“A lot has to do with this part of the Hong Kong population. They need to accept the provisions stipulated in the Basic Law,” said Leung, now a vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s top advisory body. “If they don’t, we will have a pretty tough time ahead as a society.”

Beijing pledged in 1997 that various freedoms and autonomy enjoyed by Hong Kong would remain for at least 50 years. But Leung was unbothered by those expressing concerns about life in Hong Kong beyond 2047, the 50th anniversary of the handover.

He said 2047 was a non-issue, and recalled that the late Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping once said that the arrangement after 50 years “need not be changed”.

Despite the social unrest and political upheaval in Hong Kong, and the response from the West to Beijing’s increased assertiveness, he said the answer to the city’s future lay in the past.

He said immigrants who came to Hong Kong from mainland China in the middle of the last century did not come because of the politics in the then British colony.

“They came to Hong Kong for the economic freedom here, for the other freedoms that they could enjoy in Hong Kong,” he said.

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Moving to the city was about earning a living, making money and improving their lives, not doing battle in politics.

The son of a policeman, Leung was born in 1954 and his family lived in a cubicle with no bathroom in a building on Hollywood Road, Central.

He went on to study in Britain, became a chartered surveyor and successful real estate executive, before being elected as Hong Kong’s third chief executive from 2012 and 2017.

Having witnessed first-hand how the city’s economy took flight as the mainland opened up, he said opportunities remained plentiful, especially with the Greater Bay Area, Beijing’s ambitious plan to link Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in the southern Guangdong province into a massive innovation and technological hub.

“But little did we know that certain sections of Hong Kong would want to turn Hong Kong upside-down, by turning Hong Kong from a city of economics into a political city,” he said.

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He was referring to the 2019 anti-government protests triggered by an unpopular extradition bill which would have allowed fugitives to be sent to the mainland and other jurisdictions. Although the bill was withdrawn, violent clashes between protesters and police persisted for months.

That prompted Beijing to impose the national security law in 2020, banning acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and overhaul the electoral system to ensure that only “patriots” run Hong Kong.

The new law sparked the arrests of more than 100 opposition, media and civil society figures and unleashed repeated criticisms and sanctions from the United States and Britain, among other Western countries.

In last December’s Legislative Council elections, only one non-pro-establishment lawmaker was elected. Although demoralised and marginalised, Leung acknowledged that the opposition camp and its supporters still remained.

He said it was a problem when they failed to accept the Basic Law, or misconstrued the constitutional document.

“I keep saying, judge Hong Kong by the Basic Law. Do not judge Hong Kong by fanciful, wrong ideas about what a self-contained, sovereign-type of democracy should be because Hong Kong is not a sovereign country,” he said.

During his term, Leung encountered what was then the biggest political blow-up since the handover.

In 2014, tens of thousands of protesters in the Occupy movement brought parts of the city to a standstill for 79 days demanding greater democracy, including open nomination of candidates for chief executive and universal suffrage, insisting these were promised in the Basic Law.

They were angered by Beijing’s proposal that any changes to the election would include the nomination of candidates by an election committee.

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Key to this decision, however, is Article 45 of the Basic Law. It outlines how a chief executive should be chosen. It states: “The method for selecting the chief executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.”

After the Occupy protests, the Legislative Council vetoed Beijing’s proposal for the election of the chief executive via two or three endorsed candidates for the 2017 election. The goal of universal suffrage was then shelved. Last year, Beijing expanded the Election Committee and gave it more powers to nominate lawmakers from its own ranks, besides choosing the city leader.

Leung accused the opposition camp, naming media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, the Civic Party, the Democratic Party and “their mouthpieces and the organs of propaganda”, of trying to cast aside the Basic Law. Lai is in jail awaiting a national security trial.

Leung said the Basic Law had always included the element of the Election Committee, yet a large proportion of Hongkongers had been “misled by the democrats” who were ignorant about the mini-constitution and had their own ideas about the “one country, two systems” principle of governance.

“Do not try to throw away the original intent [of the Basic Law] and turn Hong Kong into a political city,” he said.

He shrugged off criticism that Hong Kong and the “one country, two systems” model of governance had changed over the years.

“Our legal system hasn’t changed,” he said. “The fact that we drive on the left hand side of the road hasn’t changed. Our currency system hasn’t changed. Our financial system hasn’t changed. Our taxation system hasn’t changed. So what has changed?”

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Answering the question, he said what had changed was the increasing number of Western countries “poking their fingers” around Hong Kong, in particular, Britain and the US.

Defending Beijing’s introduction of the security legislation and a new electoral system, he said these were necessary as some in the opposition camp had begun lobbying foreign governments for support, and the city had failed after all these years to enact its own national security law as required by the mini-constitution.

Whether Hong Kong would have a more liberal electoral system in future – including universal suffrage – would depend on the opposition camp and its supporters, Leung said.

“Are they prepared to do it in strict accordance with the provisions of the Basic Law, namely, having a committee nominate candidates before the election and substantive appointments by Beijing after the election?” he asked.

“If we get a yes to these two questions, we will have something resolved.”