Hong Kong’s sights and sounds already familiar to Xi from two decades of visits, friendship

When Xi Jinping sets foot in Hong Kong on Thursday, the sights and sounds of the city will already be familiar to him, gleaned from his frequent visits over two decades while climbing up the ranks of China’s Communist Party power structure.

An inveterate explorer and seeker of information even before his promotion to China’s highest office, Xi was particularly keen to understand the intricate details of how Hong Kong’s political and civil service systems function within the sovereignty of China, said Sze Chi-ching, a city entrepreneur who had been a friend to Xi since 1985.

“As a government official, he had to understand how one country can work with two sets” of political, administrative, legal and market systems, Sze said. “He usually came and stayed for one or two days every time.”

Xi’s frequent visits to Hong Kong began during the 1990s when his late father Xi Zhongxun was spending his retirement in neighbouring Shenzhen. The senior Xi was in charge of affairs in Guangdong province during the 1970s, before being promoted to deputy chair of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

Xi was working as a county party secretary in Hebei when he was suddenly ordered to go to Xiamen in 1985 to replace deputy mayor An Li, the daughter-in-law of then party chief Hu Yaobang. An was forced to resign because her extravagant lifestyle and arrogance upset officials and residents.

Xi cut a very different figure to An. “He lived in a public dormitory, and washed his own clothes,”even when he was deputy mayor of Xiamen city,Sze said. “He had a humble personality and always remembered his friends.”

Xi would spend 17 years working in Fujian province, eventually rising to become governor of the province from 1999 to 2002. Already a rising political star, Xi was transferred in 2002 to neighbouring Zhejiang province as governor until 2007.