Protests are not the only way for Hong Kongers to express their views, China’s senior official overseeing Hong Kong affairs said yesterday.
The statement came weeks after Hong Kong’s strict protest rules sparked controversy while signaling Beijing’s vision for territory.
An anti-government movement sparked by an extradition bill in 2019 is a scar that would not fade away, Chinese Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Director Xia Baolong (夏寶龍) said, warning against a repeat of such chaos.
Photo: AFP
Xia’s remarks at a ceremony on China’s National Security Education Day indicated Beijing’s views on the territory, which is promoting its return to normalcy following strict COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions and political turmoil over the past three years.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and was promised it could keep its Western-style civil liberties intact for 50 years after the handover.
However, after the enactment of a Beijing-imposed National Security Law following the 2019 protests, many rights advocates were jailed or silenced amid a crackdown on the territory’s pro-democracy movement. Major protests were also rare under the strict COVID-19 rules.
Late last month, Hong Kong saw its first authorized protest against a government policy since the lifting of major pandemic restrictions under unprecedentedly strict rules, with demonstrators required to wear numbered badges around their necks. That sparked a debate over the erosion of freedom of assembly.
“Demonstrations are not the only way to express one’s interests and demands,” Xia said yesterday, adding that there is no contradiction between safeguarding national security and expressing one’s views.
Experiences has shown that causes centered on environmental protection and livelihood issues can be easily hijacked, he said.
“People’s good will can be easily exploited and manipulated by others with ulterior motives,” he said. “Demands on livelihood issues can even be distorted into political issues and that eventually trigger social confrontation.”
He said a confrontational society has no future.
“I hope Hong Kong can host exhibitions, develop innovation and technology, strive for economic development, have horse races, dances, stock activities and earn some money every day,” he said.
Xia described the 2019 protests as Hong Kong’s version of a “color revolution” and said the territory cannot allow its district councils to be controlled by anti-China and “destabilizing” forces.
Hong Kong’s district councilors largely handle municipal matters, such as organizing construction projects and ensuring that public facilities are in order, but the pro-democracy camp’s landslide victory in local elections in 2019 took on symbolic importance at the height of the social movement.
Local media last month quoted sources as saying that authorities planned to conduct an overhaul of electoral rules for the district council poll, which is expected to take place later this year.
In 2021, Hong Kong amended its electoral laws for its legislature, drastically reducing the public’s ability to vote and increasing the number of pro-Beijing lawmakers making decisions for the territory.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS