Chinese President Xi Jinping is vowing no tolerance for any acts seen as jeopardizing Hong Kong and China’s stability and security.
In his address during a swearing-in ceremony for Carlie Lam, the semi-autonomous Chinese region’s chief executive, Xi pledged Beijing’s support for the “one country, two systems” blueprint under which Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. He said Hong Kong was freer than ever before.
However, he said Hong Kong had to do more to shore up security and boost patriotic education, apparently referencing pieces of legislation long-delayed by popular opposition.
And he warned that anyone threatening China or Hong Kong’s political stability would be crossing a red line and their actions would be considered “absolutely impermissible“.
Xi was due to return to Beijing midday Saturday. His three-day visit aimed at stirring Chinese patriotism had prompted a massive police presence. Protesters fear Beijing’s ruling Communist Party is increasing its control over the city’s political and civil affairs, undermining a pledge to permit it retain its own legal and other institutions for 50 years.
Lam was selected by a pro-China committee, as were her predecessors, and is already being cast by critics as a China stooge in a city where many are angry at Beijing’s tightening grip on the freedoms of nearly eight million people.
Lam took her oath of office under China’s national flag at the city’s harborfront convention center, before shaking hands with Xi.
Her inauguration comes a day after Beijing’s foreign ministry declared that the document signed by Britain and China which initiated the handover “is no longer relevant.”
The Sino-British Joint Declaration gave Hong Kong rights unseen on the mainland through a semi-autonomous “one country, two systems” agreement, lasting 50 years.
There are growing fears that those freedoms are now under threat from an assertive Beijing, with Chinese authorities accused of interfering in a range of areas in Hong Kong, from politics to media and education.
Pro-China protesters targeted a small march by activists in memory of the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown Saturday morning as officials gathered for the swearing in.
As the pro-democracy campaigners prepared to carry a makeshift coffin toward the convention center, as they do each year, a man ran across the street and kicked it.
Flag-waving pro-China protesters then blocked the march as police struggled to separate the two sides.
Democracy campaigners were taken away in police vans and released soon after.
Lam’s swearing in by Xi is deeply symbolic for frustrated activists who have been pushing for fully free leadership elections for the city, with mass pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” rallies bringing parts of the city to a standstill in 2014.
Those protests were sparked by a Beijing-backed political reform package which said Hong Kong could have a public vote for leader, but that candidates must be vetted first.
The proposal was voted down in parliament by pro-democracy lawmakers and the reform process has now stalled.
Lam has made no commitment to revisit it soon.
The failure of the democracy movement to win concessions has led some young campaigners to call for self-determination or even independence for the mainland, which has infuriated Beijing.

Source: Arab News