Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend a ceremony in Hong Kong celebrating 25 years of the city’s handover to China, state media Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.
Xi will also attend the inauguration of the next Hong Kong administration, Xinhua said, in a trip that would mark his first time leaving the Chinese mainland since the pandemic began.
“President Xi Jinping will attend a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland,” Xinhua reported.
“Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, will also attend the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” it added.
His last visit to the former British colony was in 2017 to swear in city leader Carrie Lam and it is customary for Chinese leaders to travel to Hong Kong for key handover anniversary dates.
But coronavirus outbreaks in both mainland China and Hong Kong have prompted doubts over whether Xi would risk travelling to the city as Beijing remains committed to a zero-Covid strategy.
Two top officials in the incoming Hong Kong administration tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday and had to go into quarantine.
Daily case numbers in Hong Kong have climbed to nearly 2,000 though hospitalisations have remained low, with outgoing city leader Carrie Lam earlier reassuring the public that the situation was “not an alarm bell”.
– ‘A new chapter’ –
Hong Kong has its own version of zero-Covid, which has kept the international business hub isolated for much of the pandemic, but it is less strict than what is practised in the mainland.
The difference in policy means Hong Kongers coming into close contact with Chinese officials will likely be required to undergo quarantine.
Senior government officials have entered a “closed-loop” system to minimise infection risk ahead of their attendance at the handover celebration events, according to local media.
Hong Kong’s next Beijing-anointed leader John Lee and his ministers will be sworn in on July 1 — a date that also marks the halfway point of the “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement that made Hong Kong semi-autonomous.
Xi declared “a new chapter” for the city last month, after meeting with Lee in Beijing to receive the central government’s blessing.
The finance hub was rocked by huge and sometimes violent democracy protests in 2019, swiftly crushed by authorities after Beijing imposed a sweeping security law that criminalised dissent.
In 2017, Xi and first lady Peng Liyuan stayed in Hong Kong for three days to mark the 20th handover anniversary amid an unprecedented police presence.
