HONG KONG — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday defended the “one country, two systems” type of governance in Hong Kong in a uncommon go to to the Chinese territory amid a deepening authoritarian crackdown by Beijing.
Xi was in Hong Kong to swear in its handpicked new leader, John Lee, as the previous British colony marks 25 years since its return to Chinese rule. The journey, Xi’s first outdoors mainland China since January 2020, is broadly seen as a victory lap in a as soon as politically raucous metropolis the place even the smallest indicators of dissent are actually being stamped out.
“Having gone through ups and downs, people have learned the hard way that Hong Kong cannot be destabilized and cannot afford to seek chaos,” Xi stated, avoiding any direct point out of the large-scale antigovernment protests that captured international consideration for a lot of 2019.
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While the town should be run by “patriots,” Xi stated, it should additionally preserve its distinctive standing and strengths, together with as a world monetary, delivery and aviation hub. That standing has been challenged through the coronavirus pandemic by “zero-Covid” restrictions which have saved Hong Kong and mainland China largely reduce off from the world.
Xi stated there was no purpose to change the “one country, two systems” precept, which was designed to give Hong Kong a excessive diploma of autonomy after the 1997 handover.
Critics say that autonomy, in addition to the pre-handover political freedoms that Hong Kong residents had been promised they may hold for the primary 50 years underneath Chinese rule, has been gravely undermined underneath a nationwide safety regulation Beijing imposed in 2020.
“They will portray Hong Kong as a successful example of ‘one country, two systems,’” Nathan Law, a pro-democracy activist dwelling in self-exile in Britain, stated this week. “But for many Hong Kong people, including myself, all we can feel is a deep betrayal and also anger and sadness because we have never felt like Beijing respects our community and the promises they gave to us.”
Hong Kong has undergone seismic change since Xi’s final go to in 2017, when he warned in opposition to any problem to Chinese sovereignty. Two years later, the town was convulsed by months of pro-democracy protests that typically turned violent, with some protesters calling for Hong Kong independence.
Beijing responded by imposing the nationwide safety regulation, saying it was mandatory to restore order. Since then, nearly 200 individuals have been arrested on expenses of subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with overseas forces, together with journalists and plenty of of Hong Kong’s most outstanding pro-democracy figures. Multiple pro-democracy news shops have shut down, and the native legislature now lacks any pro-democracy opposition.
The crackdown in Hong Kong has been broadly condemned internationally, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on Thursday for Hong Kongers’ “promised freedoms to be reinstated.”
Defenders of the federal government’s actions say nationwide safety concerns typically have an effect on rights and freedoms, simply as in Western international locations. Regina Ip, a pro-Beijing lawmaker who’s the convener of Lee’s Executive Council, stated Hong Kong nonetheless has judicial, monetary and different methods distinct from these on the mainland however that it wanted a “reset” after the protests of 2019.
“It is important to remember that our separate systems are only sustainable if we do not do harm to the country,” she instructed NBC News this week. “It’s only sustainable if Hong Kong accepts China’s sovereignty, upholds China’s security and developmental interests.”
Police had been out in drive for Xi’s go to to the town of seven.4 million, the place posters celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary of the handover declare a “new era” of stability. Media protection of the anniversary occasions, which had already excluded a number of shops, was additional restricted this week when not less than 10 journalists making use of to cowl them for native and worldwide media had been rejected for “security reasons.”
Thousands of friends and employees members had been required to take every day coronavirus assessments and enter resort quarantine forward of the occasions, in line with Covid-19 restrictions. Hong Kong, which had its worst outbreak of the pandemic this spring, is experiencing one other uptick in circumstances, reporting 2,358 on Thursday.
Rather than keep in Hong Kong throughout his two-day go to, Xi spent the evening throughout the mainland border in the town of Shenzhen. He was anticipated to depart quickly after the inauguration.
Friday started with a flag-raising ceremony at Golden Bauhinia Square on Victoria Harbor, amid robust winds and a storm warning. It was the second 12 months Hong Kong police on the ceremony used mainland China’s “goose-stepping” type, which on Friday was prolonged to your entire police drive, changing the British-style marching used in colonial instances.
Later, at a socially distanced ceremony in which officers wore masks emblazoned with “25,” Xi swore in Lee, the one candidate in a May election determined by a committee made up of fewer than 1,500 principally pro-Beijing members. Lee, who was Hong Kong’s safety secretary through the 2019 protests, is amongst a number of high Hong Kong officers sanctioned by the U.S. over their roles in implementing the nationwide safety regulation.
Lee additionally praised “one country, two systems,” and stated he would “strive to build a more caring and more inclusive Hong Kong full of vibrancy, hope and development opportunities.”
Unlike in 2017, when tens of 1000’s of demonstrators marched throughout Xi’s go to in an annual July 1 custom that dated again to the handover, the streets had been quiet with scattered civilians, some carrying a number of Chinese flags and sporting crimson masks in a patriotic fervor.
The League of Social Democrats, a pro-democracy group, stated this week that it will chorus from holding any protests on Friday after a few of its volunteers had been summoned for conferences with the nationwide safety police.
Security boundaries blocked all roads close to the conference heart, the place the inauguration was held, and police fought in opposition to the heavy wind as they tried to fasten blockades on footbridges.
Police officers randomly stopped and searched pedestrians taking images from footbridges and requested them for press credentials. Asked whether or not it was unlawful to spectate, one officer replied, “I don’t know.”
Ip stated issues that the nationwide safety regulation had eroded Hong Kongers’ rights and freedoms had been “only a matter of perception.”
“Only those people who might have been involved in unlawful activities undermining national security have reasons for concern,” she stated. “The rest of the community, I think we are very happy that law and order have been restored.”
Unlike previous Hong Kong leaders who got here up by means of the civil service, Lee was a profession police officer, and he’s anticipated to take a exhausting line on safety. He has stated one in every of his high priorities might be enacting native nationwide safety laws often known as Article 23.
“It seems that the government restrictions of people’s free expressions and political freedoms will be further enhanced,” stated Eric Lai, the Hong Kong regulation fellow on the Georgetown Center for Asian Law. “And it also means the city’s human rights protections and the city’s rule of law will be further eroded.”
Ip stated the nationwide safety regulation was imposed as a result of Hong Kong failed to enact the Article 23 laws as required by the Basic Law, its mini-constitution because the 1997 handover.
The nationwide safety regulation “only affects people with real criminal intent to overthrow the existing regime or to break Hong Kong away from the country or to undertake local terrorist activities, or to collude with foreign forces to harm China and Hong Kong,” she stated. “So I think the great majority don’t need to worry.”
But activists, legal professionals and others say the regulation leaves it unclear the place the “red lines” are, giving rise to self-censorship and an environment of uncertainty.
The crackdown has pushed lots of Hong Kong’s activists, artists, teachers, legal professionals and others to transfer overseas. Law, 28, stated activist mates who stayed behind are scuffling with despair and emotions of suffocation amid the shifting political panorama however are nonetheless making an attempt to do what they will whereas treading fastidiously.
He stated it was essential to remind the worldwide neighborhood that the story of Hong Kong shouldn’t be over.
“Safeguarding Hong Kong is safeguarding the front lines of democracy, the front lines of the battle against the rise of authoritarianism and authoritarian expansion,” he stated. “I think this case should be remembered, and we should definitely continue to pay attention to it.”