State leader Zhang Dejiang to give keynote speech on Hong Kong issues
National People’s Congress chair meets city’s 36 deputies to national legislature at Great Hall of the People
Zhang, the Communist Party’s No 3 official and the state leader overseeing Hong Kong affairs, began his meeting with the city’s 36 deputies to the national legislature at the Great Hall of the People at 9am.
He will listen to speeches by several deputies, including former security minister Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong, before making his own.
The ruling was made weeks after two pro-independence lawmakers pledged allegiance to a “Hong Kong nation” and insulted China as they were sworn in at the Legislative Council. They were stripped of their seats after the NPCSC ruled that “insincere” oath-taking would be punished by instant disqualification.
The setting of the meeting followed that of last year’s seminar, where Zhang joined officials and senior Hong Kong deputies at a large rectangular table at the front of the hall. The Hong Kong deputies separately sat in several rows, and the sofas used in the past were replaced with chairs.
In meetings from 1997 to 2015, the state leader and the convenor of the Hong Kong delegation were seated at one end of the room in the Great Hall of the People, while other delegates sat on causal sofas lined up on the two sides of the room.
Also attending the meeting on Monday morning are Wang Guangya, director of Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office; Zhang Xiaoming, head of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong; and Basic Law Committee chairman Li Fei.