Senior Beijing official calls suggestion of emigration wave from Hong Kong ‘inappropriate’, attributes population dip to multiple factors
- Deputy director of ministerial body in charge of Hong Kong affairs also hits back at ‘biased’ claims that national security law has ‘mainlandised’ city
- ‘Hong Kong’s population drop is caused by various factors and there is no way to suggest that it is a result of an emigration wave,’ senior official says
A senior Beijing official in charge of Hong Kong affairs has rejected concerns about a wave of emigration from the city, declaring it would be “inappropriate” to blame it for the population decline.
A number of factors had contributed to the drop in the number of residents, Huang Liuquan, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, on Tuesday said.
Huang also hit back at what he called “biased” claims that the Beijing-imposed national security law had “mainlandised” Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong’s population drop is caused by various factors and there is no way to suggest that it is a result of an emigration wave,” he said, citing figures from the Census and Statistics Department on the number of births and deaths, arrivals and departures.
According to official data, a total of 113,000 people had left the city over the past year. Some residents who left have pointed to frustration over the tough Covid-19 restrictions, while others have complained of changes to the political environment following the introduction of the national security law in June 2020.