A scolding or call to arms? Unpacking Chinese President Xi Jinping’s message to Carrie Lam on Hong Kong’s floundering coronavirus struggle

Name: Hospitals overflow with Covid-19 patients as Xi sends message to Hong Kong's leaders
Uploaded: 2022-02-16T23:30:24.000Z
Duration: 3 min 55 s
Description: Hospitals overflow with Covid-19 patients as Xi sends message to Hong Kong's leaders

Observers and insiders say move by Chinese leader urging city authorities to bear ‘main responsibility’ is unprecedented and serves as rude awakening

Others however interpret it as a galvanising call and show of support for a city brought to its knees by a raging Covid-19 wave

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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam is under mounting pressure to tame the city’s fifth wave of infections. Photo: Robert Ng

Gary CheungandWilliam Zheng

Published: 7:30am, 17 Feb 2022

If the Hong Kong government assumed help from mainland China to fight the raging coronavirus pandemic would be unconditional, being sternly instructed by President Xi Jinping to shoulder the “main responsibility” was a rude awakening, insiders and analysts said on Wednesday.

If it could not see the unprecedented nature of such a public “scolding”, then its days were numbered, they warned, noting how Xi had never been as blunt before in his messages to the local government.

Pundits and pro-establishment politicians in Hong Kong said it was a warning to city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to deliver or be held accountable if it failed to tame the pandemic.

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Hospitals overflow with Covid-19 patients as Xi sends message to Hong Kong's leaders

But others sought to portray Xi’s message as a galvanising call to rally together, downplaying suggestions the central government was unhappy with Hong Kong.

They pointed to how Beijing had actually deepened its commitment to help by upgrading a coordination task force set up just last weekend. Now, the task force would be led only by the highest-ranking officials to allow for swifter and more effective decision-making, a source said.

The new direction marked a shift from the coordination mechanism announced during a meeting in Shenzhen last Saturday, attended by Hong Kong Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu, deputy heads of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, the National Health Commission and the Guangdong provincial government.

In Xi’s message, reported by two pro-Beijing newspapers in the city, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, he urged the local government to make it an overriding priority to stabilise and control the pandemic as soon as possible.