Tammy Tam

City Beat | What the pictures in Xi Jinping’s office reveal about his feelings towards Hong Kong

Chinese leader seems to place emphasis on city’s younger generation and acknowledges importance of its police force

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a New Year speech. Photo: Xinhua

Tammy Tam

Published: 3:00pm, 7 Jan 2018Updated: 10:20pm, 7 Jan 2018

Is there more than meets the eye to seemingly random photographs displayed in the office of a top official?

If the answer is yes, there can be a special message, then President Xi Jinping’s choice of photos in his Zhongnanhai office makes for interesting reading into.

State broadcaster CCTV did not want to miss that significance when Xi delivered his New Year address – as if worried that viewers might not have paid enough attention, it sent out an explainer through its WeChat social media account, listing out details of the photos seen in the background.

Xi (centre) with then Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying (left) at the Junior Police Call training school in Pat Heung. Photo: Xinhua

CCTV reminded the audience that besides family photos with his late parents and his wife, Peng Liyuan, the president had some new pictures up, one in particular concerning Hong Kong. It showed a smiling Xi with a group of Hong Kong youngsters in Junior Police Call uniforms, together with then-chief executive Leung Chun-ying.

That was taken on June 30 last year when Xi visited the youth organisation’s newly completed activity centre in the New Territories. Xi was in town for celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, officiating at the swearing-in of the city’s new leader, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, and her administration.