Hong Kongers have a duty to stand up for China over threats to its sovereignty, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said yesterday, months after Beijing warned against any challenge to its control over the territory.
Lam, making her first policy address since she came to power earlier this year, skirted the subject of political reform as the territory’s pro-democracy forces contend with an increasingly assertive Beijing.
She began her speech with a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) warning that any challenge to Beijing’s control over Hong Kong crossed a “red line,” when he visited the territory in July to mark 20 years since its handover from British rule.
Photo: AP
“President Xi Jinping said in all earnestness that the destiny of Hong Kong has always been intricately bound with the motherland,” Lam said after her opening remarks.
“Everybody with a passion for Hong Kong has ... the obligation to say ‘No’ to any attempt to threaten our country’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Lam said.
She said that the territory has “the duty to nurture our next generation into citizens with a sense of national identity,” referring to proposals to imbue the youth with a sense of Chinese patriotism.
The failure of the democracy movement to win concessions has led some young campaigners to call for self-determination or even full independence for Hong Kong, which has infuriated Beijing and local authorities.
Dodging the heated issue of political reform, the Beijing-backed leader turned to Hong Kong’s acute housing shortage and described solutions to it as fundamental for social harmony and stability.
“Meeting the public’s housing needs is our top priority,” she said, but added that “the government has no magic wands.”
Skyrocketing property prices have been fuelled by an influx of money from wealthy Chinese investors and developers.
Lam introduced a plan to roll out subsidized homes for Hong Kong’s middle class at a time when the territory’s wealth gap was recorded at its highest point in nearly 50 years.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Legislative Council, protesting over pension funds as they hit gongs and drums adorned with top officials’ faces.
Protesters also condemned the jailing of leading advocates and the disqualification of pro-democracy lawmakers last summer, in a string of cases critics have slammed as political persecution.
The 60-year-old career civil servant Lam, who was selected in July by a mainly pro-China committee representing special interest groups from real estate to agriculture as well as lawmakers, is Hong Kong’s first female leader.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion