Hong Kong schools should mainly teach in Mandarin, and it would be best for students to dream the “Chinese dream” in the language, major property developer Ronnie Chan said.

In the past, Hongkongers learned English, but now they must speak good Mandarin for the sake of the city’s economic future, Chan told an online forum to discuss the development of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The Hang Lung Group chairperson said the introduction of national security laws had provided Hong Kong with “the best opportunities.” The city must do better at winning people’s hearts and minds and solidifying domestic patriotic forces, he said.

Chan, also the chair of the executive committee of the Better Hong Kong Foundation, said the world was changing quickly and China could not wait for Hong Kong in the process of development.

It would be good for the country to have Hong Kong’s help, but it would not be problematic without the assistance, Chan said, telling Hongkongers to ask who was in need of whom more. Hong Kong residents had to learn to think from the country’s perspective, he added.

Dong Yunhu, chair of the Shanghai Municipal Political Consultative Conference, said at the forum that the Communist Party’s Central Committee, by making a series of major moves for Hong Kong, had effectively exercised its overall jurisdiction over the city and established a new order of patriots ruling Hong Kong.

He noted proposals in China’s 14th five-year plan that set out new and higher requirements for Hong Kong to proactively integrate the city into national development, Dong said.

Shanghai and Hong Kong had a lot of room for cooperation, he said. Both cities should accurately understand their respective roles in national development so that they could complement each other to bridge the markets, he added.

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