President Hu Jintao was right to tell people in Hong Kong to treasure what we have. Indeed, the city is very fortunate in so many ways. It is one of the most beautiful and exciting cities in the world, and there are numerous stories of people who came here expecting to stay for two weeks and stayed for 25 years.
Recently, Hong Kong has also benefited from the mainland's assistance in economic revival. As a result, unemployment, while still high at 6.7 per cent, is the lowest in almost three years. Moreover, the number of mortgages in negative equity has dropped from a high of more than 100,000 in June last year to 25,400 at the end of September.
President Hu spoke to the press after Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa briefed him at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Santiago on the economic, social and political situation in Hong Kong.
Apparently responding to a request from Hong Kong democrats to be allowed to travel to Beijing to meet central government leaders, Mr Hu said Beijing was willing to listen to the views of Hong Kong people from all sectors under the basis of 'one country, two systems' and the principles laid down in the Basic Law.
Of course, what the democrats want is a dialogue, not simply a desire to be heard. But even the way the president phrased the central government's willingness to hear different points of view seemed a trifle strange.
Unless his words were incorrectly reported, what Mr Hu said was not that he and other state leaders were willing to listen to all points of view. Rather, what he said was that they were willing to listen to views that were consistent with 'one country, two systems' and the principles laid down in the Basic Law.
If that is the case, it could be taken to mean that only people whose views were considered to comply with those of the central government would be heard. That is another way of saying that central leaders would only listen to views that they agreed with and not views with which they disagreed. With all due respect to the president, that certainly cannot be what Mr Hu had meant to say because if that were the case there would be no point in having a dialogue at all.