Planned Xinjiang visit by Hong Kong members of national legislature put on hold over ‘fluctuating’ Covid-19 situation

About 20 of the city’s 36 deputies to the National People’s Congress had planned to visit the autonomous region

Political heavyweight Tam Yiu-chung says they were told visit will have to be rescheduled because of fluctuating epidemic situation

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Workers at a vineyard in Xinjiang are tested for Covid-19. Photo: VCG via Getty Images

Published: 6:39pm, 10 Aug 2022

Hong Kong members of the national legislature planning a trip to Xinjiang this month have been told their visit will have to be postponed in light of a recent coronavirus outbreak in the autonomous region.

Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, on Wednesday said: “We were informed that the visit will have to be rescheduled because the epidemic situation has been fluctuating there.”

About 20 of the city’s 36 deputies to the NPC had planned to visit Xinjiang, a source of friction between Beijing and the West, to better understand human rights conditions and local governance in mainland China’s northwestern region.

Tam Yiu-chung says a new date for the trip is not known. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

The members were meant to leave on Friday for a week of quarantine across the border in Shenzhen before flying to Xinjiang for a five- to six-day trip.

Tam added: “A new date is unknown. It is hoped that we can travel there this time. It was done online last year.”

Local NPC deputies usually arrange a visit to at least one mainland province or region every year to learn more about local social and economic developments.

Between 2014 and 2019, teams visited the provinces of Sichuan, Hubei, Zhejiang and Hainan, among other places. The trip was called off in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and meetings with Xinjiang officials were held online last year.