Workers outside the Metropark Causeway Bay hotel on Tuesday retrofit it for its new role as the home of Beijing’s national security office for Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang
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https://scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3092183/beijings-new-national-security-office-hong-kong-be-located Politics
Beijing’s new national security office for Hong Kong to be located at Metropark Hotel in Causeway Bay, sources say
- Zheng Yanxiong, the new office’s chief, was already working from the hotel, sources told the Post, with a formal opening expected Wednesday
- The building, now being retrofitted to its new purpose, will serve as the bureau’s headquarters for ‘the next few years’, according to sources
The Metropark Hotel in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay neighbourhood has been chosen as the home of the new Office for Safeguarding National Security. Photo: Sam Tsang
Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong is turning a Causeway Bay hotel into its local base, the Post has learned, and will officially begin operations on Wednesday.
A source on Tuesday said the Metropark Hotel Causeway Bay, located opposite Victoria Park, home of the annual Tiananmen Square candlelight vigil, had been taken over by the Office for Safeguarding National Security.
Zheng Yanxiong, appointed as the office’s chief on Friday, had already arrived in Hong Kong and begun work in the building on Tuesday, the source added, with other employees expected to both work and live there.
“The hotel will be the headquarters of our National Security Office in Hong Kong for the next few years,” another source added. “The hotel was owned by China Travel Service, so it is safer and easier to coordinate the national security office’s moving in and security.
“Currently, we are finishing up cleaning, refitting and renovating the building to ensure it serves the purpose. Director Zheng arrived in Hong Kong over the weekend after his appointment. The team will be operating from this new headquarters very soon.
“There will be media tours of the office in the near future.”
Another government source said the office’s first official day of operation would be on Wednesday, and that security around the Causeway Bay location would be enhanced before its opening.
“Officers will not be stationed inside the building, but they will be posted outside the office to guard against any eventuality,” he said, adding that water-filled barriers will be placed around the exterior on Tuesday night.
An official opening ceremony was expected take place at 8am on Wednesday, according to Wan Chai district councillor Clarisse Yeung Suet-ying, who confirmed details from the Police Public Relations Branch. Some local roads, including Tung Lo Wan Road to Lai Yin Lane, would be blocked from Wednesday midnight to noon, she added.
The new office, created under Beijing’s recently enacted national security law for the city, is responsible for supervising and guiding the local government’s enforcement of the legislation, which outlaws acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
On Tuesday morning, the building was closed to the public, with a sign saying the hotel was “undergoing minor work” posted on the front door and the building’s exterior.
The logo for the Metropark Hotel was already obscured on Tuesday as work to transform it into Beijing’s new Office for Safeguarding National Security was under way. Photo: Sam Tsang
Two to three security guards were standing at the entrance and only people with passes were allowed in and out of the building.
There were at least 14 police officers patrolling the area outside the hotel, as well as a bus carrying police officers parked just across the street.
The logo of the hotel appeared to have been removed, and parking spaces outside the building were temporarily made unavailable. Above the main entrance, a metal plate protruded from the building, potentially to hold the Chinese governmental emblem.
Hong Kong national security law official English-language version
The hotel’s website was also down, with a message saying: “Please note that the website is now under system maintenance and the service is temporarily unavailable.”
Zheng, formerly secretary general of the Communist Party’s Guangdong branch, is a hardliner known for his crackdown on the Wukan village protests of 2011.
He was accused that year of making inflammatory remarks in response to the protests, which erupted over the government’s requisition of farmland.
As the top party official in the Guangdong city of Shanwei, the 56-year-old was heard, in leaked video from a government meeting, saying villagers were “colluding with foreign media to create trouble”.