Coronavirus: top Beijing official’s call to Hong Kong leaders to shoulder their responsibility in Covid fight a warning shot, political analysts say

A top Beijing official was not mincing his words and was firing a warning shot at the Hong Kong government when he told city leaders to shoulder their responsibility and uphold their oath of office to get the city’s raging coronavirus outbreak under control, political analysts have said.

The message from Xia Baolong, director of the cabinet-level Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, also showed Beijing’s growing anxiety that the public health crisis could get out of hand and eventually deal a blow to the social and political stability of the city, they said.

“The central government is saying that this is huge trouble and is issuing a warning letter,” Professor Song Sio-chong, from Shenzhen University’s Research Centre of Hong Kong and Macau Basic Law, told the Post on Friday.

Xia made the remarks in Beijing on Thursday when he presided over the seventh meeting of a top-level group coordinating mainland China’s help to Hong Kong in its fight against a surging fifth wave of infections, the city’s worst so far.

According to a report by state-run mainland media outlet Hong Kong China News Agency, Xia also called for exposing the “anti-China destabilising forces” who created panic to disrupt anti-pandemic efforts.

“Top Hong Kong officials must have the courage to shoulder arduous responsibility, and do a good job in organisation and leadership, and fulfil their inaugural oath with concrete actions in the battle against the pandemic,” Xia said.

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Under the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, principal officials and the chief executive are required to declare when taking office that they will serve Hong Kong “conscientiously, dutifully, in full accordance with the law, honestly and with integrity”, with the leader also held accountable to Beijing.

Xia praised a special anti-pandemic task force set up last month to help Hong Kong, saying all units had been working hard and completing projects one after the other, including an isolation facility in Tsing Yi built in just seven days.

He went on to say that it was necessary to have a firm belief in victory, and urged officials to mentally prepare for the tough fight ahead to ensure the safety and health of Hong Kong people.

He also pledged full support for the Hong Kong government in fulfilling its “main responsibility” of bringing the pandemic under control.

President Xi Jinping used the same language last month when he told Hong Kong officials to make anti-epidemic work their “overriding priority”, in remarks regarded by some local observers as a warning to city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

Beijing has sent teams of medical professionals and builders to Hong Kong since last month to help boost testing capacity and build makeshift isolation facilities. But Covid-19 cases continue to soar, with more than 50,000 confirmed daily over the past three days, and over 1,000 deaths reported since the fifth wave started in late December.

Xia also stressed the importance of maintaining stability in the city during the battle against the virus.

“Patriotic forces must forcefully expose, criticise and sanction with the laws the anti-China destabilising forces who launched smearing attacks, spread rumours and created panic to disrupt the anti-pandemic efforts,” he said, on the same day the government had to clear up false claims that toilets at the Tsing Yi facility had no partitions.

Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of semi-official think tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said Xia’s message indicated the central government was still not happy with “the actions the local authorities have taken, their intensity, and their effectiveness”, and was dissatisfied with the government’s lack of “determination and courage”.

He said, for example, the government should have used any administrative and legal means available to get reluctant private hospitals to help and yet it had not done so.

“What Beijing worries about the most is that [the health crisis] will go on to affect political stability and the governance of Hong Kong,” he said.

Xia reminded Hong Kong officials about their oath, Lau said, because he expected them to not just be responsible for the country and Hong Kong but also to show empathy for people’s lives – a mantra repeatedly uttered by the president.

“We insist on putting the people first and their lives first,” Xi told the UN General Assembly in September last year.

Local pro-Beijing newspaper Tai Kung Pao also urged officials to “put their oath into action” in an editorial on Friday. It also said they should “shoulder their responsibility courageously, take proactive steps and give it their best” to realise their oath.

Song, from Shenzhen University, said: “The truth is Hong Kong has not been performing up to standard.”

He noted that while Hong Kong was preparing for a universal testing exercise, mass screening would usually be carried out in mainland cities when cases were in their tens or hundreds, not tens of thousands. He also took issue with the government’s failure to isolate and treat the infected.

“If [Xia’s] remarks aren’t directed at local officials, at whom are they directed?” he said, adding he was puzzled by the lack of consequences for “decision makers”.

Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said Xia was taking the opportunity to tell Hong Kong officials they would be held accountable for any failures.

“Given that Xi Jinping does not tolerate failures, Lam better realise that this is a warning,” he said.

Pro-Beijing heavyweight Tam Yiu-chung, the city’s sole delegate to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, the nation’s top legislative body, refrained from suggesting Xia’s comment could have been prompted by a Beijing perception that Hong Kong could leave the ball in its court since it had stepped in to help.

But Tam said it served as a reminder for the Hong Kong government that the mainland authorities were not replacing them with their roles. “The attitude should be that there should be more exchanges between both sides,” he said.

Separately, Maggie Chan Man-ki, a lawmaker and NPC deputy, proposed either an amendment to the Beijing-imposed national security law or the drafting of a new anti-pandemic law altogether specifically dealing with the health crisis, to the nation’s legislature, which begins its annual meeting on Saturday.

The Post understands a number of NPC deputies disapprove of her proposal.

Chan had suggested empowering the city’s Committee for Safeguarding National Security and the Office for Safeguarding National Security to allow the central government to “take the fundamental responsibility” to supervise, guide, coordinate and support the Hong Kong authorities to tackle major public health crises.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one deputy described it as an “ill-thought-out suggestion aimed at catching eyeballs”.

He added: “Does she imply that Beijing is not doing enough or that it now has weak legal grounds for all its anti-epidemic efforts in Hong Kong?”

Another one said Chan had insisted on submitting the proposal despite her colleagues advising her not to link the city’s Covid-19 outbreak to the sweeping security law when residents already had to cope with stress under the epidemic.

Additional reporting by Natalie Wong