Beijing has appointed a veteran police officer with experience overseas to serve as the main contact person between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong police. Chen Feng, 52, appeared in public for the first time on Sunday as head of the police liaison department at the cental government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, accompanying office director Luo Huining on a visit to the Hong Kong police headquarters in Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station, according to mainland media reports. According to a mainland government source, Chen arrived in the city about two months ago and has already met most of the senior officials in Hong Kong’s disciplinary forces. Chen replaces Li Jiangzhou who became a deputy director of the central government’s Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS) in July. Beijing expands liaison office in Hong Kong as it seeks to tighten supervision, sources say Beijing established the OSNS last year to oversee implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong. Chen graduated from the foreign languages department at People’s Public Security University of China, and was the first police officer from Fujian province awarded a full scholarship to do a master’s of criminology at Keele University in Britain. From 2004, he was a police liaison officer at the Chinese embassy in Washington before becoming deputy director of the general office of Fujian’s Public Security Department in 2008. He also led a peacekeeping team in East Timor for 20 months from 2011. In September 2018, he was named a vice-mayor and deputy chief of public security in Putian, Fujian province, positions he held until he took up his Hong Kong post in November. The government source said the OSNS had taken over the liaison office’s responsibilities for national security and intelligence, leaving the liaison office to focus more on communication and cooperation with the Hong Kong government. “Chen will focus on supporting Hong Kong police to improve the city’s stability and communication with mainland police,” said the source, who did not want to be name because of the sensitivity of the issue.
