Hongkongers should respect Chinese Communist Party, take advantage of country’s ‘historic opportunities’ to avoid regrets, top state official in city says

Beijing’s top representative in Hong Kong has urged residents to respect the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership and take advantage of the “historic opportunities” offered by the country’s development to avoid regrets.

Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, on Thursday also called on residents to be “combative” and fight any challenges to protect the nation’s sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as the city’s long-term prosperity.

He met 120 officials at government headquarters on Wednesday, before attending a session on Thursday jointly organised by about 40 pro-establishment political parties, business groups and community bodies. Both events were aimed at studying the spirit of the party’s recent 20th national congress.

During his 45-minute speech, Luo said China had entered a new era of development after the congress.

“Hong Kong should strive to study and find out more about the opportunities, take action to grab them, and in turn create new opportunities for itself,” he said.

Luo cited the Cantonese phrase “After leaving Suzhou, one will find it hard to get a boat ride” about seizing opportunities that references an ancient canal town near Shanghai, where people relied on boats rather than other forms of transport to conduct business. He stressed that Hong Kong residents “should absolutely not let the historic opportunities become a historic regret”.

He added that Hong Kong had achieved a major transition from chaos to order and had reached a stage where it was advancing from stability to prosperity, but residents should stay prepared for challenges and overcome them.

“The successful implementation of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle is also a process of fighting problems,” Luo told the 200-strong audience.