Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that Hong Kong had been “reborn of fire,” as he arrived to mark the 25th anniversary of the territory’s handover today, in his first visit since Hong Kong’s democracy movement was crushed.
Xi’s trip is a chance for the Chinese Communist Party to showcase its control after huge protests engulfed the territory in 2019, prompting Beijing to impose a harsh crackdown.
“In the past period, Hong Kong has experienced more than one serious test, and overcome more than one risk and challenge,” Xi said after arriving at a high-speed railway station in the heart of the city. “After the storms, Hong Kong has been reborn of fire and emerged with robust vitality.”
Photo: Bloomberg
Today’s anniversary also marks the halfway point of the 50-year governance model agreed by Britain and China under which Hong Kong would keep some autonomy and freedoms.
Critics say a National Security Law imposed by Beijing after the 2019 protests has eviscerated those promised freedoms, but Xi yesterday insisted that “the facts have proved that ‘one country, two systems’ has great vitality.”
“It can guarantee long-term stability and prosperity in Hong Kong, and defend the well-being of Hong Kong people,” he added.
Xi’s visit is the first time he has left mainland China since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Accompanied by his wife, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), he was greeted at the station by schoolchildren waving flags and bouquets of flowers, as well as lion dancers and select accredited media.
Details around the trip have been kept tightly under wraps, and the visit has sparked a massive security effort.
Government leaders have been forced into an anti-COVID “closed-loop” system, parts of the territory shut down and multiple journalists barred from today’s events.
Xi is likely to spend the night in Shenzhen on the mainland.
Those coming into Xi’s orbit during the trip, including the highest-ranking government officials, have been made to limit their social contacts, take daily polymerase chain reaction tests and check into a quarantine hotel in the days leading up to the visit.
“To play safe, if we are going to meet the paramount leader and other leaders in close quarters, I think it is worthwhile to go into the closed-loop arrangements,” veteran pro-Beijing politician Regina Ip (葉劉淑儀) said.
Authorities have moved to eliminate any potential source of embarrassment during Xi’s time in Hong Kong, with national security police making at least nine arrests over the past week.
The League of Social Democrats (LSD), one of Hong Kong’s few remaining opposition groups, said that it would not demonstrate today after national security officers spoke with volunteers associated with the group.
LSD leaders said their homes had been searched, and that they had also had conversations with the police.
LSD President Chan Po-ying (陳寶瑩) said that over the past few days, she had begun to feel that she was being followed and watched.
Hong Kong’s top polling group announced that it would delay publishing the results of a survey that gauged government popularity “in response to suggestions from relevant government departments after their risk assessment.”
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
RSS