China’s senior official overseeing Hong Kong’s affairs stated Saturday that protests aren’t the one means for folks to specific their views, weeks after town’s strict protest guidelines sparked controversy whereas signaling Beijing’s imaginative and prescient for the monetary hub.

Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Workplace, stated the anti-government motion sparked by an extradition invoice in 2019 is a scar that won’t fade away and he warned in opposition to a repeat of such chaos.

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Xia’s remarks at a ceremony on China’s Nationwide Safety Schooling Day indicated Beijing’s views on town, which is selling its return to normalcy following strict pandemic-related restrictions and political turmoil over the previous three years.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese language rule in 1997 and was promised it might maintain its Western-style civil liberties intact for 50 years after the handover.

However after the enactment of a Beijing-imposed nationwide safety regulation following the 2019 protests, many activists have been jailed or silenced amid a crackdown on town’s pro-democracy motion. Main protests have been additionally uncommon below the strict COVID-19 guidelines.

In late March, Hong Kong noticed its first authorised protest in opposition to a authorities coverage because the lifting of main pandemic restrictions below unprecedentedly strict guidelines, with demonstrators made to put on numbered badges round their necks.

That sparked a debate over the erosion of freedom of meeting.

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“Demonstrations aren’t the one solution to specific one’s pursuits and calls for,” Xia stated on Saturday, noting that there isn’t a contradiction between safeguarding nationwide safety and expressing one’s views.

Previous experiences have proven that causes centred on environmental safety and livelihood points might be simply hijacked, he stated.

“Folks’s good will might be simply exploited and manipulated by others with ulterior motives,” he stated.

“Calls for on livelihood points may even be distorted into political points and that finally set off social confrontation.”

He stated a confrontational society has no future, calling on Hong Kong to construct a local weather for rational communication.

“I hope Hong Kong can host exhibitions, develop innovation and know-how, attempt for financial growth, have horse races, dances, inventory actions, and earn some cash day by day,” he stated.

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Xia additionally described the 2019 protests as Hong Kong’s model of a “color revolution” and stated town can’t enable its district councils to be managed by anti-China and “destabilising” forces.

Town’s district councilors largely deal with municipal issues resembling organising building initiatives and making certain that public amenities are so as.

However the pro-democracy camp’s landslide victory within the 2019 election took on symbolic significance on the peak of the social motion greater than three years in the past.

Native media earlier quoted sources reporting that authorities deliberate to conduct an overhaul of electoral guidelines for the district council ballot, which is anticipated to happen later this yr.

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In 2021, town amended its electoral legal guidelines for its legislature, drastically decreasing the general public’s skill to vote and growing the variety of pro-Beijing lawmakers making choices for town.

Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong has additionally had an influence on Taiwan’s politics.

Whereas it’s nonetheless unclear how the Hong Kong state of affairs will have an effect on the self-ruled island democracy’s presidential and legislative elections subsequent yr, the 2019 protests in Hong Kong have been seen as a serious purpose behind Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s victory in 2020.