Hong Kong independence ideas must be suppressed, top China official Wang Huning warns city

Fifth-ranking Politburo Standing Committee member urges Hongkongers to strengthen their sense of national identity, promising more initiatives to help them reap the benefits of the Greater Bay Area project

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Top leaders at the opening meeting of the National People's Congress in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 3:25pm, 6 Mar 2018Updated: 12:10am, 7 Mar 2018

China’s propaganda tsar on Tuesday warned that the idea of independence for Hong Kong must be suppressed, as Beijing would show zero tolerance for such advocacy as well as anything jeopardising the city’s mini-constitution and stability.

Wang Huning, the fifth-ranking member on the Communist Party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee, also urged Hongkongers to strengthen their sense of national identity, promising more initiatives to help them reap the benefits of the Greater Bay Area development project, which seeks to forge an economic powerhouse across Hong Kong, Macau and nine mainland Chinese cities.

Wang Huning is Beijing’s principal theorist. Photo: AFP

Wang’s warning, delivered through Hong Kong delegates at the country’s annual “two sessions” of the national legislature and top political advisory body in the capital, echoed remarks on Sunday by Zhao Leji, the sixth-ranking member in the Politburo Standing Committee.

Zhao made it clear that Beijing would not allow anyone to use the autonomy that Hong Kong enjoyed under the “one country, two systems” policy as a cover to infiltrate or sabotage the nation.

On Monday, Premier Li Keqiang declared that the authority of the country’s constitution and Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, had been further realised in the city.

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