Christine Loh

Opinion | Beijing’s new man in Hong Kong must succeed where others have failed in explaining the city to his Communist Party bosses

Neither economic sweeteners nor aggressive patriotic education will allay Hongkongers’ deep-seated fears about the system on the mainland

Bejing needs a new approach. It could start with a discussion of the fate of ‘one country, two systems’ after 2047 and revamping its ‘united front’ strategy

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Why you can trust SCMP

Christine Loh

Published: 9:30am, 22 Jan 2020Updated: 9:38am, 22 Jan 2020

Does Beijing understand Hong Kong? This has been a perennial question from the perspective of Hongkongers. Even those trusted by Beijing – the city’s deputies to the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference –have lamented that they didn’t feel Beijing understood Hong Kong sufficiently.

The new director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong has an opportunity to keep an open mind. Luo Huining, the former Communist Party secretary of Shanxi province, is a senior party and government official with substantial political and administrative experience on the mainland.

However, the decision to send him to Hong Kong was not only a surprise to the city but also unexpected within the mainland hierarchy, as his professional background had neither focused on Hong Kong-Macau matters nor foreign affairs.

Hong Kong doesn’t know yet whether Luo has the capacity to absorb the complexities of a very different system and a society underpinned by characteristics and conditions that run counter to those on the mainland.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (second left) shares a laugh with Luo Huining, director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, at the office’s spring reception at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai on January 15. Photo: Sam Tsang

Nevertheless, he must be a trusted and capable official, who is expected to troubleshoot, especially after Hong Kong’s annus horribilis last year, when the city experienced over six months of protests, ignited by the now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed case-by-case renditions of alleged fugitive offenders from Hong Kong to the mainland, Macau and Taiwan.