China stages largest military parade in Hong Kong to mark anniversary of handover from British rule.
HONG KONG — China staged its largest military parade in Hong Kong on Friday for the benefit of visiting President Xi Jinping, and as a none-too-subtle reminder to the territory’s people of who’s their boss.
China is marking the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from British rule with three days of official celebrations. But many people here are not inclined to join in the fun, believing a promise to grant the territory greater democracy has been broken, and that the values that Hongkongers hold dear have been steadily eroded in recent years.
In 2014, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for several weeks to demand greater democracy in what became known as the Umbrella Revolution. When those demands were rejected out of hand, some young people began to say the unsayable, and argue that Hong Kong would be better off independent from China.
But Friday’s military parade, and a subsequent speech by Xi, served to underline China’s main argument — the people of Hong Kong really have no choice but to accept the reality of life as part of a powerful nation, under Communist Party rule.
“Greetings comrades, ” a stony-faced Xi said, as he was driven in an open-top jeep past more than 3,000 People’s Liberation Army troops who are garrisoned here, massed in 20 divisions. “Comrades, you have worked hard.”
“Greetings Chairman, ” the troops bellowed back over and over, saluting Xi in his role as chairman of the country’s military commission — their supreme commander. “Serve the people!”
Behind the troops, the red flags of China flew in the breeze, while tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers and air defense missiles stood in massed array.
On Chinese state television, anchors and experts gushed over the impressive display of China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong, from a garrison that has traditionally kept a lower public profile.
But for the people of Hong Kong, the event was also meant to show China’s “resolute power and confidence to combat the separatist movement, ” said Edmund Cheng, an assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. The message, he said: “Sovereignty is absolute, and the national security threat must and will be handled properly and decisively.”
Later, Xi was in a more rhetorical mood as he delivered an address to the territory’s elite: telling Hongkongers to believe in themselves as part of a great Chinese civilization with a brilliant history, to believe in Hong Kong with its “open and flexible economy, ” and to “believe in the Motherland, no matter in the past, the present and the future.
