Hong Kong braces for first Post-Occupy Beijing visit

[HONG KONG] Hong Kong was on high alert Tuesday - with about a fifth of the city's police force mobilized - as authorities prepared for the arrival of one of China's top leaders amid growing political tensions over Beijing's rule of the former British colony.

The three-day trip by National People's Congress Chairman Zhang Dejiang, the No 3 official in the ruling Communist Party, represents the highest-level visit by a Chinese leader since then-President Hu Jintao celebrated the city's return to China in 2012.

In the intervening years, Hong Kong has convulsed over escalating campaigns for greater autonomy, including protests in 2014 that shut down key business districts for months and a February riot involving a "localist" group that injured more than 90 police officers.

Citing the threat of radicals and international terrorists, Hong Kong has raised its alert level to "high" and plans to deploy as many as 6,000 police officers for each day of Mr Zhang's visit, twice the manpower assigned to secure Mr Hu, the South China Morning Post reported. That visit prompted violent clashes between demonstrators and police.

The security cordon for Mr Zhang will focus on the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, where he is staying and scheduled to speak at an event Wednesday on President Xi Jinping's signature "One Belt, One Road" plan to build a loose network of roads, railways, ports and pipelines across Asia and Europe. Mr Zhang is due to make some remarks on his arrival at the Hong Kong airport upon his arrival around noon.

"Zhang comes to assess Hong Kong's political situation; the Belt-and-Road summit alone wouldn't bring him here," Ding Xueliang, a social science professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said, noting that Mr Zhang's oversight portfolio includes the city.

"He should have come earlier. Current Hong Kong-mainland relations have sunk to their lowest point probably since the handover."

Water Barricades

About 200 barricades filled with water were set up near the convention center and hotel and rubbish bins appear to have been removed from the area, newspaper Ming Pao reported. Paving tiles, which were tossed at police during anti-Chinese protests in February, had been glued together near the Wan Chai venue. Protesters managed to hang banners calling for free elections from Lion Rock, one of the city's most popular hiking trails, despite a police presence there, newspaper Apple Daily reported.

In a sign of the anxiety surrounding the visit, authorities in the adjacent mainland city of Shenzhen detained a Hong Kong resident who they said bought a consumer-style drone to disrupt the event.

Barricades will keep protesters at least 100 feet from the Wan Chai venue. Police said an unspecified number of groups have applied to demonstrate and said unauthorized rallies were possible.

In August 2014, Mr Zhang's National People's Congress handed down guidelines requiring a panel dominated by Beijing loyalists to screen candidates for what was to be Hong Kong's first citywide election for chief executive in 2017.

The plan sparked the student-led Occupy protests, which lasted 79 days and brought global attention to the city's pro-democracy movement. Chief executive Leung Chun-ying's attempt to enact the guidelines was defeated in Hong Kong's Legislative Council last June.

Democrats Boycott

Mr Zhang's itinerary includes a Wednesday banquet at the convention center, an event being boycotted by several lawmakers from the so-called "pan-democratic" camp. He has invited 10 legislators, including four of the more moderate democrats, to meet him at a cocktail reception before the dinner.

"The most important thing we want to tell him is that the situation in Hong Kong is really very bad," said Democratic Party leader Emily Lau, who'll attend the meeting.

Ms Lau said she would lay much of the blame on what she described as Mr Leung's combative behavior. She also planned to press Mr Zhang on the mainland's detention of five Hong Kong men who produced or sold books critical of the Communist Party, which "drove a truck" through people's trust in Beijing's promise to respect the city's autonomy.

National Party

Mr Zhang's visit comes ahead of key Legislative Council elections in September, when pro-Beijing parties hope to secure a veto-proof super-majority in the 70-seat body and several new, more radical groups plan to seek a voice in government.

City authorities have threatened to bar the Hong Kong National Party, which was founded in March on a platform seeking independence from China, from registering on grounds that its positions would violate Hong Kong's Basic Law.

The trip may also help Mr Xi lay the ground for a pair of milestones next year. In March, a committee of 1,200 local elites will meet to select the next chief executive, who must be approved by the National People's Congress.

Then, in July 2017, Hong Kong will hold events to mark the 20th anniversary of its handover from the UK, an occasion that could bring Mr Xi to town for the first time as president.

The plan to mobilize 6,000 officers would be the biggest security deployment Hong Kong has seen since hosting equestrian events for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. About 2,000 officers deployed during then-Vice Premier Li Keqiang's visit in 2011, while about 3,000 were assigned to Hu's trip a year later.

'Mutual Distrust'

In 2012, Mr Hu was greeted by hundreds of protesters seeking answers to questions surrounding the death of mainland dissident Li Wangyang, who weeks earlier had been found hanged in a hospital ward in the Chinese city of Shaoyang.

During his trip, Mr Zhang is expected to tour the Hong Kong Science Park, a hi-tech business development hub near the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reported. He'll also visit a public housing complex, in keeping with a tradition of Communist Party leaders visiting homes while in the city.

"Mutual distrust is abundant, and both sides are ready to see each other from a worst-case-scenario perspective," said Mr Ding, of the University of Science and Technology.

"This is going to be an entirely different visit than Hu's trip in 2012. The situation he faces is much more complex."

BLOOMBERG