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Gary Cheung

Beijing’s former top envoy in Hong Kong was improving in a Los Angeles hospital on Monday after earlier being listed in critical condition.
Xu Jiatun, director of the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency from 1983 to 1990, is suffering renal failure and heart problems and was admitted to hospital on Saturday.
Xinhua acted as Beijing’s de facto embassy in Hong Kong before the handover in 1997.
The 100-year-old has lived in Los Angeles since fleeing China in 1990.
Exiled ex-Xinhua chief Xu Jiatun says at 99 it is almost time to go home
Michael Kam, a long-time friend of Xu’s family, told the Post: “His body is frail and is in a serious condition. Many medical treatments can’t be implemented because of his age.”
Kam is the son of Kam Yiu-yu, a former chief editor of the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po who helped Xu apply for a US visa after his arrival in the country in 1990.
“Xu’s condition has been more stable since Monday,” Michael Kam said.
Xu arrived in Hong Kong in 1983 to take up the position of director of Xinhua’s Hong Kong branch. As a member of the reformist faction of the Communist Party, he was a relatively liberal figure among his fellow Communists.
He was sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement in 1989 and gave tacit consent to staff from mainland-funded enterprises in Hong Kong to hold commemorative activities for those killed in the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Xu fled his country for the United States in 1990 after learning that a special team had been set up to investigate him.
His views were much more conservative when it came to political reform, both of mainland China and Hong Kong. A decade after China’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong, he warned Hongkongers that “universal suffrage does not guarantee that people are able to become masters of their own future”, and he called on pan-democrats to no longer oppose one-party dictatorship.
On his first visit to Taiwan in 2013, Xu said from his wheelchair that it was not yet the right time to vindicate the June 4 incident, which had led to his exile.
Xu has repeatedly expressed a desire to return to mainland China, but Beijing had yet to give its consent.


Beijing’s former top envoy in Hong Kong battles for health in US hospital 

Xu Jiatun, pictured here in 2014, was a relatively liberal figure in the Communist Party. Photo: RTHK

Xu Jiatun (right), Director of the local branch of the New China News Agency, proposing a toast to Governor Sir David Wilson at the Chinese National Day reception held at the Maxim's Palace Chinese Restaurant.

News

Hong Kong

Politics

Ex-Xinhua director Xu Jiatun, 100, has lived in Los Angeles since fleeing China in 1990


Beijing’s former top envoy in Hong Kong battles for health in US hospital

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ex-Xinhua director Xu Jiatun, 100, has lived in Los Angeles since fleeing China in 1990

Ex-Xinhua director Xu Jiatun, 100, has lived in Los Angeles since fleeing China in 1990