President Xi Jinping, who has not stepped out of China for 893 days, is finally leaving the country. In the next two days, he will go to Hong Kong to attend the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland and the inauguration ceremony of the new chief executive, Li Jiachao.
The Chinese government has not released details of Xi Jinping’s itinerary in Hong Kong, but according to Sing Tao Daily, he will arrive in Hong Kong by high-speed train on Thursday (30th) afternoon to meet government officials and people from all walks of life, and spend the night in Shenzhen, across a river.
Xi Jinping and accompanying officials of the central government were originally scheduled to attend a dinner at the Government House tonight. The attendees included key current and incoming government officials, but due to epidemic prevention considerations, the Hong Kong government has canceled the dinner tonight.
Xi Jinping went to Hong Kong again on Friday to attend the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland and the inauguration ceremony of the new chief executive, and delivered an important speech. His wife, Peng Liyuan, will also accompany him.
Instead of taking a special plane in the past, Xi Jinping chose to travel by land. In order to ensure his personal safety, the Hong Kong police has raised the security level to the highest level, and there are people stationed and patrolled along the way to ensure that nothing goes wrong.
After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, Xi Jinping stopped visiting. The last time he went abroad was on January 18, 2020, when he visited Myanmar, and Wuhan was closed shortly after returning to China.
Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor at the Department of Public Policy at City University of Hong Kong, said: “Without going abroad, Xi Jinping’s international influence can be affected, although he has tried to mitigate it through videoconferencing.” .”
Liu Dongshu believes that Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong is more a projection of domestic politics, not a sign of openness to the outside world; “The main reason (Xi Jinping) went to Hong Kong is still that Beijing wants to declare that Hong Kong has stabilized and that they have successfully Restoring political order in Hong Kong”.