As COVID-19 rages across Hong Kong at the start of a sensitive political year for China and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Beijing is determined not to be embarrassed and undermined as it was by the protests that rocked the territory in 2019.
In the past week, since Xi told Hong Kong that its “overriding mission” was to control the worsening COVID-19 crisis, the territory has stepped up disease prevention measures, including plans for mass testing buttressed by equipment, testing vehicles and personnel from China.
Foremost for Beijing, is a fear that, unless Hong Kong contains the virus and prevents a lot of people from suffering, the territory could see a return to the instability of 2019 when anti-government protests posed a major crisis for Xi, some advisers to China’s government said.
“Beijing understands there are still a lot of anti-government, anti-China forces in Hong Kong, which may be waiting for an opportunity to come back,” said Lau Siu-kai (劉兆佳), deputy director of the Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a top think tank under China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.
“If the epidemic spills over from Hong Kong into the mainland, particularly Guangdong, then it will become an issue of national security for the central government,” Lau added.
There was no immediate response to faxed questions to China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office or its Cabinet-level Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.
As the COVID-19 crisis grows, Chinese officials based in the territory, including Hong Kong Liaison Office Director Luo Huining (駱惠寧), have appealed to Hong Kong tycoons to provide financial and logistical support; while Chinese construction teams are now rushing to build a 10,000-bed temporary isolation center on an outlying island.
The stakes are especially high for Xi in a crucial year when the Chinese Communist Party is set to hold a five-yearly National People’s Congress where he is expected to secure an unprecedented third term, even as his zero COVID policy makes China increasingly isolated in a world that is learning to live with the virus.
This year also marks 25 years since Britain handed Hong Kong back to China, and Xi would ordinarily be expected to attend anniversary celebrations.
Lau said part of the problem is that while China’s national security ambit encompasses many sectors, including public health, Hong Kong’s definition of national security had been “less coherent,” leading officials there to underestimate the risks, political and otherwise.
Since COVID-19 emerged in late 2019 in Wuhan, China has contained the outbreak with aggressive measures, including keeping its borders nearly shut, an effort that is exacting rising economic costs and which could be harder to sustain as more infectious variants such as the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerge.
Those methods are harder to implement in Hong Kong, an international financial hub known for cramped living quarters in high-rise buildings and a population that can be recalcitrant when it comes to complying with government orders.
“It’s been a battle since the Wuhan outbreak, to show the supremacy of China’s governance over the West in controlling the virus,” a second person with ties to senior Chinese officials overseeing Hong Kong affairs said.
“Hong Kong has no choice but to be part of the China strategy, to make sure its oubreak isn’t used to undermine the legitimacy of Xi’s leadership,” they said, asking to remain anonymous.
China’s national priorities over Hong Kong’s COVID-19 outbreak have again left the territory’s government with little room to find its own path out of the pandemic, hampering Hong Kong’s role as an international and open financial hub, some observers have said.
Even as some local experts urge a more moderate path of home isolation for those with COVID-19, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) has said that the territory must stick to zero COVID policies.
At a news briefing on Tuesday, Lam repeatedly praised Beijing’s backing and policies in the fight against COVID-19, speaking beneath a banner that highlighted “staunch national support.”
“This is a repeat of 2019. A doubling down of failed policies,” said a senior Western diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous.
Balancing the interests of Hong Kongers and Beijing cannot always be reconciled in times of crisis, they added.
Lam’s office gave no immediate response to a request for comment.
During the mass protests in 2019, Lam told a private audience in an audio recording obtained by Reuters that she had “very, very, very limited” room for political maneuvering, and that she ultimately “has to serve two masters by constitution” — Beijing and the people of Hong Kong.
Steve Tsang (曾銳生), director of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies China Institute at the University of London, said the parameters of the Hong Kong’s autonomy depend on Beijing’s interpretation.
“Their meaning can modify as Beijing sees fit,” Tsang said. “Zero COVID being one of Xi’s hallmark policies, [it] must therefore be implemented in Hong Kong as it is on the mainland, unless and until Xi decides to change his mind.”
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