Beijing’s Basic Law adviser gives speech for top leaders (and ditches parts about Hong Kong’s freedoms)

Speech Elsie Leung delivers different to text handed out beforehand

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Elsie Leung said Hongkongers’ ‘lifestyle has remained unchanged’ since the handover. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 4:13pm, 27 May 2017Updated: 1:29pm, 28 May 2017

Beijing’s top adviser on Hong Kong’s Basic Law caused confusion on Saturday by giving a high-profile speech to top central government leaders in which she ditched passages detailing the city’s rights and freedoms.

Elsie Leung Oi-sie, a former Hong Kong justice secretary, was the first to speak at the event at the Great Hall of the People, in the capital.

Copies of the speech had been handed to the 170-plus people at the venue. It listed areas in which the Basic Law had sought to protect Hongkongers, including “the freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike.”

Participants at the event for the 20th anniversary of the handover. Photo: ISD

It also cited academic and religious freedom.

But when Leung delivered the speech, to an audience including China’s No 3 leader Zhang Dejiang, she skipped those parts and briefly mentioned that since the handover Hongkongers’ “lifestyle has remained unchanged, with their human rights and freedoms protected under the Basic Law”.