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Chinese language President Xi Jinping will attend occasions to have fun 25 years since Hong Kong’s handover to China, state media reported Saturday, with the Communist Celebration trying to showcase its management over the town after crushing a democracy motion.
If Xi attends in particular person, the journey could be his first outdoors of the Chinese language mainland for the reason that pandemic started. However state media and Hong Kong officers didn’t explicitly say whether or not he would journey to the town or attend nearly.
A visit would additionally coincide with the inauguration of Hong Kong’s new administration, led by former safety chief John Lee.
The Chinese language Communist Celebration locations nice significance on anniversaries, and Hong Kong’s handover presents Xi with a chance to stress China’s authority over Hong Kong after three years of political upheaval there.
Hong Kong is on the midway level of the “One Nation, Two Techniques” political mannequin, which promised that the previous British colony’s lifestyle would stay unchanged for 50 years after its handover.
However a nationwide safety legislation imposed after big and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019 has seen dissent quashed, with scores of opposition figures arrested in an ongoing political crackdown.
The brand new Hong Kong authorities, to be sworn in on July 1, will likely be led by Lee, who oversaw the controversial police response to the democracy protests.
Lee on Saturday mentioned he was delighted by the information of Xi’s attendance and thanked the Chinese language chief for his “caring and assist” for Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong is on the essential stage of advancing from chaos to governance, and steadily in direction of prosperity,” Lee mentioned in a press release.
Covid considerations
Xi final visited Hong Kong in 2017 to swear in metropolis chief Carrie Lam, a three-day journey marked by heavy public police presence.
China’s high leaders have attended the swearing-in of each Hong Kong chief government for the reason that 1997 handover, however Xi has not left the mainland since January 2020, when the coronavirus first emerged from the central Chinese language metropolis of Wuhan.
Ongoing virus outbreaks in each mainland China and Hong Kong have prompted doubts over whether or not Xi would threat travelling, with Beijing dedicated to a zero-Covid technique.
State information company Xinhua reported on Saturday that Xi “will attend a gathering celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland”, however didn’t specify whether or not it might be in particular person.
Two high officers within the incoming Hong Kong administration examined constructive for the coronavirus on Thursday and had to enter quarantine.
Every day case numbers in Hong Kong have climbed to just about 2,000, although hospitalisations have remained low, with outgoing metropolis chief Lam earlier reassuring the general public that the state of affairs was “not an alarm bell”.
Hong Kong has its personal model of zero-Covid, which has saved the worldwide enterprise hub remoted for a lot of the pandemic, however it’s much less strict than what’s practised within the mainland.
The distinction in coverage means Hong Kongers coming into shut contact with Chinese language officers will doubtless be required to endure quarantine.
Senior authorities officers have entered a “closed-loop” system to minimise an infection threat forward of their attendance of handover celebration occasions, in response to native media.
Final month, Lee was chosen as Hong Kong’s chief by a small group of political elites, after being the only candidate within the race and going through no opposition.
Xi and Lee have already met, when the latter travelled to Beijing to obtain the central authorities’s blessing.
“I consider that the administration of the brand new authorities will certainly convey forth a brand new environment, and compose a brand new chapter in Hong Kong’s improvement,” Xi mentioned on the time, in response to Xinhua.
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