Xi Jinping visits Hong Kong to mark anniversary, cap crushing of dissent

The two-day visit is Mr. Xi’s first trip outside mainland China in nearly 2½ years. His arrival on Thursday ahead of the July 1 anniversary comes exactly two years after Beijing imposed a sweeping national-security law on Hong Kong, paving the way for authorities to end a wave of dissent that had drawn millions of people onto the streets and alarmed the Communist Party leadership with what they saw as a direct challenge to their authority.

Beijing promised the former British colony five decades of self-governance and a path to universal suffrage under Chinese rule, but many of the political freedoms the city enjoyed through that arrangement have been eviscerated, even before Friday’s halfway point to 2047. Instead, Hong Kong is veering toward an authoritarian future as the government has rounded up dozens of opposition politicians and activists, driven some independent news outlets into shutting down, and spurred an exodus of residents seeking new lives abroad.

Local activists and Western governments have accused China of reneging on its pledges to give Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy" under the “one country, two systems" framework. Chinese officials rebuff such criticism, saying the preservation of national unity is a prerequisite for the city’s self-governance.

Mr. Xi entered Hong Kong by train, instead of flying in as he and his predecessors had done for major visits since the city’s handover to China in 1997. Crowds waved flags and chanted “warmly welcome" to greet the Chinese leader at Hong Kong’s high-speed railway station, where he arrived with his wife, the popular folk singer Peng Liyuan.

“Having gone through winds and rains, Hong Kong has been reborn from the ashes and is showing vigorous vitality," Mr. Xi said in brief remarks at the railway station. “As long as we unwaveringly persevere with ‘one country, two systems,’ Hong Kong’s future will definitely become better."

Local media reports say Mr. Xi is expected to spend the night in the neighboring city of Shenzhen. On Friday, the Chinese leader is due to return to Hong Kong to inaugurate the city’s new leader and government, as well as deliver a speech that recounts the quarter-century since the city’s “return to the motherland" and charts a broad vision for its future.

Chinese state media played up Mr. Xi’s visit with triumphant tones, crediting him for pacifying social tensions in Hong Kong and steering it toward greater success. Mr. Xi has “always shown concern about the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong," and will lead the city in “writing a grand chapter of achieving the great rejuvenation together with the motherland," the official Xinhua News Agency said this week.

Streets and public spaces across Hong Kong were festooned with Chinese national flags, floral displays and banners bearing patriotic messages. But some opposition politicians say the overt festivities belie a sense of foreboding that many residents harbor about their future.

“Most Hong Kong people want to continue to enjoy the freedoms, the personal safety that we enjoyed for so many years," said Emily Lau, a former chairwoman of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party who served as a local legislator for a quarter-century. “But now there is a lot of anxiety and worry and of course many people are leaving."

Mr. Xi hasn’t ventured beyond the Chinese mainland since he publicly acknowledged the severity of the Covid-19 outbreak in January 2020. A splashy Hong Kong visit would mark a significant feather in Mr. Xi’s cap with just months to go before the party’s twice-a-decade congress, where he is expected to break from recent precedent in Chinese leadership succession and take a third term as party chief.

For Mr. Xi, the anniversary celebrations offer a platform to “claim a great victory" in returning Hong Kong “to the ‘tender loving care’ of Xi-led China," said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “The subtext is that without the strong leadership of Xi, Hong Kong might still have been allowed to drift and endure chaos," Mr. Tsang said.

Hong Kong occupies a vital place in the Communist Party’s narrative of Chinese history, which portrays the 1839-1842 Opium War, after which the defeated Qing government ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain, as a key moment of national shame.

Hong Kong’s return to Chinese control in 1997 represented a monumental achievement that “ended past humiliation and marked a major step forward toward the complete reunification of China," Mr. Xi said in his 2017 speech marking the 20th anniversary of the handover. He also warned against any attempt to cross the “red line" by challenging Beijing’s authority or using Hong Kong to undermine one-party rule on the mainland.

The Communist Party has long worried that Western powers were using Hong Kong as a bridgehead for a democratic assault on China’s authoritarian system. Resentment against the party’s growing influence over the city periodically flared into mass protests over the years, before reaching a new apogee in 2019, when the Hong Kong government’s push for a law allowing extraditions to mainland China spurred mass marches. The protests spiraled into direct attacks against symbols of Beijing’s authority and violent clashes between militant protesters and police.

Pro-Beijing politicians say Mr. Xi’s visit underscores how Hong Kong has emerged from cycles of political turmoil.

“Hong Kong has now stabilized, and our people have stronger guarantees for their livelihoods," said Ip Kwok-him, a deputy to China’s parliament who also served as a member of the city’s de facto cabinet under the outgoing chief executive, Carrie Lam.

Even though “the entire Western world has engaged in massive smear attacks against Hong Kong," events over the past two years have demonstrated that “we have found the right path for ourselves," Mr. Ip said. The next government can now focus on other pressing issues, including revitalizing the pandemic-battered economy, reducing inequality and boosting youth employment, he said.

Beijing blamed the 2019 protests on economic frustrations and foreign meddling, and undertook a series of political maneuvers to tighten control over a city that has operated with a free-market ethos under the “one country, two systems" arrangement.

In June 2020, Beijing imposed a national-security law in Hong Kong that outlawed anti-Communist Party activism as subversive and secessionist activities, and empowered authorities to suppress dissent with mainland-style policing. Hong Kong police have since arrested more than 200 people on national-security grounds, according to a tally by Eric Yan-ho Lai, a fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law.

Hong Kong’s electoral system was revamped last year to ensure only “patriots" govern the city, helping pro-Beijing politicians sweep all but one seat in the local legislature. Authorities banned acts of disrespect to China’s national flag, blocked an annual vigil commemorating the deadly crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, ramped up patriotic education and rewrote school textbooks to add more nationalistic content.

The U.S. sanctioned dozens of mainland Chinese and Hong Kong officials for their alleged roles in suppressing civil liberties in the city. Beijing rejected such criticism as foreign interference in China’s internal affairs.

Authorities imposed tight security for Mr. Xi’s visit, locking down parts of its busy commercial district of Wan Chai, temporarily banning the flying of drones across the entire territory, and declining to offer details on the itinerary ahead of time. The League of Social Democrats, one of the few opposition groups still active in Hong Kong, said it wouldn’t hold any July 1 demonstrations after some of its volunteers were summoned by police for interviews.

More than 10 journalists from at least seven media outlets, local and foreign, had their applications to cover anniversary ceremonies rejected on security grounds, according to the Hong Kong Journalists Association, a local press group. Those allowed to cover Friday’s proceedings had to test negative for Covid-19 every day since Sunday, and undergo quarantine starting Wednesday.

Mr. Xi is due to swear in Hong Kong’s new chief executive, John Lee, a former police officer and law-enforcement czar who will become the first security specialist to take the city’s top office since the 1997 handover.

Local politicians and analysts say Mr. Lee faces formidable challenges from tackling deep-seated socioeconomic issues—including inequality and high housing prices—to rehabilitating Hong Kong’s international reputation, which has been battered by the suppression of dissent, strict Covid-19 border controls and one of the world’s deadliest Omicron outbreaks.

Mr. Lee is widely regarded as a hard-liner, having played a key role in the government’s push for an extradition law that triggered the 2019 protests. In a recent interview with Xinhua, Mr. Lee signaled that he would enact more security legislation, which pro-Beijing politicians say would supplement the 2020 national-security law.

“John Lee is someone who acts decisively and does what he says," said Mr. Ip, the outgoing ExCo member. “I think John Lee would be able to mobilize his team more effectively to get things done."