chinese Communist Party.”
When Mr Xi last visited Hong Kong in 2017 he delivered a tough message, warning the city that challenges to China’s rule were “absolutely impermissible”. After his departure, thousands joined an annual pro-democracy march, with some attendees carrying banners calling for the downfall of the Communist Party.
This year, the atmosphere is very different. Mr Xi’s government has since imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that criminalises subversion, secession, colluding with foreign forces and terrorist activities. That sweeping legislation has ended street protests, purged the political opposition and closed the city’s biggest prodemocracy media outlets.
The League of Social Democrats, one of the city’s last protest groups, said in a Facebook post that after meeting with national security police it had decided against holding a July 1 demonstration.
Mr Lee and other government officials were required to enter hotel quarantine ahead of Mr Xi’s arrival, as were some 3,000 other people involved in the celebrations.