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Xi Jinping said democracy “started” in Hong Kong when China took control of the city from Britain.
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China has recently cracked down on all forms of dissent, including protesters and independent media.
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A condition of the city’s handover to China was democracy and political autonomy. China is accused of violating that.
President Xi Jinping claimed Hong Kong had never experienced “true democracy” until it was transferred from Britain to China, which has in recent years changed the city’s laws to crack down on virtually all forms of dissent.
Xi made the remarks in a speech in Hong Kong to mark the 25-year anniversary of the city’s handover to China. Xi’s visit to the city was his first out of mainland China since 2020.
“After reuniting with the motherland, the Hong Kong people became the masters of their own city, and realized the idea of Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy,” Xi said.
“Hong Kong’s true democracy started from here.”
The handover in 1997 was made on the understanding that communist China would leave Hong Kong’s existing capitalist, democratic system intact for another 50 years — or until 2047 — under the principle of “one country, two systems.”
Xi on Friday said he was happy with this system and saw no reason to change it, saying according to Reuters: “For this kind of good system, there is no reason at all to change it. It must be maintained over the long term.”
But Xi has been accused of violating that agreement through China’s harsh crackdown on Hong Kong, including through the security law it implemented in 2020 to crack down on protesters and anyone who criticizes China, and to give China more power there through law enforcement.
The new law came in after mass, widespread pro-democracy protests in the city that have since disappeared.
Over the last two years, China has detained protesters, journalists, pro-democracy politicians and activists, and shut down independent newspapers.
Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang said on Friday that “freedom and democracy have vanished” in Hong Kong since China retook control, Reuters reported. Beijing has long claimed that self-governing Taiwan belonged to China, and has ramped up its military activity near the island in recent months.
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