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Boost patriotic education in Hong Kong, says head of top Beijing advisory body

蘋果日報 2021/03/05 06:11


The head of China’s top political advisory body on Thursday vowed to strengthen patriotic education in Hong Kong amid concerns that Beijing would introduce reforms preventing opposition figures from contesting elections.
Wang Yang, chair of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said that a recently announced policy of allowing only patriots to govern Hong Kong should be fully implemented.
“We unwaveringly support the full implementation of the ‘patriots governing Hong Kong’ principle,” he said in a speech at an annual gathering of the CPPCC.
In Hong Kong, the government on Sunday initiated prosecution of 47 pro-democracy activists over a primary last year that was meant to prepare for a legislative election, subsequently postponed due to COVID-19 concerns. The group was planning to form a majority bloc in the city’s de facto parliament that would be capable of putting pressure on the government to introduce universal suffrage, and thus drew accusations of “subversion” under draconian national security laws.
Concerns are growing that Beijing will go the opposite way of what Hong Kong democrats have campaigned for, by introducing tougher screening at elections that would effectively disqualify them from running.
It is widely speculated that such electoral reforms are to be introduced during the annual “two sessions” over this week and the next, when delegates of the CPPCC and the National People’s Congress converge on the Chinese capital for meetings.
Referring to national education, Wang told his CPPCC audience: “We must strengthen our friendship with other patriots in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas, and reinforce unity. [We will] kickstart studies and consultations on topics such as strengthening patriotic education for Hong Kong and Macao youth.”
During his 32-minute speech, which also covered topics unrelated to Hong Kong, Wang failed to mention “one country, two systems,” a long-standing guiding principle for governing Hong Kong. Instead, he called upon CPPCC members to support the sweeping national security laws introduced last June to crack down on dissent in the city.
Political analyst Wu Qiang told Apple Daily that Wang’s remarks signaled a paradigm shift in the future governance of Hong Kong, toward a more “authoritarian” system resembling mainland China. Beijing was set to further control and “assimilate” Hong Kong in the coming decades as the city was seen as leaning too much toward capitalism, he said.
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