Beijing expected to order Hong Kong’s pro-establishment politicians to toe line and throw their weight behind Carrie Lam and under-fire police force
- Director of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office to meet 200 local delegates in Shenzhen on Wednesday
- Expectation is Zhang Xiaoming will lay down law in bid to silence dissent during ongoing political crisis
Beijing is expected to order Hong Kong’s pro-government camp to throw its weight behind embattled leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and the police force on Wednesday, in a bid to silence dissent among loyalists during the ongoing political crisis.
Zhang Xiaoming, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, is set to meet some 200 local deputies of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Shenzhen, just a day after his office arranged a second press conference on Hong Kong’s turmoil in two weeks.
The director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Wang Zhimin, is expected to join him. Wang met the same group of politicians, and representatives from major business chambers and community associations, in mid-June to show support for Lam.
But the protests have escalated since then into an anti-government movement, with demonstrators insisting the government should withdraw the extradition bill, and set up an independent commission to inquire into the police’s handling of clashes with protesters.
The extradition bill, which Lam declared was “dead” in July, would have allowed for the transfer of criminal suspects to jurisdictions with which the city has no handover agreements, including mainland China.