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China’s senior official overseeing Hong Kong’s affairs said Saturday that protests are not the only way for people to express their views, weeks after the city’s strict protest rules sparked controversy while signaling Beijing’s vision for the financial hub.
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said the anti-government movement sparked by an extradition bill in 2019 is a scar that will not fade away and he warned against a repeat of such chaos.
Xia’s remarks at a ceremony on China’s National Security Education Day indicated Beijing’s views on the city, which is promoting its return to normalcy following strict 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. But after the enactment of a Beijing-imposed national security law following the 2019 protests, many activists were jailed or silenced amid a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement. Major protests were also rare under the strict COVID-19 rules.
In late March, Hong Kong saw its first authorized protest against a government policy since the lifting of major pandemic restrictions under unprecedentedly strict rules, with demonstrators made to wear numbered badges around their necks.
