Fear over protests not behind relocation of Apec's Hong Kong conference, insists Tsang
Finance chief says neither Beijing nor Hong Kong were concerned that Occupy Central might cause embarrassment
Beijing did not move a key regional financial summit away from Hong Kong because it feared embarrassment from large-scale protests, John Tsang Chun-wah said yesterday.
Tsang argued that Beijing was fully aware of Hongkongers' right to "peaceful" freedom of expression when the city was awarded meeting. Asked whether he had tried to persuade Beijing to change its mind, Tsang said: "We discussed [the decision] both internally, and with the central government … but it involves a series of changes and the decision couldn't be overturned." He said he only learned of the decision on the day it was made public.
Tsang's previous job as commerce minister saw him help to organise and chair the last major conference in Hong Kong, the World Trade Organisation's sixth ministerial conference, in 2005, which saw police clash with more than 1,000 anti-WTO protesters in the streets around the Convention and Exhibition Centre.
That experience led to concerns about conflict with Occupy Central, which has pledged to block roads if the government fails to bring forward an acceptable plan for universal suffrage.
Asked whether Occupy could have had an impact on Beijing's thinking, Tsang said: "I think Beijing understands that Hongkongers enjoy freedom of expression, and if the meeting were held in Hong Kong, reference must be drawn from the way we did things in the past."
