Top China official outlines Hong Kong’s role in One Belt, One Road initiative

A senior Chinese official delivered a speech Wednesday outlining the central government’s approval of Hong Kong’s participation in the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, amid protests by prodemocracy supporters, according to an epa journalist on the scene.

Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the top official responsible for Hong Kong and Macau, said at the ‘One Belt, One Road’ summit that the metropolis was a ‘key link’ for the development strategy.

The ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and launched by his government in 2013 to create an economic and trade corridor between Asia and Europe.

Zhang, the third most powerful member of China’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee, said Hong Kong would be able to make “an important contribution to this endeavor” due to its developed economy, excellent transport links and its position as “an important window for cultural exchanges between the East and the West”.

Protests by various prodemocracy groups have broken out since the official’s arrival on Tuesday for a threeday visit, with authorities deploying around 8,000 police officers more than a quarter of its 28,700strong force to maintain security, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.

Zhang is the most senior mainland official to visit Hong Kong since the monthslong Occupy Central protests that shut down main thoroughfares of the city in 2014.

Relations between Hong Kong and China remain tense after the protests sparked by Beijing’s decision to limit the number of candidates for chief executive of the territory in 2017 to a maximum of three, with those aspirants subject to prior approval of an advisory committee.

A group led by the Neo Democrats party also demonstrated against Zhang, who they blame for the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 which killed nearly 300 people.

They claim that Zhang deliberately withheld information about the outbreak thought to have originated from Guangdong, the southern Chinese province he was in charge of at the time.

Hong Kong was officially handed back to China in 1997 under a ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework.

However, the perceived increase in encroachment on Hong Kong’s political autonomy and freedoms by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing remains a thorn in bilateral relations.