Hong Kong youth warned off ideas about separatism
Head of liaison office for Beijing says kids must learn city’s place in the greater nation
Young people should guard against separatist ideas and learn the correct relationship between the city and the country, Beijing’s top official in Hong Kong said.
The remarks by Zhang Xiaoming, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, came after the central government’s third-highest-ranking official, National People’s Congress Chairman Zhang Dejiang, called for the strengthening of national education for young people in Hong Kong last month.
Speaking at the launch on Tuesday of a series of youth programmes organised by Beijing-loyalist groups, Zhang said: “There is a tide of separatist ideas in Hong Kong. As some young people are being misled by these thoughts, I have to stress that there is a need to correctly learn the relation between Hong Kong and the nation.”
He said understanding the nation’s history and culture would help young people capitalise on Hong Kong’s strategic position and realise their ambitions.
Meanwhile, in an interview with the state-run China News Agency, Elsie Leung Oi-sie, the former Hong Kong justice secretary and now vice-chair of the Basic Law Committee, said the mini-constitution had been faced with “new situations and new problems” in recent years.
