Top envoy hopes HK ‘returns to right path’
Print Edition
BEIJING’S new top representative to Hong Kong said he hoped the protest-ravaged city would “return to the right path” as he took up his post yesterday.
Luo Huining, 65, replaced Wang Zhimin as the new director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The “one country, two systems” principle is Hong Kong’s greatest advantage, Luo said yesterday.
While Hong Kong compatriots have made significant contribution to China’s reform, opening-up and modernization, the motherland has been the biggest supporter of Hong Kong, Luo said at a press briefing in the building of the liaison office.
“In the past six months, Hong Kong’s situation has made everybody’s heart wrench. Everyone earnestly hopes that Hong Kong can return to the right path,” Luo said.
Luo’s resume includes work in three provinces — Shanxi in the north, central China’s Anhui, and far-flung Qinghai — all with comparably weaker economies.
Hong Kong, which follows a capitalist economic model under the country’s unique “one country, two systems” policy, is his first post outside the mainland.
Considered one of the youth intellectuals of the 1970s, Luo, who has a PhD in economics, is considered a multi-skilled economist with abundant grassroots experience. He is now expected to find new solutions to lead Hong Kong out of its current turmoil.
“Luo is a multi-skilled economist and politician. He was successful in turning Shanxi Province, which was embedded in corruption and had a slow economic growth, into a largely corruption-free and economically progressive province,” Lawrence Ma, the chairman of Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation, said.
“Of course, he has no experience in Hong Kong, so there is a very steep learning curve in the next few months to understand the political system in Hong Kong.”
Luo’s appointment comes nearly seven months after Hong Kong first became embroiled in social unrest against the local government. He said the assumption of the new post is a new mission and a new challenge for him.
On his first day in Hong Kong, about 200 people gathered at various locations in the city to voice their discontent with the local government, including at the Revenue Tower in Wan Chai, shopping centers in the Causeway Bay area, and the Kowloon Commerce Center in Kwai Chung.
On Sunday, north Hong Kong witnessed a protest against speculative shoppers from the mainland and clashes between riot police and radical protesters resulted in the arrests of over 50 people.
The protracted anti-government protests, prompted by a fugitive bill back in the summer of 2019, have continued into 2020 and have led to the arrests of thousands of people.
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