Five key questions about senior Chinese official Zhang Dejiang and his Hong Kong visit
Beijing’s point man for the city has previously drawn the ire of pro-democracy voices and is due for tight security as he tours a politically charged landscape
Q1. Who is Zhang Dejiang?
Zhang, 69, ranks third on the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Communist Party’s Politburo, just below President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.
He chairs the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, and has earned a reputation as an “iron-fisted enforcer”.
Zhang also heads the party’s leading group on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, which comprises the heads of 18 ministries and departments and oversees matters relating to the two special administrative regions.
As China’s top legislator, Zhang was in charge of the NPC’s decision on Hong Kong’s political reform in 2014. The NPC’s decision, issued in August that year, stated that when Hong Kong changed its electoral system to choose its leader by “one man, one vote”, it could only choose from two or three candidates endorsed by a 1,200-member committee – a body dominated by Beijing loyalists and business elites.
The decision triggered the 79-day Occupy movement protests that year, and shaped the Hong Kong government’s reform package, which followed the NPC decision and was voted down last year.