As the former British colony marks the 25th anniversary of its return to China, reeling from pandemic curbs that devastated business and a crackdown on its pro-democracy movement, Hong Kong leaders say it is time for the city to transform again.
A Chinese junk sails across Victoria Harbor to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong handover to China, in Hong Kong, Monday, June 27, 2022. As the former British colony marks the 25th anniversary of its return to China, reeling from pandemic curbs that devastated business and a crackdown on its pro-democracy movement, Hong Kong leaders say it is time to transform again and become a tech center that relies more on ties with nearby Chinese factory cities than on global trade.
Lee gave no details but pointed to the Greater Bay Area, a Chinese government initiative to link Hong Kong with neighboring mainland cities including the technology and finance hub of Shenzhen and the manufacturing powerhouses of Dongguan and Foshan. Armas appealed to Lee for a “concrete roadmap” to revive Hong Kong, which remains, together with mainland China and Taiwan, one of the few places that still requires inbound travelers to serve mandatory quarantines.
Activists and foreign governments complain the ruling Communist Party is chipping away at the 50 years of autonomy Beijing promised after 1997. The freedoms afforded to Hong Kong and its leeway for self-governance had helped it keep its status as a center for Asian headquarters of global companies even as rent and other costs soared to record levels and levels of inequality grew ever wider.
Until now, Hong Kong has been largely free of the censorship on the mainland, where internet barriers known as the “Great Firewall” are used by the ruling party to block China’s public from seeing foreign websites run by news outfits, governments and human rights activists. But the territory’s leading pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, was shut down during the crackdown and its publisher, Jimmy Lai, sentenced to prison.
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