- Concern over top appointment in Hong Kong
- Jakarta’s difficult balancing act
- Travel and Covid wave for Chinese New Year
- Merics survey shows rising tensions
- Will China reach its CO2 peak earlier?
- Yellen meets Liu in Zurich
- Covid slows down luxury giant Richemont
- Opinion: Japan’s security strategy
The Communist leadership has sent a clear signal with the appointment of Zheng Yanxiong as the new head of the Beijing Liaison Office in Hong Kong. Zheng, who is known as a hardliner, succeeds Luo Huining. Zheng is notorious for his crackdown on a mass protest in Wukan in 2011, a village in Guangdong Province, which borders Hong Kong, where the now 59-year-old had accused residents of “collaborating with foreign media to cause trouble”.
Marcel Grzanna took a closer look at Zheng’s appointment and spoke with Hong Kongers living in exile. “The fact that a hardliner is rotating into the post of top representative shows Beijing’s continuing concern that residents could still cause trouble,” says former Hong Kong politician and student leader Sunny Cheung in an interview. What primarily sounds daunting, however, will uplift Hong Kong, as the CP hopes. After all, a tough approach means stability, especially for foreign investors.
How to make Beijing happy is not only on the minds of the government in Hong Kong but also on those in Jakarta. After all, China is Indonesia’s most important business partner. At the same time, however, the island state is also defending itself against the People’s Republic’s aggressive actions in disputed waters. Christiane Kuehl analyzes Jakarta’s complicated relationship with Beijing and how Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo is doing in his balancing act with the West.
Amelie Richter
Feature
Zheng’s appointment – an ‘unprecedented move’
The Communist Party has sent a signal of determination by appointing Zheng Yanxiong as the new head of the Beijing Liaison Office in Hong Kong. The appointment indicates that the Chinese central government is putting its unrestricted claim to power in the city ahead of its economic development.
As director of the National Security Bureau, the 59-year-old has recently developed the profile of an uncompromising purger willing to subordinate Hong Kong’s productivity to an enforced political consensus at any cost. Critics accuse him not only of cleaning up at the political level but also of infiltrating formerly independent and internationally respected professional associations such as the law society, founded in 1907, the Advisory Council of Accountants or the Teachers’ Association with Beijing loyalists.
‘Only Beijing’s views matter’
Appointing Zheng, of all people, as liaison chief and thus at the same time as Beijing’s highest representative of interests in the metropolis thus acts not only as a warning to all remaining opposition members in Hong Kong but also to the pro-Beijing part of the elite. Former Hong Kong politicians and parliamentarians express their dismay in an interview with China.Table.
Continue reading now
… and get free access to this Professional Briefing for a month.
Are you already a guest at the China.Table? Log in now