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Hong Kong’s New Leader Meets Calls to Resign on Inauguration Day
Protesters call Hong Kong's new chief executive Leung Chun-ying a liar, after it was revealed he lied about illegal structures in his own home. (Sung Pi Lung/The Epoch Times)
Hong Kong’s new chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, was met with calls to step down on his inauguration day on July 1, which also marked the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from the U.K. to the Chinese regime. Close to 400,000 people turned out to protest against Chinese communist rule, and one of the demands was Leung’s resignation, according to the organizer of the protest, the Civil Human Rights Front.
Close to 400,000 Hong Kong residents turn out during a mass protest on July 1, demanding that Hong Kong's new chief executive Leung Chun-ying step down. (Song Xianglong/The Epoch Times)
Earlier in March, Leung narrowly claimed victory in a controversial “small circle” election, in which only 1,200 of Hong Kong’s 7 million residents were allowed to vote.
Leung’s ascension into Hong Kong’s new leadership has been marked by scandals, and several media outlets already exposed that Leung was an underground member of the Chinese Communist Party.
Leung was also recently exposed for having illegal modifications made to his luxury home, when official complaints were filed against him. Leung denied the allegations at first, but later apologized and claimed that the structures were already built before he purchased the property. During the election campaign, however, Leung stated that he did not have any unauthorized structures in his home—after it was exposed that his election rival, Henry Tang Ying-yen, had illegal structures in his own residence.
His credibility has since come under attack, and according to recent polls, discontent toward Chinese communist rule, in general, has been growing in Hong Kong.
A recent poll conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that only 30 percent of Hong Kong residents believe that Beijing practices the “One Country, Two Systems” policy—half the percentage of ten years ago.
Another poll by the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Program found that 37 percent of respondents distrust the central government of Beijing, which is the highest figure since 1997.
According to another poll by the Public Opinion Program, 68.3 percent of respondents identified themselves as Hong Kong citizens, with less than 30 percent regarding themselves as Chinese citizens.
Hong Kong media are also showing signs of increasing pressure from the Chinese regime.
A survey released by the Hong Kong Journalist Association showed that 92.7 percent of media employees believe that Hong Kong’s freedom of press has deteriorated, and 71 percent believe that self-censorship exists in Hong Kong’s press, Voice of America (VOA) reported.
Tam Chi Keung, a professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology and former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalist Association, told VOA that due to pressure from the Chinese regime’s Liaison Office, the Hong Kong government has imposed an increasing number of restrictions on Hong Kong’s media.
Willy Lam, Deputy Chief Editor of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, also told VOA that the degree of self-censorship in Hong Kong’s media—in both Chinese and English media, and on television and in newspapers—has grown significantly.
According to Lam, many major media companies in Hong Kong are run by owners with large businesses and investments in mainland China, and so it is in their best interests to maintain good relationships with Chinese regime’s top leadership. “They don’t want to publish reports that criticize China or embarrass its leadership,” he said.
Leadership in Hong Kong is also beginning to lean more towards the interests of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The new 14 unofficial members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council consist of mostly pro-Beijing politicians, among which six are Leung’s close allies and seven are members of either the National People’s Congress or the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Hong Kong Daily News reported.
With Leung taking office, Hong Kong will enter its “second transitional period,” marking an era of direct Chinese communist rule, said 74-old Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee, in an Apply Daily report. Important government positions will be held by a greater number of underground CCP members, as well as those who blindly follow Beijing’s orders, he said.
He also predicted that the Hong Kong government will promote a comprehensive brainwashing education program in two to three years—similar to those already in place throughout China—and that the CCP will use voters who do not live in Hong Kong to interfere with Legislative Council elections. The anti-subversion Basic Law Article 23 could even be re-introduced, he said, thereby removing Hong Kong’s core values, including its rule of law, human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech.
According to a July 1 report published by a Chinese-language dissident website outside China, the Chinese regime’s domestic security apparatus and propaganda department set up a project named “peaceful transformation” three years ago, intending to strengthen propaganda and educational campaigns in Hong Kong, while tightening control over dissidents and the media.
The report quoted an insider as saying that although the project was not approved by the Politburo, which rules the CCP, the security apparatus has already implemented part of it in Hong Kong.
Read original Chinese article.
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