He said it would also unswervingly support the Hong Kong government in administering the region according to the law, and in conducting mutually beneficial cooperation with the Chinese mainland.
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Hong Kong is semi-autonomous since being handed back to China by Britain in 1997, with freedoms unseen on the mainland, but there are fears they are being stripped away.
China has dismissed that notion.
Hong Kong authorities have rolled out a massive security operation as they braced for protests during a top Beijing official’s visit to the city, where tensions are rising over Chinese rule.
In another sign of official nervousness over the visit, authorities glued together paving stones to prevent them from being ripped up and hurled by protesters.
Attitudes toward Beijing spark fierce debate in Hong Kong, where residents enjoys some legal freedoms denied to the mainland – most notably freedom of speech – under the “one country, two systems” framework. About 200 pro-democracy protesters and rival pro-China demonstrators gathered in one of the zones in the evening yesterday, as Zhang gave his banquet speech.
But Beijing’s foreign ministry’s said that pushing for independence would harm Hong Kong’s security, prosperity and stability.
Zhang is deeply concerned about Hong Kong’s innovation and technology development as well as people’s livelihood improvement.
Five protesters from a student-led pro-democracy party in Hong Kong have been arrested for trying to intercept the motorcade of a top Chinese official.
Zhang encouraged Hong Kong to take more active part in the national development strategy by responding to the Belt and Road Initiative and building a platform of comprehensive services; facilitating capital flows and promoting RMB internationalisation and the development of the Belt and Road investment and financing platform. “I also believe that the absolute majority of Hong Kong people do not agree with (self-determination and independence)”.
Zhang presided over the August 31, 2014 National People’s Congress decision to impose a stringent screening mechanism that effectively bars candidates the central government disapproves from nomination for Hong Kong’s top official post, the chief executive. On Wednesday, the protestors raised slogans and chanted for the Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying to step down.
Shares in Hong Kong fell across the board, with material and IT sectors among the biggest decliners.
“Whenever we talk about Hong Kong and the “one country, two systems” principle, we should never forget our original intention, or deviate from it”, he said.
Roads around Zhang’s hotel and the convention centre hosting the economic conference have been cordoned off with water-filled barricades and protesters funnelled into designated areas, out of sight.
Zhang will attend a banquet at the convention center later Wednesday, where he plans to meet four more moderate democratic lawmakers despite boycott vows by most of their colleagues.
At the banquet, Zhang said Hong Kong’s worldwide profile was “decided by its economic status”.
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While Zhang might have raised the morale of the Communist Party’s faithful in Hong Kong, the ironclad security around him only convinced most Hong Kong citizens about the special privileges and supercilious attitudes of senior cadres.
