Hong Kong’s importance to the global economy will increase due to integration with China, incoming Chief Executive Carrie Lam said, dismissing concerns that Beijing is undermining the city’s autonomy.
Hong Kong’s importance to the global economy will increase due to integration with China, incoming Chief Executive Carrie Lam said, dismissing concerns that Beijing is undermining the city’s autonomy.
President Xi Jinping’s Belt-and-Road initiative, along with a plan to create a Silicon Valley-like haven for technology and innovation by linking Hong Kong and Macau with the southern province of Guangdong, will benefit the financial hub, Lam said in an interview in Hong Kong on Friday.
“We’ re now even more relevant, ” Lam, 60, told Bloomberg Television on the sidelines of the Wharton Global Forum . “We will not only benefit from this deepening and opening up, we’ ll actually be able to contribute to these major initiatives.”
Lam’s five-year term begins on July 1 — the 20th anniversary of the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule — with a ceremony that Xi is expected to attend. She faces growing concern that Beijing is eroding Hong Kong’s reputation as a bastion of free speech and the rule of law rather than preserving the “high degree of autonomy” it promised for 50 years after regaining stewardship in 1997.
In the interview, Lam brushed off worries that Beijing has hardened its stance toward Hong Kong, saying that calls for independence are a “sensitive flash point” and contravene the principle of “one country, two systems.”
Read more: China Purges Hong Kong Critics 20 Years After Handover
“People now seem to be making all sorts of allegations about the tightening grip of central authorities on Hong Kong, ” Lam said.
