He’s here to endorse a key economic initiative, but everyone will be looking to see if the NPC chief tackles the city’s thorny political issues
STUART.LAU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Monday, 16 May, 2016, 11:42am
Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, is the first state leader to visit Hong Kong in four years. Photo: Xinhua
China’s third highest-ranking official begins his three-day visit to Hong Kong on Tuesday, ending a four-year vacuum when no state leader set foot in a city mainlanders perceive increasingly as an unfriendly troublemaker.
Zhang Dejiang, the top gun of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, has a chance to spread his message to his intended audience – the people of Hong Kong – in the full glare of publicity.
Hong Kong officials brand it a high-level tour to expound on and endorse the city’s role in China’s “belt and road” strategic initiative. But politicians and China observers are expecting messages from Zhang – however overt or oblique – on the city’s politics, which have recently been infused by a restless desire to debate ideas like independence and self-determination.
Zhang has two official objectives in town. First, he is to attend a summit on the “belt and road” initiative on Wednesday and give a keynote speech. Second, reports by state media Xinhua have it that Zhang, also the leader of Beijing’s central coordination group for Hong Kong and Macau affairs, would “inspect” the city.
The “inspection” – which will feature unprecedented face-to-face encounters with pan-democratic lawmakers at a 40-minute cocktail reception – comes just months after the city experienced arguably its bloodiest social unrest since the 1960s, with hundreds involved in the Mong Kok riot, attacking police and setting streets ablaze.
The pan-democrats have already said no to attending the banquet after the reception.
All eyes will be on whether the Beijing leader will continue the central government’s soft, unprovocative attitude under such circumstances, as already displayed during the annual “two sessions” in the capital two months ago.
“I don’t expect Zhang would talk specifically about [calls for] Hong Kong independence,” Lau Siu-kai, a vice-chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a Beijing-backed think tank, told the Post. “But I don’t exclude the possibility of him mentioning big principles, such as sovereignty, security and national unity.”
Zhang’s visit will be followed by a politically heated season in the city, as electioneering will soon begin for the full legislative elections in September. Candidates pushing for self-determination are jumping into the fray.
Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau will attend the 40-minute cocktail reception with the NPC chief. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
In recent months, lower-level mainland officials stepped up fiery rhetoric against such impulses, most notably after the new Hong Kong National Party vowed to fight for independence.
Wang Zhenmin, the new legal department chief at Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong who was formerly Tsinghua University’s law dean, accused those in the party of breaking criminal laws.
Veteran China-watcher Johnny Lau Yui-siu noted that mainland officers travelling to Hong Kong to gather information from local politicians ahead of Zhang’s visit were in noticeably larger numbers than previously seen on other state leaders’ visits.
I got the general impression that Zhang won’t touch on independence or the chief executive election [next year]
CHINA-WATCHER JOHNNY LAU YUI-SIU
“Their analysis will sway the final focus of Zhang,” said Lau. “I got the general impression that Zhang won’t touch on independence or the chief executive election [next year].”
Objections to Leung Chun-ying’s administration can be expected to be a key conversational topic for the four pan-democratic lawmakers – including Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing and Civic Party chairman Alan Leong Kah-kit – who will meet Zhang on Wednesday. Leong said he would explain to Zhang that autonomy or even self-determination was not the equivalent of separatism, with the chief executive deserving most of the blame for the current political quagmire.
Emily Lau said she would raise the case of bookseller Lee Po, whose weeks-long disappearance from Hong Kong was widely associated with illegal law enforcement by mainland agents.
The cocktail reception will also be attended by six pro-government lawmakers, some critical of the chief executive such as the Liberal Party’s Chung Kwok-pan and Legco president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing.
Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said the short meeting inserted into a packed schedule showed Beijing’s intention to set the stage for more communication.
That pan-democrats are invited to meet a state leader face-to-face is rare. The last time Beijing officials openly met pan-democrats was a year ago, before Legco rejected the Beijing-backed reform for the chief executive election. But even that meeting – on an issue as important as Hong Kong’s political system – was not attended by a top leader. Instead, the task fell on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Wang Guangya.
Edward Leung of Hong Kong Indigenous, which gained prominence after the Mong Kok riot in February. Photo: AP
The strained ties between pan-democrats and Beijing following the failed bid for universal suffrage might soon be eclipsed by the more ominous force of localism and pro-independence sentiments, which was in full display in the Legco by-election in February.
Edward Leung Tin-kei, of the newly formed Hong Kong Indigenous group that rose to prominence during the Mong Kok riot just before the poll, scored 66,000 votes – or 40 per cent of the votes of a DAB candidate.
But more was to come. Occupy campaign icon and student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung formed a new party, Demosisto, that called for Hongkongers’ self-determination in the post-2047 political system, the shelf life of the “one country, two systems” principle that Beijing promised after the 1997 handover. A number of students created the even more radical Hong Kong National Party, which sees sovereignty as the only option for the city.
Ivan Choy Chi-keung, a political scientist at Chinese University, agreed that Zhang’s olive branch to pan-democrats was, as far as Beijing is concerned, a partnership with the lesser of two evils.
But Choy counselled deeper introspection. “What’s more important to Beijing is to understand why Hong Kong society is so divided, and what makes independence calls spread so rapidly,” he said. “With the chief executive election looming, Zhang needs to ... decide whether to back Leung probably before September.”
It is against this backdrop that economic policies such as the belt and road initiative also became a convenient yet compelling reason to stage Zhang’s visit. It is convenient as it is the latest strategy to broaden Hong Kong’s economic base, but also compelling as it comes at a time when the economy is in the doldrums.
Few, though, are expecting big goodies for the economy. Even Chief Executive Leung admitted Zhang was unlikely to announce the date of the long-awaited Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect.
Baptist University journalism scholar Bruce Lui was more blunt: “Zhang has had little to do with belt and road.”
To be fair, the NPC which he chairs has a high-level special financial and economic committee responsible for drafting and enacting new laws and the belt-and-road initiative may need new legislation requiring his close oversight. Still, Lui said: “A quick news search of ‘Zhang Dejiang’ and ‘belt and road’ on search engine Baidu gave only six results – a side-dish topic when he met officials from ... Iraq and Laos.”
Side dish or not, Zhang’s visit will no doubt be powerful in putting the “belt and road” strategy for Hong Kong front and centre once again. Even then, however, the most powerful optics will be in the politics.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1945567/iron-fist-or-velvet-glove-zhang-dejiang-strides-stage-increasingly
