Chinese President Xi Jinping said “Hong Kong has risen from the ashes” when he visited the city, his first trip outside mainland China in nearly 900 days.
Xi was visiting the city ahead of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from the United Kingdom to China on July 1.
The area has undergone massive changes since the last time Xi made such a trip in 2017. The city has been gripped by mass protests, sometimes violent, since the summer of 2019.
The following year, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong that the British government described as “severe and deeply worrying”.
Dozens of pro-democracy advocates and politicians were arrested under the law.
Xi arrived in the city by high-speed train and was greeted by supporters waving Chinese and Hong Kong flags.
“I am very happy to be in Hong Kong,” Xi said upon his arrival.
“It’s been five years since my last visit, and I’ve been paying attention and thinking about Hong Kong for the past five years.”
The Chinese president later said Hong Kong had been “resurrected from the ashes” with “vigorous vitality”.
“As long as we adhere to the ‘one country, two systems’ framework, Hong Kong will surely have a brighter future and make new and greater contributions to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people,” he said.
“One country, two systems” is the framework under which Hong Kong was returned to China 25 years ago, with the territory promised that its way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years.
Image: The handover ceremony in 1997 attended by dignitaries and other guests from around the world after the Union Jack was lowered at the Hong Kong Convention Center on July 1 Picture: AP
On Friday, Mr. Xi will swear in the new leader of the global financial center, John Lee, who takes over from Carrie Lam.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Department has so far not commented on the anniversary of the handover, but has regularly raised concerns about developments in Hong Kong.
In early May, the UK joined the G7 for a collective statement expressing “serious concern about the chief executive selection process… as part of the ongoing assault on political pluralism and fundamental freedoms”.
In March, the government backed British judges who resigned from Hong Kong’s top courts over the erosion of democracy and freedom caused by the new security law.
That same month, British UN Ambassador Simon Manley accused the Chinese government of continuing to “systematically…undermine rights and freedoms, in clear breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration”, adding: The UK remains committed to forcing China to honor its international commitments .”
The Joint Declaration is a treaty between the United Kingdom and China, signed in 1984, which sets out the terms under which Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese control and how the territory will be governed after 1 July 1997.
Hong Kong Island has been a British colony since 1842, having been ceded to the United Kingdom following the First Opium War. Subsequently, in 1898, a 99-year lease was granted for a portion called the New Territories, allowing expansion of the territory controlled by Great Britain.
The declaration states how, after the handover, a special administrative region will be created that will be self-governing with a high degree of autonomy, except for foreign affairs and defense – hence “one country, two systems”.
This was to be enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law, a constitution that sets out how the territory will be governed, and will remain unchanged until 2047.
Following the introduction of Hong Kong’s new security law, the UK government changed its rules for allowing overseas British nationals in the territory to come and live in the UK, for what it said was the UK’s “historic and moral commitment to those people of Hong Kong who have chosen to maintain their links with the United Kingdom’.
At the end of March, there were 123,400 applications from British Overseas Citizens in Hong Kong to take advantage of the opportunity for them and their family members to live, work and study in the UK.
Beijing and the Hong Kong government reject accusations that they have violated previous agreements, saying they have “restored order from chaos” so the city can prosper.
Add Comment