Hong Kong a risk to us, warns Xi
President Xi Jinping warned that China faced ‘‘many major struggles’’ as he braced the country for decades of friction with the West, including over Hong Kong.
Communist China must go through ‘‘all manner of struggles’’ if it was to reach its 100th anniversary in 2049 as a ‘‘powerful socialist country’’, he said.
Xi peppered his speech to party officials with the term ‘‘struggle’’, evoking the political terminology common in the Mao era, using it almost 60 times, according to state media. He warned that Hong Kong, along with Taiwan and Macau, may pose risks to the party.
Although he has yet to issue any formal statement on Hong Kong, he referred to it as he urged party officials to fight against all risks and challenges the country faced. ‘‘There will be many major struggles in all aspects of China’s development, and the work at home and abroad, including in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, is getting more complex,’’ he said. ‘‘You must promote the spirit of struggles, enhance your ability to struggle. You must struggle when the struggle is needed.’’
He made clear that Beijing would brook no opposition to its ambitions at home and abroad. ‘‘For those risks or challenges that jeopardise the leadership of the Communist Party and China’s socialist system; for those that endanger China’s sovereignty, security and development interests; for those that undermine China’s core interests and major principles; and for those that deter China’s realisation of a great national rejuvenation, we will wage a determined struggle against them as long as they are there. And we must win the struggle.’’
In Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, the chief executive, insisted that it was her decision, not Beijing’s, to scrap the extradition bill that triggered the city’s political crisis. She said that she had Beijing’s ‘‘understanding, respect and support’’.
Her reversal on the bill, which would have allowed Hong Kong people to be sent to the mainland to face trial, came after protests against the measure broadened into an anti-government movement, posing the biggest challenge to Chinese rule since the territory’s
1997 handover from Britain. It was widely believed that she needed Beijing’s blessing to make the concession.
The bill’s withdrawal, however, may do little to quell the unrest as Beijing prepares to celebrate the
70th anniversary of the People’s Republic on October 1. Protesters dismissed the concession as too little, too late. In the latest violence, the supervisor of Po Lam rail station needed hospital treatment after he was attacked by protesters demanding to know why it had been closed on Saturday during clashes with police. – The Times