A pro-democracy protester holds up a photo of China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee Chairman Zhang Dejiang during a demonstration in Wan Chai, near the venue of the “One Belt, One Road” Summit where Zhang gave a keynote speech to Hong Kong’s ruling elite Hong Kong, China, 18 May 2016.
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“Hong Kong is China’s freest city”, Jenkins says. “Rocking the boat won’t do any good for Hong Kong”.
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.
Zhang Dejiang, China’s third-ranked leader, warned the people of Hong Kong not to “seek secession in the name of localism” during a three-day visit to the Special Administration Region that ended Thursday.
The city’s sagging stock market also got a boost from China on Tuesday, as buying by mainland institutions via an exchange-trading link surged to 2.6 billion yuan ($400 million), the highest level in a year and sent Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index up 1.2 percent.
Zhang promised that Hong Kong would continue to benefit economically through cooperation with China.
Discontent over Beijing’s tightening grip on Hong Kong has risen since pro-democracy street protests rocked the Asian financial hub in late 2014, and calls for independence from radical political groups have become commonplace. Freedom of expression was guaranteed to the citizens under the 1997 agreement that saw Britain return Hong Kong to Beijing, but authorities still haven’t ruled out taking action against pro-independence activists.
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.
His visit was met with protests by activists who alleged that the mainland Chinese government was interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs.
Zhang Dejiang, who is head of China’s parliament and the point person on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, arrived on Tuesday for a rare visit.
Also telling was the fact that the Leung administration mobilized as many as 8,000 police officers to make sure that Zhang could neither see nor hear protesters.
“The argument that the central government is trying to turn Hong Kong into mainland [China], or to turn “one country, two systems” into “one country, one system” is totally baseless”, Zhang told a banquet in his honor. It demanded in a statement posted on Facebook that Beijing allow Hong Kong “greater self-determination”.
Indeed, the business of arts and culture is growing quietly, rapidly in our unique corner of China.There are over 41 000 creative and cultural enterprises in Hong Kong employing some 213 000 creative talents.In 2014, our creative economy generated value added of almost HK$110 billion (GBP 9.7 billion), which accounted for about 5.0 per cent of our GDP.This also represents an average annual growth of 8.6 per cent over the past decade, which is more than three percentage point above the annual growth rate of our overall economy. “Hong Kong society can have a complete peace of mind”. But he said Zhang seemed to be of the view that this kind of dialogue – recognizing the status of pan-democratic legislators for the first time – ought to be continued.
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“The Chinese party and the Hong Kong government are branding this as extending an olive branch to the opposition”, Avery Ng, of the League of Social Democrats, told Al Jazeera.
