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Illustration: Henry Wong

Who is Beijing’s new top gun in Hong Kong? Will Zheng Yanxiong help the city with ‘prosperity’ ambitions or security concerns?

  • Zheng Yanxiong is a fluent Cantonese speaker, just one of several attributes that made him the favoured choice for top post, political heavyweights and analysts say
  • His skills and boldness in implementing national policies from his previous assignments also made him the ideal candidate for the job, they note

Within days of his appointment, Beijing’s new top man in Hong Kong, Zheng Yanxiong, hit the headlines with his pledge to return the city to prosperity.

As the central government’s envoy, the new director of the liaison office spoke in perfect Mandarin at several public appearances. But an open secret is that Zheng is a fluent Cantonese speaker, just one of several attributes that made him the favoured choice for the top post, political heavyweights and analysts said.

His earlier career in Guangdong gave him that advantage along with his national security background, they said.

Zheng Yanxiong meets the media outside the liaison office on Monday. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
But they pointed to Zheng’s skills and boldness in implementing national policies from his previous assignments that also made him the ideal candidate for the job. He is seen as the man to deliver on the priorities for the city as spelled out by President Xi Jinping, from national security matters to seizing economic and development opportunities.

At a time when China needs to recover swiftly from the effects of its Covid-19 lockdowns with the lifting of all restrictions this month, Hong Kong’s role as an entry point to the mainland has become even more important. The city’s strengths in the rule of law and as an international financial centre are now even more critical to both Hong Kong and mainland China.

This was why Zheng’s appointment was timely, analysts said.

National security chief in Hong Kong takes reins at liaison office

Since taking office on Saturday, Zheng made several speeches and appearances during which he repeatedly said the city had to boost its competitive position and “unleash the driving force of prosperity” by increasing its attractiveness, especially when quarantine-free travel with the mainland had resumed.

He pledged to work closely with the local government to shift the focus from governance to ensuring prosperity by seizing new national development opportunities. But Zheng also stressed the need to defend national sovereignty, a mission that tops the agenda of the patriotic camp.

The central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

The new director met Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Tuesday. Lee said Zheng would “definitely help” Hong Kong better integrate into the overall development of the country and participate in the Greater Bay Area as the city was poised to carve a higher national profile.

Tam Yiu-chung, the city’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said: “President Xi reminded Hong Kong just on July 1 that it needs to speed up forces for development, and no matter who takes up the new position, he must achieve this ‘common goal’ wholeheartedly, and follow tightly the central government’s guiding principles.”

He added: “Zheng has been working for a long time in Guangdong, and got himself familiar with Hong Kong in the past two years heading the national security office. He knows Cantonese, and is a bold person who will follow Beijing’s instructions attentively.”

Xi emphasises Hong Kong’s critical role as he maps out China’s direction

Zheng, 59, built his political career in Guangdong, starting with youth work and rising through the ranks to be a prefecture-level city’s party secretary and then propaganda officer, before becoming the head of the Hong Kong Office for Safeguarding National Security in July 2020.

The appointment, made shortly after Beijing imposed the national security law on the city, was seen as a surprise choice given his lack of security credentials and the post would typically go to a senior officer from the mainland’s law enforcement or intelligence apparatus.

Professor Lau Siu-kai, a consultant at semi-official mainland think tank, the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said Zheng must have won Beijing’s trust with his “implementation skills” over national security matters in the past two years.

Hong Kong has to focus more on economic development, an analyst says. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Apart from supervising Hong Kong police on national security issues, Zheng’s role in that position enabled him to work closely with the liaison office and the foreign ministry’s office in the city, as well as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Hong Kong garrison, Lau said. These interactions exposed and equipped him with the scope of the liaison office’s work, he added.

“Apart from national security, the city now also has to focus much more on economic development, especially after going through the turmoil brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. Beijing needs someone who can follow instructions diligently,” he said.

Both Lau and Tam, who was recently elected to be a vice-president of the think tank, said it was clear Zheng had adopted Xi’s speeches on July 1 and during the party congress meeting on the city’s economic development as a vital road map for Hong Kong’s future.

Xi said during his trip to Hong Kong that the city was at a new stage of moving from chaos to governance, and then from governance to greater prosperity, and that the next five years would be crucial to break new ground. He also stressed the importance of fostering integration with the mainland and solving the city’s deep-seated livelihood issues.

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The president also underscored the need to safeguard national security at a challenging time for the country and to focus on talent and innovation to give new momentum to development.

“Xi’s words became the blueprint for officials like Zheng that they must closely monitor and assist the city government to integrate with the mainland, solve housing problems, or even push forward national education,” Lau said.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, emeritus professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, said Zheng’s appointment underscored Xi’s priority for national security, both domestically and externally.

He also expected both Zheng and the liaison office to be more involved in the city’s affairs.

“This is on the one hand a manifestation of China’s full jurisdiction over Hong Kong, and on the other hand, Beijing’s objective is to try to reduce social inequalities here. John Lee’s predecessors have tried to do so but with not much success,” he said.

Beijing’s objectives include trying to reduce social inequalities in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

The political science scholar noted that “common prosperity” was the new catchphrase on the mainland. He said he believed Zheng could urge the local government to deliver more in the name of social stability and national security.

But, he said, there could also be a limit to what Zheng could accomplish given the city’s economic success had been predicated for so long on not being focused on redistribution and tamping down on inequality.

A source at the liaison office, meanwhile, said Zheng’s command of Cantonese would be a strong advantage to enable him to better connect with local officials and residents.

Back in 2018, on the instruction of Chinese Vice-Premier Han Zheng, more than 200 non-Cantonese-speaking officials in the liaison office joined courses to master the language to build stronger bonds with local residents.

Then liaison office head Wang Zhimin – who did not speak any Cantonese when he first arrived in the city from Fujian – was said to have been “trying very hard to learn, and his command of Cantonese is pretty good” a year after he was appointed in 2017.

Wang’s predecessor, Zhang Xiaoming, also picked up some Cantonese during his five-year directorship between 2012 and 2017 despite not mastering the language fully. At critical moments, he resorted to Cantonese slang to slam Western countries, such as telling them on one occasion “it’s none of your business” to comment on the city’s national security law.

Wang Zhimin worked hard to learn Cantonese. Photo: Liaison office
Zheng would also have to shake off his reputation as a hardliner to win over Hongkongers, analysts said. He was the party secretary of Shanwei when the village of Wukan under Shanwei’s administration made international headlines in 2011 because of protests against land acquisition by the local government.

The authorities reached a rare deal with the protesters after months of unrest and the arrests of village leaders, and the villagers directly elected their own community leader, only for him to be jailed five years later on corruption charges when they planned to stage another protest.

In December 2011, a partially leaked video showed Zheng telling an internal meeting that “pigs will fly before the foreign press can be trusted”, though he later defended his controversial comments, saying he had tried to use a colloquial Hong Kong expression on how some foreign media could be biased but that had somehow not been fully conveyed.

In 2013, he was promoted to deputy head of the Guangdong propaganda department, and in October 2018 was appointed secretary general of the province’s party committee, a post equivalent to the chief of staff of the province’s party apparatus. He joined the province’s top echelon as a standing committee member of the party committee in January 2019.

New liaison office chief can take Hong Kong forward by reaching out to all

Zheng was behind major initiatives to boost economic development in Guangdong and was in charge of measures to benefit Hong Kong youth when he held the post, according to lawmaker Johnny Ng Kit-chong, a Guangdong representative of China’s top advisory body since 2012.

For example, he said, Guangdong authorities had been actively providing youth entrepreneurs from Hong Kong with tax incentives, rental subsidies, and one-stop advice service.

“Progress was only disrupted during the pandemic. Solid groundwork that Zheng helped lay will be conducive to youth development.”

Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the city’s largest party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said she believed Zheng’s previous role in national security would prevent the city from “plunging into chaos”, something she regarded as crucial in its post-pandemic development.

She added that her party hoped to meet him after Lunar New Year. Like Lee, many politicians and lawmakers in the city told the Post that they were keen to meet Zheng and get to know him better, as their previous communications with him had been at formal functions.

Starry Lee says the DAB hopes to meet Zheng after Lunar New Year. Photo: Dickson Lee

“We have met at many events. He is nice and friendly, but we did not have a chance to work or communicate properly with him as his duties in the national security office were quite secretive,” said lawmaker Chan Yung, a Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature.

He said delegates were looking forward to the “lianghui” – the annual sessions of the legislature and top political advisory body – in March, when they would have meetings with Zheng.

Zheng met the press for the first time on Monday in his new position. He said Hong Kong had a bright future and all the qualities to succeed, as long as it did not descend into chaos or head in the wrong direction.

Without revealing further details of his plans, the new director instead made several pledges to Hongkongers, vowing to work hard to be a man who understood Hong Kong, someone who loved the city and would strive for the best for it.

“In Hong Kong, I will speak more of Beijing’s words. In Beijing, I will speak more of Hong Kong’s words,” he promised.

Additional reporting by Natalie Wong

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