Hong Kong stands to experience sweetness or pain in Xi’s vows for further reform, including a Qianhai Model
- The Chinese president on his trip south called for more ‘replicable experiments’ as Hong Kong goes from being an ‘outside’ model to a full participant in China’s reform
Chinese leaders like to quote classic proverbs and learned sages in their speeches and remarks to sharpen their messages. President Xi Jinping is no exception.
So, it’s quite telling that official media, on the last day of his southern China tour last week, released a carefully selected audio clip of the president’s remarks.
While vowing to further open up the country, and assuring support for the private sector, Xi highlighted his inspection tour of the Qianhai free-trade zone in Shenzhen, an area being developed from scratch into a new financial centre in the Greater Bay Area.
It was significant that Charles Li Xiaojia, chief executive of the Hong Kong stock exchange was among those accompanying Xi.
The dominant theme of the president’s remarks was that there is no alternative for China but to continue and deepen reform. But how?