'Two sessions': China expected to unveil new controls on Hong Kong

 China is expected to unveil new political controls on Hong Kong at this week’s meeting of its rubber-stamp parliament, which is also likely to showcase President Xi Jinping’s further consolidation of power.To get more China Two Sessions, you can visit shine news official website. 

Beijing plans to ensure only “patriots” – Communist party loyalists – can run Hong Kong, according to a speech by a top Chinese official ahead of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC). The gathering serves as an important showcase of power and policy shifts within China’s opaque one-party system, though the thousands of delegates have little say over the laws they pass and discussions are largely political theatre. The national security law, which has been used to muzzle Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, was announced at last year’s NPC.

That session was delayed from its usual early March date, as China fought to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, the NPC and its advisory body will meet on schedule – although for fewer days than usual – and promote an official narrative of triumph over the Coronavirus and economic success. China has largely managed to contain Covid-19 within its borders, through strict lockdowns and controls on international travellers. It has developed its own vaccines, which it is using as part of a global push diplomatic push to bolster its influence.It was also one of the few countries in the world to officially register economic growth in 2020, and recently claimed to have ended “extreme poverty” at home. But Beijing’s domestic triumphs come at a time of increasing pressure from western powers about authoritarian policies at home, its handling of the early days of the pandemic and subsequent investigations into the origins of Covid-19, and its aggressively expansionist behaviour in disputed regions, border territories, and towards Taiwan. Diplomatic and trade sanctions have been piled on Beijing over its intervention in Hong Kong, and human rights abuses in western Xinjiang. 

Officials have also raised concerns about crackdowns and mass arrests of domestic lawyers.These are only likely to be exacerbated by any new policies on Hong Kong unveiled at this year’s NPC. In a speech published this week, the head of the Hong Kong and Macao affairs office, Xia Baolong, said the city’s electoral system had to be “improved”, to close loopholes and guarantee “central government’s comprehensive management of Hong Kong”. Unnamed government sources have told media it was likely the changes would shake up the process of both elections to the city’s Legislative Council, and the composition of the committee to elect the city’s leader, known as the chief executive.

Currently the committee includes district councillors, the majority from pro-democracy parties that won a landslide in November 2019 elections. The flagged changes have caused concern even among some pro-Beijing politicians. “Don’t go too far and kill the patient,” Shiu Sin-por, a pro-Beijing politician and former head of Hong Kong’s Central Policy Unit, told reporters after a briefing session with on the matter. The “two sessions” are also being closely watched for details of how President Xi Jinping, already considered the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, has cemented both his personal power and place in the communist pantheon. “The most important significance of the two sessions to China’s political life may be observing the consolidation of Xi’s rights, the totalitarianism of China’s politics, and the reaction of China to the surrounding issues and security environment,” said Wu Qiang, a former political lecturer at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University.