Beijing's top official in HK tells foreign powers not to interfere

HONG KONG • Beijing's top representative in Hong Kong warned foreign powers yesterday that they would be taught a lesson if they tried to use the global financial centre as a "pawn", as tensions escalated between China and Western governments over the city.

Mr Luo Huining, director at Beijing's Liaison Office in Hong Kong, was speaking at a ceremony to mark an "education day" for the national security law, which the authorities have organised to promote the sweeping legislation China imposed last year.

"We will give a lesson to all foreign forces which intend to use Hong Kong as a pawn," he said.

The new law drew criticism from the West for curbing rights and freedoms in the former British colony, which was promised a high degree of autonomy upon its 1997 return to Chinese rule.

Its supporters say the law has restored order following mass anti-government and anti-China protests in 2019.

National Security Education Day was marked with school activities, games and shows, as well as a parade by the police and other services performing the Chinese military's "goose step" march.

The Chinese routine, in which troops keep their legs rigidly straight when lifting them off the ground and arms swing at a 90-degree angle in front of the chest, will replace British-style foot drills at a parade of police and other forces.

Elsewhere, in schools and cultural centres, Hong Kong residents were invited to build national security "mosaic walls" to instil, according to a government website, the idea that people should work together to protect their homeland.

Stickers and bookmarks reading "Uphold National Security, Safeguard Our Home" have been delivered to schools and kindergartens.

At Wong Cho Bau Secondary School in the city, students gathered for a flag-raising ceremony.

"As a Chinese person, as Hong Kong people, what we need to do is to be prepared, and exert ourselves, for the country," headmaster Hui Chun Lung told the students.

He stressed the "stability" that the security law has brought to the city, before a two-minute video showed different students expressing support for the legislation.

In February, Hong Kong unveiled national security education guidelines that include teaching schoolchildren as young as six about colluding with foreign forces, terrorism, secession and subversion - the four main crimes in the new law.

Chinese officials have partly blamed liberal studies for the restlessness of the city's youth.

The school curriculum changes and the promotional campaigns are seen as signs that Beijing's plans for the city go beyond quashing dissent and that it aims for a societal overhaul to bring it more in line with the Chinese Communist Party-ruled mainland.

REUTERS