HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s leader said on Tuesday that China’s recent removal of its top representative in the city, known for his hard-line policies on national security, had been a “normal” personnel change.
In a surprise development, China announced late on Friday that Zheng Yanxiong, the director of China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong — Beijing’s main representative office in the city with powerful oversight over local affairs — had been “removed” from his post.
He was replaced by Zhou Ji, a senior official with the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on the State Council.
Zheng, who played a key role in the crackdown on Hong Kong’s democratic movement in recent years, was also stripped of his role as China’s national security adviser on a committee overseeing national security in Hong Kong.
No explanation by Beijing or Chinese state media was given for the change.
According to a person with knowledge of the matter, Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison’s proposed sale of its global port network to a consortium initially led by US firm Blackrock had caught senior Chinese leaders “by surprise” as they had not been informed beforehand and Zheng was partly blamed for that.
The person, who has spoken with the liaison office, declined to be identified as the discussions were confidential.
The Liaison Office gave no immediate response to faxed questions from Reuters.
Zheng had served in the post since January 2023 and while the position has no fixed term, his tenure was shorter than predecessors including Luo Huining and Zhang Xiaoming.
“The change of the Liaison office director is I believe, as with all changes of officials, very normal,” Lee told reporters during a weekly briefing, without being drawn on reasons for the reshuffle.
“Director Zheng has spent around 5 years (in Hong Kong). Hong Kong was going through a transition period of chaos to order,” Lee said, referring to the months-long pro-democracy protests that erupted across Hong Kong in 2019 while adding that he looked forward to working with Zhou.
CK Hutchison’s ports deal has been criticized in Chinese state media as “betraying” China’s interests and bowing to US political pressure.
The conglomerate, controlled by tycoon Li Ka-shing, agreed in March to sell the majority of its $22.8 billion global ports business, including assets along the strategically significant Panama Canal, to the consortium. The consortium is now being led by another member — Terminal Investment Limited, which is majority-owned by Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte’s family-run MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company.
The deal is still being negotiated.
Asked whether Zheng’s removal reflected a pivot by Beijing toward economic development from national security, Lee said Hong Kong still needed to pursue both.
“Hong Kong faces a stage where development and safety must be addressed at the same time because any development must have a safe environment.”
China promulgated a powerful national security law in 2020, arresting scores of opposition democrats and activists, shuttering liberal media outlets and civil society groups and punishing free speech with sedition — moves that have drawn international criticism.
Hong Kong leader says sudden removal of China’s top official in the city was “normal“
https://arab.news/wcex8
Hong Kong leader says sudden removal of China’s top official in the city was “normal“
- China announced on Friday that Zheng Yanxiong, the director of China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, Beijing’s main representative office in the city with powerful oversight over local affairs had been “removed” from his post
Bangladesh mourns Khaleda Zia, its first woman prime minister
- Ousted ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, who imprisoned Zia in 2018, offers condolences on her death
- Zia’s rivalry with Hasina, both multiple-term PMs, shaped Bangladeshi politics for a generation
DHAKA: Bangladesh declared three days of state mourning on Tuesday for Khaleda Zia, its first female prime minister and one of the key figures on the county’s political scene over the past four decades.
Zia entered public life as Bangladesh’s first lady when her husband, Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero, became president in 1977.
Four years later, when her husband was assassinated, she took over the helm of his Bangladesh Nationalist Party and, following the 1982 military coup led by Hussain Muhammad Ershad, was at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement.
Arrested several times during protests against Ershad’s rule, she first rose to power following the victory of the BNP in the 1991 general election, becoming the second woman prime minister of a predominantly Muslim nation, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto.
Zia also served as a prime minister of a short-lived government of 1996 and came to power again for a full five-year term in 2001.
She passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday morning at a hospital in Dhaka after a long illness.
She was a “symbol of the democratic movement” and with her death “the nation has lost a great guardian,” Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus said in a condolence statement, as the government announced the mourning period.
“Khaleda Zia was the three-time prime minister of Bangladesh and the country’s first female prime minister. ... Her role against President Ershad, an army chief who assumed the presidency through a coup, also made her a significant figure in the country’s politics,” Prof. Amena Mohsin, a political scientist, told Arab News.
“She was a housewife when she came into politics. At that time, she just lost her husband, but it’s not that she began politics under the shadow of her husband, president Ziaur Rahman. She outgrew her husband and built her own position.”
For a generation, Bangladeshi politics was shaped by Zia’s rivalry with Sheikh Hasina, who has served as prime minister for four terms.
Both carried the legacy of the Liberation War — Zia through her husband, and Hasina through her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, widely known as the “Father of the Nation,” who served as the country’s first president until his assassination in 1975.
During Hasina’s rule, Zia was convicted in corruption cases and imprisoned in 2018. From 2020, she was placed under house arrest and freed only last year, after a mass student-led uprising, known as the July Revolution, ousted Hasina, who fled to India.
In November, Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia for her deadly crackdown on student protesters and remains in self-exile.
Unlike Hasina, Zia never left Bangladesh.
“She never left the country and countrymen, and she said that Bangladesh was her only address. Ultimately, it proved true,” Mohsin said.
“Many people admire Khaleda Zia for her uncompromising stance in politics. It’s true that she was uncompromising.”
On the social media of Hasina’s Awami League party, the ousted leader also offered condolences to Zia’s family, saying that her death has caused an “irreparable loss to the current politics of Bangladesh” and the BNP leadership.
The party’s chairmanship was assumed by Zia’s eldest son, Tarique Rahman, who returned to Dhaka just last week after more than 17 years in exile.
He had been living in London since 2008, when he faced multiple convictions, including an alleged plot to assassinate Hasina. Bangladeshi courts acquitted him only recently, following Hasina’s removal from office, making his return legally possible.
He is currently a leading contender for prime minister in February’s general elections.
“We knew it for many years that Tarique Rahman would assume his current position at some point,” Mohsin said.
“He should uphold the spirit of the July Revolution of 2024, including the right to freedom of expression, a free and fair environment for democratic practices, and more.”
