How has China’s Communist Party kept power? 100 Hong Kong political bigwigs get rare lecture from senior theorist

Qu Qingshan, deputy head of the party’s history and literature research institute, delivers 2½-hour talk to local NPC delegates, as Beijing seeks to assert its influence in Hong Kong

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The unusual speech on party history comes after recent efforts by Beijing to assert its control and widen understanding in Hong Kong of the country’s history and development. Photo: AP

Published: 8:33am, 23 May 2018Updated: 8:33am, 23 May 2018

A senior Communist Party theorist has given a rare lecture in Hong Kong in which he told more than 100 local delegates and advisers to the national legislature that the party had survived almost 70 years ruling China because it learned from its mistakes and moved with the times.

Qu Qingshan, deputy head of the party’s history and literature research institute and a member of its powerful Central Committee, delivered the 2½-hour talk on Sunday at Beijing’s liaison office in Sai Wan.

The unusual speech on party history comes after recent efforts by Beijing to assert its control and widen understanding in Hong Kong of the country’s history and development.

Hong Kong, governed under the “one country, two systems” policy since the end of British colonial rule in 1997, has its own economic and legal systems separate from the rest of China, and Beijing’s involvement in local politics has been limited. However, in recent years the central government has moved to reaffirm its sovereignty.

Each Chinese leader had formulated his own theories in response to the needs of each generation, Qu said, including President Xi Jinping (pictured). Photo: Xinhua

Participants believed the event was part of a national policy to reinforce the status of the party in Hong Kong, and could be the first of several such lectures.